Chapter 29
Mallory’s back connects with a snarl of thorns as she stumbles into the wall of the hedge maze.
“Breathe.” Ezra loops his other hand around her wrists, voice steady. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She writhes against him, growling beneath his wide palm.
“If I remove my hand and you scream,” Ezra starts, “you’re going to cause trouble for us both. You’ve really got to start trusting me, Jules.”
Rage burns inside her. Ezra grips harder, and her cheek presses into the rough greenery, branches biting her skin. With a muffled cry, she sinks her teeth into his palm as hard as she can until he snaps his hand away.
She doesn’t even scream, capitulation spreading in her chest. Ezra just stares, wounded palm pressed to his mouth, eyes wild and silent.
“All those nights we spent together,” she starts.
“Holding hands. Chasing ghosts. This whole time you were manipulating me into trusting you. Into giving myself to you.” Humiliating tears prick at her lashes.
“That night in the lighting booth. You said it. Not haunted. Possessed. Was that some sort of code, Ezra? Was I supposed to understand?” Her voice cracks. “Was any of this ever real?”
He swallows, hard, still holding her wrists. “Which question do you want me to answer first?”
Mallory’s tone grows bitter. “How about this one: What’s going to happen in the chapel tomorrow night? It’s not a gala. It’s a cult meeting.”
“Don’t do this right now,” Ezra warns quietly.
“A cult, where you worship a demon like a god,” she continues. “What does it give you in return for all the bloody hearts you’ve harvested all these years? Long life? Money? Power?”
Ezra narrows his eyes. His nostrils flare.
“Will you lay me out on the altar?” she asks. “Surround me with candles? What will you use? A scalpel? A dagger?”
“Stop.”
Crickets trill in the night sky. “Tell me: Will you kiss me one last time before you kill me?”
His jaw tightens. “What do you want me to say?”
“The truth. For once.”
Ezra holds her stare. She’s convinced he’ll refuse, but then he says, “Yes. There are supposed to be candles.”
Fear blossoms inside her, sour and quick.
“A dagger,” Ezra continues. “And if it came to it, I would. I would kiss you.” His gaze falters to her lips. “I’d kiss you until there was nothing left.”
She grinds her teeth so hard she’s sure they’ll turn to dust.
“Will you at least wait until I’m dead to cut out my heart?” she asks. “Or will you rip it out while I’m still breathing?”
Ezra’s eyes shift with something that looks like grief. “Jules—”
“Oh, wait,” she hisses. Mallory twists her hand, grabbing his, and presses it to the space between her breasts. “You already did.”
For a moment, he just stares at her, the cold autumn air silent between them.
“I know,” he finally says.
Mallory shakes her head. “That’s it? You don’t have anything else to say?”
Ezra drops his hand. “I have so much to say to you, Jules. But not here. Not now. Tomorrow night at the chapel.” He bends his head toward hers. “Promise you’ll come.”
“No fucking way.” She wrenches out a laugh. “If I don’t, what will happen?”
He presses his lips together. “You know what will happen.”
The answer hits her all at once.
“Saskia,” she says. “She’ll offer herself instead. She won’t be able to help it.”
Ezra nods, the gesture resolute. Like he doesn’t want to admit it, either.
“But she’s not the one you want, she’s not the ‘right offering,’ ” Mallory continues.
“You need me, because I’m Lily’s bloodline.
I’m the one who should be carving out my heart for this demon.
Just like my mother did. Just like her mother.
And yet this damning was transferred to Saskia somehow.
In a spell. A witch’s spell.” Mallory clenches her teeth again.
“That’s the part I can’t figure out. Why her? Why Saskia? And why has it set in now?”
At that, Ezra falls silent. And Mallory’s eyes narrow to slits.
“You know, don’t you?” she seethes, grabbing his coat. “Oh my god, Ezra. Tell me. Why Saskia? What does she have to do with any of this?”
“Not here,” he says again, looking over his shoulder.
“Yes here,” she snarls. “No more secrets. Ezra, please. I can’t—I can’t lose anyone else.”
For a second, she thinks he’s going to cave.
But then he shakes his head. “It will only hurt you.”
Another dark laugh cracks loose. “You think anything can hurt me more than you already have? Just tell me, or I’ll—”
“Jules, shhh,” Ezra interrupts with a condescending finger to her mouth. He relaxes his hand, fingers curling around her jaw almost tenderly. “I know how to help you. Just say you’ll be there tomorrow.”
She freezes as he strokes her face, the pad of his thumb sweeping her lower lip.
His eyes darken, laser focused on her mouth, like he’s actually calculating the risk of kissing her.
Like he’s wondering if she’d let him. But she doesn’t feel anything other than bile in her throat at the thought of his lips on hers ever again.
“Jules,” Mallory echoes, and the word is rotten on her tongue.
Something that was once sweet, like fruit, but is now covered with fuzzy white mold.
She twists away from him. “Listen to you. ‘You’re perfect,’ ‘you’re beautiful,’ ‘you ruined me.’ You’re so full of shit, it makes me sick.
” She leans close enough for him to remember what her kiss tasted like.
“You can’t even say my real fucking name. ”
Before he can reply, Mallory dives for the knife in her pocket and holds it up to the long column of his throat.
“Tell me,” she demands. “Why Saskia?”
For a moment, they just stare at each other. The midnight breeze stirs her hair. She thinks about Ezra’s gaze under the string lights in the courtyard, how she cracked her heart open simply because he’d asked.
Mallory’s fingers sweat around the knife despite the cold, and she fights to hold her stony expression. Silently begs her hand not to shake.
But it does. The blade slips, drawing a thin line of blood from his neck.
And then, Ezra’s eyes darken as his face splits into a terrifying smile.
“You shouldn’t have done that, pretty thing,” that rattling voice whispers from inside his mouth. “Have you forgotten how much I love the taste of blood?”