He sat on a bench on the west side of the square. His leg resumed its bouncing as he waited. The shadows were gathering, crawling out from beneath the buildings and across the square. It would not be long now. He watched the streetlamps being lit, each one casting a small circle of light onto the cobblestones below. He watched the merchants closing up their shops for the day. He looked out for Merden, but the soothsayer did not appear. Perhaps he was taking some time to recover from the previous night’s excitement.
Darkness came, but the square did not empty right away. There were still street musicians, flower carts, and other traders whose wares were in demand in the evening. Romance was in fashion these days, and Kennian’s young noblemen could often be found in the market district in the evening, looking for any advantage in their endless quest to impress young ladies. Lenoir wished them all away with no small measure of bitterness. Where such frivolities might once have provoked idle cynicism, they seemed positively perverse to him now.
An hour passed, perhaps more. Finally, the last of the evening merchants moved along. Lenoir was alone in the square. Shivering, he drew his scarf more tightly around his neck. He was grateful for the thick wool. Winter was nearly here. He experienced a brief pang as he realized he had seen his last spring.
He was daydreaming about Serles, her boulevards garlanded with new green leaves, when the attack came.
The scourge snapped around his neck, constricting immediately. Lenoir was jerked back against the bench. He clawed at the whip, but the barbs tore his flesh, preventing him from getting his fingers underneath. There was a powerful pull from behind, and he was dragged over the top of the bench. He hit the ground with his right shoulder, driving the air from his lungs. He could not draw breath to replace it; already, his vision was beginning to sparkle.
No! Not yet! This is not how it was supposed to be! Lenoir scrambled frantically, trying to loosen the scourge enough to allow him to speak. He had not counted upon the spirit ambushing him, not like this. It had never occurred to him that he would not have a chance to utter a single word before he died. As it was, he only remained conscious because of the scarf around his neck, for it provided a barrier between his flesh and the life-sapping touch of the scourge.
The scarf!
Lenoir yanked the knot free and pulled the scarf away from his neck, using the wool as leverage against the coils of the scourge. The barbs bit through, and for a moment he thought the scarf would tear. He pulled with a strength born of desperation, and finally the leather lost its grip on itself and the coils fell free. The air hummed as the green-eyed man drew the whip back to his side, preparing for another strike.
Lenoir gasped, filling his lungs with just enough air for a single word:
“Vincent!”
As before, the spirit hesitated, if only for a split second.
Lenoir swallowed another lungful of air. “Wait!” He held up his hand in a staying gesture, but the scourge lashed out and wrapped around his forearm. Lenoir expended his precious air in a scream. He scrabbled for his sword, but his left hand was clumsy, and the pain was so intense . . .
Forget the pain. You have only one chance.
“I can help you find them!” The words dissolved into more screaming.
And then a miracle happened. The pain stopped. The whip released him.
It was working.
“I can help you find them,” Lenoir repeated, gasping. “All of them.” The scourge remained still. The hope that flooded Lenoir’s body gave him strength, and he lurched to his knees. The green-eyed man stood before him, head cocked, scourge dangling limply at his side. His fey gaze glinted inscrutably. He was waiting.
This was it, Lenoir’s one chance. It was pure desperation. It was worse than that—it was suicide. But it was also Zach’s only hope.
“We seek the same people, you and I,” he rasped. “The corpse thieves. You have seen some of them through the eyes of the dead, and you have killed them. But there are more—those you have not seen. I am certain of it. And I can help you find them.”
The spirit did not move. He regarded Lenoir with narrowed eyes, his face otherwise expressionless. Lenoir had no idea if his words were having the desired effect. He could not even be certain that the spirit understood.
“Vincent.” He spoke the name deliberately, hoping to appeal to some vestige of this creature’s former self. “Let me help you find them.”
There was a long silence, punctuated only by the mad rhythm of Lenoir’s heartbeat.
“Why?” The word issued forth like an icy wind from the depths of a crypt. Lenoir shuddered. It had not occurred to him that the spirit could speak, and he would have preferred to go to his grave without ever hearing that voice.
Collecting himself, he said, “Because I need to find them too. They have taken a boy I know, and they mean him harm.”
“I have no care for the living,” Vincent said, the inhumanity of his words matched by the dread chill of his voice. His face remained devoid of expression.
“That may be, but if I am right, the kidnappers, the ones who took the boy, are the same people as those behind the theft of the corpses. You have taken your revenge upon the men who actually did the deed, but what about those in whose name the deed was done? Should they who are truly responsible go unpunished?” He had practiced this speech a hundred times or more during his restless hours at the Courtier. It had sounded more convincing in his head.
“They will not go unpunished. I will find them.”
“Only if you have seen them.” Lenoir prayed that Merden’s information was correct. Generation upon generation of oral tradition was not the most reliable of sources. “Those giving the orders are rarely the same as those who carry them out.” This too was a gamble. Lenoir had no way of knowing how many culprits there were, let alone how many Vincent had seen.
The spirit was silent, his marble features betraying nothing of his thoughts—if he even had thoughts at all.
Lenoir licked his lips, trying to think clearly through the blood roaring in his ears. His fear was making him light-headed, but he had had many hours to prepare for this encounter. He thanked God for that. “When you . . . saw . . . the corpse thieves, did you also see a boy? Alive?”
The spirit did not reply immediately, and for a moment Lenoir feared that the conversation—and his life—had come to an end. Then Vincent said, “I saw no child.”
Lenoir’s heart sank, but in a way it was good news. “You see? That proves that you have not seen all of the corpse thieves, for some of them still hold the boy.”
“According to you.”
“True.” Another wave of dizziness washed over him. This was the moment he dreaded most. It was time to make his offer. “But it will cost you nothing to accept my help. My life is forfeit—I know this. But if I die tonight, the boy dies too. All I ask is that you stay your hand for a brief time, long enough for me to find him. In return, I will find your corpse thieves, all of them. When I do, you can claim the vengeance that is your due—from the corpse thieves, and from me.”
The spirit’s absinthe eyes bored into Lenoir. His youthful features, so chillingly beautiful, remained fixed as though in stone. “What is your care for the boy?”