Page 4 of Kill the Beast
“This coat was an excellent investment,” Lyssa said as she and Brandy made their way to the post office on Fifth Street, stowing the bone she had been using as a toothpick in her pocket along with the others she had saved from the roast. Usually, she would be stuck in the ever-present crowd, carried along in the current of bodies, pushing and shoving to no avail. That was the way of Warham, whether you were a pauper or a lawyer or a woman with a pistol at her hip and a terrifying array of knives hidden on her person. But the stench of death still clinging to the late troll’s furhad everyone scrambling to get out of Lyssa’s path. “I think it’s my favorite possession.”
Brandy yowled in displeasure, and she frowned down at him.
“I don’townyou, silly. You’re my friend.”
Her only friend, these days.
The bell above the post office door jingled merrily as Lyssa stepped inside.
“You stink worse than usual today, Carnifex,” the postmaster’s wife said by way of greeting, waving a brown hand bedecked with rings in front of her nose dramatically.
“Hello, Rosaline,” Lyssa said, leaning her elbows against the counter.
“Absolutely not,” Rosaline said, whacking Lyssa’s arm with a stack of bounty flyers waiting to be tacked to the board beside the mailboxes. “Get that filthy sleeve off my counter.”
“What’s the fuss, my sweet little—oh dear gods above,” Postmaster Jude said as he came out of the back room. “Have you been rolling in shit, love? Or is it the dog?”
Brandy made an indignant sound at the suggestion.
“This coat was a troll a few days ago,” Lyssa said brightly. She pulled her money bag out of one of the pouches on her belt and extracted a few coins from it. As she had suspected, Mr. Clarke’s belt had been worth a ridiculous sum; when added to the amount she’d gotten from cashing the bounty check, she had made out quite well for only a few weeks of work. She’d given a healthy cut to Mary, for helping to arrange Lyssa’s meeting with the building magnate, as well as a bit for Dickie, for old times’ sake. Afterward, there had been plenty left over to pay the tailor, and her mailbox fee, and a few other expenses besides. “Here’s the next twelve months up front.” She slid the coins across the counter, and Rosaline noted the amount in her ledger before depositing them in the lockbox.
“You made a coat out of a troll?” Jude shook his head. “Do youwantto send people running when you get within a mile?”
“That’s the idea,” Lyssa said with a grin, crossing to the rows of mailboxes and unlocking hers. She liberated the mass of letters shoved inside and flicked through them quickly, the knot in her stomach easing once she had confirmed that none sported her father’s handwriting on the front. Strangely, most of them had the same return sender noted on the envelope:Alderic Casimir de Laurent,with an address in Bleakhaven. “You should have seen us,” she said, dumping the letters in the drawstring bag her new coat had come in. “We practically flew here from Main, didn’t we, Brandy?”
Rosaline rolled her eyes. “Before I forget, there’s more for you that wouldn’t fit in the box.” She got up and disappeared into the back room for a moment, then trundled out again with a basket full of envelopes and newspapers.
“What’s all that?” Lyssa asked, raising her brows. She tried to keep her voice light, but the tightness had returned to the pit of her stomach.
“That’s what happens when you only pick up your mail once a year.”
“Oh. Right.” Sometimes she forgot that what had only been a month or two to her was often substantially more in the mortal world. That was what she got for living in a strange liminal realm when she wasn’t killing faeries, she supposed. The days out here passed by in a blink, leaving her in the dust.
“You know, love, this sort of thing would be a lot easier if you registered an actual address with the postal service, so that we could bring your mail directly to you,” Jude said gently.
Lyssa snorted. “Thatwouldbe easier, if I had an address to register. But I don’t.” Not one the mail coaches could find, anyway. She shoved the rest of her mail into the drawstring bag and started to lean against the counter, but Rosaline swatted her again.
“Uh-uh. No. Get out. That stink is giving me a headache.”
“But Rosaline—”
“Don’t ‘but Rosaline’ me. That coat is never again allowed onthe premises, as of the moment you set foot outside. So if you want to peruse the bounties or get your mail, you’re going to have to leave that hideous thing in whatever hole you crawl out of each morning.”
“But—”
“I said no buts, girl.”
Lyssa turned her pleading eyes to Jude, but he shook his head.
“Rosaline’s rule is law,” he said, “and I’m inclined to agree with this one.”
“Fine. See you next time. Without the coat,” Lyssa promised, when Rosaline opened her mouth to argue.
Brandy let out a whine the moment they left the pleasant warmth of the post office. Lyssa knelt and wrapped her arms around his neck, planting a kiss on his cheek. “I know it’s cold, darling, but we have one more stop to make. Okay?” He woofed, and she kissed him again before setting off.
Troll-fur coat notwithstanding, it took forever to get to the far eastern edge of the city, where the Hagswood used to border Warham. The forest was gone now, thank the Lady, but the old fairground—the place where Lyssa’s brother and so many others had died that night—was still there, converted into a memorial park to honor the victims of the massacre. The black iron gates were propped open, headstones and statues dotting the frost-rimed grass beyond, blobs of color here and there where families had left flowers.
“I should have brought something,” Lyssa murmured. “I never remember to bring anything.”
