Something powerful is drawing Ward back to Devil's Island. Something he thought he had forgotten. He must evade vicious lighthouse keeper George Jaggles in order to rescue it, but Jaggles will soon be the least of his worries. Because an assassin is...
When she reached Flag Wood she found Ward sitting on one of the stone lintels, his back to her. Grim oozed under his elbow. He murmured something and stroked the lion-like ruff under the fel's chin. He didn't turn to look at her, but waited for her to come around into his field of vision.
"Hi," Carmen said, brightly, cringing inwardly at how false her own voice sounded.
"Hi."
"Was going to bring Slops but he wasn't home."
"I wanted to speak to you alone anyway. I have to tell you something." He ran his fingers down Grim's spine. The fel closed his eyes.
Feeling she had stood there stupidly long enough, Carmen sat down on a nearby stone.
"Um, I killed someone," Ward said.
Carmen was struck dumb. This was the last thing she had expected. Ward kill someone? The idea was absurd.
But he had changed.
As if afraid to see her reaction, Ward kept his eyes on Grim. "I can't stop thinking about it." His voice teetered on the edge of something.
Carmen wanted to go to him, put an arm around his shoulder, comfort him. It would have been the natural thing to do. But were you meant to comfort a murderer?
"Tell me everything," she said.
Haltingly at first, he told his tale, beginning with his departure with Nick for the North.
When he got to the Brother and Eblis Island he couldn't look her in the eye, instead relating the events to Grim.
Carmen's nervous bark of relief made him look up.
"What?"
"You didn't kill him."
"I drowned him."
"He was trying to kill you, you idiot."
"I killed him," Ward said flatly, as if by repeating it it would make it true, as if he wanted it to be true. Guilt could be addictive like that. Had she not blamed herself for her parents' near-execution? She wondered if, had the execution been successful, she would have come eventually to forgive herself. Maybe not.
"Ward?"
"What."
"You. Didn't. Kill him."
He didn't deny it outright this time, but couldn't meet her eyes either, and it was a while before he could continue his story.
He came to the cave. The dice. He seemed reluctant to talk about them, and moved on quickly.
"What do they look like?" she interrupted.
He described them. "What?" he said, seeing the look on her face.
"I'll tell you after."
He frowned. There was a petulance in his voice when he spoke of the dice. She heard it in her own voice whenever Grim cosied up to a stranger. She knew jealousy when she heard it.
She could only listen on in bewilderment as Ward's story proceeded through the cave, through the strange ring, into the world of the Author, to the Catacombs beneath the Temple, and finally, to his capture. He ended with his and Lightfinger's escape attempt, brushing over what had followed in the chamber below the prison. She didn't press him about it. She had heard rumours of the horrors that took place there. They were enough.
And now she realised what was truly wrong with her friend. It wasn't the man he thought he had killed. It wasn't even the torture he had endured.
It was the lost dice.
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