Rosalie Winters's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Rosalie wiped the same glass three times because Dante had walked into the tavern, and she still felt nothing. Every other woman at the bar had gone quiet the moment he crossed the doorway. One dropped her spoon. Another laughed too loud. Rosalie only noticed the way he held the mug when he sat down, two fingers hooked through the handle, thumb tapping the rim. She had noticed that for years. She had also, for years, been the only person in town his power did not touch. She did not know why. She wanted to know before anyone else did. The letter was still folded in her apron pocket. She had carried it for months. Tonight she had told herself she would finally slide it across the bar to him. Then the stranger at the corner table had started asking questions, and the letter felt like a brick. The stranger was a traveler in a gray coat. He had bought one drink and nursed it for an hour. He had asked the baker why the girls in town flocked to Dante. He had asked the blacksmith if anyone was immune. He had used that word, immune, and the blacksmith had shrugged and pointed his chin at Rosalie behind the counter. She had felt the point land between her shoulders. Marcus came in before the stranger could cross the room. Her brother saw her face and read it in one look. He set his elbows on the bar. "Who," he said. She flicked her eyes to the gray coat. Marcus nodded once. "What does he know." "He knows someone here doesn't feel it," she said. "He doesn't know it's me yet." Marcus tapped the wood twice, thinking. Then he said, flat, "I can send him down the road tonight. I know a story that'll bore him off the trail. But you have to tell me why he shouldn't find out." She opened her mouth. Closed it. He waited. "Because I don't know why yet," she said. "And I need to." Marcus looked at her a long second. "Okay," he said. "This time." He walked to the corner table and sat down across from the gray coat like an old friend. Rosalie could not hear the words. She watched Marcus talk in short, even sentences. Within ten minutes the stranger paid, stood, and left through the front door with his pack on his shoulder. Marcus came back and drank half her water without asking. Dante slid down two stools to sit in front of her. "Your brother scared off my competition," he said. "Was that for me." "No," Rosalie said, and meant it. His mouth pulled to one side. "Honest. That's new." She felt the letter in her pocket and left it there. The stranger was gone. But Marcus knew there was something to protect now, and he had told her, plainly, that next time he might not.