He whispered to Ripper that Regent had told him his true name.
Ripper did not answer immediately.
“Do not even tell me what it is,” she said. “He is a lunatic for having revealed it.”
“I will never tell a soul,” said X.
The churning of his brain finally tired him. Sleep hit him so unexpectedly that he dropped off while sitting against the wall and balancing Zoe’s letter on his palm as if it were made of glass.
He dreamed he was back in the lords’ giant chamber. It was empty. He had snuck in. The marble steps gleamed, the river rushed overhead. He had only seconds to do what he needed to do. He strode to the wall where the map of the Lowlands was embedded in the marble like some massive fossil. He searched for clues about where his parents were held. He ran his fingers along the symbols. There were too many—and he could not decipher them. The rock began to burn under his touch. He was not supposed to be there. The map knew that, somehow. His face was hit with a wave of heat.
When X wrenched himself from the dream, he found that the dark bruises on his cheeks were burning, and that Regent had come with the name of the 16th soul.
X was startled to see the lord in his cell. How long had he been there? Why hadn’t he woken him? What reason could there be for delaying, even by a moment, his final hunt?
X rubbed the sleep from his eyes, but that only made the pain worse. He took a breath to steady himself. He looked up again at Regent, and saw that his face was heavy with sorrow. Something was wrong. The certainty of it hit X’s heart like a hammer.
Regent didn’t speak, didn’t move. He just regarded X miserably, his dark, muscular arms hanging at his side, as if the blood were draining out of him. Nothing about the moment was ordinary. Nothing was right. X wanted to ask Regent what he meant by his silence, but his brain was so frantic now that it could not build a simple sentence.
X began to stand, desperate to break the stillness of the cell. Regent, moving for the first time, like a statue suddenly coming to life, shook his head and gestured for X to lie on his back. X should have been relieved that the ritual was about to begin—that the moment he could touch Zoe again was finally drawing nearer, that something like life would finally unfold. Instead, he lay down as if into a grave.
Regent knelt beside him. He opened his right hand. X could see the lines that ran like rivers through his palm. He closed his eyes and waited for the hand to descend. It did not. After a moment, X opened his eyes again. He stared up at the lord questioningly. He did not think he could bear another moment.
At last, Regent spoke.
“The Lowlands require another soul for its collection,” he began, as he always did. “He is an evil man—unrepentant and unpunished.”
Instead of going on, Regent paused and another maddening silence filled the cell. When he spoke again, he departed from the ritual’s ancient text.
X had never heard a lord sound so wounded and raw.
“This name,” said Regent, “is not of my choosing.”
X opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out the lord had plunged down his hand. The name entered X’s blood.
The name was Leo Wrigley.
It meant nothing to X.
But then Leo’s story hit X’s veins, and X howled like an animal at the shock of it.
He tried to push Regent away, flailing for his arms, his neck, anything. Regent stared down, his eyes full of pity. He tightened his grip on X’s face until the bones threatened to snap—and pinned him to the ground.
Suddenly, X was on a rocky beach somewhere, his brain black with pain and rage. He began stumbling along the water’s edge. The winds blew cold at his back. The tide, foaming and gray, swarmed over his boots.
He’d planned to collect this last soul as quickly as he could, so he could rush back to Zoe. But that was impossible now that he knew the man’s story. He plodded forward almost against his will, his heart full of lead. Beneath him, the ground was strewn with enormous logs that had been bleached by the sun. They looked like bones.
The Trembling grew stronger as he walked, pulling him forward like a chain. Still, the pain was nothing compared to X’s anger.
Who had chosen Leo Wrigley? Had the name been passed down from the Higher Power, or was it a ploy of Dervish’s? The Lowlands had no need for the puny man that X had been sent for—X was certain of that. The man had sinned, yes, but was he really unrepentant? X didn’t believe it. And if the Lowlands wanted this soul why hadn’t they sent a hunter decades ago? No, the one the lords truly wanted to punish was X. He had defied them. He had stood up. He had told them he was better than they were, that he was pure and noble—that he was worthy of love! And now they would strike him down. They would strip him of everything.
X stomped over the rocks. Above him, the clouds were dense and dark. It was as if his own fury had put them there.
When he had walked a half mile down the beach, a hard rain began to fall and made the ocean boil. There were only a few people within sight—old men who waved strange metal instruments over the sand, then stooped every so often to dig up a can or a coin. They rushed for the boardwalks between the cliffs now. X kept walking, indifferent to the storm. The rain was cold, and slipped down his face.
He could not take this soul. He knew that. The lords knew it, too. They knew that he’d give up every hope of freedom first.
Still, he wanted to lay eyes on the man he was about to sacrifice himself for. He continued down the beach. It would not be long before he was back in the Lowlands. His cell was a stony mouth waiting to swallow him forever.