Page 92 of The Lost Reliquary
Rion turns back to the box. “He wasn’t here when I arrived. This was, though.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
There’s less uncertainty than the words convey. He might not know what’s in the box, but from his tone and demeanor, he knows it’s nothing good. I make a cursory search of the kitchen and the yard out back, but the proprietor is nowhere to be found. I return to the common room, draw one sickle.
“Why don’t you stand back?”
Rion follows my instruction as I use the point to gingerly lift the lid. A bed of gray crystals lies within.
“Salt?” I take a pinch, feeling the grit of it between my fingers.
“It appears so,” says Rion.
No, not only salt. There’s a spot of pink. I brush some of the crystals to the side and the pink turns to red. Then, something else appears, grayish brown and blotched purple.
“Is that—?”
“Yup, a finger.” A man’s little finger from the size of it, severed roughly, jagged ends of flesh left behind. “And whatever was used to chop it off could use a sharpening.”
Rion’s mouth thins into a grim cut. “They would have used the edge of a shell.”
“A shell?” Cold understanding forms. After all, it’s not exactly subtle. “The Salt priests did this?”
“Appears so. Your employer’s business in Cyprene seems to be making him more than a few enemies.”
“He’s still working on how to negotiate effectively.” My gut twists. Apparently, Marzela doesn’t appreciate being ignored. “Why Hiram?”
“To send a message, I expect,” says Rion. “To you. To anyone helping you.”
My hand tightens around my sickle. “Is he still alive?”
“I think if he wasn’t, the box would be bigger. No, this looks like an… invitation.” Rion closes the box, a storminess in his eyes. But by the time he turns to me again, they’ve softened with concern. “What should we do?”
“You should go make coffee.” Angry heat gathers in my chest, along with the unwise desire to let it loose on the Salt priests. And if not for Avery… No. I cannot—willnot—lose control now. Gotta do this smart. “And wake up Nolan. I need to run a quick errand. But after that… we’re going to go get Hiram.”
Rion insists on coming as far as the baths with us. “The Salt Sects aren’t usually violent,” he explains as we make our way there. “But sometimes they can be rather… determined.”
“Clearly.” Nolan stops us a few streets away. “Please, let me deal with this from here. It’s my fault Hiram has been harmed. I need to find a way to resolve it.”
Rion starts to protest, but I take his arm, turning him toward me. “If he can’t resolve it with words, I have my little ways too.”
The bookseller smirks with dark amusement. “If I could be of assistance…”
“This isn’t your fight. Is there somewhere you can go that’s safe for a while? In case they decide you’ve been too friendly to us as well?”
“I…” He nods. “Yes.”
“Then go. We’ll stop by the shop and leave something to let you know when it’s safe.”
He raises one eyebrow. “Not a finger, I hope?”
I wink. “Not unless the Salt priests make me deal with this the hard way.”
When Rion is gone, we continue to Marzela’s salt baths, where Nolan knocks on the door. The old woman herself is revealed when it opens. “Please, enter.”
Nolan obeys, leaving me to follow. Within, Marzela closes the door behind us, hands disappearing beneath the arms of her diaphanous robe. She smiles as blandly as at our first visit, but the welcoming air is gone. Now, there’s the sense of a facade, of what’s on the surface notmatching what lies beneath. Maybe we should have expected it. As innocuous as the Salt Sects had seemed initially, nothing in Cyprene would persist without some measure of cunning.
