Starved, skeletal, bruised, deaf, and grievously ill.

That was how Keziah Beardsley was brought back to the Ridge by his twin, Josiah.

Keziah had remained with Master Beardsley for a full year longer than his brother, and the difference between them was unmistakable—jarring. Where Josiah still bore some resemblance to the boy he had once been, Keziah looked like a shadow pulled from the grave.

He was painfully thin, his limbs little more than bone wrapped in pallid skin. His face was hollow, eyes sunken and rimmed dark, his complexion washed of all warmth. His hair hung in wild, matted ropes—unkempt, knotted beyond saving, so heavy with grease it caught the firelight and shone. Dirt caked his skin in layers, ground deep into old bruises and open wounds, mixed with dried blood that traced his body in ugly streaks. His clothes were torn nearly beyond recognition, the fabric hanging loose and split, baring a cruel map of scars etched across his chest, his arms, his back.

All of it was Master Beardsley’s doing.

But now—now he was safe.

He sat hunched beside the fire in the open fields of Fraser’s Ridge, the heat licking at his skin as if trying to bring him back to life. He ate as though driven by something feral, tearing into the food with shaking hands, swallowing too fast, barely stopping to breathe. He devoured everything set before him like a starved animal loosed at last, eyes fixed, movements frantic.

The food was already scarce, and at the pace he consumed it, there was no doubt—there would be less for everyone else.

Still, no one stopped him.

“Jo. More.”

The words came out rough and broken, shaped by the heavy accent of a deaf boy unused to speaking, his voice scraped raw by hunger, sickness, and lack of use. He reached out again, fingers trembling, desperate, not able to listen to anything going around him due to his deafness.*