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A certain rotten apple in my Tonton barrel A friend of yours, I believe, says DeMalo

Jack He h’s bin layin Emmi on the table Carefully Like she’s asleep an he don’t wanna wake her I go to hi yet, says DeMalo He hasn’t delivered I’e instructed So where’s the traitor? I don’t see hih, I says, tell me you ain’t done a deal with this man

She’d never of bin in that place if it warn’t fer you Lugh’s breath shudders from him as he tenderly wipes mud from Emmi’s face with his kercheef Her empty, dead face She was so desperate to live up to you, she’d of done anythin, anythin to earn yer praise, he says We should of gone west like I wanted to Why couldn’t you have a care fer her? He smooths her rain-soaked hair Why couldn’t you have a care fer ot you so in his spell, you cain’t think fer yerself, you jest do whatever he tells you Don’t think I don’t knoho’s bin callin the shots This whole thing, it’s all bin his idea Well, I’ve seen to him I’ve seen to Jack

Jack’s dead, I says faintly

He looks at

I look at hiolden heart He’s betrayed me As I betrayed him My skin shrinks to h speaks to DeMalo, his eyes don’t leave e from me, I whisper With Nero

I’m a busy man, I can’t wait, says DeMalo No traitor, no land

I don’t want yer gawda He’s ruined our lives He can pay with his

The floor see ay I cain’t feel my hands or my feet

DeMalo’s back at theHe stares out Let’s hope it doesn’t rain to the blood moon

He don’t hafta say no more

If you keep on, more people will die People you care about Your sister Your brother My offer’s good until the blood h an the others, safe passage over the Waste to the Low China Pass No doubt a small army of Tonton to escort them, an bound in chains all the way But they’ll walk free into the mountains an beyond

If I marry him That’s fit It’s just I’ll atone every day fer Emmi’s death I trade ive them Since the moment I met DeMalo’s eyes at Hopetown, I knew Somewhere, some day, somehow, it would coht the red hot would of took h Trapped by DeMalo at last But I’m calm It’s like I’m watchin everythin from a distance Like I ain’t in my body I know it’s the kindness of shock I listen to e fer Jack as well as the others, I says

DeMalo turns his head to look at me I need to make an example of hih What’re you talkin about?

I hear but don’t hear him I’m starin at DeMalo I’ve jest realized It was that turn of his head Jest like Tommo turns his Now I’m distant from myself, I can see it so clear The eyes, so dark they’re alh cheekbones The full lips They are so alike The silver bracelet on his wrist It’s the same as Tommo’s, the very same Of course They’re father an son Tommo’s dead father is DeMalo

How impossible How unmissable I couldn’t see it before I was standin too close

Saba, says Lugh What terht, says DeMalo Safe passage for your grubby little band of rebels and Jack

Safe passage? says Lugh He’s a traitor A dead man We made a deal

DeMalo an me don’t take our eyes from each other An I see them to the Pass, I says

No treachery on soreed

What the hell is this? says Lugh Saba, what’s goin on here?

DeMalo wants me I believe he wants me unbroken So he’ll keep this proh will be safe An Tommo He believes his father dead I won’t tell him otherwise Mercy an Molly Ash an Creed Slio far far away froh the mountains an on To the chance of a decent life