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Alessa inched back into the shadows.

Death was creeping closer, but this wasn’t where she intended to meet it.

Four

Chi ha fatto il male, faccia la penitenza.

As you make your bed, so you must lie.

A bell tinkled above the door as Alessa entered the apothecary. Luckily, Adrick was the only worker on the floor. He looked up, his mop of curls bouncing as he fumbled the jar he was handing to an elderly woman.

Alessa signed that she needed to speak to him.

Hiding his movements, he signed back, “Trying to get me banished?”

“Knife. My head,” she signed, pulling her hair back to reveal the bandage.

His nostrils flared, and he signed a curt “Outside, ten minutes” before turning back to the customer and saying aloud, “That one’s infused with dried herbs, but if you ask me…”

Alessa pretended to peruse the store’s offerings, uncorking a small bottle and coughing at the rank contents.

Adrick looked pointedly at the open door to the storeroom, and she left to wait for him outside.

When he emerged from the darkened building a quarter-hour later, Adrick held up a hand to stop her from speaking and jerked his head toward the main road, setting off without checking to see if she followed. His legs were considerably longer than hers, and he made no effort to adjust his stride.

“Did you know?” she said, trotting to keep up. “About this Ivini person claiming I’m a false Finestra?”

Adrick’s silence was answer enough.

“Adrick! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I knew it would worry you.”

“Strangers are throwing knives at me. Ishouldbe worried.”

“Then why are you here?” he shot back. “One knife to the head wasn’t enough excitement for the day?”

She blanched. “I only stopped wearing the veil recently. Hardly anyone knows what I look like.”

“Signor Arguelles does.”

“Well, he didn’t see me.”

As children, they’d spent countless hours crushing herbs for their neighbor before Adrick became his apprentice, and while she couldn’t imagine the kindly older man betraying her, it wouldn’t be the most shocking recent event.

“Tell me what you’ve heard.” Alessa stopped short, forcing her brother to turn back.

“Look.” Adrick blew out a breath. “It’s been a long day. The apothecary has been mobbed with people looking for tinctures to remove their marks—impossible, of course—and medics needingsupplies to treat people who tried to burn or cut theirs out. People are panicking, thinking…”

“That I can’t protect them.” She’d thought she was the only one who lay awake at night, afraid she’d let everyone down. Instead, her deepest fears were being shouted from every street corner.

He tugged his ear. “Well, can you?”

“Can youpleasebelieve in me?”

“I do. It’s just—” Adrick cast a wary glance ahead at a group gathering around a robed woman. “People are saying all kinds of things, like Crollo has cursed you, or you’re some new kind of ghiotte sent to steal the Fontes’ magic. Some even think you’re proof Dea’s forsaken us and Crollo’s finally going to end it this time. Hell, there’s a whole cult of people who think we all deserve to die and Dea should never have defied him in the first place.”

For hundreds of years, Saverians had survived against the odds, trusting their saviors to protect them when wicked wings descended. And now, the people were giving up. Because of her.