Chapter 39

"You're late," Hollis said, snapping his pocket watch closed.

"We've been doing this for months, old man. When have I ever been on time?"

The soft glow of the firelight danced across the intricately patterned wallpaper of the sitting room. I sat on a worn armchair, my eyes fixed on a finely embroidered bodice he held in his hands, his fingers swollen with age but still skillful.

He smiled, those kind eyes melting a bit of my soul, giving the peace that he always seemed to conjure. "I know. But I like to remind you so that one day you'll think back on these days and remember how you kept an old man waiting. Couldn't sleep?"

"How'd you guess?" I reached for the familiar fabric he'd laid on the arm of the chair. The furniture creaked slightly in protest.

"I've had my fair share of restless nights. He'll come around, Dey. They always do. Here, let me show you again," he said in his gentle, raspy voice, beckoning me to move the bodice onto my lap.

"You can show me a thousand times, and I'm always going to tangle the string on the knot. You know this."

"Such a pessimist, Little Dove."

I handed the project back to him. "Someone has to balance out Thea's optimism."

"Speaking of balance… any leads on your pursuit?"

I shook my head, releasing a heavy sigh of defeat. "I think it's a lost cause. I hate to stop hunting for the Life Maiden, but the only things I have are the pages from my father's study. And you know we've poured over them. There's nothing that really matters in there. I need to focus on my bargain with Drexel now."

He snipped a long golden thread from his spool. "Do I need to lecture you on how foolish that bargain was?"

"Do I need to lecture you on lecturing me?"

He laughed. "You know what I think you need?"

I wiggled my eyebrows. "Hard liquor and a good fist fight?"

"Fun, Deyanira. I was going to say fun."

"Same thing, Old Man."

He rolled those watery blue eyes. "I see so much of my sister in you. It's uncanny."

"Will you tell me about her?" I asked, giving up on watching the way he stitched so I could swing my legs over the arm of the chair and listen. I always gave up. He'd insisted on my learning a new skill to distract my mind ages ago, but it never went beyond the first few minutes until I started asking him to tell me stories. Sometimes the others would join us, filling the room just to hear his tales, which never included his sister. He'd always skimmed over parts of his stories that involved her. Hollis had raised Dahlia, he'd told us one day. His father worked every hour he could, and the old man, just a child then, was left behind to tend to the motherless infant.

I hoped Dahlia had known how lucky she was to have him, though I doubted it in her later years. Still, my heart ached as I witnessed his sadness. As I looked at a man who had accepted me with no boundaries and did his best every day to make me feel like I was someone worthy of him. But I wasn't. These moments weren't about learning to sew or his past. They were about time. And though his was fleeting as he neared his one hundred years, he'd given me every second he could because he knew no one else had. And that foreign act of love burrowed itself so deep into my heart, there were days when I looked at him and hated the world more. What had he done to deserve a life of servitude? And what had I done to deserve a man who had delivered tranquility to my erratic soul?

Hollis faded into himself, as he so often did, and I worried I'd asked the wrong question.

"You don't have to. I could go back to destroying that shirt if you want."

He cleared his throat. "No, no. It's okay. I've wondered when you'd ask. Only it seems none of our stories have the same light they did when I was young."

I moved to sit next to him on the couch, taking his hand. "I can tell you from experience, the light may dim, but it never goes out. Whatever you thought your memories to be with her, if you can still hear her laugh and picture her smile, those moments were real, however tainted they may feel. She had no choice, Hollis. The madness is debilitating, and she was merely a victim."

He squeezed my fingers, eyes glossing over. "I used to call her Little Dove, too. When Dahlia was little, before she trained and shut herself away from everyone, she would sit at the picture window of our apartment and watch the birds fight the rats on the street. One day, she'd begged me to take her to the library, but my father had forbidden us from leaving. The next morning, she was gone. I was terrified something had happened. Maybe someone had broken in and taken her, or worse. She was born with a target on her back, as you know. I searched for hours and hours, worried sick. But then I remembered her request, and there I found her, sitting on the floor of the library, tucked between two giant bookshelves.

"She wanted to know about the birds. She'd shoved a book into my face and told me about doves. How they'd been a symbol of peace forever. She wouldn't sleep that night until I promised her I'd find one." He sat back on the couch, lifting the bodice once more. Tugging on his shimmering string as he whispered. "I never did fulfill that promise."

"Because there is no peace; not really."

He looked at me and smiled sadly. "You're my peace. You have the light she lost, and every day, I think it grows a little brighter."

"I'm fairly certain that's not the case."

"When was the last time you threatened to kill someone?"

"I told Thea an hour ago I was going to chop her arm off if she didn't stop whistling."

"The very same Thea that you're trying to save from the boss?"

I smirked. "Threatening the loss of a body part is a term of endearment."

The Dancing Ghostwas a wretched hive of debauchery and depravity, a place where shadows clung to every corner, and the stench of spilled liquor and cheap cigarettes hung thick in the air. As I entered, the low hum of drunken laughter and clinking glasses fell silent, like the closing of a heavy iron door.

Clad in dark leathers, hood, and my notorious blade on my thigh, I was a ghostly figure amidst the riffraff, with my reputation preceding me. My heart dropped into my stomach when I laid eyes on the bald man at the end of the bar. I thought I'd never see him again, had hoped for it at one point, but Paesha had come through once again. There he sat, hunched over, a dirty mug in his trembling hand, his eyes bloodshot from hours of intoxication, beard grown and more haggard than I'd ever known him to be. That's what the streets would do to a person. Especially one that had so far to fall.

"Careful, Little Dove. Drexel's men are everywhere."

"I'm more worried about the King's Guard. Maybe you should have waited outside," I said from behind my mask. "Stay beside me. Don't make eye contact with anyone."

"This wasn't supposed to be violent," Hollis said calmly as we stalked to the back of the room.

"I never promised that. You don't know him like I do."

The man at the bar turned, blinking several times before falling backward from his stool and scrambling away.

"Hey, Reg, how ya been?"

"How… how'd you find me?" He backed himself against the wall, though I hadn't moved an inch.

"Even you aren't daft enough to forget the Huntress's power. Did you think you were safe?"

"Stay away from me."

I tsked, reaching for my blade. Old habits died hard. I'd half-expected a word from Hollis at my back, but he remained quiet, steady, calm.

"We need to have a little chat, and since I'm feeling generous today, I'll let you decide if we do that here, or we take a walk outside."

His bloodshot eyes tracked my hand as he stumbled sideways. "I'm not fucking following you anywhere. Do I look like some kind of godsdamned fool?"

"I'm going to assume that's a rhetorical question."

I stepped closer, placing the flat of the blade beneath his scruffy beard. The tavern took a singular breath, and I didn't need to look to know all eyes remained on us as I pinned myself as the villain they'd all known me to be.

Regulas, my father's hand and the enemy of my childhood, gritted his teeth, turning red as he glanced over the room, looking for a single person with enough balls to stop me. He paused in the far-right corner, where Drexel's henchmen had gathered around a table, their leather gloves and nice coats a dead giveaway the second we'd entered.

"You're going to tell me everything you know of the Life Maiden, Regulas."

He scoffed, eyes snapping back to me. "What makes you think I know anything at all?"

I stepped in closer, keeping my voice down. "My father was a wise man. He was hunting for her my entire life, and you were so, so desperate for answers. Do you mean to tell me, with every resource available to you and years of hunting, you didn't find a single clue? Yet my father kept your sniveling ass around, and for what? Entertainment?"

"I'd rather take my secrets to an early grave than help you, King Slayer."

Hollis cleared his throat, peeling the hood of his cloak down to reveal his aged face. Regulas gasped, glancing between us.

I hitched a brow, confused at his recognition of my companion.

"Don't you see? She isn't trying to help herself. She's trying to help everyone else. Why would Death's Maiden care about her counterpart, if not for the good of the realm? You took an oath, Regulas Carstark. I stood in that audience and watched you do it."

Of course. Hollis had been born in Perth. I'd nearly forgotten. I'd come with force, but he'd come with logic. As always.

"You can take my oath and shove it up your ass, Hollis Bennet, you fucking maggot."

Twenty-seven years of pent-up rage exploded from me. I dropped the blade, more interested in the blood of the man than his soul. I snatched him by the neck in a single strike and slammed his head against the wall. Not once, not twice, but three times, until his eyes rolled back, and his fat hands no longer clawed at mine. Chaos erupted. People began screaming that Death would come soon. Most scrambled for the door.

I saw nothing but red as I dropped Regulas to the floor and placed a boot over his thick neck, feeling Death's magic stir within me as I imagined the crunch of his windpipe. He blinked up at me, likely grasping to stay conscious.

"You can say all the disgusting things you want about me. You can tell the world how you tortured me when I was a child. How mean you were and just how far your head fit up my father's ass, but don't you speak a word against that man again."

"Kill me now, Maiden," he rasped over the blade. "End this misery."

I smiled, shaking my head with a glare. "I don't think so, Reg. I'd rather watch you stew in it."

"If I tell you—" His words were interrupted by a cough. "If I tell you what I know?"

"Deyanira," Hollis warned, pressing his back to mine, the pummel of his ornamental sword driving into my spine.

I ignored him. "You have three seconds, Regulas."

Another cough.

I lifted my boot a fraction of an inch. "One."

"Dey," Hollis warned.

"Two."

"The Life Maiden is in Perth."

"Where?" I growled.

"We don't know. We just know there are more births and faster healing on that side of the realm. There have been no other signs. Your father… he imprisoned people for years to get them to talk. No one knows a thing."

"That's not enough, Regulas. Enjoy the rest of your miserable years."

I spun on his scream, just in time to see Drexel's henchmen closing in, surrounding us.

"Oh, godsdamn it. Does he breed stupidity over there, or is this just a special occasion?" I pulled several tiny blades from the leather bandolier strapped across my chest.

Hollis yanked his sword free, his old body moving gracefully into a fighter's position. I thought he'd only brought it to intimidate, but I was wrong. Clearly, the old man had more stories to tell.

Still, this was not a battle I wanted or needed. Three days had passed since I lit the Maestro's stage on fire, and I regretted nothing. There was a difference between surviving and living, and the more time I spent at the Syndicate house, the more those two things felt very separate. Requiem wasn't a world built for people to live, only survive by whatever means necessary. We had grit and were selfish on our best days, but I would not condemn Hollis to Drexel's punishments if I could help it.

One of the men closest to the door lit a cigarette, the bright cherry casting his face in orange. "Going somewhere, Maiden?"

"You see? That's the problem. You know who I am and yet your little balls tell you to stand there unafraid."

"You can't touch us," another said, shifting in toward Regulas behind us. "The boss says you're in debt to him now."

"Hate to break it to you, boys, but your boss is a liar. Now… I've always been generous. Ask my friend, Regulas over here if you don't believe me. So, I'm going to give you two options. One, sit back down at your seat, and I'll have the barkeep send a round over on me. Or two, you're all going to be lying on this floor in a pile of blood and piss within three minutes. Your choice."

They exchanged glances amongst themselves until the one at the door spoke again. "Well now, I think you've misunderstood our meaning is all. Me and the boys were just coming to make sure you didn't need our help. Isn't that right, boys?"

They mumbled their agreements, and Hollis's shoulders sank in relief. Within minutes, we were outside and headed back to the carriage we'd stolen from Drexel's hoard.

"Okay, Hollis?"

"Got my blood pumping." He patted my leg before snapping the reins. "You did the right thing, Little Dove."

"With the Maestro's men?"

He chuckled. "Well, that, too. But I meant Regulas. He's always been a snake."

"How do you know him?"

"I don't, really. Of him is more like it. Awful, awful man."

"You knew that's who I was hunting. Why'd you come if you hated him?"

He shared a sly smile. "I wondered if he'd changed. And if not… I was hoping you'd make him bleed."

"I had no idea you were so vengeful."

"Anyone who talks to my girl that way… he deserves what he gets."

I laid my head on his shoulder as we carried on. "Thanks for always having my back, Old Man."