The Curse of the Blessed

Chapter Fifty-Six

How had everything gone so wrong? I couldn't wrap my head around it—couldn't understand how, in a little under a month, so much change had occurred. Normal villagers to Blesseds. Blesseds to monsters. Monsters to heroes. And now, heroes to criminals.

I spotted Mam worming her way to me through the crowd, eyes frantic with worry as they settled on me.

"Fyra!" she shouted. "Come here. We're going home."

I shook my head at her. "I have to see Reed. I have to talk to him."

"Fyra Aren Jennings, I forbid you. You are coming home with me. Now."

I turned away from her, to Lark, who still stared in shock at the stage where Reed had stood mere moments before. "Are you all right?" She didn't answer, so I tapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Lark? Are you all right?"

She gave a start as I touched her, and she turned to me with a frown. "Sorry, what?"

"Are you all right?"

"Uh..." Lark shook her head, then nodded, then turned her gaze toward her feet, kicking a small grey stone a few feet. "I don't know. I'm probably better than Reed is."

"We should go see him," Bran said.

"Do you think they'll let us?" she asked. "They might think we're going there to try and break him out."

I shrugged. "You can't, since you don't have your violin. They don't know about Bran's powers. And birds aren't much use when you want to break into a place."

She thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right. Let's go."

The jail wasn't far away, and though Mam's gaze was stormy as she watched me go, she made no move to stop me. As it ended up, we walked so quickly that we caught up to Reed and his guards and trailed them on the way there. The townspeople guarding him shot us a few nervous glances, but they didn't seem as though they were going to try to prevent us from seeing him.

Inside the jail, our town jailkeeper sat behind a desk. He looked up as Reed, the other townspeople, Lark, and I entered.

"What's all this?" He glanced at Reed. "Did he break the new laws?"

One of the townspeople nodded. "Yup. Tried to help one of his fellow Blesseds cast her magic." Rather unsubtly, she cast a glance of loathing our way. "Good thing he was caught. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened. Our town could be in ruins."

Reed bristled as they spoke, but he made no move to fight. Lark tensed. I set my hand gently on her shoulder, hoping the contact would calm her down somewhat.

The jailkeeper turned to look at us. "Did they get caught too? How many cells am I supposed to be putting Blesseds in?"

"Just one," Bran said, tone crisp with veiled anger. "We're free. We're here to visit him."

"Ah," said the jailkeeper, nodding. "You're just being good friends, are you?"

Bran went to move forward, but I stopped him. "Yes. We are."

"Hmm." He pulled himself to his feet and grabbed a heavy ring of keys off a nail in the wall behind him. "Well, you'll have to wait until I've locked him up, but then you can have whatever conversations you want. It'll only take a moment."

"Okay," said Lark. "Thank you."

The jailkeeper laughed roughly. "No problem. It's my job."

He walked forward to unlock one of the doors, and the townspeople escorted Reed to it, pushing him in just hard enough to send him stumbling forward, but not hard enough that it could seriously hurt him. He whirled around and glared at them as the jailkeeper locked the door behind him. His eyes came to rest on us.