“Is that play… always like that?” Margaret finally asked as we left the open-air theater and made our way to the girl’s house.

  “I’ve only attended once,” I replied uneasily. “And it was certainly strange, but… last time it was the familiar story of Aethon. I’ve… never heard this version of it. I don’t know if anyone has.”

  “So it’s different than last time? That doesn’t make sense, unless they remember the loop, right?” Margaret asked. The question seemed reasonable, but my mind rejected the suggestion like water rejects oil. I looked up at the sun, not yet in the middle of the sky.

  “Maybe…” I responded reluctantly. “But the first time, I also attended later in the day. It’s possible they perform both versions at different times. Or it changed for the same reason everyone else is behaving strangely. I don’t know.” The play had been nothing short of heresy, but I was still reluctant to question the theater troupe. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to trust them. On some level, Margaret understood this too, or she wouldn’t have allowed me to finish our walk in silence.

  When we opened the door to the quaint home, Junia immediately greeted us. “Hi, Miss Mars! Uncle Harry didn’t think you were coming back!” she chimed, a toothy grin contrasting with the macabre scene around her. It felt really, really good to be greeted so cheerfully. It would have felt good from anyone, really, but especially from the child I found before me. I glanced at a beleaguered Harrison, who looked as relieved as anyone to see me.

  “Not come back?” I asked, my voice heavy with mock offense. “And miss out on more time with you and Millie? I could never!” Junia giggled at that.

  “But you just met us! Lots of Momma’s friends only come by once and don’t come back, and Uncle Harry said it was alright if you were one of them, and I shouldn’t be sad,” Junia answered.

  “Well, her other friends are big jerks. I knew as soon as I met you that I wanted to be friends,” I insisted. “That is, if that’s alright with you. Being friends, I mean.” Junia tilted her head, then looked up at her mother’s stony face.

  “Well, Mom doesn’t seem to mind, and you’re pretty, so I guess that’s alright,” she answered cheerfully. I involuntarily held a hand up to my leathery face. It had been a good while since anyone had said that to me, and rarely did they say it without being more attracted to my magic than my face. But there is something about sweet words from a child. Aside from her intentions behind it mattering more to me than someone fruitlessly trying to woo me, a child’s compliments just carry a weight of undeniable truth.

  “Thank you so much, Junia. You’re pretty too,” I replied.

  “I know; Mom told me,” Junia answered matter-of-factly. I couldn’t help but match her giggle a bit. I hated seeing her chained to her dead mother. I loathed it. I couldn’t imagine a greater evil, at least when I was in the room with her. But at the same time, it was giving a glimpse of something. Junia didn’t know. She didn’t know her mother was dead, and she didn’t know her life had ended. Thinking back to the girl I’d met before, hiding from her own mother’s corpse, desperate to hold and care for her little sister… keenly aware of every detail of adult anxiety around her. I’d never seen what she was like as just… a girl. A child.

  She was obviously uncomfortable. She’d been hungry and confused, but still with the absolute trust that her mother would make sure she was safe. She felt five years younger. She felt like the person she was supposed to be. I wondered if it was affecting me. If Junia was making me feel five years younger, too. Or at least, a couple of years younger. A version of myself who still had the remnants of her confidence. Seeing her without worry was a balm on my soul.

  But it was poisoned by the chain around her mind. By the lie and the reality she was going to face when this was all over. And that poison spread to the kind moment and hooked into the corners of my mouth, pulling my smile to a line. My lips were cracking with the unfamiliar expression, and I tasted just the hint of blood from them as my mouth retreated to its usual position.

  “Well, your mom has a good eye,” I replied. “Your uncle Harry and I are going to step into the next room and talk for a little while. Will you and your sister be okay here alone?”

  Junia shrugged. “We aren’t alone, silly. Mom is right here! You can have your grown-up talk, I don’t mind,” she responded. I glanced at the corpse holding Millie again and swallowed my revulsion.

  “You’re right. How silly of me,” I agreed. Then I looked at Harrison. He sat in a wooden chair to the left of the couch and sported bags in his eyes, almost half as bad as mine, which was a good deal worse than could be found on most. He hadn’t spoken yet, recognizing the need to keep the girls cheerful. He caught my glance and nodded.

  “Thanks for keeping me company, Junia. It was great getting to know you better. You keep an eye on Millie for me, okay? I’ll be right back,” he promised.

  “‘Kaaay,” she replied easily, holding one finger out for her sister to grab. Harrison followed me into the next room, where the girls had once hidden from a mob of the dead, ready to burn her home with her inside. It was empty now—abandoned for days and with a light layer of dust on a few of the surfaces.

  “Where have you been?” Harrison hissed. “I want to help these girls, I do. And I put a lot of trust in you because you showed me that you were a mage, but… Mars, you pulled me aside yesterday morning, introduced yourself, then brought me here and disappeared for over a day. I can only trust you so much after meeting you for an hour, and you just… didn’t come back? I am happy to make sure these girls are safe, but I need to know that you are actually out there, working on finding a solution. Otherwise, I need to go and do something myself.” I winced.

  He was right. I usually came back on the night of the first day, but the night before, I couldn’t. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. If I was going to ask for his help, the least I could do was keep him updated. And since I needed more help now, I needed to explain everything to him. Well. Everything I had discovered about Luke, anyway.

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  Harrison gave me a serious look as I finished describing everything from the strange church service in the garden to the flooded chamber beneath the old temple. He let out a deep sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. He leaned against one wall before responding.

  “I don’t know what to do with any of that information. You’re sure Luke is connected to all of this?” he asked. I shook my head.

  “I’m never sure of anything anymore. But…” I trailed off. He nodded.

  “I know. That would be an awful lot of coincidences. I’m not a fool, I understand this… hidden room and strange temple service do more than imply his involvement.. It’s just… I know Luke. We grew up together. Not as close friends, exactly. But we knew the same people and were taught in the same classroom. He’s never been a mage of any kind, as far as I know. And he’s always been good. Even as a child, he was the type of kid who was never in trouble. Never broke a single rule. It’s hard to imagine him doing anything like this to children,” he explained.

  I glanced at Margaret. I thought of that day when I turned my back on Camilla. “Sometimes, people don’t think of the harm they might do in pursuit of something good,” I replied. Harrison’s eyes locked on mine, and he read volumes in the fatigue behind them.

  “Well. I suppose we just have to find out, right? How can I help?” He offered. I sighed in relief. Harrison was a kind man. It was easy to forget that he hadn't met me as many times as I had met him, considering how willing he was to offer help. I suppose he was sick of the Quiet, and I offered some faint glimmer of hope. But the kindness was there. Even so, I was a bit embarrassed to ask my next question. I hadn’t thought of a better solution than Margaret had offered, and the best I had was honestly silly. I asked anyway.

  “We need to explore the cave under the old temple, but I don’t have a water focus, and I’m not much of a swimmer. I was hoping you knew someone who could come with me and swim in, just to take a look around? With so many fishers in Beddenmor, I thought…” I trailed off as Harrison was shaking his head.

  “We have a lot of fishers, sure. But fishers don’t swim into dark caves with no idea what to expect. That’s a good way to drown. I doubt I’ll find anyone willing to risk it, sorry,” he dismissed. I looked down and sighed. “But that’s not exactly the best way to investigate, is it? If there is a hidden cave under the temple, you should talk to someone familiar with the temple, right?” Oil slid down my spine as he spoke, and Margaret meaningfully refused to make eye contact.

  Scylla stood in her door, watching me on her porch. She looked irritated, which was fair. She was trying to grieve, and a stranger had knocked on her door to interrogate her about a temple she used to work with. I really hadn’t wanted to go to her. She hadn’t been quieted when she killed me. She’d just been scared, and I couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t scare her again. With too quick a movement. Too sharp a word. The hairs on my arms stood as I looked into her eyes. I couldn’t suppress the shiver as I stood so close to one of my killers, this time a killer I had no control over at all.

  “Yeah, alright,” Scylla agreed. My thoughts came to a rapid stop, nearly throwing my body out ahead of my mind. I’d barely told her I was looking for help investigating a hidden cave under the old temple. I hadn’t gotten to explaining why yet, much less how I knew to ask her. I’d expected an uphill battle, since it had been her long-dead sister who’d sent me to her. She’d agreed to help before I had to fight for it.

  I wasn’t relieved.

  “Come on, I know exactly how to help.” She said, pushing her way past me. I froze for a moment, letting her gain a small lead before following her. As I took my first nervous step, I whispered to Margaret.

  “This isn’t right. We need to find someone else,” I insisted. Margaret raised an eyebrow.

  “What do you mean? She already agreed to help?” she replied, a hint of irritation in her voice. I rubbed the side of my head where the fire poker had first pierced as I watched Scylla’s back.

  “She did, but… it’s just wrong. I’m a stranger, and unless the Quiet changed exactly one of its targets, her son should be dead. But look at her. She doesn’t look like a woman grieving anything at all. And she’s so trusting, I just have a bad feeling about it,” I replied. “I really think we should find someone else. Margaret thought as we passed rows of tired homes and their filthy windows. Broken tiles on rooftops and cobwebs on decks reflected the neglected state of the town and emphasized my point about Scylla’s willingness to help.

  Margaret shook her head. “Like who? We don’t know who else can help us, and we could waste days trying to track someone down. Besides, Scylla has always been too quick to trust. Maybe she doesn’t have a son anymore. Her life changed from what it was supposed to be a long time ago, Mars. With my death, my mother living, and I assume my father no longer raising her… she could have met someone else, or married no one at all. Maybe she isn’t grieving because she has no one new to grieve,” she insisted.

  “Maybe she isn’t grieving for the same reason two little girls are still sitting next to their mother’s corpse,” I countered. “Maybe we are the ones who are trusting someone too easily here.”

  “That’s a risk we have to take,” Margaret responded. “If we want to find out what, and who, is hurting this town, we have to take risks. And my sister is a kind woman. If we have to take a risk on someone, we should take that risk on her.” I sighed. I wanted to respond. I did. But something in the back of my mind was tugging at me. Pressing on the back of my knee and insisting I bend it.

  ’She killed me, Margaret. She hurt me. She is not a kind woman.’ I wanted to counter with this. But I couldn’t. Because, just like Margaret, I’d tried to kill someone too, and with much less reason. I didn’t know I had the right to protest. So I followed. I followed Scylla through dirty streets and abandoned yards. I followed her through the city until we reached the temple I’d slept in the night before. When she stopped at a side building, my beating heart was insisting I flee, but my mind was promising I was safe.

  “I don’t know about any flooding, but I know about the chamber you were talking about. It’s not really a secret anymore, so much as a forgotten oddity. I can show you a safer way down through here,” Scylla said. I glanced at her. It was all wrong. The way she’d just left her home and brought me here. The way she didn’t say a word on the way over, and her eerily cheerful attitude.

  “How would another way down help with the water?” I asked, hesitant to follow her as she held the door open.

  “Oh, we can drain it from this route, I wouldn’t worry,” Scylla insisted. That seemed like an odd thing to bring up now, and it had the ring of a lie. I took a step back.

  “Mars, we have to try,” Margaret insisted. I bit my lip, all of my instincts insisting I turn around and run. I could feel the nervous and terrified woman who’d first come to Beddenmor surfacing and strangling the more confident woman I was slowly turning into. I had to listen to one of them. Margaret was insisting that I trust her sister and my own confidence. All reason was insisting I didn’t. But something washed over me like a calming balm, and all my anxiety was muted like a burn treated by aloe plants.

  I took a deep breath through my nose, unwilling to abandon the confidence I’d been gaining, and unwilling to trust the fear I’d let rule me before. I walked forward and through the door. The moment I felt the first cut, I realized which version of myself I should have trusted.