Chapter 12

Isabel listened to Owen's story with a concealed but growing horror.

It quickly became clear to her that Owen had been a victim of chance and not design. The questions they had asked him - the questions they had forced into his mind, at least, and ripped up the floorboards of his sanity to find answers to - had been many and specific. Forsaken on this side of Gilneas were abducting vulnerable travelers and anyone who could be interrogated. They were asked basic questions about their family and their hometown and their abilities. Then they were asked about the name Thorington. If they knew a Thorington. If they had heard of a Thorington. These questions were asked by dark priests.

And if their captives ever registered the name they were taken to gods-knew where (the abandoned ruins of Arnalda, perhaps) so that they could be interrogated further.

The way Owen told the story left Isabel without a doubt. The initial questions the Forsaken had asked of him had been concise and to the point, like they were reading from a script. A pre-ordained script, to be asked of all captives. A script that was designed to draw out one name.

The more Owen told her about the priestess and what she did to him, the sicker Isabel felt.

How many? How many innocent people had been taken off the roads by the Forsaken? How many had been tortured until they screamed that they knew nothing of the name Thorington? How many had said yes just to make it stop and discovered that worse fates awaited them?

Now she understood why Elias had told her not to leave. The Forsaken must have had people watching the mansion. They couldn't have tortured so many Gilneans that they didn't know where a prominent family's estate was. The thought that undead spies had been watching her and Owen as they had dumped the broken glass out of the window turned her spine to ice.

And the worst by far: how many who were caught knew the name Thorington? How much did they suffer for knowing that name? What was the price for every time Isabel had (and she hadn't done this often, but she hadn't thought much of it either) introduced herself as a Thorington? How many innocent people had she looked into the eyes of and spoken her name and damned them to a collar in a Forsaken camp?

That old poison coursed through her like fire urged on by the galloping of her heart.

All of Owen's stammered apologies and "Excuse me Miss Isabel"s now paled even further before her own guilt. He told her everything. He told her everything and she let him—encouraged him, even, when he tried to downplay an event or skimp on a detail. She made him tell her everything. She deserved it.

How could she have been so blind? Even before Elias had come she had had the specter of her mother's death. How had she thought that that was just a freak occurrence? Oh, it had been horrible, yes, but it had been the war. Wars were horrible.

But it hadn't been the war. It had been her. It had been her fault. Everyone who had heard her name and everyone who had then heard it from someone she had told, and so on and so on until the collar—the collar and the dark priestess running her dead hands over your head and through you head and pricking your very thoughts as if with needles. Everyone she had ever told.

Including Rane.

Rane, who had taken her in. Rane, who gave her protection when her mother was gone. Rane, who loved her. Rane, who had invited her to help run his inn. Rane, who trusted her.

Owen had heard her name from Rane. When Owen recounted it, she remembered. She'd come outside, curious to see who it was that Rane was fencing for. That was the first and only time she'd ever met him until now. He'd been shy and Rane had generously introduced them. Owen, meet Isabel Thorington. Her stomach lurched violently now at the previously benign memory.

How could she have been so stupid? How could she have simply trusted Elias to warn Rane about the Forsaken? Maybe he'd put some wards up around the inn, but Elias hadn't seemed all that concerned with her love's safety. If Elias had had it his way, it seemed to her that he would have as soon sicced the Forsaken on Rane as protected him. Bang. That would take care of his niece's childish love affair with the "whoremaster". And then he could move her on to a more promising candidate. Fix up a marriage with an esteemed gentleman who had survived the war. But not too esteemed, she knew, so that Elias could swing a matrilineal union and thus preserve the Thorington name.

And allow the butchering of innocent people to continue in our name.

How deftly he had tricked her. How easily. It enraged her to think about for even a moment. He'd shamed her into staying here with talk of her "whoring." Now Rane was vulnerable.

She wouldn't let it happen. She would make it clear to Elias: if Rane died then she would die with him. She'd see how her uncle felt about Rane then, wouldn't she?

She had to get back to Erenton and before Elias came back. But how? She trusted Elias's warning about the danger of going outside more than ever. Perhaps a mad dash to the teleportation ring was her only option. How else was she going to get to Erenton?

"Owen?" she said.

He stopped mid-sentence. She had stopped paying attention a while ago and she didn't remember what he had been saying. "Yes?" he said.

"How did you get back here? Did you use the trees near the graveyard? Is that how Elias brought you here the first time?"

It didn't make sense that Elias's portal to the mansion was so far away from the mansion proper. It was out in the open. And even though the graveyard had its own wards and powers to keep out intruders, certainly it would have been safer to have been closer to the manor? Though she guessed that it was possible the teleporters were old constructs he was using as best he could. Perhaps he had no control over where they were placed.

But she saw a torn look immediately surface in Owen's face at her words. She was right.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," Owen mumbled. "We used the trees near the graveyard."

That tone wouldn't have fooled a five-year-old. Still, that he was even trying to mislead her at all was a big indicator of his commitment.

She spun in her seat so that she was cross-legged and facing him. He was still facing forward, looking down and away from her, but she nudged closer.

"Owen?"

She could see the blush climbing up the ropes of his neck.

"Owen?" She touched his face and traced the top of his ear. "Can you look at me? Please?"

He did look, but slowly. She sped it along by cupping his chin with her other hand. He really didn't have a bad jaw. It was the fact that it was slipping half-open all the time that made it unappealing.

"Hey." She smiled her brightest for him. "You trust me don't you? Don't you, Owen?"

"Yes."

"You really trust me? Do you trust Isabel?"

The wet grass of his eyes stared at her, as if enthralled. That poison came pounding, as if to burst from her skin. Shame, shame, shame.

"I trust Isabel."

"Good," she said softly. "I trust you too Owen. There's another way to teleport here, isn't there? The way that you first came in."

"I can't tell you," he said.

"Why not? Did Elias tell you?"

"Yes."

She let herself laugh. "Elias doesn't know what he's doing," she said. She leaned closer to him, as if taking him into her confidence. "He thinks I can't handle a teleportation. I can, you know. It's easy if it's already set up. Is it set up already, Owen?"

"Yes."

"Where is it?"

He looked on the verge of tears. Like he was being forced to choose between two people he could not possibly choose between.

SHAME SHAME SHAME.

"Owen," she said. She had his head in his hands now. She could feel his face burning up. She could feel the texture of his hair and the soft, light stubble that was so unlike Rane's scruff. "The dead people are going to hurt more people like they hurt you. They're going to hurt Rane. I have to stop them."

Owen nodded. He nodded his way off the couch. Isabel held his hand and let him lead her to the tower.