Page 112 of Give the Dark My Love

The skipper gaped at me. “Yeah, all right,” he said.

“Him, too.” I nodded to the other man and the dead woman.

“For ten gold I’ll take whoever can fit.”

The other man turned to me and grasped my hands. “Let’s go,” I said, more abruptly than I meant to, but his effusive thanks made me uncomfortable. That, and the corpse.

None of us talked. With every bump in the water, the dead woman’s head lolled. Her mouth was open, her tongue fat and heavy. The man kept adjusting her cloak, as if keeping her warm mattered.

As soon as the boat touched the stone steps leading up to the hospital, the skipper started rushing us off. I got out first, looking toward the hospital. The man grunted, awkwardly trying to get the dead woman from the boat onto the step. The skipper pushed away with his oar, and the woman’s feet splashed into the icy water before the man could pull her up to a step.

I watched the boat fade into the darkness.

“Hello?” the man called. “Hello? We need help!”

I turned. The doors to the hospital opened.

A woman stepped out. She carried herself stiffly, her chin tilted up.

“Nedra,” I whispered.

As if she could hear me, she looked down, her gaze intent. She stumbled on the step, but regained her balance quickly. My heart plunged. She’d thrown her arm out to try to catch herself—but she no longer had her entire left arm. I tried to recall if she had signs of black in her skin when I’d seen her in Master Ostrum’s office. How had so much changed in such a short time?

“Hurry, hurry,” the man pleaded under his breath, but Nedra’s pace was slow.

And then, behind her, more people emerged from the hospital. Dozens—just under fifty or so, I guessed. These people moved as one, flowing like liquid over the steps, a wave of people that surrounded her.

The man started to pray.

The crowd behind Nedra seemed a random assortment of people, male and female, all different ages. Some had blackened limbs, but they didn’t show pain.

They didn’t show any emotion at all.

I sucked in a breath, my eyes watering. I hadn’t wanted to believe it was true. Not my Nedra.

But when she stopped, they stopped. When she looked at the dead woman, they looked.

And when she turned to me, every dead eye focused on my face.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Nedra turned away without a word, crouching down to inspect the body of the woman at the man’s feet. The man’s hands twitched nervously as Nedra pulled away the cloak, revealing no sign of plague. Instead, she had bruises blossoming on her throat.

My head jerked up to the other man’s face. “It was an accident,” he said. “I swear. Can you save her?”

Nedra still didn’t speak as she reached under the collar of her cloak and pulled out a chain. At the end of the necklace was a small iron bead, dark and whole, unlike the broken bead Governor Adelaide had held. I sucked in a breath.Would it be enough to take down the Emperor?

Nedra’s eyes cut to me, narrowed and fierce. She raised an eyebrow, as if daring me to comment on her necromancer’s crucible.

When I didn’t respond, she reached toward the dead woman with her residual arm. Nedra’s eyes softened, but her focus intensified.Behind me, the man’s babbling stopped. He stared in horror at the revenants. Whatever they were looking at, it was the same thing Nedra’s attention was focused on.

“Can you bring her back to me? I love her,” the man said. “She’s my wife.”

“She’s not.” Nedra’s voice was tight, and I could tell she was angry. “And she doesn’t want to come back to you.”

She stood.

The man’s face purpled. “Youwillbring me back my wife, you—” he started.

Nedra held a hand up. “I only bring back people who want to come back,” she said. “And besides, I don’t see why you want to bring someone back after you murdered her.”

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