One more soul.
The words shouted in X’s brain.
He turned on his side in his cell. Despite Ripper’s nursing, his wounds weren’t entirely healed, and they cried out as they scraped the ground. He didn’t care. He lived in his mind now. His body existed only to prop it up.
One. More. Soul.
He could only see Zoe again if he brought the lords a final bounty. He thought of the Overworld—of the hunters with their necklaces of geese, of the cannibals who wore skulls on a rope. How many could you wear before the weight of the dead pulled you to the ground?
He would snatch their soul for them. Of course he would. All that troubled him was how simple it sounded. He turned the phrase “one more soul” over and over in his head. He searched for the trapdoor hidden between the words. What if they required an innocent man? What if they demanded a child? He was consumed with seeing Zoe. Thinking of her, thinking of Jonah—even thinking of their mother who had grown cold toward him—sent a bolt of anguish through him. Still, there were things he would not do, even if the lords commanded him. It was not that he was too noble. He wasn’t. It was that he didn’t want to disappoint Zoe. She would not want horrors committed in her name.
X decided that he himself was the only true danger. When Regent—it was too perilous to even think of him as Tariq—sent him to the Overworld to hunt the last soul, would he run to Zoe instead? Would he enrage the lords and obliterate his single hope for happiness? Could he stop himself? Even now, he could feel Zoe’s fingers on three very particular places: his lips, his hips, his shoulders. He shivered, as if she were in the cell with him, wrapped around him like a vine and breathing onto his neck. How could it be that the thing that made him strong also brought him to his knees?
A sudden noise interrupted X’s thoughts. The Russian guard was escorting someone down the corridor. X heard a voice say, “Chillax. It’s not like I forgot where my friggin’ cell is, dude.”
It was Banger.
X leaped to his feet. He had to know if his friend had seen Zoe, as he had asked him to—had begged him to, really. It was all he could do not to scream the question in front of the Russian. He held his tongue. He waited for the men to come into view. The guard strode in front. Rather than his usual powder-blue tracksuit, he wore a shining cherry-red one. He was so towering and wide—and strutted so proudly in his new finery—that X could barely see Banger behind him. But there he was. And he too was dressed in some new garment. It was so deeply blue it was nearly black.
X did not recognize it for a moment.
Then it struck him.
It was his own overcoat—Banger had seen Zoe.
The guard thrust his key into the cell next door. He waited for Banger to catch up, idly snorting up phlegm and then swallowing it.
Banger shuffled into his cell. X craned his neck, desperate to catch his eye, but the Russian blocked his view. X cursed silently. He was about to withdraw into his own cell when Banger leaned back out and looked directly at X. He flipped up the collar of the coat—and winked.
The Russian loitered for ages. Mostly, he paraded manfully back and forth in front of Ripper, who took a perverse pleasure in flirting with him.
“You have noticed new suit, yes?” said the guard.
“Oh, I have indeed,” said Ripper. “You cut a dashing figure. You will be the talk of the Lowlands!”
“You may touch suit,” said the guard. “Do not tell others. They may not touch suit.”
The guard reached his arm into Ripper’s cell. X shook his head as he watched. He was not in the least surprised when Ripper bit the man.
“You are monster!” cried the Russian, pulling his arm back and inspecting his cherry-red sleeve for rips. “You have teeth of animal!”
Still, he lingered at her cell another half hour. X had nearly exploded with frustration when he heard Banger whisper.
“Come to the bars,” he said. “Fast.”
X did as he was instructed.
“One, two—three,” said Banger.
He thrust the coat through the bars. X grabbed for it and pulled it into his cell.
“Zoe rocks,” said Banger. “She said she loves you, and I said you love her, et cetera, et cetera. It’s all good in the ’hood.” He paused. “There’s a candy bar for you in the pocket.”
“How can I thank you?” said X.
“It’s just a candy bar, dude,” said Banger.
“You mistake my meaning,” said X. “How can I thank you for being a true friend to me—when I was never much of a friend to you?”
The words must have meant something to Banger, for he was silent awhile.
“Ain’t no thang,” he said.
“You are wrong,” said X. “It is very much a thang.”
A thought occurred to him.
He took off the purple shirt with the curly white stitching. He folded it carefully, smoothing out the creases as best he could. It was a garish object, yet he had seen Banger covet it.
X crouched down by the bars.
“One, two—three,” he said.
He passed the shirt to Banger. He could hear him giggling as he slipped it on.
“Dude,” said Banger. “I look friggin’ hot in this.”
By the time the Russian lumbered away, Banger had fallen into a deep, animal sleep, exhausted by his adventures in the Overworld. X sat against the wall, the overcoat spread over his lap. It was wet from Banger’s fall into the river. Still, when X pressed his face against it, he could detect the faintest scent of Zoe’s skin. It went through him like a flame.
Thanks to Jonah, X actually knew what a candy bar was, and, looking for relief from his thoughts, he slipped a hand into one of the coat pockets.
Instead of candy, he found a piece of paper.
Both sides were covered with markings he could not identify. The mystery of what it said was unbearable. Maybe it was a message from Zoe?
He asked Ripper if she was awake. He spoke just loudly enough to ensure that he would wake her if she wasn’t.
“I am always awake,” said Ripper. “Surely you know that by now? My brain is like a fireworks factory.”
“Might you read something to me?” said X. “Something I have discovered in my coat?”
“Pass it to me,” said Ripper. “Quickly. That ridiculous Russian will soon be back for another bite.”
X maneuvered the paper through the bars. He listened as Ripper unfolded it, his heart racing.
“It is a list of some kind,” she announced at last. “Is this the hand of your blurting girl? Heavens, she scrawls like an unschooled child. She is incapable of spelling ‘raisins’—and her fondness for the capital Y borders on the terrifying.”
She studied the paper further.
“Wait,” she said. “The writing on the other side is not nearly so maddening.”
“Read it out to me?” said X.
Ripper cleared her throat, and began:
Dear X: Here is a letter for you. You’re probably thinking that (a) I have no way of sending it and (b) you don’t know how to read anyway. So, yeah, this isn’t a totally practical letter. I get it. Can we move on now, please? I have to get these words out of my brain—they’re killing me. I don’t care if they never go farther than this piece of paper. Maybe that will help. Anyway, here’s the main thing I want to say (I’m taking a superdeep breath—picture me taking a superdeep breath, okay?) … The minute you left, I realized I loved you. Crap, I’m already running out of paper. I should have written smaller.
Ripper broke off suddenly.
“I must say, she is a very unconventional correspondent,” she said.
“Is there no more?” said X desperately.
“Yes, yes, there’s more, my lovesick boy,” said Ripper. “Restrain yourself.”
She continued:
The minute I wake up now, my thoughts go straight to you, like gravity pulled them there. You tried so hard not to take Stan. You trusted me when I said it was wrong. Watching you suffer for what was right was the first thing that made me love you, I think. Then there were a ton of other things that I don’t have enough paper for. I hate your sadness, X—even more than I hate my own. When you come back (please come back), let’s get rid of our sadness, okay? When you come back (please, please come back), let’s bury our sadness under 15 feet of snow. Love, Zoe.
X said nothing. Zoe’s words faded into the air, and he leaned forward, listening hard, as if he could pull them back into being.
“Would you read it again?” he said.
“Of course,” said Ripper, “for even I think it is lovely in its way. But might I ask how many times you shall require me to read it?”
“Until it is fixed in my memory—and I can speak every word back to you,” he said.
After a dozen readings, X finally let Ripper rest. She returned the paper to him, and withdrew to the back of her cell, complaining about the state of her throat. X ran his fingers over the letter, trying to connect the markings on the paper with the words he had memorized. He taught himself “love” and “Zoe,” as well as “superdeep” and “crap.”
Then he sat for hours holding the paper and the coat. He wondered when Regent would send him for the final soul. He wondered if he could survive the terrible wait.
He whispered to Ripper that Regent had told him his true name.
Ripper did not answer immediately.
“Do not even tell me what it is,” she said. “He is a lunatic for having revealed it.”
“I will never tell a soul,” said X.
The churning of his brain finally tired him. Sleep hit him so unexpectedly that he dropped off while sitting against the wall and balancing Zoe’s letter on his palm as if it were made of glass.
He dreamed he was back in the lords’ giant chamber. It was empty. He had snuck in. The marble steps gleamed, the river rushed overhead. He had only seconds to do what he needed to do. He strode to the wall where the map of the Lowlands was embedded in the marble like some massive fossil. He searched for clues about where his parents were held. He ran his fingers along the symbols. There were too many—and he could not decipher them. The rock began to burn under his touch. He was not supposed to be there. The map knew that, somehow. His face was hit with a wave of heat.
When X wrenched himself from the dream, he found that the dark bruises on his cheeks were burning, and that Regent had come with the name of the 16th soul.
X was startled to see the lord in his cell. How long had he been there? Why hadn’t he woken him? What reason could there be for delaying, even by a moment, his final hunt?
X rubbed the sleep from his eyes, but that only made the pain worse. He took a breath to steady himself. He looked up again at Regent, and saw that his face was heavy with sorrow. Something was wrong. The certainty of it hit X’s heart like a hammer.
Regent didn’t speak, didn’t move. He just regarded X miserably, his dark, muscular arms hanging at his side, as if the blood were draining out of him. Nothing about the moment was ordinary. Nothing was right. X wanted to ask Regent what he meant by his silence, but his brain was so frantic now that it could not build a simple sentence.
X began to stand, desperate to break the stillness of the cell. Regent, moving for the first time, like a statue suddenly coming to life, shook his head and gestured for X to lie on his back. X should have been relieved that the ritual was about to begin—that the moment he could touch Zoe again was finally drawing nearer, that something like life would finally unfold. Instead, he lay down as if into a grave.
Regent knelt beside him. He opened his right hand. X could see the lines that ran like rivers through his palm. He closed his eyes and waited for the hand to descend. It did not. After a moment, X opened his eyes again. He stared up at the lord questioningly. He did not think he could bear another moment.
At last, Regent spoke.
“The Lowlands require another soul for its collection,” he began, as he always did. “He is an evil man—unrepentant and unpunished.”
Instead of going on, Regent paused and another maddening silence filled the cell. When he spoke again, he departed from the ritual’s ancient text.
X had never heard a lord sound so wounded and raw.
“This name,” said Regent, “is not of my choosing.”
X opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out the lord had plunged down his hand. The name entered X’s blood.
The name was Leo Wrigley.
It meant nothing to X.
But then Leo’s story hit X’s veins, and X howled like an animal at the shock of it.
He tried to push Regent away, flailing for his arms, his neck, anything. Regent stared down, his eyes full of pity. He tightened his grip on X’s face until the bones threatened to snap—and pinned him to the ground.
Suddenly, X was on a rocky beach somewhere, his brain black with pain and rage. He began stumbling along the water’s edge. The winds blew cold at his back. The tide, foaming and gray, swarmed over his boots.
He’d planned to collect this last soul as quickly as he could, so he could rush back to Zoe. But that was impossible now that he knew the man’s story. He plodded forward almost against his will, his heart full of lead. Beneath him, the ground was strewn with enormous logs that had been bleached by the sun. They looked like bones.
The Trembling grew stronger as he walked, pulling him forward like a chain. Still, the pain was nothing compared to X’s anger.
Who had chosen Leo Wrigley? Had the name been passed down from the Higher Power, or was it a ploy of Dervish’s? The Lowlands had no need for the puny man that X had been sent for—X was certain of that. The man had sinned, yes, but was he really unrepentant? X didn’t believe it. And if the Lowlands wanted this soul why hadn’t they sent a hunter decades ago? No, the one the lords truly wanted to punish was X. He had defied them. He had stood up. He had told them he was better than they were, that he was pure and noble—that he was worthy of love! And now they would strike him down. They would strip him of everything.
X stomped over the rocks. Above him, the clouds were dense and dark. It was as if his own fury had put them there.
When he had walked a half mile down the beach, a hard rain began to fall and made the ocean boil. There were only a few people within sight—old men who waved strange metal instruments over the sand, then stooped every so often to dig up a can or a coin. They rushed for the boardwalks between the cliffs now. X kept walking, indifferent to the storm. The rain was cold, and slipped down his face.
He could not take this soul. He knew that. The lords knew it, too. They knew that he’d give up every hope of freedom first.
Still, he wanted to lay eyes on the man he was about to sacrifice himself for. He continued down the beach. It would not be long before he was back in the Lowlands. His cell was a stony mouth waiting to swallow him forever.
Near the end of the beach, X felt the pain in his body flare, and looked up to see his prey coming toward him in the rain. The man was tall and wiry. He wore glasses and a red wool hat, which bobbed up and down as he walked. It was the only fleck of color in sight.
The rain crashed down in sheets now. The shore was deserted except for the bounty hunter and the soul he had come for.
Between them, there was a cliff that had been hollowed out by the tide. It rose up and over the beach like a giant, curling wave. The man ducked beneath it to get out of the rain, and took a seat on a fallen tree trunk. X stopped a hundred feet away, his boots sinking into the spongy sand. Should he turn back or continue? Every possibility, every thought, every emotion rushed at him at once.
The man saw X standing in the downpour. He cocked his head: What are you doing out there? He waved for him to come under the cliff. He gestured to the tree trunk he sat on: Plenty of room right here. Even in his torment, X found the innocence of the invitation touching. The man had no idea that X had been commissioned to kill him.
X stepped into the shelter, and sat without speaking. Above them, rainwater struck the top of the stony wave, then dripped off its outermost edge, like a beaded curtain. X looked at the ocean, at the bed of stones at his feet, at the smooth, curling wall of rock behind him—at everything but the man sitting beside him.
“Gonna be a while,” said the man.
X wanted to turn, wanted to speak, but found he could do neither. The man barreled ahead, unfazed.
“How freakin’ awesome is this rock?” he said, pointing up at the cliff behind them. “Sandstone. Coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
X finally turned to him.
The man looked as harmless as a leaf.
X searched for something to say, but there was so much violence in his brain that it crowded out all thought.
The man smiled expectantly.
“Is this your first time in Canada?” he said.
X furrowed his brow.
“Is this Canada?” he said.
The man laughed, and X realized, with relief, that he thought he was kidding. The man was in his forties. He had a mop of brown hair and surprising green eyes that X recognized somehow. Beneath his jacket, he wore dingy clothes. His boots, coat, and glasses had all been repaired with the same shiny black tape. His clothes smelled like fish. He saw X notice the odor.
“I’ve been doing some ice fishing,” the man said. “It’s awful hard to make any kind of living up here.”
X felt an intense wave of loneliness pouring off his bounty. Ordinarily, he didn’t pretend to know what went on in people’s hearts, but loneliness was one of the few emotions he felt qualified to judge.
The man removed a glove and offered his hand to X.
“I’m Leo Wrigley,” he said. “What’s your name?”
X looked down at the man’s hand, which was pink and splotchy from the cold. He couldn’t make himself take it. Was it because of what the man had done? Was it because X was ashamed that he was meant to murder him? He wasn’t sure, but it was as if his arms were bound to his sides.
The man’s smile faltered. He withdrew his hand and gave X a long, hurt look.
Only now did X realize why he had recognized the man’s eyes: they looked like Jonah’s eyes.
X stood. He had to get away. The pain was too much.
“Your name is not Leo Wrigley any more than mine is,” he told the man. “It may be what you call yourself now, but it is not your true name.”
X ducked through the curtain of rainwater that fell from the cliff, and walked toward the noisy sea. He thought of Zoe. He would go to her now and see her one last time before he descended back to the only home he had ever deserved. He didn’t know how he would tell her—or if he would tell her—that her father was still alive.