“One more step and I’ll slit her throat.”

A wave of unprecedented laughter escaped Syrus’s mouth, and he shrugged and slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I don’t care about her. She’s nobody.”

Erin tightened his grip around the knife at the girl’s throat. “Don’t test me. She’s the last healer your city has.”

“She’s not who she says she is.”

“You‘re lying.”

“Fine,” Syrus snorted. “Kill her. See if I care.”

The girl hardly breathed under Erin’s grip, and when she did, her breaths were short and sputtered. He lowered the knife, and he felt her chest heave with relief.

“What a shame,” Syrus remarked, turning his back to Erin. “You should have killed her. You should have-“

A gasp filled the air. Then the drip of a heavy substance it. Then a thud.

Syrus spun around, his leather shoes stirring clouds of dust about his feet. The girl was on the floor, motionless, surrounded by a pool of fresh blood that spewed out her chest. Her eyes faded to a haze that remained open as they faced the sky, lifeless.

“Erin,” Syrus breathed. He knelt, staring at the girl across the ground. His hands mindlessly moved from his temples to the bridge of his nose with regret. “She was the last healer.

You’ve killed us all.”