The door of the forge opens. Moonlight dances with lamplight as a cloaked figure slips in. I do not sound an alarm because I know the man at a glance.
“Everything looks good,” Drew appraises.
“I’m glad to have your approval.” I hop up onto one of the tables. “I really didn’t think you’d be able to come tonight.”
“I had to.” He sits next to me and we linger in comfortable silence for a few minutes. “Listen, we don’t have much time, so tomorrow—”
“Don’t. I don’t like that tone.”
He continues anyway. “Tomorrow, it’ll be up to you to protect Mother.”
“I know.”
“Do you still have them?” He sticks to the point. Relentless, my brother.
“Of course I do. One here—” I nod toward the forge tools “—and one in the house, just like you told me.” I shift uncomfortably. “But wouldn’t it be better to give them to the fortress? Couldn’t the hunters use all the weapons you can get?”
“Thanks to you and Mother, we have more than enough.” He pushes off the table and crosses toward the racks of tools. The wood on the side of the rack is loose where it meets the wall. Wedged behind it is a sickle. Drew had told me to make it in secret.
Then he insisted I learn how to use it.
He holds out the hilt to me. “Keep it on you in the coming hours.”
“Mother will see.”
“It’ll be too late for her to do anything.”
“She’s just going to love us breaking the law.” I roll my eyes, fingers closing around the cool metal. Drew releases the familiar weight of the sickle into my palm. I wonder if any other forge maiden has been so comfortable with a weapon in her hands. I doubt it. We’re to be protected and kept off the battlefield at all costs. Resources are too precious for everyone to have weapons. Everyone has a role and is given enough for them to fulfill the duties of that role. No more or less.
“She’ll be grateful if the need arises.”
“She will be cross with both of us the second she sees it.” The hunters have claimed both my children, I can hear her saying. Lamplight glistens off the wicked-sharp blade. I’ve been honing it for weeks leading up to tomorrow. As if I could make it so sharp that I could cut away my worries.
“I have something else for you.” Drew hovers, looking both uncomfortable and intense at the same time.
“What?”
He fishes into his pocket and produces a small, obsidian vial. “Here.”
“What’s this?” I turn the strange vessel over in my hands, placing the sickle on the table next to me.
“The reason I was late to sneak out and the reason I had to come.” Drew inhales slowly, as he always does when he’s working up the courage to say something he knows I won’t like. “If the vampires reach the town, things have gone awry. The remaining hunters here will need all the help they can get. And…and I can’t go out into the marshes tomorrow without knowing you and Mother will be safe.”
“No one is safe in Hunter’s Hamlet.” I huff bitterly. Our lives are spent locked in combat, trying to fight away vampires and our own fear.
“This is why you have been training.”
“And I’m still not good enough to face a vampire.”
“You’re better than you think. And with this, you’ll be unstoppable.” He nods to the vial.
It dawns on me what his gift actually is. Chills run up my body, starting from the hand holding the vial. My skin puckers to gooseflesh.
“No.” I thrust it toward him. He takes a step away. “No, no.” I jump off the table; he steps back. “You cannot—”
“I have.”
“If you—if anyone—if it’s discovered that you took this from the fortress and gave it to me you will be hanged.”
