Noah stood there. The shadow corpse lay sprawled a few feet away, its dark, twisted form already starting to dissolve into the dirt. And next to it, there was a girl.

  A girl. Out here, of all places. She was crouched low, her back to him, her focus entirely on the corpse. She wasn’t looking at him at all, it was like he didn’t even exist. She was so into it, studying the thing as if her life depended on it. Noah blinked, caught off guard. He hadn’t expected company, especially not someone like her. She moved around the corpse, eager and curious. She was muttering to herself, too, though he couldn’t make out the words.

  I didn’t even hear her coming, Noah thought. Who was this girl? How long has she been here? Was she watching me fight it?

  He shifted his weight, the mud squelching under his boots, but she still didn’t look up. She was too focused, too absorbed. It was weird, seeing someone so invested in something like this. Most people would’ve run the other way at the sight of that horrible corpse.

  She reached into a leather messenger bag slung across her chest, the strap cutting diagonally over her dark tunic. The bag looked heavy, worn. She pulled out this strange device—small, metal, with a screen that glowed faintly. Noah squinted, trying to get a better look. It wasn’t anything he recognized. She held it up, pointing it at the corpse, moving it back and forth like she was scanning it. The screen flickered, and she frowned, her brows pulling together. She tapped it, like she wasn’t happy with whatever it was showing her.

  “This is incredible,” she said suddenly, her voice louder now, sharp with excitement. Noah flinched, startled. She still wasn’t looking at him, but she was talking, and he realized she was talking to him. “I’ve been tracking this thing for over a week. A week. And you just…you just found it and killed it in, what, ten minutes?” She finally turned her head slightly, just enough to glance at him out of the corner of her eye, but not enough to really see him. “How did you bait it? How’d you even do that? I need to know. What gear did you use? I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Noah opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He wasn’t sure what to say. She was throwing questions at him like he was supposed to have all the answers, but he was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that she was here at all. I didn’t bait it, he thought. It found me. But he didn’t say that. He remembered Hesjevik warning. He just stood there, watching her, trying to understand what was she doing here.

  She looked back at her device, her frown deepening. The screen glowed brighter for a second, and she made this face—like she was confused, but also like she was seeing something impossible. She moved around the corpse again, stepping carefully over a root, her boots leaving shallow prints in the mud. She was even more puzzled, her eyes narrowing, her lips pressing into a thin line. Then she stopped, and her head snapped up. She pointed the device at him.

  Noah froze. Why’s she pointing that thing at me? Is it a weapon? She wasn’t moving, just standing there, staring at the screen like she’d just seen something she couldn’t believe. Then her eyes moved very slowly up and she finally looked at him—really looked at him, not just a glance, but a full-on stare. Her eyes locked onto his, and Noah felt a jolt, like she was seeing right through him.

  Her mouth fell open.

  He could see her better now, too. She’d turned fully toward him, and he realized how young she was—fifteen at the very most. She was shorter than him, her head barely reaching his shoulder. Her clothes were dark, utilitarian. A short tunic ending at hip level, pants, boots. She was dirty, too, streaks of grime and mud were all over her cheeks, her hands, her clothes; like she’d been out here for weeks. Her hair was bright red, tied into two braids that were messy, frayed. The wind had pulled strands loose, and they stuck to her face.

  She was staring at him, her mouth still open, but it wasn’t just his face she was looking at. Her eyes flicked over him, up and down, like she was studying him the same way she’d studied the corpse. Noah shifted, uncomfortable. Why’s she looking at me like that? he thought. It reminded him of something—of someone. Hesjevik. The way he’d looked at Noah, not just at him, but around him, like there was something there that couldn’t be. She had that same look now, that same stunned expression.

  And then her face changed again. Her eyes widened, and her mouth closed, then opened again, like she was trying to find the words. Recognition. That’s what it was. She recognized him.

  “I know you,” she said, her voice accusatory, certain.

  Noah’s stomach dropped. She knows Ravenskin. Crap.

  "No, you don’t. I’ve never seen you before," he said, way too fast. Damn it. He always sped up when he was lying. "You’ve got the wrong person," he added, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

  But she didn’t look convinced. She took a step closer, her device still in her hand. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s you. I’m sure of it.”

  Noah’s heart was pounding now. He’d been found out. He wanted to turn and walk away, to leave her here with her weird device and her questions, but he couldn’t.

  What if she knows about the mana thing like Hesjevik and she tells the Houses, what will happen then?

  His mind was racing, alarms blaring in his head, memories flooding back—stuff he didn’t want to remember. The robbers. The ones who drowned him, the ones who planned to chop him up and sell his body in pieces. Here, he wasn’t Noah. Here, he was a Fist. Lord Ravenskin. And they’d hated him. Hated what he was, what he represented. And this girl—she looked like them. Was she a robber too? A smuggler? How did Ravenskin, a lord from one of the imperial houses, even know this smuggler girl? What was she going to do when she found out who he really was?

  She’s just a kid, he thought. She’s not one of them. She can’t be. But the way she was looking at him, the way her eyes flicked over him, it was too familiar. Too close to the way those robbers had stared at him.

  Her bag, he thought, his eyes darting to the leather messenger bag slung across her chest. What’s in there? That device she’d pulled out earlier, the one she’d pointed at the shadow corpse—it glowed, it scanned, it did something. Could it hurt him?

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  Was there something else in there, something worse? A weapon? Something that could kill me? She seemed far too carefree. A girl like her wouldn’t wander alone through a dangerous forest like this unless she had a weapon.

  He didn’t know for sure, and that scared him. I need to get out of here, he thought. I need to leave. Now. But he couldn’t move. She was still staring at him, and he couldn’t look away.

  She took a step closer, and Noah’s breath caught. She moved like she knew him, like there was no reason to be afraid. Her boots crunched on the leaves, her braids swinging slightly as she walked. She was so close now, close enough that he could see the dirt smudged on her cheeks, the way her tunic was frayed at the edges. She stopped, just a few feet away, and her eyes went to his face. His left cheek. She stared at it, her brows pulling together, like she was remembering. Then her eyes flicked back to his, scanning him, taking in every detail—his nose, his jaw, the way his hair fell over his forehead.

  “Ratskin,” she said finally.

  Noah’s blood went cold. Ratskin. It sounded too close to my name. It couldn’t be. She knew him so well she had a nickname for him.

  I’m so screwed.

  “What? No, I told you, you’re wrong, I’m not him,” he said, with a dismissive hand, as if he could erase her memories of him.

  She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing as if she could see through his lies. "You’re Ratskin," she said, her voice sharp and insistent now. "I’m the one who gave you that scar on your cheek. You may be older, but it’s definitely you." She paused, her gaze sweeping over him again, as though trying to solve a puzzle. "What the hell are you doing here? You can’t survive in this hole without good gear, and your House is broke. How did you afford that gear?" she asked, pointing at the decomposing creature.

  Noah blinked, confused. “What gear?”

  She raised an eyebrow and placed her hands on her hips. "What do you mean, 'what gear'? The gear you used to kill the gorgora," she said impatiently. "Or are you going to tell me you did it with your bare hands?" She said and laughed scornfully.

  “I told you,” Noah said, his voice steadier now, but still tight. “I’m not him. And I didn’t use any gear. I don’t need to. I’m a fist,” Noah said proudly.

  She just stood there, her eyebrows scrunched up, head tilted like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Her mouth opened a little, then closed, like she was trying to figure out if I was messing with her. She blinked a couple times, fast, and let out this short, awkward laugh. “You. You are a fist?” she said, her voice high and doubtful, like she thought he’d lost his mind.

  “Yes.” Noah said, trying to sound as convincing as he could, and failing miserably. Was there something about fists that he didn’t know? The robbers believed he was one. If this girl was one of them, why did she not believe him?

  For a moment, he thought she was going to push it, to keep insisting. But then something changed. Her face softened, like she understood something, like she was letting it go.

  “You know what, I think you’re right, you’re not him. Your eyebrows are wrong,” she said, her voice lighter now, too casual. “My bad. Sometimes I get carried away.”

  She’s lying, he thought. But why?

  Then something clicked in the back of his head.

  “Why were you pointing me out with that thing?” he asked, his voice sharper than he meant it to be.

  She glanced down at it, like she’d forgotten she was even holding it. “Oh, this one?” she said, way too nonchalantly, like she was talking about a pen or something. “Oh, this is just a medical device, for checkups. Um, by the way, your leg is pretty banged up. I can fix it, I mean, if you want to.”

  Noah blinked. He looked down at his leg. The black in his skin was spreading faster now, with a heavy ache that made him feel like his whole leg was rotting from the inside. He swallowed, trying not to think about how fast it was getting worse.

  “You can fix it?” he asked, his voice tinged with doubt. He wasn’t sure he could trust her, especially after the demeaning way she’d spoken to him. Still, it seemed he had no other choice.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, shrugging like it was no big deal. “I do it all the time.”

  She knelt on the mossy ground, and started rummaging in her leather bag. Noah attempted to sit beside her, but his bad leg refused to cooperate. He tried to crouch, but his bad leg buckled beneath him. He fell backward, landing hard on his backside, and a sharp, searing pain shot through his injured leg. An emasculating, high-pitched yelp escaped him, and his face flushed with heat as he tried to act like it hadn’t happened.

  The girl, however, didn’t laugh or even look at him weird. Instead, she moved efficiently, mechanically, as if acting on muscle memory. She pulled a device and a small metal box from her bag, and placed them on the ground between them.

  She searched in her bag again and pulled out a little pouch of powder, then motioned for him to roll up his torn pant leg. Noah hesitated. His hands hovered over the fabric, and he could feel the heat coming off his skin, like the infection was radiating out of him.

  What if she doesn’t know what she’s doing? What if she’s lying and she’ll make it worse to torture me and force me to confess?

  Then he looked at her again, and she was watching him, not impatient, but steady. Like she’d done this a hundred times before. And his leg was getting worse by the second. I don’t have time to overthink this, he told himself.

  He rolled up the pant leg, wincing as the fabric scrapped against his swollen, blackened skin. His clumsy fall had worsened the wound, and now it wept a thick liquid. He tried not to look at it too long, but it was hard not to. The black lines were spreading, like a growing spider, snaking up toward his knee. He felt sick.

  The girl didn’t flinch. She poured some of the powder from the pouch onto the wound, and Noah hissed through his teeth. It burned, as if she’d dumped acid on it. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into the mossy forest floor, and forced himself not to pull his leg away. But then, just as fast as the burning started, it stopped. The powder fizzled, like it was evaporating, and the heat faded. He stared at it, confused.

  She picked up the second device, this one smaller, with a little screen and a nozzle on the end. She pressed a button, and it hummed to life, a faint blue light glowing at the tip. She moved it over the wound, slow and careful, like she was painting. Noah watched, holding his breath, because he didn’t know what to expect. And then she poured a clear liquid from a vial onto the wound, and that’s when it got weird.

  The black lines—they started to move. Not spread, but shrink. It was like watching a time-lapse in reverse, the infection pulling back, contracting, disappearing. Noah leaned closer, his eyes wide, it was like she was erasing it. The pain was fading, too, not all at once, but in waves. He could feel his leg again, really feel it, not just the pain but the actual muscle, the skin. He flexed his toes, and they moved without that sharp, stabbing ache.

  When she was done, he stared at his leg. The black was gone. Completely. There were faint scars where the stinger had hit, pale and thin, but that was it. No swelling, no oozing, no pain. He touched the skin, half expecting it to hurt, but it didn’t. It felt normal. He looked up at her, and she was watching him, her expression calm, and a little smug.

  “See?” she said. “I told you, I’m pretty good at this.”

  Noah didn’t know what to say. He just nodded, still touching his leg, still trying to wrap his head around it. And then she looked at his arm, and her eyes narrowed a little. “Oh, you’re hurt here, too,” she said, pointing at the scratches crisscrossing his forearm. They weren’t nearly as bad as the wound on his leg had been, but they were red and raw. “I can fix those too.”

  Her voice was the same as before, casual, matter-of-fact. But there was something else in it, something Noah couldn’t quite place, and though he couldn’t name it, one thing was clear: he didn’t like it.