Page 15

“Absolutely not.” Lore dug her heels into the sand. “I don’t want to get within ten feet of Martin.” And she should start her search for the Fount piece. The chances of it being in the mine, or anywhere on this island, were small but not zero.

“You won’t have to,” Dani replied, grabbing Lore’s hand and dragging her down the beach, out of earshot. “He and I have an understanding. If I tell him to leave you alone, he will.”

Lore didn’t trust any sentence that contained both Martin and understanding . “I’d rather stick with the mines.”

Dani stepped up until she was bare inches from Lore’s face.

They were of a height, both shorter than average.

The person before her now bore very little resemblance to the person she’d met in Bastian’s atrium so long ago, sipping tea and eating macarons.

Her face had been turned from delicate to gaunt by imprisonment, filed to sharp edges. Her nails dug into Lore’s forearm.

“Do you want to kill Him,” Dani said, cold and even, “or don’t you?

Because you won’t be able to pull it off without my help, I can promise you that.

You might think yourself street-smart, Lore, but here, you’re nothing more than a walking target.

You think those Presque Mort were the only ones who want to come after you? ”

“I can take care of myself,” Lore said, jerking her arm backward and wishing she believed it like she once had.

“Can you?” Dani cocked a brow. “Are you just going to keep using Spiritum, sucking it out of everyone who crosses you? I understand that it’s really the only thing you can do with it, but it might become suspicious after a while.

And it will certainly draw His attention.

Mortem would be more useful, but that’s not an option anymore, is it? ”

Lore clenched her teeth. Stupid of her to think Dani hadn’t noticed that.

“Simply put,” Dani said, “I know more than you. I know how to get off this island.” She smiled, tight and spare. “So you can either keep floundering around and doing nothing, unless you finally decide to die like everyone wants you to, or you can trust me.”

If the piece was on the Second Isle, surely Nyxara would feel it. If it was on any island with a mine, though, chances were it had already been found and either taken back to Apollius or smashed apart by a prisoner’s pickax.

If Dani could truly keep Martin off her back, a break from the mines might be nice.

“Why do you care?” Lore asked, rubbing at the skin of her arm where Dani’s nails had gouged. “You don’t think the world is worth saving.”

“It’s not. But I also don’t want to see Apollius in charge of it.” Dani shrugged. “He’s the reason I’m here, really. And I’m petty.”

Not the best answer, but probably the only one she was going to get.

So Lore gave her one firm nod. “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Excellent.” Dani turned and started down the sand. “I hope you’re a good hand with a mop.”

They arrived at the lighthouse at the same time as a handful of other convicts, all of them young, pretty, and femme.

The others cast curious looks at Lore, but none of them would even make eye contact with Dani, slithering aside when the other woman strode up to the door and pounded on it with her fist.

“Open up, Martin, don’t make us wait!”

The door opened, Martin standing in the darkness on the other side.

He said nothing, though his eyes widened when he saw Lore, then narrowed in hateful wariness.

A moment, then he looked to Dani, jerking his head toward the staircase before wordlessly heading up to the higher reaches of the lighthouse.

The other prisoners filtered inside, but Dani hung back until Lore caught up with her. “I have business to take care of, but in half an hour, meet me in the shipping office.”

The shipping office was back at shore, at least half a mile away. “How exactly am I supposed to get that far without being shot? The guards here are lax, but none of them are just going to let me wander down the beach.”

“They will if you’re carrying a mop and have a suitably hangdog expression.” Dani stepped into the lighthouse, gesturing for Lore to follow. “They’ll be thrilled that Martin finally broke you.”

That felt uncomfortably close to the truth. “Until Martin disabuses them of that notion.”

“I have that handled, remember?” Dani squared her shoulders. “If he wants to keep the good thing he has going, he won’t tell them shit. Now, speaking of, I have to go. Get a mop, get there in thirty minutes.”

She disappeared up the dark stairs after Martin.

The others had all dispersed, too, each of them headed to their usual jobs.

Lore didn’t miss the relieved looks that followed Dani up the stairs, the way shoulders softened and fists unclenched.

It made Lore indignant; they were fine with Dani taking the brunt of Martin’s perversity as long as it meant they weren’t bothered.

But wasn’t Lore doing the same thing? Life here was survival, and survival didn’t leave much room for taking high roads.

Still, she thought Dani deserved better. Some gratitude, or at least not to be vilified.

One of the prisoners looked more relieved than the others, her arm bent across her chest, delicately holding her wrist. Another girl bumped into her, and she hissed, her face paling as she pulled her arm in closer.

Cautiously, Lore stepped toward her. The girl didn’t move away—the bottom floor of the lighthouse didn’t have much room to do so, even if she wanted to—but her expression was full of apprehension.

“Are you all right?” Lore asked.

“It’s nothing.” The girl adjusted her hold on her arm. “Just sore from… from last time.”

Either she was lying, or she had an incredible pain tolerance. This close, Lore could see that her wrist was slightly bent out of shape, hanging limply. Probably broken.

And here, at least, was something she could fix. “Let me see.”

At first, it seemed the woman would refuse. But either because of some latent respect for her former station, or just because she’d grown used to following orders, she tentatively held out her arm.

Lore held it gently, slipping into channeling-space. Healing was easy. It simply involved seeing what was wrong—where those golden lines of life went crooked—and straightening them. She channeled the girl’s life through her fingers, imbuing it with her will. Strength. Stability.

A soft gasp. The girl jerked her arm away, but not before her wrist had straightened.

She looked at Lore with wide, fearful eyes, rubbing at her healed bones. Then she turned and fled farther into the lighthouse.

“You’re welcome,” Lore murmured.

Sighing, she took a mop and bucket from the closet under the stairs and made her way back out into the ash, following another group of convicts who were apparently headed to clean the few barges at the dock.

Lore peeled off in the opposite direction, the squat building of the shipping office standing sentry on the shore.

The sun was bright enough to have reddened her skin even through the ash-veil by the time Lore reached the office.

Office was a stretch, really. The place was one room, a rickety desk in the center covered in schedules for which ships needed repairs, which ones would be going to the mainland to ferry back another load of prisoners.

One of the desk’s drawers yawned open, emitting a flutter of old maps.

Martin was the only person Lore knew of who ever worked in here, and only when he had to. He preferred to stay in his lighthouse. Lore supposed if another guard showed up, she could say Martin told her to meet him.

It only took five minutes to clean the floor of the small room.

Lore discarded her mop and flopped into the chair at the desk, tipping back her head.

Resting in the middle of the day was nigh unheard of.

After a moment, she went over to the bucket, dipped in her hand, and took a drink.

The water in there was just as good as what they were given at the trough, and she’d missed her chance at it this morning.

The twisting in her gut reminded her that she’d missed her chance at breakfast, too.

She sat in the chair and put her head on the desk.

Lore didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until the sound of the door slamming jarred her awake. She jumped up, searching desperately for her mop.

“Calm down.” Dani dropped a heel of bread in front of her, in the middle of all those shipping schedules. “It’s just me.” She grinned, a flat one that stopped short of her eyes. “Myriad hells, this place has done a number on you. You were never this jumpy before, even when you should have been.”

She wanted to retort, but there was no point.

Dani was right. The Lore who would indolently lounge when she was supposed to be working, who would relish being caught flouting the rules, had been slowly dredged out on the Isles.

She was left like this, a half-starved shell perpetually on the edge of panic.

“Eat,” Dani said, jerking her chin at the bread. “Then we’ll start looking.” She sat down in Lore’s recently vacated chair, wincing slightly. When she shuffled through the schedules, Lore caught the purple blooms of bruises on her forearms.

“Are those from him?” she asked quietly.

Dani flexed her wrist back and forth. “Don’t worry about me,” she said in answer. “I give as good as I get. That’s why Martin likes me. He wants them to have some fight.”

The bread tasted ashy. Lore wasn’t sure if it was due to Dani’s words or actual ash. “I’m sorry.”

“We take power where we can get it.” But the other woman’s flippant tone was brittle. “Not all of us have the option of fucking the King.”

That was fair.