The Broken Barrel empties. Patrons are reclaimed by the unlit streets, leaving behind the smell of stale ale and the silence of words left unsaid.

  I push myself away from the bar, every muscle locked from hours of forced stillness.

  Belladonna attacks a nearby table with a rag, the wet slap of it against the wood the only violent sound in the room. She flinches as I approach, her hand twisting the damp rag into a tight, grey knot.

  "A room."

  Belladonna's head snaps up. In the low light, her pupils have bled out, leaving only black. The rag falls from her fingers with a wet slap. She freezes for a heartbeat before snatching it from the floor as if it were a snake.

  She opens her mouth, but only a dry click escapes her throat. A small, pathetic sound, as if she has forgotten how to use her own voice. She swallows, nodding, her hand diving into an apron pocket and emerging with a ring of keys. The keys jangle, a sudden violation of the quiet. She flinches, dropping the ring back into her pocket as if it were hot.

  She leads me up a narrow staircase. Each tread groans under my bulk. I follow two steps behind her, close enough to hear the tremor in her breathing.

  We reach a cramped hallway with a low ceiling. Doors line it, their paint chipped and peeling. Her hand trembles so badly she fumbles the key against the lock. On the third try, she presses her knuckles against the iron, using the hardness of it to steady herself. The lock clicks. The door swings inward with a groan of exhausted iron.

  Belladonna holds the key out, her arm rigid. She stares somewhere over my shoulder. Her fingers uncurl. The key falls a short distance into my open palm. It lands cold, but leaves my skin slick with her sweat.

  "If you need anything…"

  She doesn't finish. She turns and runs, her feet stumbling on the top step, one hand slapping the wall to keep her balance as she disappears down the stairs. I am left alone, the key sinking into my palm.

  I step inside and shut the door. The room smells of dust and damp. Strips of wallpaper hang from the walls, revealing dark laths beneath. In the corner, a narrow bed sags, its frame bowed. A cracked washbasin sits above a dresser that slumps to one side, its drawers jammed half-open in a permanent gasp.

  I collapse onto the bed, and it shrieks in protest. The only object on the wall is a portrait hanging opposite the bed.

  Queen Lilith stares back at me from the portrait, her painted skin so smooth it looks like it would feel cold to touch. It has the translucent quality of something that has never seen sunlight. Her smile sits wrong on her face.

  Do you think she's pretty?

  I shift on the bed. What kind of question is that?

  The usual logic is gone, replaced by something petulant. Childish.

  Silence stretches between me and whatever lives in the corners of my mind. The candle beside me spits. In the shifting light, the portrait's mouth seems to curve into a smirk.

  I force myself to look away, my eye catching on a long strip of peeling wallpaper.

  A trick of the light. It has to be.

  When I dare to look back, my mind forces the portrait into submission, stripping the life from it until only paint and canvas remain.

  The mattress creaks as I swing my legs over the edge and stand. I approach the mirror above the cracked washbasin. Alistair's face emerges from the shadowed glass. But it is wrong.

  I peer closer, studying the reflection. One eye hangs a fraction lower than the other. The nose bends slightly to the left. My fingers trace the bend in the nose. The skin beneath my touch is slack, loose over the bone.

  I lean closer, my breath fogging the glass. And then I see it. Beneath the skin of my cheek, a shudder.

  I recoil from the mirror. For a heartbeat, the face in the glass loses all depth, becoming a flat, painted thing.

  Beneath the room's scent of mildew, a new smell takes root. Woodsmoke. And under that, something sweet. Roasting apples...

  I am in a cottage.

  This is Alistair's memory. This is his home.

  My brother, Isaac, paces before the hearth. The firelight stretches his shadow, making it long and thin against the wall. A distorted, agitated thing.

  "They chose me, Alistair," he says. "The Flesh Tax." He chokes on the words. "I can't."

  I cross the room and grip his shoulders. "Listen to me. You are not going anywhere."

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  His bottom lip trembles. "But Father insists."

  "Father's wrong," I say, my voice hardening. "And a coward." I stand there, my fists knotted, before softening my tone. "My skills may keep the village safe. But you? You're the heart of this place, Isaac."

  He looks down at his hands, stained with paint. "This," he says, holding up a paintbrush. "They won't let me keep this, will they? In the camps."

  His eyes lose their focus. "After a year in there, will I even see the colours the same way? Or will everything just be grey?"

  The tears spill over and run down his cheeks. His voice breaks. "Don't let them make my world grey, Alistair. Please."

  I pull him close. "We have a plan, Isaac."

  "But it's your plan, Alistair," he says, pulling away to look me in the eye. "It's all blades and shadows. What if something goes wrong? What if the plan isn't enough?"

  "I won't let it fail," I say, my voice rough with determination. "Every step has been scouted. Every risk planned for. Trust me."

  He sags against me. "No one comes back from the Flesh Tax," he says, his voice muffled against my shoulder. "Promise me this isn't goodbye."

  I hold him, the pressure of his fear heavy on my chest. "I'm going to end this. All of it. I swear it."

  The memory splinters. The scent of woodsmoke and apples is scoured away by the smell of rot and wet mud. The cottage is gone. I am in a moonlit clearing on the edge of the swamp. Not alone. Julian, Sera, and Gareth stand poised, their breath misting in the frigid air.

  "Greyhollow's Resistance is no myth. We make contact, we gain numbers. Then, we bring the fight to Darkwater." Julian's words are punctuated by the sharp clink of me adjusting the straps of my pack.

  Sera, ever alert, her hand resting on the haft of her axe, speaks. "Remember, all of you. When we reach Greyhollow, the code is 'The fox runs when the moon is full.' It's our key to the Resistance."

  Nods ripple through our group.

  I touch my dagger, checking the sheath is secure.

  Gareth grins. "Don't you worry, Alistair," he says, flexing his fingers around the hilt of his own blade. "If things get hairy, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."

  The moonlight makes a skull of Julian's scarred face as he turns to Gareth. "Your tricks won't matter if something cuts you down in the dark."

  Then his stare settles on me. "We are relying on your eyes, Alistair. Get us through the swamp."

  I hold his stare. What he doesn't say is that he's the one who led the last group that tried this. He was the only one who came back.

  "The Collectors patrol these fringes," I say, my voice low. "We move quiet, we move clean. No contact. Greyhollow is the priority."

  The memory jumps. We are deep in the swamp, moving in silence. My feet find solid ground where there should only be sludge. The air is a wet lungful of decay, clinging to the back of the throat. But beneath it, something else.

  Gareth stops, his hand raised. "The insects." His voice is a low, urgent hiss. "They're silent."

  Sera tenses. "That smell. It's not the swamp. It's metallic. Sickly sweet."

  They are there.

  Five silver masks glide forward, their cloaks moving without a single ripple or fold. The mist doesn't part for them. It seems to recoil.

  A voice comes from one, a sound like dry bone snapping. "Intruders."

  Julian goes down first. Three blades pierce him simultaneously, entering and exiting his body without a wasted motion. His scream gurgles into silence, eyes glassy as he crumples.

  Sera's axe swings in a vicious arc, connecting with a Collector's mask. The sound is deafening. Metal on metal. But the mask doesn't even dent. It's as if she struck a mountain. In the split second of her shock, another Collector's blade whistles through the air. Her head tumbles to the muck, body following a heartbeat later.

  I catch the first blow, but the force of it numbs my arm. The second nearly takes my head. My dagger finds a gap in armour. Black fluid spurts forth, thick as tar and reeking of decay. The Collector doesn't even flinch, its sword already arcing towards my throat with inhuman speed.

  I duck, feeling the blade whistle overhead.

  A shriek pierces the air. I turn to see Gareth on his knees, staring at the stump where his right arm used to be. The Collectors converge on him. Their blades rise and fall in unison, carving Gareth apart as if they were stripping a carcass. His screams are carved away, one by one, until he's reduced to a red ruin.

  The sight of it holds me for a fraction of a second. It was all the time they needed. White-hot agony tears through me. I stare at the sword, watching red blot across my chest. My legs buckle, the swamp's filth rushing up to meet me. As darkness swallows my vision, my last thought is of Isaac's face.

  I failed you, brother. I'm so…

  The memory fades. I am on the floor of the cramped room, a gasp tearing from my throat. My hand flies to my chest, half-expecting the slick warmth of blood, the hilt of a Collector's sword.

  The path is true. The Echo of Alistair strengthens.

  It remains Steady, but its flame, once a guttering spark, is now a hesitant breath.

  ||

  I haul myself up, my hands gripping the cracked ceramic of the washbasin. I meet my eyes in the mirror. For a second, I am the one on the outside, looking in at a stranger wearing my face. His eyes burn with a grief so vast it feels like a physical pressure against my skull. My own thoughts are drowned out by the avalanche of his loss.

  Can I do this? Can I carry the burden of this man's life?

  The silence offers no answers, only the faint creaking of the old building settling around me.

  I have worn so many faces. Each one a skin pulled on for convenience or ambition. But this one was forged in love. Alistair's love for his brother. It is a foreign organ transplanted into my hollow chest. I can feel my body trying to tear it out.

  A monster playing hero. What a joke.

  But as I mock the idea, I can't shake the thought of creating a single, good thing in this world, of leaving behind something other than a trail of ghosts.

  "I'll do it," I say aloud, as if speaking the words might make them more real. I'll see this through. For Alistair. For Isaac. For all of them.

  I look at my hands, the skin still new and unfamiliar. Can I be a saviour? Or am I just lying to myself, using a noble cause to justify my continued existence? What if I'd chosen a different identity in that swamp? Would I still feel this purpose? This burning need to right a wrong? Did I even choose Alistair? Or did the Voice guide my hand?

  I remove my shirt, wincing as fabric catches on tender skin. The mirror catches my movement, and I freeze. What I see reflected there makes my lungs seize.

  The faint, vein-like pattern I have always carried beneath my skin is no longer faint. A thick, dark web creeps from my shoulder towards my neck. I watch, unable to look away, as the skin over it ripples, like water disturbed from beneath.

  Swallowing hard, I force myself to turn, craning my neck for a better view. With trembling fingers, I reach to touch it. The moment my fingertips make contact, I recoil. A sickening squirming erupts beneath my skin, as if a knot of eels are writhing in this single, shared body.

  My fingers fumble with my shirt, pulling it on to hide the evidence of my monstrosity. I press my hand flat against the fabric over my shoulder, as if to hold it down. Beneath my palm, I feel a slow pulse.

  I lie down on top of the sheets, fully clothed, and wait for the sun.