Page 61 of Till Death

My father’s. And it’d been plundered. The only space in the castle they’d cared about.

Torn, deep-red curtains hung askew off a broken rod, letting only trace amounts of blue, stormy light in to showcase the ransacked bedroom. I moved my fingers into the fresh gashes ripped down the surface of the large, ornate wooden desk, stepping on the shattered glass from the broken lamp on the floor. Broken quills and spilled ink pots were the lasting sign of my father’s devotion to his work. He’d kept a small bed in the corner of the cavernous room, and I wondered what it had looked like when my mother had been alive. Had the bed been massive then? Had it been warm, the fireplace always burning? A sanctuary that was strictly theirs, or had it always been a cluster of rooms that were mostly for work and sleep only when their bodies grew so tired they begged for reprieve?

He’d been hunting for the Life Maiden for so long—since my birth, it’d seemed. Surely, there was something here. But when I approached the stack of papers sitting in the corner, rather than finding pieces of relevant information, I found a list of names. Familiar names. He’d kept a tally of each of my victims, just as I had, though the most recent deaths were not yet etched into my back.

I flipped through the pages. Sometimes his handwriting was carefully scripted and sometimes a blur of names nearly illegible. I felt each of them on my back, each flower, and again thought of Ro. My heart ached. My father had been cruel. But he was my only family, even in his hatred. Still, I was broken because of him. I wanted what the others at the Syndicate house had.

I shuffled the bag on my shoulder and turned away, scanning the vacant room for signs of anything else that might be useful. It hadn’t taken long for a spider to weave his web over the bookcase along the wall adjacent to the vandalized desk. Swiping it away, no spider in sight, I pulled the books that weren’t already thrown to the floor, studying each title. Though none seemed significant, mostly lists of ancestry and battles long since won, when I slid the final book from the shelf, all the pages fell to the floor. As if they’d been ripped from the binding or hidden within.

Curious, I thought for sure there must be something here, but as I read through the papers, it was only a ledger of births, similar to the ledger of deaths I’d found. I frowned, scanning the names. Most were those of my father’s court, here in the castle and some scattered through the city, but not as many. Of course, he hadn’t kept track of every child. His courtiers were far more important to him. More than I was.

I shoved the papers back into the book and tossed it into my bag, regretting destroying the spider’s new home for nothing. Everything had been for nothing. And a bit of me sympathized with Regulas in that moment. If my father had charged him with finding the Life Maiden and he’d come up as empty-handed as I had, he’d likely been on the receiving end of Demir Hark’s wrath. Mostly he’d deserved it, though. If not for lack of trying, then because he was an asshole.

I didn’t spend any more time dwelling. Instead, I stood at the door of my father’s castle and wondered if I had the strength to use the threats and force he’d wanted me to. Could I hold a blade to an innocent man’s throat and demand information? Yes. Yes, I could. But I really didn’t want to have to do that.

Drops of rain fell onto my cheeks in a scattered pattern of defeat and sadness. I could no longer define what my life was, beyond waiting for Death to wrench me into his dark court and deliver a name. I thought I could find her. I was wrong. And I was nothing.

Spiraling through my despair, it wasn’t until two giant brown eyes stared down at me, floppy ears covering half of Boo’s face before I realized I wasn’t alone on the rooftop of the only place I’d thought to come back to. Despite my feelings, I smiled, sitting up to scratch him behind those golden ears as I glanced at Quill, standing in the doorframe, a halo of warm light from the house illuminating her wild, curly hair. She held a worn blanket in her arm, but her eyes were red and full of tears as she stared at me.

I peeled myself from my perch, soaking wet, and carried Boo to the door.

“Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, looking between me and her pup.

“Hungry?”

“No,” she whispered, bottom lip beginning to quiver.

Kneeling before the child, I kept a safe distance so I wouldn’t scare her. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. You have to be brave enough to speak it.”

She nodded, her little pink nose sniffling. “You’re scary.”

“I am,” I agreed, though I hated to always be seen as the embodiment of fear. “Does it bother you to be near me? Shall I leave?”

“No,” she said quickly. “You’re scary to the bad men. But you’re my friend. And if you stay with me, then they won’t come and take me again.”

“Ah. So, I am not your villain.”

She forced a smile. “You’re theirs.”

I stood, reaching a hand down for the child to take it before leading her back to her bedroom.

Only when I’d avoided entering her room did she tug on my hand. “Will you stay with me? Please. If they come and they see you here, they will leave.”

“I can’t stay forever, Quill.”

She pointed her face to the ground, eyes falling. “Will you for just this one night?”

“Okay, kid. Just this one night. But let me change out of these soaking wet clothes.”

“Will you wear your fight clothes… just in case?”

“If it makes you feel safer, I can. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said, practically clinging to my leg. Poor thing.

That night, she lay in her small bed, cream-colored blankets pulled all the way up to her pointed chin. Boo leapt from my arms, circling a spot that was likely his no fewer than fifteen times before finally plopping down. She patted the bed beside her, and I crawled in, lying on top of the blankets, holding my breath as she snuggled next to me. I could have cried at the contact. At the pure soul of a child who seemed to see me more clearly than anyone else, as if her mind wasn’t fogged over by the stories of past Maidens.