Bid My Soul Farewell Read online

  To get away from me.

  I was drawing too much attention. I scurried back as the front door of a nearby house opened and a man ran down to the cart. Others crossed the street to help him calm the mule, but I ducked into an alley, my feet pounding over the paving stones. It wasn’t until I was several blocks away that I stopped, my heart racing.

  I recalled the way the dogs had barked at me when I made my way to the castle with my undead army as I faced Governor Adelaide. Could they sense the dark power I now held? Did I disgust them? I almost didn’t mind the way men and women reviled me, but to think that even animals found my presence horrific was too much to consider. The people of the island could label me anything they wanted, believe whatever lies or rumors they’d heard, but if even animals saw me as a monster, what claim to innocence did I have left?

  I made my way farther north, climbing up the stairs that connected the alleyways before veering onto Broad Street. Maids swept the stoops of their masters’ houses. Milk carts rattled over the cobblestones, followed by the mail carts. Children were already claiming corners from which to sell news sheets.

  In many ways, this was still the Hart of my childhood. We hadn’t come here often, but I knew the city well enough to have a favorite pastry shop, to remember a few shortcuts, to avoid certain areas. The buildings were unchanged, the streets were still familiar.

  But as the morning crept toward noon, I slowly became aware of how the people had changed. There was an edge that hadn’t been there before. Hard, cold stares if I lingered near shop windows. Gaunt cheeks on the children at the corner. People crouched in the shadows, drawing away from the growing light, hiding behind tattered coats.

  There had been homeless people in Blackdocks. I’d seen them often enough, as I made my way to the factories with Master Ostrum. Anyone who couldn’t work—and there were many, thanks to the plague—was turned out. They begged or they stole or they didn’t survive.

  But I had never seen a homeless person in Hart before.

  I paused outside an alleyway. Had it just been the naiveté of childhood that kept me from noticing these men and women, children even, huddled in the shadows?

  No. I gritted my teeth together. This was another effect of the plague, of Governor Adelaide’s heartlessness.

  But I saw the way the people of Hart walked past the homeless, carefully avoiding eye contact, pretending not to hear the plaintive begging, soft as a kitten’s mewing. And I remembered Papa’s story, about the Boy-Monster.

  Fear makes us do horrible things to people, Papa had said. Apathy makes us allow horrible things to happen to them.

  If I threw off my cloak and held up my iron crucible, I knew I could invoke not just fear but true terror. And the cold horror that would fill the good citizens of Hart at the sight of me would make them strike out. Call the Guard, bring a rope, light the torches.

  But right now, it was the people’s apathy that seemed far, far worse.

  I reached into the pocket of my cloak. I didn’t have many coins—what use did I have for money on my little quarantine island?—but I withdrew three large copper pieces and strode into the dark alley, determined to help as much as I could. A man sat at the base of the alley, his body half-hidden by a large trash bin that smelled of old grease and rancid meat. He didn’t look up when I approached. His head bent forward, his face hidden behind unwashed locks of stringy dark hair. Part of his torso and his lap were covered with grimy old news sheets, a poor blanket even on mild nights.

  I didn’t want to wake him, but I pressed the coins into his palm. His fingers responded before the rest of his body awoke, wrapping around the coins. His eyes opened slowly.

  I saw it then. Death. This man’s soul was tired. I channeled my power, shifting my vision. He had been dying for a while now.

  The dark power at the base of my crucible pulsed with longing. I had never sensed it before, but ever since a piece of my soul had touched it, I could not escape my awareness of the starving blackness that swirled inside.

  Souls were a type of energy. I had used that small bit of my own soul to energize Ernesta for a few moments. But the body was an imperfect vessel to hold all that energy—at least, a dead body was. This man was too weak to do more than blink at me as I sat back on my heels, watching him die; his soul was rapidly escaping his body, much like steam evaporating from a pot of boiling water.

  I held my shadow hand out, and the pale golden light drifted toward me, weaving around my dark fingers like threads made of water.

  His eyes were sharper now, but he was still too weak to protest. His soul did, though. As soon as the light touched my shadow hand, I heard his cries of anguish, his longing to just be done with it all and die. And I knew him, as I knew all my revenants. I knew what he’d lost in the plague. Everyone.

  But I pushed the sound of his begging voice away, focused only on the energy of his soul. It pooled in the palm of my shadow hand. Already, the man’s body was still. His chest did not rise and fall with breath; there was no thrum of life in the bulging vein on his neck.

  My shadow fingers wrapped around the man’s soul in the same way his fingers had gripped my coins.

  Even if the man wanted nothing more than to pass to the afterlife, I could plunge it into my crucible. Rather than raise his dead body, though, I wondered if I could use the raw energy from his soul for my sister. It had seemed to work for a second with the awlspring’s life force. If a dead bird could wake my sister up long enough to speak, how much time would I have with one whole, fresh, human soul, bright and burning? Perhaps I could store his energy in my crucible, take a ferry back to the hospital, feed it into her . . .

  A voice that sounded like my sister whispered in my mind: No.

  Here was the line I would not cross.

  My shadow fingers unclenched, and the light rose from my palm, fading as the soul dissipated.

  Before I left the alley, I took my three copper coins back. He had no use for them now.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was perhaps fourteen on the last journey I took with Papa to Bunchen’s antique shop, maybe fifteen. Nessie had stopped going with Papa a few years before. She liked to stay at home with Mama, slipping away to spend the summer days swimming in the pond outside the village or running about with her friends. We were not just sisters but also the best of friends—regardless, we both relished the weeks we could be free of the other.

  So Nessie pushed me to go with Papa while she stayed at home. I preferred it that way, truth be told. I liked the quiet, even thuds of Jojo’s hooves on the dirt-packed road, I liked the way Papa’s cart swayed, and the heaviness of the books behind us.

  And I liked Hart.

  Papa was always careful to keep me close to him in the city. It wasn’t safe, he said, especially for girls alone. He never let me go by myself down to the docks, and the one time I tried to slip away, when I was eight or so, he’d been so angry at me that I’d cried. I understood now why Papa had been afraid. I’d worked in the poorer section of Blackdocks often enough to recognize the danger to girls alone, lured into the shadows or, worse, swept onto ships against their will.

  Papa had been so afraid of this city, the largest in the north, but he never saw what Northface Harbor was like, the factories and the death. Hart seemed laughably small now, and the dangers I’d been warned of seemed distant and easy to avoid.

  Bunchen’s antique shop was marked with a wooden sign over the door, most of the paint chipped away. Much like the sign at the inn, there were no words, just a painting of a stack of books beside a vase and the bust of a man, probably one of the old Emperors. Not everyone in the north was literate; illustrative signs were common.

  I pushed open the heavy wooden door, my fingers coming away grimy. The door scraped on the floor, creating an arc of dirt in the entry as I stepped inside.

  “With you in a moment,�
�� a voice called from the back. The shelves and tables were so cluttered here that, although the room was small, it was easy to disappear.

  The first time I came here with Papa, I had been told to explore while he negotiated with the antiques dealer. Bunchen traded in all kind of goods, but the entire wall along the back was lined with old books, and she was the best at digging up volumes for customers that Papa couldn’t find on his own. I’d had enough of books with Papa’s cart, though, and I’d lingered on the other side of the shop, where the shelves were cluttered with a myriad of treasures. I closed my eyes, a smile lingering on my lips as I recalled the sense of discovery that had washed over me when I peered inside a dusty, wooden box lined with aged silk. It had contained a plain stone, polished to a shine, and it made me wonder at who had taken the time to so carefully placed the little, insignificant rock against the fine silk.

  Bunchen was still not at the front desk, so I wended my way to a glass case containing a line of copper crucibles of varying sizes.

  “How can I help you?”

  I started at the voice and whirled around. Bunchen was just as she had been when I was younger—very tall, with a wiry frame and stern steel-colored eyes that had intimidated me as a child.

  Before I could say anything, her look softened. “Nedra Brysstain.”

  The corners of my lips twitched up. She recognized me still, despite the cloak and the coal staining my hair. But what was more, her tone of voice was warm and inviting. She greeted me as a friend.

  “Hello,” I said.

  She eyed me for a long moment. “I heard about your village. Your family.”

  I ducked my head.

  “I heard about you.”

  I met Bunchen’s eyes. Papa always said that she was one of the smartest women he knew, and I had no doubt that was true. Bunchen stepped closer to me, and I noticed then that there was a hollow sound to her step. Her skirts covered her legs, but I suspected her left foot had been amputated. No one was untouched by the plague in the north.

  Bunchen reached up, and I thought for a moment she was going to caress my face. Instead, she wound her fingers around a lock of my hair that had escaped my pins, pulling it gently over my shoulder. Her fingers came away dusted with coal.

  “Nedra Brysstain,” Bunchen said again, a small smile on her lips and wonder in her voice. “Your father would be so proud.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Grey

  I SPENT TEN minutes knocking on Nedra’s door before the innkeeper peered up the stairs and told me that she’d left at dawn, to a store I hadn’t heard of.

  “She ya sister?” he asked me as I grabbed a roll from the basket on the table. It took a moment for his thick accent to melt into my ears.

  “No,” I said, and turned and left before he could further inquire about our relationship. I thought I heard him chuckling as I closed the door behind me.

  The market in Hart wasn’t hard to find; it was connected to the docks, and we’d passed it on our way into town. The Emperor’s steward had told me that I was welcome to take more than just a day perusing the market, but that the ship would leave without me and I’d be forced to wait for the next one, or book my own passage off Lunar Island.

  I shouldn’t have worried, though. When I reached the market, I knew it would not even take me the full day to examine its offerings.

  The building was long, wooden with a thatched roof and no walls, just pillars interspaced between tables. The side closest to the docks was full of fish vendors, but most of them seemed to be closing up for the day.

  Beyond fish, farmers from the villages had set up their produce. The largest farms had tables, but people—mostly women and children—pushed wagons or wheelbarrows of vegetables through the crowds, offering cheaper prices but far inferior wares. Every once in a while a merchant with a table shouted down one of the children scalping his business, but, like fleas on a stray dog, when one scampered off, another soon took their place.

  I moved quickly through this part of the market—I could sell Miraband neither produce nor fish.

  A few stalls were reserved for tinkerers and repairmen. A cobbler nailed a boot heel by a bench; a clock smith offered to repair my watch, even though it wasn’t broken. The stalls farthest from the dock were actually little rooms, with a gateway entrance and aisles of wares.

  “Can I help you?” a man asked as I picked up a felt hat from the display. I watched as he scanned me, quickly determining that I was from the south and therefore had more money to throw around. “Best hats in the north, in all of Lunar Island,” he boasted. “Here, this one’s made of orcine.” He reached for a hat farther up and handed it to me.

  I brushed my fingers along the smooth fur of the hat, soft and sleek as brushed silk. It reminded me of Nedra’s story about the widow.

  As the hatter wrapped a tape around my head to measure, the enormity of what I was trying to do hit me. I had no idea if there was a market for orcine hats in Miraband. Were there even enough orcines around the northern islands in the Stellar Chain to meet demand, if I could make demand?

  “I’ll take one,” I said finally. I gave the man a coin and ordered the felt hat as well as a bonnet decorated with paper flowers to be sent to the ship at the dock. I did the same with most of the stalls, selecting a sample of leather belts from one, straw dolls from another, wooden engravings from a third.

  I’d spent most of the money I’d reserved for today’s market trip by the time I reached the end of the market. I wasn’t sure which of the items would pique the interest of the trade commission, but surely something would stand out. Perhaps our leather would be tanned more durably, or maybe the homespun cloth would have a nostalgic feel to it that could spark a new fashion trend.

  I had to at least try.

  “Fancy man!” a young voice called.

  I turned—as much as I didn’t want the moniker to apply to me, I knew it did. A young woman who looked to be about my age waved at me. “Heard you were the one buying everything in the market,” she said coyly as I approached. She had a ring on her finger, and the way her apron gathered over her stomach made me think she might be pregnant.

  “I’m looking for authentic wares,” I said.

  “Authentic wares.” She smirked at me. “What sort of authentic wares you looking for?”

  “Anything,” I said. “I have a variety of interests.”

  She leaned against the post in the market, eyeing me. “You ain’t got no clay.”

  “Clay?”

  The woman was subtly leading me away from the main market, but I didn’t mind.

  “Earthenware,” she clarified. “My family makes the best bowls and plates this side of the island.” She seemed so proud, I couldn’t help but smile as she whistled a little tune. I picked up my pace to keep up with her, bumping into a little girl as we rounded an alleyway.

  “Where’s your studio?” I asked. It was harder to keep up with her, and the streets were narrow.

  “Studio.” She laughed gaily. “We just work down by the bay. But here ya are.” She stopped in front of a stoop, where a large bowl and a short stack of plates were displayed. She gestured to her wares, and for the first time I noticed that she was missing her right hand.

  The clay items were few, and certainly not worthy of the evident pride the woman had for them. When I picked up a plate, red dust clung to my fingertips, and the plate beneath the first was chipped and cracked.

  “Best on the island,” the woman said again, grinning at me.

  Something about this whole exchange felt wrong, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Ah,” I said, trying to think of the right words to politely disengage from her. “Sadly, I don’t think these would survive the journey.”

  She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, then sat down on the stoop. “Well, thanks for seeing what I had to offer,” she said, clearly
ready to dismiss me.

  I stood there a moment, struck by the strangeness of the whole situation, then turned and made my way back down the twisting streets toward the market. It wasn’t until I rounded the corner that I thought to touch the coin purse on my belt.

  Gone.

  I remembered the tune the woman had whistled, the little girl who’d bumped into me. Whirling around, I raced back to the stoop, but there was nothing there now but broken bits of red clay pottery.

  Rage washed over me. Not at the loss of money—I had taken only a portion of my travel stipend and could afford to lose it. But I felt like a fool not to have seen through such an obvious ruse. Had I been in Northface Harbor, I wouldn’t have fallen for the woman’s trick, but—my cheeks burned—I hadn’t expected the people of Hart to be so ruthless.

  Or so clever.

  I was so caught up in my own stupidity as I made my way down the streets, back to the market, that I almost missed the woman who’d tried to sell me the earthenware. She’d wrapped a red scarf around her head, making her seem older, and I would have passed her by except that when she saw me, she started like a deer and turned to run. Without thinking about it, I grabbed her hand, yanking her around.

  There weren’t many people on the street, but the few who were there took one look at me and ducked their heads, disappearing into the alleys.

  “All I have to do is shout,” I told the girl. “And the Guard will come.”

  She gaped at me. “You’d have me hung for ten silver?” My grip tightened; she’d just confirmed that she’d worked with the little girl to pick my pockets.

  Her surprise at being caught quickly turned to anger. “Fine, then, do as you want,” she spat. “Southerners always do.”

  I wanted to shake the contempt out of her. “Don’t you realize I’m trying to help you? I’m trying to find exports to help your economy!”