Page 43 of Blood Red Woes

Rune scoffs, his typical haughty tone back in full-force, “Well, when you say it like that… if I were you, I would work on my delivery before telling Frederick any of that.”

I roll my eyes and crawl through the hole. It’s just after midday, so I don’t know that Frederick will be home. I walk around the edge of the pond. A few people are busy washing their clothes in the water. When they see me, they turn their questioning gazes in my direction, but they say nothing, and within another moment they resume their duties and ignore me.

Guess it’s only the rich fuckers up top who think I’m a demon.

I go to Frederick’s hut and knock on the door. I hear him shout, “Just a minute!” And then I hear him lumbering to the door inside, the wood creaking beneath his feet. He throws open the door, and his amber eyes widen when he sees me.

“Rey,” he breathes out my name like he thought he’d never see me again, a word he never imagined speaking. “You’re… you’re here. Already. Did you—” He then must realize I’m standing out in the open, where anyone can see me, because he grabs me by the wrist and pulls me inside his house, shutting the door immediately.

He breathes hard as he stands before me, like I caught him so off-guard he doesn’t know what to say right away. His light brown hair is a little messy, and he has a grease smudge on his cheek. Past him, I see glass tubes of all sizes, some filled with mysterious liquids. Reminds me of chemistry back in high school.

Finally Frederick regains his voice: “Did you find anything?”

“Uh, yes, but it’s probably not what you’re hoping for.” I reach into my bag and pull out the journal I found in Catarin Tower. I offer it to Frederick, watching as his stare drops to the leather-bound book. “I read some of it. I hope you don’t mind. Got pretty bored out there.”

He takes the journal from me and flips it open. His hands actually shake as he turns the first page. “My father’s journal. You actually found something. I can’t believe it. Where did you find it?”

“It was in Catarin Tower.”

“You didn’t find anything else? You didn’t go to the castle?”

“No, I did, but—”

“How?” Frederick asks. “How could you have gone to the castle? You weren’t gone nearly long enough to make the trip there and back, let alone there. Rey, do not take me for a fool—” He moves around the table, putting it between us, and he carefully places his father’s journal in a spot away from the glass flasks and tubes.

I hold in a sigh. I don’t want to tell him everything, but he should know—and in order for him to believe me, I have to show him something I didn’t want to show anybody in this city.

“I made it to the castle and back by using magic to…” Oh, God, how can I say this using words he’ll understand? “…move with the river.”

The look Frederick gives me after that tells me he doesn’t believe a word. This time I can’t stop the sigh from escaping my throat, and I hold up my right hand and wiggle my fingers. As I do so, the tattoo on my wrist and hand turns from black to a yellowish-white, and tiny sparks form between my fingers, illuminating the room with a magical glow.

His mouth falls open, and no understandable words come out. He just croaks out a funny sound of awe and confusion, and then he moves around the table and grabs me by the elbow to lift up my glowing wrist to his face in order to study it better.

“How…” Frederick examines my wrist with such an intent expression, it’s almost funny.

Right then, the door to his hut opens, and Prim darts inside. The moment she sees the glow, her tiny feet skid to a halt. Thedoor swings shut behind her, and her hazel eyes widen. She gasps out, “You’re an empress!”

I jerk my hand away from Frederick and take a step backward, away from them both. The magic disappears. “Uh, no, I’m not.”

“You are!” Prim squeals, giddy. “Only empresses have magic. Tell her, Frederick! Tell her she’s an empress!” She wears the same old dress she wore the night she busted me out of jail, her dark, curly hair pulled back with an old red ribbon.

Frederick clearly doesn’t know what to say, but that’s okay, because I do. I tell her, “Prim, I’m not an empress.” I don’t want to tell them about Rune. It’s already bad enough.

Prim rushes me and throws her arms around my waist as she buries her face against my stomach. I tense, not used to affection like that. “You are,” she says, and I can practically hear her grin. “I can’t believe it. You’re an empress, Rey. You can save us. Youhaveto save us.” She angles her head back, gazing up at me with wide, innocent eyes.

The next word she whispers so desperately it makes my heart ache: “Please.”

It’s one thing for me to say these people’s problems aren’t my own, but it’s another thing for me to say it while gazing down into the pleading eyes of a girl who can’t be more than eleven or twelve years old.

Prim is hopeful. She doesn’t want to believe anything else. She wants me to be her savior, to help Laconia and everyone in it, to fix their problems and make everything go back to the way it was—a way Prim herself doesn’t remember, since she’s so young.

I try to speak gently as I peel her off me, “Prim, I—” But the way she keeps looking at me, even after I get her tiny arms off me, makes me stop.

Frederick moves to set a hand on Prim’s thin shoulder. “Prim, let me have some words with Rey. Alone.” He gives her a warm, kind smile, and it’s that expression that makes me see just why Prim had agreed to help him in the first place. Listening to him, you just want to close your eyes and believe everything will be okay.

It’s clear Prim doesn’t want to go. Her mouth curls into a pout, and she glances between Frederick and me. She wants to say something; I can see it on her face, but in the end all she does is whirl around on her feet and dash outside.

As the wooden door swings shut, Frederick looks at me. “You can’t blame her for hoping you’ll be the answer to all of our problems. We’ve… we’ve nothing but bad luck these past twenty years.”

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