Chapter Thirty-Eight
I blink, stammering, “Will, I—”
“Run!”
I scramble out from underneath him and race past, leaping over where Martin lies, headed for the stables. I can’t lead Will back to the house, where he might hurt Elsie or Albert or anyone else. But if I can lead him away, into the woods…
A bone-chilling howl erupts from the garden. I stumble, tripping over my own feet, but I don’t stop. Not even when the grass behind me crunches and I know, without turning, that Will has given chase.
I’ve never seen him lose control like this—didn’t know he was capable of it—but the human blood… there’d been so much of it inside the ballroom, it must have sent him into a frenzy. Still, the other Nightweavers didn’t turn feral. Titus didn’t seem at all fazed by the blood. If anything, he used it to his advantage. So why, then, did it turn Will into a monstrous beast, unable to control his bloodlust?
Will growls again, closer this time, and terror sluices through my veins, nearly potent enough to persuade me to surrender. I realize, with a pang in my chest, that I can’t outrun him. I’m not fast enough. I’m never fast enough.
But I don’t have to be faster than a Nightweaver. I just have to be smarter than one.
I race through the open doors of the stables, my feet catching on something that sends me sprawling forward onto my hands and knees. I spit dirt, scrabbling onto my back. Cold horror washes over me, flooding my veins with ice, when I realize what caused my fall.
A torso, half-clothed in a shredded teal gown. The other Nightweaver girl from the ball, one of the two who clung to Will’s arm. I saw her giggling not but a few hours ago.
Will stands over the dismembered corpse, staring down at it, his head cocked.
“Will,” I start, my mouth painfully dry.
His jaw twitches, lips peeling back in a snarl. He doesn’t look away from the girl’s torso, his gilded eyes narrowing—that familiar, questioning look somewhere beneath the bloodlust that glazes his stare.
“Come back to me, Will,” I say softly, rising to my feet. “Your family needs you. Annie needs you.”
His gaze pierces me like a knife. It’s as if all the air is knocked from my lungs.
“Annie is missing,” I say, taking a tentative step toward him, attempting to ignore the body between us.
He snarls, but his face softens, his features smoothing out—if only in my imagination.
“She needs you.” I reach out, my hand trembling as I press my palm to his cheek, wet with blood—blood that thrums at my touch, vibrating through my fingers.…
I swallow hard, choking on the knot in my throat, and whisper, “ I need you.”
A tear drips onto my knuckles. Will catches my hand in his as he squeezes his eyes shut, nuzzling into my palm.
“The blood…,” he chokes out, his voice like gravel. “There was… so much blood.…”
He opens his eyes, revealing a thin rim of gold bordering the emerald green. Tears spill onto his cheeks. “I ran, but there were… others.” His throat bobs. “I couldn’t stop. I tried. I tried to stop.”
He folds in on himself, his shoulders shaking, as I wrap him in my arms. “I know,” is all I can think to say. “I know you tried.”
He draws away swiftly, gripping my shoulders with heavy hands. “Annie?”
I shake my head. “She made it out of the fire, but then she disappeared.”
He gives a tight nod, half-leading, half-dragging me to Caligo’s stall. He lifts me onto the saddle with otherworldly strength before starting out on foot.
“I’ll search the conservatory,” Will calls over his shoulder. “Go to Hildegarde’s Folly. She might have wandered off again.”
“Wait!” I gallop after him. “Why not take Thea?” I ask, jerking my chin at the unicorn.
Will doesn’t look back, doesn’t answer as he disappears into the darkness, moving at a dizzying speed I hardly comprehend.
Wind whips my face as I ride for Hildegarde’s Folly. The sun begins its ascent, a seam of crimson light on the horizon. Where earlier in the night the grounds had been raucous with laughter and music, now there is only Caligo’s pounding hooves and my own beating heart as I race across the lawn.
“Aster.” I hear the Shifter’s voice again.
I dismount Caligo, clutching my aching head as I stumble up the steps of the folly. “Annie?” I call out. “Annie?”
“Aster!”
“Stop!” I shriek. “Get out of my head! Get out! Get out! Get out! ”
A blinding pain sears my mind, and I stagger, catching hold of the statue in the center of the folly. I blink away the black dots spotting my vision, certain I must be hallucinating as I look out through the stone columns, at the looming border of the wood. There, a figure stands, cloaked in shadows. They turn, melding into the darkness, and before I know it, I’m chasing after them.
I fling myself down the steps of the folly, ignoring Caligo’s whine as I scrape through the thickets, his neighing swallowed up by the thick undergrowth of the wood. Ahead, the figure moves swiftly, leaping over fallen logs with ease. I scramble, keeping pace, and all the while my mind screeches for me to stop. Turn back. Find Will. But I can’t stop. Something inexplicable propels me forward. I have to keep going. I have to be fast enough. I have to—
Just when the muscles in my legs threaten to give out, the figure breaks through the brambles up ahead. I hiss through my teeth, a stitch splitting my side, and clamber after them.
I stumble into a small clearing, heaving for breath, my vision adjusting to the pitch blackness. In the center of the clearing, Annie rocks back and forth, mumbling something inaudible, her wide eyes fixed on an empty patch of dirt.
Pressure floods my head, and I fall to my knees in front of her, pushing the black ringlets from her face. Other than her odd state, she appears unharmed.
“Come,” I pant, taking her by the arm. “We have to get you back. Your brother—”
Annie jerks her arm from my grip, her mumbling growing louder, more urgent. I lean in, straining to hear. If only I could make out the words.…
“She can’t leave with you.” Lord Bludgrave’s weak voice comes from somewhere to my left. I squint, barely able to make out his broad figure bound to a tree, his face bloody and bruised. After Titus pulled me from the fire, I didn’t even notice Will’s father wasn’t among the survivors. I just assumed he made it out. But now that I think about it… I hadn’t seen Lord Bludgrave since the pixies freed him in the ballroom.
“Why not?” I demand, starting toward him. I reach out, my hands nearing the ropes that bind him, when a presence at the edge of the clearing gives me pause.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A familiar voice sends a chill down my spine.
I turn slowly, no longer breathing, toward the voice—the voice that haunts my every waking moment. I almost forgot what it sounded like, constantly wondering if I remembered it falsely, somehow, but no. It was him. It was always him.
At the edge of the clearing, propped carelessly against a tree, a ghost dressed in a fine purple suit winks at me, as if this were all some kind of cruel joke.
“Took you long enough, little mouse.”