Bailey Baz's Arc

Chapter 31 of 44

Bailey locked Joryn in a cell below the palace, but his cousin's last words gnawed at him. A name above mine now. The loyalists answered to someone Bailey had not yet found. The only thread left was his mother's stolen pages, now spread across his desk in the gray dawn light. Rook had smoothed them flat, but the ink swam in a language Bailey could not read. He rode back into the marsh with Cora and Tyrek to find the one person who could. Calla Voss lived where the meat hung drying by her door. The old butcher woman met them with her cleaver still in hand, bone charms clicking in her white hair. She had read this old tongue before, and she owed Bailey nothing but the truth. That was why he trusted her. Calla bent over the pages and squinted. "Your mother hid a name here," she said. "Old-tongue script. But it takes marsh-blood to read the true words." She tapped one line where the ink shimmered dark. "Touch that with a bare hand and it drinks your senses dry. I've seen men fall like cut trees." Bailey had marsh-blood. He was the only one who could read it. Cora gripped his arm. "Then don't touch it," she said. But Bailey knew the name would not come any other way. Rufus stepped forward, wiping his big gentle hands. Bailey's cousin had spent his life handling swamp things that bit and stung. He drew a pair of gloves from his pack, slick and green, cut from frog skin. "I skin things that poison the touch," Rufus said. "This hide turns the worst of it. Try these." Bailey pulled the gloves on. The frog skin clung damp and cool against his knuckles. He laid his covered fingers on the shimmering line. The ink stirred under his touch, warm now, not draining. The old words rose in his mind, clear and cold. He read them the way he had read the carved roots long ago. His hand did not go numb. His head stayed clear. The gloves held. Letter by letter, the hidden name burned itself into his sight. He read it twice to be sure, then pulled the gloves off and sat back. "Well?" Tyrek asked, hand near his knife. Bailey stared at the page. The name above Joryn was not a stranger. It was Maren Lossel. The advisor his own guards had already caught and locked away weeks ago. She had never been a loose end. She was the head of the whole conspiracy, and she sat waiting in his cells even now. Crane went stiff at the door. "If she's the one they answer to," the old officer said, "then every man loyal to her knows exactly where she is. And they'll come for her." Bailey folded the pages shut. He finally had the name. Now the traitors had a reason to storm his palace.