Page 93 of The Deathless One
What book? She didn’t have a book. She only had the ones that Sybil gave her and…
The one she’d taken from Benji.
The one that was written about the Deathless One himself. Even though it had been empty when she looked into it, there was only one book he could be speaking about.Her backpack.They must have it, or someone in service to Callum did. And if they had it, then soon enough, so would Callum.
Schooling her expression into a serene mask, she tried her best to hide her thoughts. “I don’t know what you mean. I have nothing from the castle or from my mother. All I have is what I wore on my wedding day. The dress is ruined. And if you mean the ring, I pawned it for safe passage through the sewers, where I washed up after my husband slit my throat.”
She had hoped the details of her survival would be enough to distract him. But nothing would lure him from his purpose.
Callum leaned forward, the food and drink forgotten in front of him. “Where is the book, Jessamine?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know what book you’re talking about.”
“Have you no loyalty left to me? Have you forgotten all our years in the sun?” He tilted his head to the side, an almost fanatic expression on his face. “I taught you how to ride. Tucked you in at night. There are a hundred gifts I gave you. I was the father you never had. You owe me.”
“If you feel as though you are owed for your kindness, then it is not an act of kindness.” Her mother used to say that. She saw when he recognized the words, too, because he flinched as though she’d shot him.
“Jessa, I am running out of time.”
“You look fine to me.”
“I am the Butcher of Grimoire Rise. This entire district runs under my command. If you lose me, then you lose control over this district. We could still be a team, you and I.”
It was a mad bid for her compliance, and he knew it. She knew it.
Jessamine leaned in as well, both of them twin bookends trying to crush the crate between them. “I thought this district was flooded with the infected. That’s what all the rumors say, because myhusbandwas supposed to turn this entire kingdom into a graveyard.”
His throat worked in a swallow, and she knew then that she had him. He didn’t want to tell her whatever deal he had made. He didn’t want her to know the truth at all.
But then he shifted to sit up straight and pull his shirt over his head. That perfectly pressed fabric revealed bandages beneath. Bandages that were seeping yellow with infection.
She said nothing as he unraveled the cotton that bound nearly his entire torso. And every pass around his body revealed more and more broken pustules. Bleeding, weeping, dripping yellow fluid down his stomach the moment he released the pressure on them.
She tried very hard not to react. In this moment, he deserved nothing less than stoic apathy. But this was the man who had raised her, after all.
“You’re infected?” she asked, her voice wobbling only a little.
“I am.”
“How long?”
He ground his teeth. “Four months.”
“Impossible. People lose themselves in days.”
“Not if they have this.” He reached into his pocket and slammed a piece of paper down onto the crate. She stared down at it, recognizing the same unreadable language that had disappeared in the black-bound grimoire.
The ragged edges suggested only one thing. “You tore this out of the book?”
“So you have seen it.”
“I only know there are spell books we should not touch, and that is one of them. It is meant to be whole and in one piece.”
“I know,” he snarled. “I read the whole thing. Front to back. Spells to bring back the dead. Spells for immortality. And the spell to bind a god. But I couldn’t take the book in that moment. Your mother would have immediately found out, so I thought to just steal a spell or two. The moment I ripped out that page, the whole thing went blank. It was just luck that the spell for stasis was on the back side, but I should have torn out more. It slowed the progression of this infection, but it didn’t cure me. A damn shame, since I wasn’t infected at the time I ripped out the page. They were useful spells, I’ll tell you that. But they are not the spells I need. There is a cure in that book, and I will stop at nothing to get it.”
“If there’s a cure in the book, why wouldn’t you use it to cure everyone?”
His expression twisted, growing uglier by the moment. “After I have cured myself, I intend to. For the right price.”
