Him. Luche must resolve its business with him. Cal's lip twitched, and somewhere beneath the waves, Marin was laughing. She wanted to shrivel, to disappear entirely and let this weight fall on someone else—which she supposed, in a way, it had. It called for a different Cal, a fictional man who never existed. But Mr. Adeline's final charge tightened around her neck; her duty was to Elowyn, and she couldn't leave her to suffer.

And yet... I can't confront someone who thinks I'm a man. Whoever it was had burned the Adeline estate to the ground, slaughtered women and children alike. She shivered to imagine what kind of punishment he would deal to a man if mercy was not even given to those who were weaker than him.

It had always been in her best interest to be small, unseen, but there was no way to do that if she was this fictional Cal. Here, it would work against her. A man was expected to fight, to be strong and outright, to rescue Elowyn with all the braveness and chivalry of the tales of old. That was how her father would have done it and her grandfather before him, wielding their sigils—Marin's water—with expertise and control and power.

But she would be easily overpowered. Elowyn, too, would die because of her.

Oh, don't sell yourself short. Think of all the power you had last night! Marin chimed in.

That was you, not me. You said it yourself.

And I am with you still. I'm your patron. I'll not leave you. You need me.

But this reeks of a trap. Cal crushed the note in her fist. Luck, violent instinct, or Marin—whatever it was that had aided her escape—it wouldn't be enough to overcome a room full of crazed, bloodthirsty men. Not when hatred was their motivator. Not when she was the monster that set them on this path.

"Calliope?" Maya was watching, her brow knitted in concern and her pastel skirts bunched in her white-knuckled grip.

Behind her, the flower shop hung as a ghost of itself: glass broken and vases overturned with their colorful wares trampled on the stone path. The crowds made a wide berth around it, whispering among themselves. Cal's breath hitched as she lifted her gaze. Over the doorpost, smeared in blood or red ink, was the warning again.

For Luche. Down with Cal.

Somewhere in the distance, thunder pealed across the sky, heralding the darkness to come. The world spun and shrunk around Cal, her chest painfully tight when she tried to take another breath. Maya's hand touched her back, but her voice faded into the haze. For Luche, Cal's mind kept chanting, and the thunder cracked louder. Down with Cal.

Glass cracked beneath her sandals. She crossed the landing, guided by Maya on one side and Ingrid on the other—she couldn't recall Ingrid taking her hand, nor when they started to lead her in. Next, she was seated at the table again. And after that, a warm mug was tucked into her hands, the scent of honey and lemon floating up from its rim. She thought Ingrid told her to relax, thought she might have apologized before hurrying off to report the attack, but she couldn't be too sure. All she could hear was the distant patter of rain. Was that real, too?

For Luche.

The chapel flashed through her mind. The knife and the priests as they carved Marin's sigil into her hand. The weeks that blurred together after that, and the words spoken that should never have been, the shouts that rang through the streets. The thunder, the storm, and finally, the black rain. The neverending, flesh-eating, all-consuming black rain, and black floods, and black pools, and puddles and swirls and wells and seas and...

She squeezed her eyes shut, bowed her head, bit back the cry on her tongue, but nothing chased the ghosts away. They clung to her still, and now they cried for their unresolved business, their vengeance taking the shape of the black-cloaked men.

The sigil burned, then cooled, pulled and pushed, and finally a watery presence took the shape of a woman in front of her—Marin, her usual fair smile plastered on her blue face and wrinkling her eerie eyes at the edges. Her gold bracelets jangled as she put her hands on Cal's knees. "Why don't you leave Elowyn behind? Since it's eating you up so much. All you want to do is atone and cast your sigil aside—wouldn't that be enough to settle your score?" She leaned in. "Leave Elowyn to her fate. You don't need her to finish your mission."

Cal's heart still fluttered a frantic beat like a bird in a cage, but she managed a deep breath. Somehow, Marin always broke through the haze. But as Cal lifted her head, she looked past the spirit, her reply caught on her tongue.

Furniture was overturned like there had been a struggle, but the destruction inside was minimal—just a broken cup on the floor. Ingrid and Maya had been mostly unharmed, too, save for the small cut on Maya's cheek. Nothing was burned. No one was killed.

"This is most opportune, Cal," Marin was saying, leaning in front of Cal's vision again. "Leave the girl, go to the lake I told you about, and you can be free."

Cal ignored her and looked away. Faint as it was, a silver lining shimmered between the rock and the hard place—mercy that hadn't been shown before. The Hawkinses were spared, for whatever reason. This time, their only target was Cal, claiming Elowyn as a bargaining chip.

"I don't like that look." Marin narrowed her eyes, pushing up and twirling through the air as she took in the empty house. She folded one hand under her chin. "It's still a trap."

"But they delivered the statement differently this time." Cal stood and set her cup aside. Unfurling her fingers, she found the paper still crumpled against her palm. Its red letters no longer seemed as aggressive.

Perhaps they believed fictional Cal had been thoroughly threatened already, or that holding Elowyn hostage was enough of a message to force him to come, and that patched the cracks in her resolve with an inkling of confidence.

If she went in fear, meek and small, perhaps they wouldn't tear her apart as quickly as she feared.

Shivering, she turned to Marin, who lifted a brow in waiting. "I'm not leaving Elowyn behind, and I'm not giving up either," Cal said. "I want to return to the people of Luche, just for a moment. I owe them that much for the flood."

Marin rolled her eyes, arms crossed as she leaned back as if she were lounging on a sofa. "I don't understand you."

"Come on." She snatched the stolen black cloak from where Ingrid had discarded it at the foot of the stairs and slung it over her shoulders. Though her body trembled, her steps were firm as she marched back to the exit.

It was too soon to give in to despair, not when there was a sliver of mercy in the attack this time. There was humanity and sense in the group somewhere; it wasn't too late to save Elowyn without more bloodshed.

And if she was wrong, there would be no atonement for her.

✾❊✾❀✾❊✾

Cal had barely slipped out of the shop and disappeared down a nearby alley when Ingrid and Maya returned with two officers in flashy coats. Her bones were already turning to ice again, and her muscles cried as she kept moving forward. Can't you leave this to the law? her mind pleaded. Let them rescue Elowyn and arrest the culprits.

Of course she couldn't. If she wanted to atone, she had to move forward. She had to confront Luche.

Marin scoffed at the idea, grumbling that Cal was a fool and her grandiose ideas would only end in death. I'm telling you now, it's better if you leave Elowyn behind, she said for the umpteenth time, but Cal pressed onward.

Once she left the shop and stood in darkness, far from the whispering crowd and the panic swirling in the streets, she straightened the note. This time, the red text shifted, floating off the page as the letters rearranged themselves. Even Marin shuddered at the display, shrinking deeper beneath the sigil.

That's an enchantment, she whispered. Though Cal wanted her to speak more for once, she kept silent. There was nothing else to say.

The only people who could use magic were those with sigils, bound to a patron spirit. Cal had never met another outside her family, nor did she know of any spirits beside Marin—only that somewhere, they did exist. Now, her insides shriveled a little more. Maybe she was being rash.

She shook her head. No, she was a sigil bearer too, making her the person best suited for this. She had to rescue Elowyn herself.

Finally, the text settled. Bring Cal to the shed on the outskirts overlooking the wasteland of Luche.

Marin scoffed, taking shape again and folding her arms over her chest. "Fitting. Beware of these men. If they have a sigil bearer among them, he has already proven greater control and power than you—not just anyone can do this kind of magic, you know."

Another prick. Marin always knew what to say to grate Cal's nerves. She stuffed the note into a pocket of the black cloak as it began to smolder in her hand.

"You can still turn back," she pressed. She floated up to Cal's side, her indigo curls tickling Cal's neck as it drifted around her. "You'll be able to get away easily. They're not looking for a girl."

"Be quiet." Cal pushed away from the wall and crept to the other edge of the alley, peeking out into the streets. Far on the outskirts of town, the rolling hills began, and she could make out the speck of a dark structure atop the one that would overlook what had once been Luche. Her skin crawled. She knew it well; she had hidden there for weeks after she escaped the floods of Luche. She wasted away there, numb and broken. Had Mr. Adeline found her there, too?

A knot began to form in her stomach, heavy as a rock and cold as ice. No matter what she did, she couldn't shake away the haunting grip of the past.

Tucking her braid into the cloak, she pulled up the hood and slipped out into the streets, making a beeline for the outskirts—and beyond that, the shed, where Elowyn was waiting.

The wind howled as she left the town and trekked up the hill. Her sandals sank into the soft earth, and grass scraped her legs as it bent in the gale. She shivered, pulling the cloak around herself to keep out the vicious bite of the wind. Above, storm clouds gathered in a dark mass as they rolled with the groan of distant thunder. She had kept the black rain away so far, but it simmered below the surface, waiting for a crack to slip through.

She crested the hill and came into the wild, rolling plains, overgrown with dark weeds and whispering tall grass. Dark and foreboding, the leaning structure of the old shed stood over her, charred and rotting. Cloaked in black, like the man standing outside the opening—a doorpost with no door, the abandoned place was filled only with shadows and murmurs.

"Came alone, did you?" The man at the door pushed away from the wall, hand against a dagger attached to his belt. He swaggered over to her, dirty blond hair hanging in his dead eyes. The front of his face was red—burned, perhaps, from standing too close to the fire at the estate.

Cal shifted, hanging her head lower. The cloak was long enough to cover her skirt, and it hit her that she had appeared as fictional Cal. Her heart hammered against her breastbone. Silently, she nodded. They wanted her to come in. They wanted her in the belly of the beast—he wouldn't kill her here.

"You're a quiet one, just like the boss said. And that's Nen's cloak, for sure. It's got the patch on the shoulder." He made a sweeping gesture toward the shed. "In you go."

But she froze as her gaze slid. Beyond the shed, far in the distance, the great lake of black water—the valley that once housed the city of Luche—called to her. Her blood hummed, yet her mind recoiled as flashes of the past flit across her eyes again. She bit down on her tongue and shut out the past. Steeling herself, she strode past the blond man.

No more running. It was time to face the past.

Go, Cal, go. Ignore Marin! Go! 

Anyway, see you next time! :D