Page 43 of The Withering Dawn
Below the balcony, at the open door, was a narrow cage with a woman standing upright inside, dressed in a similar white shift to the one the corpse at the docks was wearing. She had auburn hair and oddly gray-blue skin that made it obvious she was not human. Her wrists were bound in ropes and even from five steps away I could smell the sweet yet unnerving smell of hemsbane, the herb sirens were said to have no tolerance for. Her eyes were heavy and any fight thatmight have been in her had been starved like her body clearly had. She stared off into nothingness, her mind elsewhere while her body waited to die.
“Oy!” a man barked at me, tapping the prisoner’s cage with his black, polished cane. “The bitch is four times the price and if you look any longer, I’ll charge you a loitering fee.”
I raised a brow at the gangly man with his thin, white hair swept into a ponytail and moved on, thankful that I decided not to bring Aeris with me. Even knowing she was down the beach was a little unsettling. Despite what the woman in the cage was, any creature bound in that fashion was an unpleasant sight.
I moved on to a small tavern where everyone inside seemed less like they were having a good time and more like they were filling their bellies with ale to forget themselves. I walked straight to the bar and decided not to dance around the subject.
“Know a man by the name of Antonio Acosta?” I asked.
The bartender raised a bushy brow as he passed a mug of ale to a patron.
“Know the name,” he admitted. “Don’t know shit about ‘im.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid. “He lives here?”
“Aye. Said I know the name, didn’t I?”
He quickly moved on, filling more mugs, but all I could do was repeat his words in my head. Antonio was there in Dornwich, just as Aeris had suspected. We were not just on the right trail. We’d found him. I toyed with my thumb ring, grinding my teeth together, my nostrils flared. The noise of the tavern turned to a muffled drone like my ears were pressed to pillows. I turned, looking around, my eyes sifting through the crowds like I would find Antonio there in the room.
With no luck, I stepped outside into the cool air to get a deep breath, feeling like the tavern walls were closing in on me. Anger and hate clashed like a hammer and anvil inside me, making my ears ring. Down the street, I could see Cathal crouched down on one knee in front of a young boy. His bare feet covered in mud made it clear thatthe streets were his home. I started to walk his way, exhaling my disdain.
Cathal looked up at my approach, the intensity in my eyes telling me that he’d also confirmed Antonio’s presence in that town.
“Cap’n,” he greeted, getting to his feet.
“He’s here,” I said.
“I know. This here is Georgie.”
Looking down at the boy, I could see he was nibbling on a piece of bread.
“Says he knows Antonio,” he continued. “Or, ‘the man on Green Street.’”
“You an orphan, Georgie?” I asked.
He nodded, his chestnut eyes blinking up at me.
I crouched down to the boy’s level. “And who’s the man on Green Street?”
“He comes to the church sometimes,” he said shyly. “I go there to get soup.”
“Have you talked to him?”
He nodded. “I tell him when new boys show up in the orphanage. He needs them to work at his farm.”
“He hasn’t taken you there before?”
I was relieved when Georgie shook his head.
“Right,” Cathal cut in. “So how do we find him?”
“He’s on Green Street,” Georgie spoke up like it was the most common knowledge in town.
“And where’s Green Street?”
Georgie pointed down the main road and though neither of us could figure where exactly he was indicating, we knew the general direction. Cathal slapped me on my back and started to walk off.
“I’ll find the postal service and figure it out.”
