Book One – Chapter 17

They had brought him here. For coin. That was it. They had been paid to drag him up the mountain. And back then, that had been enough. Enough to believe they were just some random escorting party. But truth was, that did not prove anything.

Harrow had said it herself. She was a Witch-Blessed. And that meant marked. She was marked by a witch, and yet no one had done a thing about it. If being marked by a witch was so dangerous, then why had they let her into the guild last night? She had shown some papers. That was all it took. No questions. No suspicion. Nothing.

Was that because no witch had travelled with them?

That was idiotic.

Curses did not need proximity. You did not need to bring the witch with you. You only needed to be touched.

   So why had not anyone cared?

Now that Yu thought about it, he realised the shaman had not been there last night. Not on the platform. Not in the common room. She had tested no one. She had tasted no one.

Why?                          

She had insisted on reading two half-dead strangers just now.

Even if that whole witchmark reading was fake, just a lie to take more essence — then, especially then; why had she not jumped at the opportunity last night? Why had she not been all over Harrow and her party? Ten new travellers. Ten. That thing inside her could have gorged itself.

It made no sense.

Unless …

Unless she had a reason not to feed on them.

There was only one.

Because she knew them. Because they knew her.

She did not take from them because they were on the same side.

          They _worked to_gether.

It was true. The guards had not questioned the travellers. The travellers had not been wary of the guards. No one had doubted anyone. None of them had acted like anything was even remotely off. Not when they arrived, not since.

That was wrong.

And that made it true.

Experienced escorts should be trained for this. For ambushes, for raiders, for imposters. It was their job to protect important people from harm. They should have been suspicious. They should have seen something. Said something. Anything.

And yet, they had not.

And neither had the guards.

And that was the most damning thing of all.

Because it meant they were all fake.

They were all in on it.

All of them.