I slept wrapped in the pelt along the wall. I didn’t wake up until Ryker opened the door. The candlelight hit the planes of his face, making him look harsher than normal.

The door was wide open behind him and probably would remain that way, as it always did. I resented the insinuation that I was so feeble compared to him it wasn’t a concern.

His eyes narrowed on my chest. “Have you taken a hit recently?”

So Burn had seen the mark. I’d suspected. Why were they both getting so weird about a bruise? Did it have something to do with this feeling that I was dying? Would he let me loose, as Burn had said? Maybe Burn had only agreed to let me loose in the morning because he knew Ryker would kill me before sunup?

I’d known people who weren’t nearly as hardened as Ryker, and I knew what every single one of them would do: decide I was worthless and execute me. It was safer than letting me go and possibly leaving himself open for me passing on information about what little I knew of their country or them.

I was sick, maybe even dying, but I wanted every last day I could squeeze out of this body. Time to play healthy. “I took a hit the day before I came here.”

He reached back and shut the door. It closed with a heavy thud, or maybe that was my heart beating out of my chest. He never shut the door when he came. He never brought a candle, either.

“Take your shirt off.”

Would he rape me before he killed me? I scrambled to my feet, getting tangled in the pelt for a moment as I did. I clenched my coat tightly to my chest.

He dipped his head. “I want to see the bruise. I’m not interested in you in that way. You’re a thief.”

Relief should’ve poured through me, and it did for half a second. Then I wanted to punch him in the face. And after I punched him, I wanted to melt into nothing because of the way he’d said that word. Thief wasn’t a good term on anyone’s lips, but the way he’d said it… My cheeks burned at the stacked insults. I didn’t hate him before, but I did now. He didn’t know what it was like to look at hungry eyes every day, as they hoped you’d bring them food and you couldn’t.

He placed the candle on the ground and then disappeared. He reappeared in front of me, yanking my coat open and my shirt down, just shy of my nipples. But he wasn’t looking at my breasts, and he didn’t appear to like what he was seeing.

I tried to zap him, but he didn’t seem to notice. What was that about? Why didn’t it work on him?

He let go of my shirt as he stepped back, oblivious to the fact I’d tried to hurt him. I stopped focusing on him and tucked my chin in to get a glimpse myself.

I grazed the darkened patch of skin with my fingers. A knot formed in my throat, and I felt like someone had dropped a stone in my gut. All the sleeping I’d been doing and the regular meals hadn’t helped at all. It was worse than ever. The bruise now spread outward and upward by four or five inches from where it had started at my heart. It might’ve been on the base of my throat, but I couldn’t see past my chin. No wonder Burn had noticed it.

My eyes went to Ryker. “Is this some sort of trick? Did you give me something or do something while I was sleeping?” How could it have gotten so much worse so quickly? It had to be them. A trick or something.

I stopped trying to look down at my chest and raised my eyes to his face.

His eyes met mine but then returned to my chest. “I need you healthy, not sick. I wouldn’t waste my magic on a thief. This isn’t a normal sickness. If I wanted you dead, I’d just snap your neck.”

I nodded, my gut telling me he was speaking the truth—about everything. I probably didn’t want to know how many necks he’d snapped, and I didn’t know what was more disturbing at the moment.

“What is it?” My voice was more fearful than demanding as I ran my fingers over the spot and up my neck, trying to get a sense of how far it had reached by touch alone.

It was bad, whatever it was. So bad that even Ryker, the man who didn’t seem to have any difficulty being brutal, was holding back. “It’s spread to the base of your throat. How far was it the last time you saw it?”

He waited for an answer I wasn’t sure of.

“Approximately,” he said, his over-pronunciation indicating his impatience.

I moved my fingers below where the dip in my throat was. “It stopped about here a week or so before you caught me.”

He nodded and looked as if he were calculating something. “You’re marked for death, but you’ve got a little time.”

The door opened and Burn stepped in, walking over to stand beside Ryker. They both stared at my chest. I inched backward, pulled my shirt up, and closed my coat around me.

“Is it what I thought?” Burn asked.

Ryker’s jaw tensed before he seemed to force himself to relax and answer Burn. “Yes. Her magic has probably been slowing it down.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “What is ‘marked for death’?”

“Have you ever heard of the Debt Collector?” Ryker asked.

Everyone had heard of the Debt Collector. I lived in the Ruined City, not another universe. I would’ve told him as much, except as the pieces came together, I found I didn’t have the energy or will to snap at him. I barely had the energy to stand. My hands were trembling and my knees wouldn’t stay locked. My back hit the stone wall, then rubbed my skin raw as I slid in an undignified manner to my bum. I sat there numbly as I started to put it all together.

Ryker continued to fill in the picture, helping me along as if I needed it. “Sometime in your past, you were on the verge of death. Two people’s lives were brokered to save yours. Two lives for one—that’s the way the Debt Collector works. One of them didn’t pay up.”

I already knew how it worked. I also knew you didn’t walk away from the Debt Collector. He was always paid.

It would start with a general drain on your life force; I’d been dragging for months.

Then came the night fevers; I’d had those for weeks.

The final piece, an unexplained bruise on the chest, right above your heart.

I should’ve realized it myself. How had I not? But who would’ve done this for me? My parents had turned on me once my mark had shown, not wanting the attention it might bring.

But there was one other who’d had a vested interest in keeping me alive once upon a time. I wondered who he’d killed to save me. Had I known them? I shook off the thoughts. That time had nearly destroyed me, and I couldn’t let the ghosts finish the job.

“Why now? What made me get sick now?” Maybe if I could figure out the trigger, I could reverse it? No, no one reversed it.

Ryker watched me. “Like I said, the Debt Collector needs two lives to keep one alive. One of the people who was supposed to die for you probably died of natural causes before he or she was killed. It can be a tricky game, since no one ever knows when their time will be up. Even seers have trouble calling the day of death. Once that second life, that other person, died naturally, the debt couldn’t be properly fulfilled. You started getting sick.”

Had the second person escaped before they’d been sacrificed for me? At least there had been only one death, if that was some consolation. It didn’t feel like it at the moment.

Would I have a chance to get home and see Ruck and the others one last time? I wasn’t sure that was a great idea anyway, even as I longed for one final goodbye. I’d rather them think I died in a heroic fight. Anything but this, sitting here and withering away.

Burn and Ryker had stopped paying attention to me and were talking to each other. I was already a non-entity. Burn took a final look at me and then exited the room.

I got my feet back underneath me and squared my shoulders. I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t going to go out weak and pathetic. “How long do I have, or are you going to try and kill me first?”

“I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to buy you time and give you a chance. After you do what I need, I’ll bring you to the Debt Collector and try and renegotiate your deal.”

“You know the Debt Collector?”

“Well enough to know how to find him.”

“I do your job and you’ll try and save me? What guarantees do I have that you can do what you say?”

He shrugged. “No assurances, nothing more than what I offered you. It’s the best deal you’re going to get.”

He hated me. I could see it in his eyes. The tone of his voice as he spoke. “If you hate me so much, why keep me? I’m sure there’s someone else who can do it.”

“I know you’re behind the chugger raids. You stole from me, took food out of the mouths of my people. I don’t like you. If I could find someone else, you’d be dead already. You’re alive because you’re my only option.”

He was strong, probably had been his whole life. Someone had obviously trained him in magic, too. It was easy for him to cast aspersions on who I was and what I’d done. He’d never been chilled to the bone, willing to do anything to feed the people that depended on him. He’d always been strong enough to take what he needed and defend it. Too bad we weren’t all as fortunate as him, and had to make decisions that could mean your people ate or not.

“What happens if I can’t?”

“I’m going to teach you how, and you will.”

In other words, I did it or I was out of luck. Or I tried to do it until I figured out how to get out of this mess.

“I have one other request.”

“What?”

“You’re going to have enough food to feed five people delivered to a place of my choosing.”

He tilted his head back, as if that wasn’t the request he’d expected. His eyes narrowed, as if trying to figure out what game I was playing before he finally nodded. “It’ll take a few days to gather that up, but I’ll make it happen. Does that mean you accept my terms, or do you prefer to rot here?”

I wanted to tell him to go to hell. There was stubborn and then there was suicidal. Sometimes I found that line a bit blurry, but it was pretty clear at the moment. I kept my arms crossed and gave him a nod. Neither of us reached out a hand to magically bind ourselves.

He walked out, leaving the door wide open, but then stopped a foot away. “What’s your name?” he asked, his back still to me.

I didn’t reply, debating whether to lie.

“I suggest you provide me with one, because you won’t like my choice.”

“Bugs.”

His head shifted in my direction slightly, as if to ask me where that had come from. He didn’t. He walked away.