Page 54

Chapter 48

Lotte

The gravedigger’s grip on her wrist was gentle for a killer.

And he was a killer.

She knew that the moment his fingers touched her skin. The first girl he’d killed looked a bit like Lotte. Although that had been so long ago, he sometimes thought all the girls he killed looked like that one. She’d been one of his old boss’s girlfriends who’d been making too much noise about what he was doing. She’d screamed so much when they came for her, he remembered thinking it was no wonder they had to kill her to keep her quiet.

But he wasn’t here to kill her. He was here for another purpose that slipped in and out of focus in his mind too fast for Lotte to catch.

He had a new boss now, one who knew better than to mess around with noisy girls. Lotte caught a flash of expensive clothes and well-groomed hair, and the edge of a name that he tried not to look too hard at.

There was neither joy nor regret when he thought about the girls he’d killed. Just the deep pragmatism of a man who knew what his job was.

The knife in his hand sliced deep into Lotte’s palm, making her cry out in pain.

“I said not to scream.” The other gravedigger wrenched her tighter in his grip, his voice low and angry in her ear. The thoughts that poured off him were a world away from that of the older gravedigger.

Where the older man was slow and ponderous, the one holding her was a violent shock of jittery thoughts popping through his mind frantically like a photographer’s flashbulbs.

Lotte grabbed on to one. This has to work. Lotte tried to draw the thread out further, to understand what they were doing here. But his mind had already skipped on. He liked his job. He was good at it. At killing people for money. But he had big dreams. He wanted to change the world, like Isengrim was always banging on about. And if he got this right—Lotte’s grip closed over the thought more tightly this time—if this rich girl’s blood could really break the bond between the Rydders and the Holtzfalls, then that would be a victory. There would be no knights to protect Modesty Holtzfall tonight when the Grims came for her.

“You can’t blame her for a bit of noise. I heard you killing that girl on Market Street.” The older gravedigger was as casual as if they were chatting over a drink at the bar. “You were cursing up a storm.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” the younger gravedigger muttered. “She wouldn’t stay still, slippery little eel, cut her ear off by accident.”

Lotte could feel her hand tensing as blood welled in her palm. The older gravedigger drew her arm straight out ahead of her. They were at the very edge of the woods. And as he stuck her hand out straight, Lotte’s fingers extended into the darkened line of the trees. The gravedigger turned her hand over, the blood from the slash dripping down, hitting the moss at the edge of the woods.

The Holtzfall gardens were all perfectly manicured grass lawns. Even around the graves. But at the border of the trees, the ground turned wild. Moss and stones and wildflowers spread backward into the shadow of the woods. Staining red now as Lotte’s blood fell.

The men waited, watching. They seemed to be waiting for something she couldn’t quite grasp in their minds. Possibly because they didn’t seem to wholly know either.

Her blood. They were to spill her blood in the woods. If they did that, it would free the knights from their oath.

“Is that it?” the younger one asked. “Shouldn’t there be a flash of light or a declaration from some woodland geezer or something?”

This was because of her parentage. She could read that much in the jumbled minds of the two men holding her. She didn’t pretend to understand exactly what that meant or how that was supposed to free the knights, but that was why they were here. Because she was a Holtzfall and a Rydder at once. And something about her blood was important.

The older one didn’t answer, but his mind was working. Grinding slowly with thought. The boss had said they had to spill her blood in the woods to break the bond. He’d figured that just meant a little cut. But maybe they were supposed to slit her throat.

The younger one was thinking the same. This was the first job he’d ever been good at, and he didn’t want to lose it. He wondered if his mother would be proud of him.

“She wouldn’t be proud.” Lotte’s voice came out strained against the knife as she saw her chance. “Your mother would hate what you’re doing.”

The young gravedigger jerked against Lotte violently, but he didn’t loosen his grip. Not yet. But now Lotte had the edge of the thought, and she pulled on the string, trying to keep her own mind steady even as fear consumed her.

“Your mother would never have hurt a fly, you know that.” She had to keep them talking, buy some time. Someone was bound to notice she was gone eventually. “She was always worried about you making your way in the world because you were never as gifted as your sister at school. But just because you couldn’t read well or do sums, that doesn’t mean she wanted you to become a killer.”

“You’re speaking to the dead.” This time he staggered away from her, his face blanched, breaking the connection.

Lotte saw her chance, wrenching free from the older gravedigger, the blood that now coated her hand making her arm slick as it slid out of his grip. She was free. She moved to run even as the older gravedigger lunged after her.

Lotte turned, her hand meeting his chest, shoving him back, just as her blood activated one of the charms on her hand. The charm that was supposed to open doors. The gravedigger was blown back with the same force that she had blown the door off its hinges at the law office. A curse slipped out of his mouth as he slammed into a tree at the edge of the woods.

Lotte turned again, but the younger one was standing in her path. He still looked scared, but he was standing his ground. Her thoughts were racing, wondering if she had any other charms that might do her any good.

“You won’t make it very far, little heiress.” As she looked back toward the woods, the gravedigger was pulling himself up wearily. And then she saw it, behind him, from the darkness in between the trees. Something was moving.

At first it seemed formless, like a trick of the light moving through the branches. But then it resolved into a hand. Though not a hand like any Lotte had ever seen. The fingers were impossibly long, jointed in six places and pale like the bark of a birch tree.

The fingers closed around the older gravedigger’s collar, wrenching him back so swiftly into the trees that he didn’t even have time to scream.

At first.

The screaming came a second later. Deep, guttural cries from the dark of the wood. They reminded Lotte of the girl’s screams in his memory. The girl who looked like her.

When Lotte turned back, the young gravedigger’s face was slack with horror, the knife in his hand dangling loose.

And then he ran for his life.

Lotte stood, shaking, dripping blood on the pristine grass.

She found herself waiting, like they’d said. For a flash of light. For an immortal being to step out and make some grand declaration. That her blood had split the Rydder knights from their oath somehow. But nothing happened.

Lotte’s mind spun, trying to make sense of everything. But amidst it all, she had one clear thought, plucked from the mind of the younger gravedigger: The Grims were going after Modesty. Tonight.