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Our host’s one redeeming quality, as far as I can tell, is that he loves his family, though even this is a possessive, selfish sort of love. More than once I’ve seen the whites of his sons’ eyes as they dart quick glances at their father, and most of the time his wife keeps her head ducked and her gaze downcast.

All the next day, Nick watches me, his hate so clearly carved across his face, his lips pressed into a thin line. Pestilence might be the man responsible for spreading plague, but it’s clear who Nick Jameson blames.

I don’t see anything besides that hate until late in the afternoon. Nick’s wife—Amelia, I think her name is—finds me outside, standing just opposite their icebox, petting Trixie.

“Sara,” she calls, coming closer.

I pause, my hand resting against Trixie’s striking white coat.

“Yes?” My eyes reluctantly fall on her. Amelia’s face is flush with the first signs of fever. Like the rest of the family, the plague is already sinking its talons in her.

“How did you … how did you come to be in the horseman’s company?” she asks, coming to my side.

I turn back to Trixie, my hand moving over the horse’s neck once more. “I tried to kill him,” I say emotionlessly. “He doesn’t die,” I add, just in case Amelia or Nick were getting ideas.

Amelia sidles in closer. “How long ago was that?” she asks.

“Weeks.” It seems like lifetimes ago.

“How are you still alive?” she asks, almost wondrously.

My fingers dig into Trixie’s mane. “It’s his way of punishing me.”

After several seconds, she says, “So you tried to kill him?”

I can hear it in her voice, a plan forming.

I swivel fully to face Amelia. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her cheeks are so pink they look freshly slapped.

“It won’t work,” I say.

“What won’t—”

“Trying to get him to spare you or your family. If you think he’ll save you from death like he has me, I’m here to tell you he won’t. Since he took me, he’s killed everyone else who’s tried to end his life.”

Her eyes search mine, “why did he spare you?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

I mean, he keeps saying that I need to suffer, but it’s been a while since he’s actuallymademe suffer.

“So there’s no hope?” she presses. “There’s no way to help my family?”

“He doesn’t know mercy,” I tell her.

But does he? He feels hate and lust and longing, perhaps he’s felt merciful a time or two …

Amelia rubs her eyes. “Ican’twatch my children die,” she says. “Don’t you understand? I gave them life. I held them inside me, then in my arms. All these years I’ve protected them—so if there’s a way to save them, any way at all, please tell me.”

Grief once again has me in its grip. I wonder when I’ll get over it; when I’ll be desensitized to all of the pain and suffering around me.

Her eyes search mine. “Was there something you did—a deal you made … ?”

I swallow. I think I know what she’s getting at.

“Amelia, if there was something that I could do, Iwould.” If giving my body over to the horseman would pay for life, I’d gladly do it. But it won’t.

A tear slips out from the corner of her eye.