Mira's hand lingered on my arm, her fingers cold even through my sleeve. "Walk with me," she said.
We moved through the fog-choked streets, neither of us speaking until we reached the old mill at the village edge. It had been abandoned for years, its wheel silent, the water beneath it black and still.
She turned to face me, and in the gray light, I saw how thin she'd become. Not just her body---something essential had been carved away.
"Why did you really come back?" she asked.
I hesitated. The truth felt too raw. "My mother wrote. She said the village needed me."
Mira's laugh was bitter. "Needed you? Or needed someone who'd already escaped to remind them it's possible?"
"What happened here, Mira? What happened to you?"
She looked away, toward the dead water. "You remember the stories we used to tell? About the Collector?" Her voice dropped. "They're not stories."
My stomach tightened. "The boy---"
"Will die within the week. They always do. The mark spreads, burrowing deeper until it reaches something vital. Heart, lungs, brain." She turned back to me, and her eyes were fierce. "It started six months after you left."
The words hit like a physical blow. "After I---"
"Not your fault," Mira said quickly. "At least, I don't think so. But the timing..." She shook her head. "The first was old Thomas, the carpenter. Woke up with a mark on his chest, right over his heart. Three days later, he was dead. Then the baker's daughter. Then Widow Chen."
"How many?"
"Seventeen." The number hung between us. "And that's just the ones who died. Others bear the marks but live, like walking corpses, waiting."
I thought of the villagers' averted eyes, their hurried steps. They weren't suspicious of me---they were terrified.
"The man I keep seeing," I said. "Plain face, ordinary clothes. He's always watching."
Mira's face went white. "You've seen him? Already?" She grabbed my shoulders. "Elira, listen to me. That's him. The Collector. He chooses his victims carefully, watches them first. If you've seen him twice---"
"Three times," I whispered.
Her grip tightened. "Then you're already marked. You just don't know where yet."
The fog seemed to press closer, and I felt it then---a faint itch on my left shoulder blade, a place I couldn't easily see. A place I'd been unconsciously avoiding all day.