“You remember that morning, I can see it in your face. Look at me, Leora. Look at me now.”

The scar is impossible to miss.

A darker line in that tender space just below his ribs, a flash of pink too. Three fingers across. An angry, fierce wound. He should be dead. He was dead.

“How?” My voice is barely a breath. I stretch out a hand.

Longsight laughs, delighted.

Minnow stands close behind me. “You do not touch him,” he warns.

“Oh, come now, Jack,” Longsight says. “Let her touch – let her examine me. After all, it’s the only way she will believe; and you know how much I adore a new convert.” He looks at me, challenging me to say no – willing me to say yes.

Before I know what I’m doing, my hand is on his warm skin. I kneel down to get a closer look, pressing close to the wound and looking up at Longsight to see if he will wince or turn away in pain, but he smiles down at me beatifically as though my interrogation is an act of worship.

It’s only a scar, I tell myself. But this – this is the scar of a man who was slain.

Chapter Three

The fragile moment of my fingers on Mayor Longsight’s skin is broken when someone raps sharply on the door. Longsight pulls on his robe as though he had simply been showing me some new ink, and Minnow goes to answer, speaking quietly. I stand, rubbing my knees where the carpet has left its plush fuzz on my trousers. The door closes and Minnow, like a dog, attacks, his hand at my throat, pinning me against the bookshelf.

“You brought a blank into Saintstone? How dare you desecrate this town?”

They have found Gull. Hot fear sweeps over me, fear that has nothing to do with Minnow. Gull will never survive the rage of Saintstone.

“Enough, Jack,” Longsight says sharply and Jack Minnow stills, chest rising and falling, his hot breath on my face. His hand does not move. The mayor steps close, as though examining the spoils brought by his hunt.

“A blank?” Longsight muses. “Oh, Leora, I thought you were clever. Bringing a blank here just announces yourself as our enemy.”

I try to swallow but my throat is tight and sore against Minnow’s hand. I can’t speak to reply.

“You have polluted our purity. And you have done your friend no favours. Did you think they would be tolerated here? Still…” He looks at me thoughtfully. “She must be kept safe, away from the townspeople. For now. I will speak with her.”

Abruptly, Jack Minnow lets me go. I rub my throat. Mayor Longsight had me in his web already but now that he has Gull I am stuck fast. He chuckles and sits back down at his desk, barely concealing his delight as he watches my cheeks burn and my eyes spark with angry tears.