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When Brooke Monet broke through the treeline, it had been raining for six hours, an insistent downpour that had soaked into her socks miles ago. She was blistered, bruised, and more scratches than skin.
The first thing she saw was the sea spread out before her like a blanket, dyed red by the last edge of the setting sun. For just a moment it made a silhouette of a small and barren island, picking out a mess of sharp spires and broad towers. And then the sun sank below the waves, leaving only a single sharp light shining from somewhere low in that patchwork of buildings, just at the foot of a massive and crumbling stone bridge.
On the near side of the bridge, a small village clung stubbornly to a cliffside, hunched and curled in on itself like a cornered animal. Light from the larger buildings spilled out and puddled in the one mud-stricken street.
So. Still a coast. Still wet. With any luck, she was still in England. But her luck wasn’t good, and she had the sneaking suspicion that this deep into Cornwall she was running out of England.
The main road bent away from her so Brooke trudged down the hill through low brambles, fighting the sucking mud with every step. She entered the village through a narrow passage between two houses. Somewhere under years of piled up mud the main street had been paved once, and her stride sured as she finally stood on ground that didn't threaten to break her ankles.
In the center of the village, the largest building was a squat structure of grey stone that appeared to have partially eaten three of its neighbors. It might once have been painted a slightly different grey, but years of salty air had eaten away at the facade. A sign above the door proudly announced the establishment as The Sweet Bones.
Charming.
Brooke ran a hand over her face and winced at the rough scrape of stubble, but there was nothing for it. Her shaving kit had been abandoned with everything else. She pushed at the door to the inn and had to put her shoulder into it to get the damn thing to move. The door squealed on its hinges as she forced it, drawing the eyes of everyone in the low and smokey room behind it.
Brooke trudged her way past crowded tables to the bar and the stone-faced women standing behind it. She cleared her throat. “Do you serve food?” Her voice came out shaky.
Somewhere behind her, someone shouted “It's an inn!” Probably that meant yes?
“I have money.” Brooke took out a handful of coins and put them on the counter, praying that the currency was the same as it had been last week. The silent woman picked through the coins, eyeing each one suspiciously, but took two from the pile and walked out through a door behind the bar.
Brooke stood there, dripping onto the floor, and risked a glance around the room. The looks she got in return were not kind. A fisherman turned to look at her, his chair scraping on the floor.
“You're not from these parts.”
“No. Um, America.”
“American.” He seemed to chew that over, staring her down.
“I'm not staying long?” she offered. He gave her a begrudging nod in return.
The innkeeper returned and set a plate in front of her with a clatter. Brooke stared down at the slice of pie. The pie stared back at her, the whole head of a fish poking out through the crust. She nervously looked around, wondering if the room was having a joke at her expense, but no, there was a fish head nearly picked clean on someone else’s plate.
She picked up her fork, cut a piece as far away from those dead eyes as possible, and took a tentative bite.
It was warm and good and the best thing she had eaten in weeks. Brooke shoveled the food into her mouth as quickly as she could chew it. She went to cut around the fish head with her knife and at the touch of blade to flesh the plate split cleanly in half.
Shit.
Brooke cautiously looked over her shoulder, reaching into an inner pocket of her coat, and tried not to make eye contact with any of the people who had turned to stare at her.
The air clung to the roof of her mouth and tasted like copper. Eight people in here carried knives, either in their hands or on their person. There would be another weapon behind the bar, some kind of gun. One man in this room had killed before and would kill again if the money was right.
From her coat she drew out her tool—a handful of thirteen small coins (pennies? pence?) she’d heavily scratched on the faces—and let them spill with a quiet clatter onto the bar counter.
Twelve came up scarred.
Shit shit shit.
Brooke hastily stood, knocking her chair over, and ran out into the night, leaving the coins on the table and ignoring the shouting behind her. Rain immediately pasted her hair to her forehead, and she looked wildly around.
The moor? No, she'd just get bogged down while the hunter ran circles around her. The moor would be slow, and slow was death. Instead…
Brooke sprinted towards the bridge, boots flying over the old, weather-smoothed stones. She knew she was cornering herself, but indecision would kill her as quickly as anything else. She could feel something off in this place, knew that if she was ever going to slip, she could do it here.
Brooke was quick. She had to be. But the bridge was long, longer than she had judged it, and it seemed to eat her steps without bringing the looming island any closer. She fixed her eyes on that low light shining from a cabin near the foot of the bridge and sprinted for it. Kept sprinting for it.
Kept sprinting for it.
She had been running too long. This didn't make any sense. She took a breath and her teeth itched, sudden and sharp. Sharper than the night she'd gotten lost in the woods and crossed an ocean, sharper than the day coins had changed on her, sharper than the moment a drunken man-shaped thing had smiled and she had known to duck the instant before he threw.
For one single moment Brooke understood how exquisitely out of her depth she was. And then the door to the lodge opened and she stumbled as she stepped off the bridge.
Someone stood in the doorway, only visible as a silhouette. The figure was tall but bone-thin, a sharp outline in the light. Brooke gaped at it, heart sinking. Of course someone was living here. And she had led her pursuer right to them. She struggled for breath.
“You have to hide. Something—” she gasped for air, “something's coming.” She couldn't breathe, and the Hunter would be here in minutes. He never let her get too far ahead.
The figure in the doorway didn't move, but it did speak.
“Ask me for sanctuary.” Her voice was surprisingly clear, cutting cleanly through Brooke's panting. She tried to argue.
“No, you don't understand, you can't fight it. It's not even a person.”
“Ask me for sanctuary.” The figure slowly stepped forward onto the path down to the bridge and Brooke felt every hair on the back of her neck rise. Why not?
“I… sanctuary. Please.”
The figure was silent for a long minute and Brooke could feel the knife’s edge she lived on sharpen, the thread of her life neatly snap. She knew, bone-deep, that there was before and after this moment.
“For all the world might deem impure.” The words sounded old, carefully plucked from memory, and extraordinarily tired.
The figure came up to stand beside Brooke and she got her first look at her protector. It was a young woman with about six inches on her and copper hair cropped at her jaw, dressed in an outfit that must have been eye-catchingly sharp two days ago. Tonight the collar was half unfolded, the cuffs of her trousers were thick with mud, and her sleeves had been pushed up to her elbows. It was that last detail that caught Brooke’s eye for no obvious reason, and she had to drag her eyes away from the slight tan line at the woman's wrists.
Brooke followed her gaze out onto the bridge and felt her heart skip when she saw the figure on it, strolling towards them with his hands in his pockets. All she could do was watch his approach until he stopped at the end of the bridge, scarcely ten feet from them. The man-shaped thing that chased her could have been a dentist, dapper and unruffled in a fitted waistcoat. He gave her a chipper smile, very straight and very white teeth glinting in the lantern light.
“Hello, Dear.” Here he chuckled at his private joke, eyes flitting to the woman beside her. “You've made a friend!”
Before Brooke could speak her protector stepped between them and the temperature suddenly plummeted. The flame in the lantern guttered and went out, dropping the whole scene in moonlit silver.
“She stands beneath the boughs of the Watchman's Tree.” The statement hung in the air as sparkling crystals of ice.
The Hunter looked, if anything, more delighted. He sniffed, a smile splitting his face. “Oh, darling, this isn't the Haustorium. What are you doing here?”
Something about that word made her protector flush. When Brooke remembered to breathe in the cold air stung her nostrils, carrying the scent of something dark and earthy.
“Turn around and I will allow you to leave.”
He scoffed, a silvery dart suddenly in his hand. It danced across his fingers, impossibly fast, impossibly bright. “Between me and her is a dangerous place to stand, girl.”
“I am the librarian of Hush House and I do not grant you entry.”
The words seemed as physical as a key turning in a lock, and Brooke felt each massive tumbler fall into place, shaking her to her core. Thunder should have rolled.
The Hunter took a long look at the buildings and shrugged with an air of perfect indifference. “As you wish. I'll be waiting, Dear.”
He turned on his heel and walked away, starting to whistle to himself as he crossed the low stone bridge.
It was a credit to the Librarian that she waited until he was out of sight to crumple onto the frost-rimed grass.