Mara could see death in colors.
The woman lying before her radiated a sickly yellow aura, the telltale sign of liver failure. But it was the threads of crimson weaving through that yellow that made Mara's hands tremble as she ground herbs with her mortar and pestle. Red meant infection. Yellow and red together meant she had perhaps two days left.
"Please," the woman's husband whispered, his callused hands clutching a pouch that couldn't contain more than three coppers. "She's all I have."
Mara kept grinding, the familiar motion steadying her. At nineteen, she had already learned that hope could be more cruel than honesty.
"Master Grove's treatment is eight silvers," she said, forcing her voice to remain professional. "I can't—"
"I'll work it off," the man interrupted. "Please. Everyone says you're gifted. You're Grove's best student."
Before the plague took him, Mara thought, her pestle striking harder against the dried shadow clover. The herb's bitter scent filled her small treatment room, mixing with the ever-present smell of burning, cleansing incense. Through her open window, she could hear the town crier calling the evening death count. Fewer today than yesterday. That should have felt like victory, at least.
"Three drops every four hours," Mara said, carefully measuring the ground herbs into a vial. "It will ease her pain, but—"
Bang!
A crash from upstairs cut her off, followed by the sound of coughing. Mara's heart seized.
Lily!
"I'm sorry," she told the man, pressing the vial into his rough palm. "No charge. I have to—"
Another crash.
Mara was on her heels, taking the narrow stairs two at a time. She burst into the cluttered bedroom she shared with her sister, where nine-year-old Lily was doubled over on the floor, copper curls plastered to her forehead with sweat. The chamber pot lay overturned beside her.
"I'm sorry," Lily wheezed between coughs. "I tried to make it—"
"Shh." Mara gathered her sister into her arms, trying not to flinch at the heat radiating from her tiny body. The aura around Lily had deepened since morning, from pale blue to a dark, swirling indigo. Mara had never seen that color before, not even during her apprenticeship. She pressed her face into Lily's curls, hiding her expression.
"Let's get you back to bed."
"Did I scare away your patient?" Lily asked as Mara tucked her in. Despite everything, her sister's eyes still held their usual mischievous glint. "You should charge more, you know. Master Grove always said—"
Her words dissolved into another coughing fit. This one didn't stop, however. Mara held her sister as the spasms wracked her scrawny frame, watching in horror as flecks of blood appeared on Lily's palm.
When the fit finally passed, Lily slumped against her, breathing in shallow gasps.
The indigo aura pulsed, and within it, Mara caught a flash of something darker. Something wrong. Very wrong.
"Tell me a story," Lily whispered.
Mara stroked her sister's sweat-dampened hair, her mind sweeping through her medical and magical knowledge. She had tried everything in Grove's books. Everything in the official teachings, that was.
"Which one?"
"The one about the shadow-weaver who fell in love with the stone-carver."
"Again?" Mara forced a smile. "That's the third time this week, you know."
But Lily's emerald eyes had already drifted shut, her breathing growing more labored with each rise and fall of her chest. The indigo aura swirled faster.
Mara sat with her until she was sure Lily slept. She moved to the small desk where she kept her healing journals, pulling out the brown leather-bound volume hidden beneath them. The book she'd found yesterday in the Black Market Square, its pages filled with cramped writing and disturbing illustrations of the mutilated and the plagued, a feast for a cannibalistic sadist. This book she'd told herself she wouldn't open.
The candle trembled in her hand as she turned to the chapter she'd glimpsed before slamming the tome shut. The one titled "Pact of the Plague Demon."
Through her window, the evening mist was rolling in, thick and gray. They said it carried disease. The miasma. They said a lot of things about Ravencross's mists. But as Mara began to read, she wondered if perhaps they hadn't said enough.
In the bed behind her, Lily coughed again. The sound was weaker this time.
Mara kept reading as her eyes gaped open with each word that hooked them to follow. She slammed the book on the desk, gasping. She pondered a bit and looked at Lily, as tears brimmed in her eyes, a darker tone of green than her sister's. Without wasting another breath, she kissed Lily on the forehead and shut the door as quietly as she could, but the hinges creaked in protest.
"There's no time. I have to," she said as she made her way downstairs and grabbed her grey cloak.
The mist thickened as Mara made her way through Ravencross's winding stone-paved streets, her plague mask secured tightly against her face. The white-painted beak contained her usual blend of protective herbs, but tonight she'd added a pinch of carmine root. Not for protection but for courage.
Above her, the ghoulish buildings leaned together like conspirators, their upper stories crooked and smothered in coal black. In the wealthy inner rings, these overlapping structures were called "sunset towers" and praised for their architectural grace. Here in the outer ring, people simply called them "plague bridges," for how they trapped the mist and whatever rode within it.
A bell tolled seven times. Curfew. Soon the city guard would begin their patrols, led by silver-haired wretch Dia West. Mara quickened her pace.
The entrance to the Black Market Square changed nightly, but Mara had learned its patterns during her apprenticeship. Master Grove had forbidden her from coming here, even as he'd taught her how to find it. "Sometimes," he'd said, "knowing where to stay away from is as important as knowing where to go."
Tonight, the entrance was through Ada's herb shop. Mara spotted the sign—three dried roses crossed over a sprig of mint, hanging upside down. She rapped twice on the door, then three times quickly.
"We're closed," came the sharp response. Then, softer: "A healer?"
"Please," Mara said. "I need—"
The door opened just enough to reveal the widow's slate-grey eyes.
"I'm here for the Rat King."
Ada's eyes narrowed. "Child, whatever you're thinking—"
"My sister is dying!" The words came out raw. "I've tried everything else. Please! Just for once—"
A long pause. Then: "Off with the mask. You know the rules."
Mara's fingers trembled as she undid the straps. In the outer ring, removing one's mask after sunset was considered suicide. But the Black Market Square had its own laws, its own protections. They said even the mist couldn't penetrate its outlandish barriers.
Ada studied her face, then nodded once. "Follow the red lanterns. Don't stray from the path. And lemme tell you... Her hand caught Mara's arm. "There are worse things than death."
The back of the herb shop opened into a maze of covered alleyways. Lanterns flickered to life with their red flames, hanging at irregular intervals. They cast just enough light to navigate by. The air grew warmer as Mara walked, thick with the scent of strange incense and stranger herbs.
She passed stalls selling everything from prohibited herbs to creature parts even she couldn't identify. A shadow-weaver lounged against one wall, darkness coiling around him like smoke as he drank from a vial of Death's Blood.
But it was the woman in the crimson cloak who made Mara pause. She stood perfectly still amid the market's ominousness, her attention fixed on Mara. There was something wrong about her face—something that shifted when viewed directly.
"First time in the night market, little healer?"
Mara spun. Behind her stood a man with a burn-scarred face and mismatched eyes—one brown, one an unnatural silver. The Rat King. She'd expected someone larger, someone who looked more like his fearsome reputation. A criminal who's rumored to have controlled the harbingers of the plague.
"I need information," she said, proud that her voice didn't shake. "About the Plague Demon."
The Rat King's silver eye gleamed. "You got better crap to say, kiddo?"
"I found a book—"
"There's too many in Ravencross!" He started to turn away. "Most are stuffed with lies."
"Please." Mara reached for his arm, then thought better of it. "My sister... the healing houses won't help. They say they've never seen anything like it. But in the book, there was a ritual—"
"Stop." His scarred face twisted. "Go home. Try your potions and magic. Better than that—"
A scream split the air. Not from the market—from the city above. Through gaps in the covered alleyway, Mara could see the mist turning a sickly purple.
The Rat King cursed. "Fever wind. Coming early this year."
He studied her face. "When did your sister first show symptoms?"
"Three days ago." Mara raised her brow. "Why?"
"Because you're not the first to come asking about demons this week."
He glanced at the woman in the crimson cloak, who had vanished. "Bad things brewing. Go home. Keep to your herbs and potions." He pressed something into her palm—a small, weathered coin, caked in rust. "Or if you're determined to be stupid, flip this at midnight. But don't say I didn't warn you."
Before Mara could respond, he melted into the crowd, as the rats tailed him. Around her, stall owners were already packing up, their movements urgent. The shadow-weaver had vanished, leaving only a wisp of darkness.
Above, the screaming continued. Another fever wind victim. Another family watching helplessly as the mist took someone they loved.
Mara clutched the coin and ran for home. There are worse things than death, Ada had said.
But watching Lily die by inches... Mara wasn't so sure about that anymore.