“You found and dispatched our prey. I presume those summoning symbols mean you wish something in return.”

I told him what I wanted. Then I waited for him to laugh. To mock me. Scorn me. Or just turn and walk away.

Instead, he said, “Spina bifida…”

“Yes, sir. It’s a condition—”

“I know what it is. A failure of completion. What is the name of the child’s mother?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him, but that was stupid—he could find out easily enough.

“Pamela.”

“Family name?”

“Bowen.”

He went still, and when he looked at me, I saw the shape of a face under that cowl. “Bowen? Where is her family from?”

“She grew up in Chicago, but her family is from a little town near here.”

“Which town?”

“Cainsville.”

The Huntsman exhaled. Silence. Then he nodded. “We can do this for you.”

“Wh-what?”

“We can heal your daughter. There will, however, be a price. A blood price.”

I looked at Kirkman’s corpse.

“More than that, I’m afraid,” the Huntsman said. “But I can assure you, they will all be equally deserving. The magic you need requires blood sacrifice. The exact nature of those sacrifices does not matter, so we will find you those whom we would take ourselves, had they committed crimes within our purview.”

“They…” I swallowed, tasting vomit and bile and blood. “How many?”

Even as I said the words, my brain rebelled. Shouted that even one more was too much, that I could not do this again, could not.

The Huntsman didn’t answer, and when I looked up, he was searching my face again.

“How many?” I repeated.

“I would need to make the proper inquiries and determine the sacrifice required. It will be more than one. Likely more than two.”

I can’t. I’m sorry, I just…

“It would not need to be like this,” he said, his voice softer. “You were angry here. These would be fitting executions of killers who, like this man, cannot be allowed to live or they will continue killing.”

I nodded. That’s all I could manage. Nod, even as my brain screamed that I couldn’t do it.

“Think on it,” the Huntsman said. “While I conduct my investigations, you give it more thought. Meet me back here in a week, and we will discuss it further.”

I nodded, and the Huntsman backed away, leaving me staring at Kirkman’s bloodied corpse.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I rose from Todd’s memories slowly, almost groggily. I could see light and moved toward it until the light became a room, and I was sitting in front of him, and he was staring at me, his eyes round with horror, my hand still on his arm.

“You…you saw…”

The scene flooded back. Everything he’d felt flooded back.

I yanked my hand away as my eyes filled with tears.