Bloodreina pressed her thumb against the black spiral on her wrist and waited for the old woman in the stall to look up. The market smelled of wet straw and pig sweat. A farmer had hauled his morning stock past her in a rattling cart: two pink hogs, a spotted cow, a horse with a white blaze, a shepherd dog tied to the axle, a rooster in a crate, and, chained behind the rest, a red lizard the size of a hound with clipped wings. Every child in the lane pointed at the lizard. No one pointed at Bloodreina. She had lived nineteen years in this valley and never once met another person whose skin carried lines like hers. She had come to the market today because the old woman sold ink and dyes and might, for the right coin, know what the marks meant. The old woman looked up. Bloodreina rolled her sleeve past her elbow and showed the whole design: the spiral, the four small figures ringing it, and the words she could not read stitched between them. The old woman set down her jar. She reached under the counter and lifted out a thin book bound in cracked leather. She opened it to a page Bloodreina had never seen and turned it toward her. On the page, drawn in faded ink, were the same four figures from her arm: a horned beast, a running dog, a winged lizard, a bird with a raised comb. Below them sat a fifth figure Bloodreina did not carry. "You're missing one," the old woman said. "Whoever inked you stopped early. The last mark wakes the others." Bloodreina asked who had drawn the book. The old woman shook her head. "My mother copied it from a man who came through here once. He had them too. All five. He didn't stay." She closed the book and pushed it across the counter. "Take it. I'm too old to finish what he started." Bloodreina paid what coin she had and walked out with the book pressed to her chest. Behind her, the chained lizard turned its head and watched her go.