Free Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

you?”
    â€œYes.” He paused on a breath. “If wise. Because the heartless survive.”
    She inhaled a deep, rattling breath. I tried not to notice. Not this. Not anything about her. Still, my gaze assessed. As slim as she was, she had curves.
    My gaze flicked to Sivo, noting the rigid set to his big shoulders. My assessment was not overlooked. Protective fury hummed from him. I understood the silent threat. He’d kill to protect her. I nodded once to him, letting him know he wouldn’t have to worry about me.
    â€œYou say that as though proud,” she accused. “How can you think that’s right? That being heartless is right?”
    â€œNothing about anything is right anymore.”
    She shook her head. My words hung between us as I committed her to memory. Luna was all emotion, her face like a glimmer of daybreak amid perpetual night. She gazed at me, her eyes somehow fixed on me, her expression full of reproach.
    Silence hung in the room, the faint sniffling from Dagne the only sound.
    Sivo closed a hand over her shoulder and squeezed gently. She offered him a weak smile.
    â€œThere’s a chance for the boy yet,” Perla offered with a heavy breath. “Nisan weed.”
    â€œNisan weed?” I frowned, vaguely familiar with the herb. When I was a boy, my nurse had taken me with her to hunt for herbs at midlight. Nisan weed had been a prize find. I could still see her holding the little flower up to the feeble light, stroking its petals as though it were the greatest jewel. “Largered and yellow flowers with the dark centers?”
    â€œYes.” Perla nodded. “It works quickly, which is what he needs with a fever raging such as this.”
    â€œI saw it on the way here,” I replied before I could consider what admitting such a thing signified.
    â€œYou did?” Sivo asked. “Not near here. I’ve picked it clean over the years.”
    â€œPerhaps farther than you’re accustomed to traveling. It was about an hour’s walk from here.”
    â€œYou must go and bring it back,” Dagne pleaded, her fingers desperately clenching her brother’s limp hand.
    I shook my head and faced Sivo. “I’m leaving at midlight—”
    â€œPlease!” Dagne cried, her face deepening to an even brighter red as new tears poured down her cheeks. “Do this one thing before you go.”
    â€œYou know the way?” Sivo pressed me.
    â€œI can create a map directing you to where I spotted—”
    â€œYou said it’s an hour’s walk. Midlight won’t last that long. You could find the herb faster. You know directly where to go.”
    I sighed, unable to argue with the truth of that. He would waste precious time searching.
    I looked around the room. A sick boy. An old woman. A scared, weeping Dagne. And Luna, a blind girl even if she was the most capable of them all. I choked out a dry, humorless laugh. If they lost Sivo, how well would they fare? And for how much longer?
    Luna pressed her lips into a tight, mutinous line. “What’s soamusing? Our request for help? Or that we’re even attempting to save his life?”
    She didn’t know me. Not at all. I could say yes.
    Her chin lifted a notch. It was uncanny, as though she read my thoughts and was challenging me to go against my avowal to leave this place . . . my determination to live a selfish existence.
    â€œI’ll go.”

NINE
Fowler
    I SLIPPED OUT a little before midlight, knowing that the task would take more than a full hour. I’d rather be making my way in the dark at the beginning of this errand than at the end.
    I studied the sky and then glanced around, feeling that familiar restless energy. The air always felt this way moments before midlight—when all manner of life, animal and man, was ready to burst free, and roam freely in the brief window of time that dwellers went to ground.
    A snap sounded behind me.
    I whirled,