Chapter 8

Nico stared up at the ceiling in bed that night, where the moonlight through the trees cast strange shadows. He knew it was imperative he get some rest, given the journey ahead of him, but Crane’s words were echoing in his head, making his stomach churn with unease. It was foolish to be afraid of the master, he told himself. He would be just another corpse in the woods if not for Crane. But lately, there was something undeniably sinister about him. He knew he wasn’t imagining that.

To make matters worse, Abby had started humming that damned children’s nursery rhyme from the plague. And though he knew it was ridiculous, he couldn’t get the last three lines out of his head:

If you want to stay alive, there are three ways to survive:

Run away across the sea; pray for blood immunity;

Or die and be reborn again, and drink the blood of living men.

“Not you, too,” Colin said sleepily, and Nico realized he’d hummed the tune out loud. He wasn’t sure if it was right to gossip about the master—loyalty had always kept him from voicing his opinions—but this felt too important to ignore.

“I was in Crane’s office earlier. He was writing a letter, and one of Miss Talbot’s gowns was underneath his bed.”

Colin let out something between a laugh and a whoop. “Is that what this is about? You’re jealous that the master bedded Miss Talbot?”

“Of course not,” Nico said, though his cheeks were burning at Colin’s acknowledgment of what he’d suspected. “I just think it’s all a bit strange. The fact that her father is still alive... What are the odds of that? If he’s only a few days from here, why didn’t we encounter each other at some point over the course of several years?”

Colin looked over at him. “What are you saying? You think the master did something to Miss Talbot?”

Nico ran his hands through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push away the memory of Elisabeth on her knees, begging him to take her away. The truth was he was weak, and it shamed him. “I don’t know what to think.”

After a few moments of silence, Colin sat up and turned to Nico with a frank expression. “Look, the master has no reason to harm Miss Talbot. He gets what he wants from these women freely. There’s no need to use force, and certainly no reason to murder her. That is what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

Now that Colin had said it out loud, Nico knew it was. “Yes.”

“What purpose would that serve? Unless he’s a sadistic madman who kills for fun, and honestly, wouldn’t we have figured that out by now? He’s saved so many of us. Without him, we’d all be dead.”

“But we wouldn’t, would we?”

“What do you mean?”

Nico clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Every single person Lord Crane has taken in is an immune. You must have noticed this, too. The immaculates never stay for more than a few days. Why? Why aren’t they just as happy to stay and work here as the rest of us?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t stick around long enough to see who survived, like we did. If you’d been gone this whole time, you’d want to find out if you had anyone left, wouldn’t you?”

Nico took a breath. “I suppose. But it still doesn’t explain what happened with Arnaud.”

“What about him?”

“When Arnaud attacked Branson that day, he was looking for Miss Talbot. That’s when Crane shot him, right in the back, in cold blood. Why did he do that?”

“To protect her,” Colin replied, exasperation straining his words.

“From what? She was safe with us. There was no need to go shooting the man. And why did Arnaud want her so badly? She certainly isn’t his wife. Who is she to him?”

“Damn it, you can be daft sometimes. Miss Talbot is young and beautiful and healthy.”

Nico’s thoughts were racing toward some conclusion, though he couldn’t yet see what it was. “Abby is young and beautiful, too, but Lord Crane has never shown the slightest interest in her, not even for dalliances. If all he wants is someone to share his bed, he’d have no trouble convincing one of the servants. And if he wanted Miss Talbot for a wife, why not persuade her to come back after she found her father? Why simply bed her and send her on her way?”

Colin sighed, but it was wistful, not exasperated. “I don’t know, Nico. But I do know we’ve survived this long by keeping our heads down and our ears open. Don’t go making accusations now, when you have no proof.”

After a moment Nico turned his gaze toward the woods. He thought of Arnaud, of the desperation in his voice when he’d asked about Elisabeth, the hunger in his eyes the first time he’d seen her. It was the kind of hunger she had described in Lord Crane. Not the hunger of desire, but the hunger of need, of desperation.

The hunger of a starving man.

***

On the morning that Nico set out with Colin and Branson, Lord Crane bid them farewell from the front porch. The rest of the servants stood beside him on the steps, the girls weeping a little as if the boys were headed off to war. Even the cook dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her apron and pulled the stableboy, Gavin, into her side, ruffling his hair affectionately as she waved goodbye to the men.

Nico, Colin, and Branson left on foot, each outfitted with a gun, a knapsack filled with food and supplies, and the clothing on their backs. If they needed more, they’d have to pilfer it from any houses they passed.

Soon enough, they were deep in the woods, and Nico’s thoughts were free to wander. He had told himself he wouldn’t dwell on Elisabeth, at least not yet. A half-formed thought had taken root in his mind, that he could find Elisabeth’s house for himself once they’d investigated Eldridge Hall. Assured of her safety, he would be able to rest with an easy conscience once again. And from there? For the first time since Crane had found him, Nico was warming to the idea of leaving the manor.

He understood that the world as he’d known it was gone. The king, if he was still alive, no longer seemed to care about collecting taxes or punishing lawbreakers, and without him, the people were like children whose parents had gone away on holiday and left no one else in charge. Nico was a man of order and science. He was afraid of chaos.

But there was also a sense that anyone—even Nico—could find his fortune now. Colin could be a master; Branson could be a servant. And Nico could finally become a physician. In this new world, he might even find redemption.

Branson had quickly fallen behind, so Nico and Colin stopped at midday to eat and give him time to catch up.

“Do you know what I miss most?” Colin asked as he gnawed on a piece of cured meat. “Besides my family, of course. Good cheese. I wish someone at the manor knew how to make it.”

“We’d need a cow for that. Or two, I suppose.”

Colin sighed. “We had nearly a dozen, at one point. That first winter, nearly half our animals disappeared. We assumed we were being robbed by desperate neighbors, but the master wasn’t worried. He seemed to think the plague would run its course quickly and we’d be fine for food. No one thought so many people would die.”

Nico arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean, the animals disappeared?”

“Exactly that. They vanished from their pens during the night.”

Nico recalled the master’s tongue sliding across his lips as he declared his preference for fresh meat and found he no longer had an appetite. “What happened to Crane’s wife, Colin? He mentioned she died of the plague, but where did she get it?”

“It was early that same winter. She went down to check on a tenant family, despite the master’s warnings, and fell ill. She was already gone when Crane took me in.”

“And Crane was immune...” Nico glanced down at his wrists, exposed by his rolled shirtsleeves. The red marks were like mirror-image branches, tracing the course of his veins on either wrist. The telltale sign that though he had encountered the mori roja, something in his blood had saved him.

“What do you miss?” Colin asked, interrupting Nico’s thoughts.

“I miss people.” He leaned back against a decaying log and looked up at the trees. A few leaves still clung to their branches, a fitting metaphor for the plague and the people it had left behind. Eventually, they would all die, and who would be around to watch them fall?

“Excuse me, but you’re with people.” Colin flashed his most winning smile, his teeth bright against his dark skin.

Nico’s snarky reply was cut off by the sound of something heavy rustling in the brush behind them. At first, Nico thought it was Branson, but then a gray horse emerged into the clearing, wearing a halter and a torn lead rope.

Colin rose first. “Is that...?”

“Locket,” Nico finished, standing slowly to keep her from spooking. But she seemed relieved to see them, coming forward and nuzzling Nico’s outstretched hands as if searching for treats. “Lord Crane said he had to leave her behind. She wouldn’t cross water.”

Colin scratched his head as Nico ran his hands down the back of Locket’s legs, checking for swelling. “Odd. I wonder how Miss Elisabeth made it so far without ever crossing a stream or a brook. Lucky, I guess.”

Just then, Branson himself came crashing through the underbrush, making far more noise than a thousand-pound horse. He collapsed onto the log Nico had been leaning against, groaning dramatically.

“What’s for lunch?” he asked.

“Lunch is over,” Colin said, gathering up the remnants of their picnic. “Next time, walk faster.”

***

“I don’t see why I can’t ride it,” Branson moaned for the fifteenth time that evening. Nico had known the trip would be long and slow going on foot, especially if it snowed. But he hadn’t taken into consideration Branson and his infernal whining.

“I already told you,” Nico muttered. “She’s got an abscess, probably from standing around in the mud. It’s a small one, but she needs a chance to heal.”

But Branson was already on to his next complaint. “Blast this weather!” he said as another cold gust ripped through the trees. “We’ll be nothing but frozen corpses in a week. What was Crane thinking, sending us off like this?”

“He was thinking at least he wouldn’t have to look at your ugly face for a while,” Colin said cheerfully. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and your nose will fall off from frostbite. It would be an improvement.”

Nico was too cold to smile, but he had the decency to keep his misery to himself. His toes were numb in his boots, and the woods were dark and menacing at this hour. Locket’s warm body beside him was reassuring, at least.

“Do you really think someone’s living at Eldridge?” Nico asked Colin. “A light through a crack in a boarded window could be anything. It seems like a lot of trouble to send us out here just in case one person survived.”

“Perhaps the master wants us to confirm if the king survived. If he didn’t, things could get very interesting as the kingdom recovers.”

Nico had considered that, too. Who would rule Goslind, or what was left of it, if the entire royal bloodline had been wiped out? Maybe there was a distant cousin somewhere, but then maybe they were all dead, too. Did Crane have his eyes on the crown? Was that the source of his strange behavior? Nico shook his head. Who in their right mind would want to rule over a country of corpses?

They finally made camp for the night in an abandoned woodshed. The structure was rotted and barely standing, with a gaping hole where a roof should be, but it provided a little shelter from the wind, which showed no signs of easing that night. It filtered through the cracks in the wooden walls and made its way through their blankets and the seams of their clothing.

Even Colin was starting to show signs of strain as he attempted for the fifth time to light a fire. Every time a spark caught, the wind gusted enthusiastically, extinguishing the flame and their hopes along with it.

“Damn it!” he shouted, dropping another match into the dirt and debris that littered the floor. “I think we’ll have to go without a fire tonight. I don’t want to waste any more of our matches.”

“It’s fine,” Nico told him, passing around the bread, dried meat, and withered apples they had for dinner. He didn’t admit that the thought of a warm fire was what had kept him moving all afternoon. “It’s just for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll find somewhere better to camp.”

Branson started to grumble but Colin cut him off with his raised palm. “Please, no more tonight. I can handle the cold, but I can’t take any more of your moaning.”

“Who put you in charge, anyway?” Branson snapped. “You’re the lowest-ranked man here. In fact, you’re so poor you don’t even have a rank.”

“Branson,” Nico warned, but the fool didn’t know when to bite his tongue.

“It’s true. Why is he even here? He should be back at the manor with the other servants, cleaning piss pots.”

Nico sat up. “That’s enough, Branson!”

“Your rank means nothing out here,” Colin said quietly. His blanket was pulled up to his chin. In the darkness of the woodshed, Nico couldn’t see his face, but his voice was as icy as the wind. “I could kill you right now and it would mean nothing to anyone. There’s no one to mourn you, no one to bury you. You’d be just another nameless, faceless corpse in the forest.”

Just then, a low howl reached their ears from somewhere in the woods, making Branson jump. “What was that?” he whispered.

“Just the wind in the trees,” Nico said, though he wasn’t sure. It hadn’t sounded like a wolf, but it hadn’t sounded like a tree, either. It had sounded almost human. He’d left Locket free to graze for the night, confident the mare wouldn’t wander far given her abscess and her fondness for apples. Now he worried he should have kept her closer.

“That wasn’t the wind,” Colin said. They were all sitting up in their blankets now, the cold momentarily forgotten. “Sounded more like a wounded animal.”

“Quiet,” Branson hissed. “You’ll call its attention.”

Another howl sounded, this one fading into an anguished moan. “Too late,” Colin said. There was a note of glee in his voice, as if he was enjoying Branson’s terror. Nico found himself wishing he hadn’t removed his boots. He wouldn’t get very far in his stockings.

The sound of feet dragging through fallen leaves outside the shed was unmistakable. Nico reached for his gun. So did Colin. Branson was frozen in place except for his chattering teeth. Nico had never despised him more.

Nico crawled to the door and pressed his face to it, peering out through a crack in the wood. The first thing he noticed was the man walking purposefully toward the shed, clad in only trousers, a tunic, and a light jacket.

The second thing he noticed was the ragged hole through said jacket, from where he’d been shot—by Lord Crane.

“Good heavens, it’s Arnaud!” Nico hissed to Colin.

“I thought he was dead!” Colin turned to Branson. “I thought you buried him!”

“I did!” Branson squeaked.

Arnaud’s clothing was filthy, as if he had been buried. Nico glanced at his fingertips and gasped. Sure enough, Arnaud’s nails were broken and crusted with dirt. Had Branson been stupid enough to bury the man alive?

“What in the devil is going on?” Branson whisper-screamed.

Nico realized with an odd sense of detachment that his entire body, which had been racked with shivers only moments before, had gone completely numb. Devil indeed. This was wrong, not only from a metaphysical standpoint, but also a medical one. There was absolutely no explanation for how this man was still walking.

The door was barred with a wooden plank, and it rattled in the latch as Arnaud pounded on it.

“Little pig, little pig, let me in...” Arnaud sang. “Come on, lads. It’s colder than a witch’s—”

Branson whimpered. “I’ve pissed myself.”

Nico had been wrong. Now he’d never despised Branson more.

“How is it possible?” Colin whispered. “Crane shot him. Branson buried him.”

The infernal nursery rhyme went through Nico’s head. “Or die and be reborn again...” he murmured.

“What?” Colin and Branson asked in unison.

Nico pressed his back to the door and turned to the men. “What if the children’s song wasn’t wrong? What if there are men who contract the plague and die, only they aren’t truly dead?”

“Now is not the time for you to go soft in the head,” Colin said as the door rattled again after a few moments of silence.

Nico waved him off. “He was looking for Miss Talbot before. Not us. Which means he knew she was an immaculate somehow.”

“Or he was looking for a little fun,” Branson said. “She was as fine a specimen—”

“Don’t you understand?” Nico pressed, talking more to Colin than Branson. “He was looking for an immaculate. Crane is looking for immaculates. The three of us are immune.”

“So what?” Colin asked.

“So we have to let him in,” Nico said. “We have to find out what’s going on. There are three of us and one of him. He isn’t armed. Or at least he wasn’t before.”

“Not a chance,” Colin said. “My mother always told me to respect the dead, but God bless her, this is not what she meant.”

“Then I’m going out there.” Nico stuffed his feet into his boots. It was quiet outside the shed again as he pulled his coat on. He put his eye back to the gap in the wood.

A bloodshot eye stared back at him. Nico yelped and leaped backward.

“I can hear you breathing,” the man said, his voice low and steady now. “I’m not going to harm you.”

“How can we trust that?” Nico asked, his gun clutched tightly to his chest. It might not do any more good than Crane’s had, but he felt safer holding on to it.

“I can smell immaculates from a hundred yards. You boys reek of sweat and immunity. And piss. I don’t stand to gain anything by killing you.”

Nico lowered his face back to the hole, forcing himself to meet the horrible red eye. “And what do you want with the immaculates?”

“You already know the answer to that, lad.”

Nico swallowed the lump in his throat, unwilling to allow the truth to coalesce in his mind. “What do you want with us?”

“Tell me where the girl is and you’ll never see me again. You have my word.”

“Miss Talbot left the manor with Lord Crane days ago. As far as I know she’s been reunited with her father.”

“If you believe that then you’re as much a fool as that lordling who buried me. Let me in out of this damned wind and I’ll tell you everything.”

Nico glanced over his shoulder, where Colin and Branson were both vigorously shaking their heads. “I’m afraid I’ve been outvoted on that score.”

The man’s sigh rattled in his chest. He wasn’t dead, Nico told himself. Just altered. Hideously, damnably altered. “Just tell me one thing. Why did your master send the three of you out here into the woods alone?”

If Nico had any idea how to kill this creature, he would do it now, but guns had already proven worthless. He said a silent prayer for Elisabeth, though some part of him knew Arnaud was right, that Crane hadn’t taken her safely home. And if there really was a survivor in Eldridge Hall, Nico couldn’t lead Arnaud to them.

He couldn’t lead Crane to them, either.

“Our woods are barren of prey,” he lied. “We’re looking for new hunting grounds. I suggest you do the same.”

The man grunted. A moment later they could hear him shuffling back through the leaves. Nico kept his eye pressed to the door, watching until he had disappeared into the trees.

He turned back to the two men and saw Colin pinching his nose and glaring at Branson. “Please don’t tell me—”

“That he shat himself?” Colin said. “Of course he bloody did.”

Nico sighed and waited a few minutes, until he was sure Arnaud was gone.

“Where are you going?” Branson whispered.

“To check on Locket.” He slipped outside and didn’t blame Colin when he heard the bolt slide into place behind him. It took a few minutes of wandering, but he found the mare, her eyes shiny in the moonlight as she watched him from the other side of a creek.

Nico swore under his breath. How on earth had she managed to end up on the far side of the water? He was resigning himself to wet feet when he remembered the apple in his pocket.

He held it aloft. “Come on, girl. I’ve got your favorite, right here.”

Locket didn’t hesitate. She stepped into the creek eagerly, not even balking as the water touched her abscessed hoof. A cold pit formed in Nico’s stomach as his last hopes for Elisabeth slid away, along with any trust in his master’s word.

Elisabeth was dead, and the man he’d once thought of as a father was a murderer.

No, not a murderer.

A monster.

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