Half Claimed novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Watchman
The old mill below the ford has a wheel that hasn't turned in ten years and a door that has never shut.
We came down the bank in the dark, Idris and Odell and Lorne and I, with the girl running ahead on four grey paws.
Idris had not argued about coming.
He had only put on his boots and walked beside me, a hand's width off.
Light showed in the mill loft, a thin yellow line under the boards.
A voice drifted down it, smooth and patient and not the watchman's.
"Just your name, there. It's very simple. You were frightened, you were mistaken, and no one is angry."
I put a finger to my lips.
The girl crept back into the shadow of the wheel, and I went up the broken stairs on my toes, with Idris on the step behind me.
The loft was a low room of sacks and cobwebs.
The watchman sat on an upturned crate with a purse in his lap, grey in the face.
Over him stood a thin man in black, ink on every finger, holding out a quill and a sheet of paper.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Half Claimed are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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