My thumb rubs the rough surface of the charcoal.

  The hiss of the candle flame is the only thing that moves. Then, a groan from the floorboards above. Evangeline, turning in her sleep. Closer, from the room beside me, comes a soft sigh. Pip.

  Ten names. Before the sun rises.

  The candle flame is a weak, yellow lung in the suffocating dark of the house. It shivers, and my own shadow shivers with it.

  My fist is a knot of bone and charcoal. I pull a drawer open, the scrape of wood on wood a dry cough in the silence. Splinters. My fingers brush the bottom anyway. The next drawer contains only a nail, its cold head a metal eye staring up at me.

  I turn back to the room. Then the candle flame catches it. A white square on the table, loud in the gloom.

  Pip's drawing.

  The air leaves my lungs in a silent rush.

  I walk to it.

  A wolf stares up at me, its mouth a lopsided, charcoal smear of a grin. One ear is bigger than the other.

  My hand descends, a shadow falling over the paper. My thumb traces the lopsided grin of the wolf, the rough texture of the charcoal, the soft dent in the paper where his small hand pressed down.

  I see only the drawing. His drawing. Then the other image forces its way in. A bag of stones. Evangeline's name. A hundred times.

  A tremor starts in my thumb, then spreads to my entire hand. The paper crinkles under the unsteady weight of my fingers. It makes a soft, protesting sound that belongs to my son.

  I turn it over. The wolf's smile is gone. The back of the paper is clean. White.

  I slide the candle into the centre of the table. I pull the chair out, careful not to make a sound.

  I sit.

  My hand hovers, the charcoal held like a dagger. Its shadow is a sharp, black spike aimed at the heart of the paper.

  I drive the charcoal into the paper. It is a hard, black wound. I press down until the tip grinds against the wood of the table beneath.

  I draw the first curve of the G. A controlled, steady pressure. No hesitation.

  Her face surfaces. The joy in her eyes as my son choked on his own laughter.

  The memory gives my hand strength. The charcoal bites deep.

  G. W. E. N. D. O. L. Y. N.

  I stare at the name. A small smile touches my lips. It feels like a stranger's smile, a curve of muscle I do not control. But it is there.

  The name is done, a black centipede crawling on the paper.

  The first of ten.

  One down. Nine to go.

  The clean white of the paper around the name suddenly feels vast. An empty field waiting for nine more graves.

  My hand is still. The charcoal is heavy. Who is next? My mind is a flat, grey plain. No faces. No names.

  Then, a thought. The logic clicks into place. Her second. Reginald.

  His face swims up from the gloom. An old man, already half in the grave. A sack of trembling bones. The thought of writing his name feels like a waste of charcoal.

  Then my body remembers what my mind forgot.

  The sharp pain in my ribs.

  The solid thud of his cane.

  The wiry, unexpected strength in his old arms.

  I remember his hand on my arm. The pleading in his voice. 'This isn't her. It's her fear.'

  He was defending her. Always.

  My jaw grinds. I look at my hand, the one his had touched in the hall. For a second, I can still feel the dry, papery texture of his skin. I rub my palm hard against the rough wool of my trousers, trying to erase the memory of the touch.

  The charcoal moves. The sound is different this time. Gwendolyn's name was a sharp cut. This is a slow, weary grinding. The sound of a heel twisting a dead leaf into the dirt.

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  R. E. G. I. N. A. L. D.

  I stare at the blank space on the paper. The room is quiet. Too quiet. The two names on the page are like two black holes, sucking the warmth from the air. The next name must be an innocent.

  My hand, resting on the table, curls into a fist. Then it uncurls. A useless, twitching thing.

  Then her name arrives.

  Ursula.

  My hand takes the charcoal. My posture shifts.

  I pull the chair closer to the table. I lean forward.

  My mind reaches for the memory I need. The Elder in her black robes. The poisoner at the well.

  But that is not the memory that comes.

  Another image surfaces, unwanted.

  The thing by the well. Its ruined mouth gaping, trying to form a melody.

  The image is so pathetic, the hatred has nowhere to land. It slides right off.

  My hand is frozen. The thought of the singing creature by the well holds it in place. Then, another image shoves it aside, sharp and cold. A silver hairpin. A small, dead bird.

  The two images slam together in my skull. The broken creature trying to sing. The cold bitch who put the pin in that bird. Which one am I killing?

  I close my eyes, shutting them both out. In the quiet that follows, one face remains. Evangeline's.

  I choose her.

  The charcoal scrapes. The sound is ugly. Final.

  U. R. S. U. L. A.

  The name is a black gash on the white paper. I stare at it. I do not feel better. I do not feel anything at all. It is just… done.

  Three names. The easy ones. The rest are faces I know. Hands I have shaken.

  The cold logic in my gut points to the weakest. The one already broken. Grace. To write her name would be a kindness. She is a shell, already hollowed out by grief. My fingers tighten on the charcoal.

  But the ghost in my ribs screams no. He shows me her face. Not the one I see now, but one from a year ago. Laughing. Alive. The memory is a shard of warm, sunlit glass in my gut.

  But the hand holding the charcoal is a shadow, and it falls over the light, smothering it.

  My hand descends. The charcoal scrapes, a frantic, desperate sound. A small animal scratching at the inside of a box.

  G. R. A. C. E.

  With each letter, the ghost in my ribs weakens, its scream thinning to a whisper.

  Her name is on the paper. I expected to feel the weight of it. A sickness in my gut. But there is nothing. It is just… neat. A messy problem, solved. Like cleaning a stain.

  Four down. The world is already a little cleaner.

  Six to go.

  I must keep going. The fifth name. The fifth stain.

  It lands on a name. Rory.

  The choice is a cold click in my gut. Alone. Unwanted. A stray. An acceptable loss.

  But he is not just any stray. He is my stray. He is the fool who still grins when the world spits in his face. He's the kid who lost his mum and still tries to make everyone laugh. He's the one who stood guard at a door for me with a sock. And I am supposed to put his name on this list?

  No.

  The rage is a white-hot spike driven through my skull. My hand, the one holding the charcoal, slams down on the table.

  The sound of the slam dies, leaving the room quieter than before. My hand lies on the table, its bones feeling hollow.

  The rage is gone. It changed nothing. The paper is still there. The charcoal is still there. She is still in the bag.

  My hand moves. A traitor. I hate it for moving.

  The charcoal scrapes against the paper.

  R.

  His face flashes behind my eyes. The stupid, hopeful grin. Saying 'Thanks, James' for just sitting with him. The charcoal in my hand feels slick, as if coated in grease.

  The quiet of the house presses in. A scream builds in my chest, a pressure that has nowhere to go.

  My fingers clench. A fist of useless refusal around the charcoal. To crush the choice. The name.

  A sharp crack tears through the silence.

  The charcoal explodes in my grip. Sharp splinters dig into my palm. I stare at the black grit and the red blood welling up around it.

  A mess.

  I shove back from the table, my chair a tearing scream against the floor. I stagger to the hearth, bracing my hands against the stone.

  The face Gwendolyn carved into the mortar grins at me. A cheerful little demon in my own home.

  A low snarl rips from my throat. I smash the stone. Once. Twice.

  A sharp, clean pain lances through my knuckles. I hit it again. A chip of mortar flakes away, taking one of the demon's eyes with it.

  I stare at the dark socket where the eye used to be. The rage drains out of me, leaving only a cold, quiet ache. I look at my bloody knuckles. At the broken stone. At my broken life.

  I collapse to the floor. The list is on the table, a world away. I have failed. I cannot save her. I cannot save anyone. I am nothing.

  Then, a sound through the wall. A sigh. Pip.

  The sound is a lit match dropped in a keg of black powder. The explosion is a sudden, silent pressure behind my eyes. The face of Rory, of all of them, is ash in an instant. The only thing left standing in the wreckage is that small, quiet sound.

  I will keep it safe. I will pay any price.

  I get to my feet. I walk back to the table. I pick up the largest shard of broken charcoal. The hand that was trembling is now steady as stone.

  The fifth space waits.

  Ward's face hits me. The soot on his brow, the solid line of his jaw. A good man. A friend.

  A final, dying nerve twitches in my hand. I make a fist. The nerve goes still. The charcoal finds the paper.

  W. A. R. D.

  The name is on the page. I do not look at it. Next.

  The sixth. Peter. The smell of fresh bread hits me, a phantom from a kinder morning. I let it go cold. The name joins the others.

  P. E. T. E. R.

  The seventh name is easier.

  A. N. N. A.

  The eighth is just a sound.

  M. A. U. D.

  Just marks on a page.

  The ninth. My hand hesitates.

  I see her. Vera, walking into the swamp with that stupid, rabid hope in her eyes. She went to bring a father home. A perfect and terrible thought lands. I will send the son to join him. The charcoal scrapes.

  B. I. L. L. Y.

  The tenth. The last one.

  My eyes are drawn to the mess I made before. To the jagged, ugly scar on the page where I failed to write his name. Rory. My friend.

  The charcoal moves, a final, clean stroke, tracing over the broken lines, finishing the name I couldn't write before.

  R. O. R. Y.

  The work is done. Ten names.

  I turn the drawing over. The smiling wolf stares up at me, its charcoal eyes innocent and unchanged.

  The house is quiet. The ghost is quiet. And in the thick, waiting silence, a pressure behind my eyes. The Voice.

  The path is lost. The Echo of James frays.

  It descends to Faint, its guttering spark shrinking to a cold ash.

  |

  The Blight, once a wet, sickening squirm is now a jagged, tearing rhythm.

  ~~~

  My heart gives a single, brutal kick against my ribs. Lost? But I did what was necessary. I saved her.

  The path is lost because you chose to be a husband, not a weapon.

  I stare at my hands. They are just hands. Empty. Useless.

  You were given one objective. A king. You have spent your time killing pawns.

  The thing that was sleeping in my gut begins to stir. A slow, hungry pulse.

  It wants out.

  It wants a target.

  The Voice gave me a target.

  My father.

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