“And fetch some brandy,” she called. “I fear the inspector may need it.” To Lenoir, she said, “Sit here.”
He did as he was told. They were in the winged chairs near the hearth again. Lenoir found himself wondering idly whether firelight could banish the green-eyed man.
“Is it Feine?” Zera asked him.
“What?” Lenoir gazed at her stupidly. The name meant nothing to him.
“Lord Feine. Surely you don’t think you’re the only one who worked out what happened to Arleas? His affair with Lady Feine was hardly a secret, at least not within these walls.”
Lenoir almost laughed. The idea of Lord Feine being dangerous to him seemed ridiculous. What could he have to fear from Feine, or any other mortal, when he was being hunted by something supernatural, something that could sap his life with a single touch? To Zera, he merely said, “No. It is not Lord Feine.”
A strange look came over her. “This doesn’t have something to do with that missing boy, does it?” She sounded tense, as though she feared the answer.
Lenoir massaged his temples. Nothing could be gained by telling her the truth. She would think him mad. Perhaps he was mad. Then again, she was Adali, and even though she had left the ways of her kin behind, she would have grown up surrounded by tales of the strange and the supernatural. Perhaps she did not share the rest of society’s skepticism toward the existence of ghosts and demons. Perhaps she would think it only natural that judgment could be sent from another plane.
He did not decide to tell her, precisely. He simply spoke. “I am hunted, Zera.”
She nodded slowly and stared into the hearth, the flames reflecting in her golden eyes. “Who is it?”
“It is not a who. It is a what.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“A spirit, Zera. A vengeful spirit from beyond. He has followed me here from Serles. I thought I had escaped him, but I haven’t. He is here, and he wants me dead.” Lenoir was surprised by the calm in his own voice. Yet he knew that it was not courage that steadied him; it was resignation.
Zera’s reaction was surprisingly measured. She had drawn back slightly in her chair, as though she suddenly found herself too close to him. Her brow was creased over hard eyes and tight lips. She seemed to hover between fear and anger, still unsure whether he teased. “A vengeful spirit from beyond.” Her tone was not mocking, but matter-of-fact—she was making sure she understood.
“I am sure you will think me mad.” Lenoir smiled ruefully. “I have no doubt I would think so in your place. But I promise you that what I say is the truth. I have been touched by the hand of death. Twice.” He reached down and pulled up his torn pant leg.
Her cry was muffled by the hand that flew to her mouth. She looked away sharply, but a moment later, her eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the mottled gray of Lenoir’s shin. It was punctured and scored by the barbs, but there was no sign of blood.
Lenoir’s own gaze lingered on this new scar, so very like the one he bore on his arm. The spirit was killing his body piece by piece. “It is cold to the touch,” he observed blandly, his fingers gliding down into his boot. “The flesh has died.” Zera had turned away again, her face in her hands, so Lenoir let his pant leg drop. She had seen enough. She could not disbelieve him now.
“What happened?” she whispered, and now her voice shook.
“I don’t know. I have not seen him for ten years. I thought I had escaped. But then I saw the signs of his work, and I knew he had returned.”
Zera shook her head mutely. She did not understand. How to explain it to her?
“There is an ancient myth in Arrènes, about avenging angels called carnairs. When mortals sinned gravely, the carnairs were sent forth by God to punish them. There was no escaping their wrath. They were immortal, inescapable. They tortured their victims and drove them mad.”
“The Adali have such tales. But as you say, they are myths.”
“Just so. But the spirit that hunts me is no myth. He is real. And like the carnairs, he has been sent to punish me.”
“But how do you—”
“I just know. The first time I saw him, I knew. I looked into his eyes and I knew he wanted me dead. And I knew I deserved it.”
He told her about that night in Serles, when dawn had broken and lanced through the green-eyed man like a spear from Heaven. He told her about his flight from the city of his birth, a permanent exile that he regretted more bitterly than anything before or since. And he told her about his afternoon in Berryvine, when the spirit’s flesh had melted from his bones only to regenerate moments later. Lenoir was relentless in his telling of it, sparing no detail. By the time he finished, Zera was shaking so badly that she spilled brandy on herself when she tried to take a sip.
Lenoir, for his part, felt somehow calmer for having related the tale, as though speaking it aloud made it somehow more fathomable, more prosaic. He could approach the problem now, try to think it through.
“The ironic part is, I do not think the spirit came here for me,” Lenoir said reflectively. “He is somehow connected to Zach’s kidnapping.”
Zera choked on her brandy for the second time. “What?”
“I know, it is an incredible coincidence. Or perhaps it is fate—I no longer know the difference. But when we found that boy in the farmhouse, we also found a body—an Adali man.”
“You never told me that.”
“No. I did not even want to think about it. When I saw him, I knew immediately how he died. I knew the spirit had killed him. And he killed another Adal today in Berryvine. He must have come here for them.” He smiled bitterly. “Finding me was just serendipity.”
There was a long silence. Zera stared into the flames. Lenoir could see that she was shaken to the core, and he felt a twinge of guilt. He should not have burdened her with this horror. It had nothing to do with her.
“What are you going to do?” she asked him eventually.
“I don’t know.”
“You should go to a soothsayer.”
The suggestion surprised him. Zera was the last person he would expect to refer him to a fortune-teller. “What for?”
Zera’s expression was severe. “You know how I feel about these things, Nicolas, but there are times when such considerations must be put aside. Your life is in terrible danger. This . . . thing, this green-eyed man, is not of this world. If you have any chance of escaping him, you need advice from someone who can see beyond this world.”
“And if I have no chance of escaping him?”
“Then think of the boy!” she snapped. “I won’t allow you to sit here feeling sorry for yourself and waiting to die, not when there’s a chance you might learn something that could save you, and the boy too! Perhaps the spirit has a weakness other than sunlight. Or perhaps there’s a way you can appease him.”
“A soothsayer could tell me these things?” Lenoir asked skeptically.
Zera gave a frustrated sigh and slumped back in her chair. “Not just any street charlatan, obviously, but a real one might. Such practices are common amongst the Adali, and even I have seen things I cannot explain. You have nothing to lose by trying.”
Lenoir supposed she was right. His life was forfeit; there was nothing left to lose. “I will do as you say. There is a sergeant I know who visits soothsayers now and again. Perhaps he can guide me. I will speak to him in the morning.”
“Do it now. Tonight. If this thing is as dangerous as you say, you have no time to spare.”
On that, at least, they agreed.