Chapter 29
twenty-nine
Haunts circle the sky around Blackbourne Castle, their long arms flowing behind them like limp wings.
The bitterbloom is thick, petals white as snow, wavering in the cold breeze that licks up from the forest. How many dead girls lie here, unburied from their graves in the churchyard, to be cut and sewn and pieced together like patches from an old quilt?
I still feel them, the last remaining life force threading through my veins. The bell thrums in my pocket and, with it, the power of life just there, shimmering beneath my fingertips.
Clara’s breath is fog in the air beside me. Rascal is at our feet, teeth bared. My skin tenses when one Haunt swoops low, eyes sightless, slitted nostrils flaring for a scent.
I do not know if Bram is alive, if one already dead can die again. But I can picture his mouth, the shape it made when he tried so desperately to tell me he loved me. What I would give to have him say those words now.
“How do you know those monsters brought Bram here?” Clara’s voice is a whisper at my shoulder.
“Because my mother and Ransom are working together.” The truth is wormwood on my tongue. Bitter and sharp. “And she controls those things.”
No matter what state his body is in, Bram is here. I feel it, a gentle tug in the center of my chest.
“Do you have a plan?” Clara asks.
I pull the bell from my pocket, letting it reflect the vibrant petals surrounding us. “Honestly, the only plan I have is to go in there and rescue Bram and get us all home.”
Clara gives me an incredulous look. “Right, easy. So, we’re just going to march into a castle filled with hundreds—maybe thousands—of living dead people under the control of your homicidal mother.
Who knows where your father is hiding, who is Death incarnate, if you don’t remember.
And what am I missing? Oh, right, the fact that the skies are currently filled with beings that are sort of dead but also can definitely kill us. ”
I flash her a toothy grin. “See? Shouldn’t be that difficult.”
She returns the smile and buries one hand in Rascal’s coarse fur. “I’ll be honest. When I followed you through that door, I just wanted my friend back. I didn’t think I’d get myself wrapped up in a demon battle.”
I shrug. “There are worse things.”
Red dotted lines, my name in places it never should have been, a deal to kill my own father.
I swallow the bile in my throat and tighten my grip on the bell. Whatever it was that grew the bitterbloom, I pray it is still there. The force not even my father could explain. My father, Vicar Thorn. My father, a Reaper, Death incarnate.
I suppose that will take some getting used to.
One of the Haunts swoops low to a courtyard, the same one I walked through only a few days past, when Ransom called me to his castle.
If only I had seen the true reason for the rotting and mildew slipping down the walls.
All the dead girls buried in the earth, trying to show me, to cry out and help them find peace.
I study the castle walls, nearly impregnable under the watchful Haunts. One finger grazes the curve of the bell. Without giving myself time to rethink my plan, I stand up from the bitterbloom.
“Adelaide,” Clara hisses from behind me. “What are you doing?”
I stop, watch the shadows undulate around the blackened walls. Truth is, I do not know. I have never known. But I have always felt. And that is what I have right now—a feeling.
“We’re going inside, we’re going to find Bram, and we’re going to take him home.”
Her brows draw in. “So, we’re just going to walk in.”
I turn back around, jaw set. “Yes, we’re just going to walk in.”
It is a task easier said than done. Thick brambles weave through the undergrowth. We make our way up the hill toward the castle.
“You know,” Clara says, struggling over a twisted root pocked with thorns, “it would be so much simpler if the Haunts caught us and flew us in.”
I stop and tilt my head back, watching the darkened forms whirl about us like poisoned mist. It is a wonder they haven’t spotted us. I fidget with the bell, weighing my options. But there aren’t any, not really.
I could be throwing everything away. Bram could be dead; Ransom is already a lost cause. Part of me screams to turn back, to run and run and run until we are safe, can ring the bell, and return to Rixton. We are both alive, no souls stolen, and do not need anything else.
And trapping Father here…would that be the same as killing him? I close my eyes, the memory of my name signed in wine and blood. The consequences if I do not carry through with my end of the bargain.
Bram’s voice comes to mind. He will hunt you down and take your soul.
“Addie?” Clara’s voice at my back steels my spine.
“Rascal.” I call the dog to my side.
He looks up at me with those harvest moon eyes.
It is like he knows what I am about to ask him to do, and he wants nothing to do with it.
I kneel beside him, sinking fingers through his warm fur.
He smells like apples, cedarwood, and soft wool.
I bury my nose in his coat. Feel the comfort and courage that can only come from another creature.
“I need you to give us away, Rascal. I need you to let them know where we are.”
He paws at the ground, his whine thin and low.
“We have to get Bram,” I say. “We have to get Bram and go home. Please, Rascal.”
There is something akin to pain in his eyes, a worry only he can feel. But then he tips his head back, peels open pink gums, and sends a howl up into the ruddy mist. A chill cascades through my bones.
It doesn’t take long for the Haunts to hear the sound.
Three swoop down almost immediately, arms dragging long behind them.
I recognize their faces—what is left of them.
The three who took Bram, Rascal, and me from the church.
They wear their broken-doll smiles, necks set at unnatural angles. A flock of downed swans.
“She has been looking for you,” the one in the middle slurs through lips like rotting rose petals. “She will be so glad you’ve come back.”
I hold my chin high, my jaw tight, even though every bone inside me is shaking. Even my marrow slips against me like it wants to run.
“Take me to her,” I say.
The darkness envelopes me like water, lashing up in great folds when I am lifted from my feet. The scent of vinegar floods my nose, and I am drifting, drifting, drifting, nothing to carry me but these winds of darkness and the bell that thrums against my palm.
When I open my mouth, all I taste is the darkness. It hums against me like water, thick and cold. I blink heavy eyelids, searching for any light. My mouth is coated in film, and I struggle to my feet.
The bell. My fingers hurry for it, relief spreading through me when they wrap around the solid brass.
“Addie, are you in here?” Clara’s voice materializes from the shadows.
I could almost cry from relief. Beneath me, the floor is cold, almost damp, and I crawl across it toward Clara.
“Yes, it’s me. Do you have Rascal?”
There is a low groan and then a yelp when my hand brushes against something wet. Warm fur. Floppy ears. I throw my arms around his neck, burying my face in the hellhound’s coat.
“Good boy,” I whisper. “The best boy.”
He answers with a swift lick of my cheek.
“Adelaide, I can’t see anything.”
It is funny, in thick darkness, what is seen and unseen. What is known and unknown. I try not to think what could be surrounding us.
“Reach out your hand,” I say, brushing my fingers through the darkness. They land against something. Something cold, almost human.
I pull back, hand stinging, but when I lift it before my eyes, I can make out nothing. The blackness so dense it tastes of iron.
“Was that your hand?” The words are slow when they spill from my mouth.
Clara’s answer is quick. “No.”
My stomach flips.
“It’s mine.”
A scream curdles at the back of my throat, replaced by a single name. “Bram?”
I am answered with laughter so familiar it makes me ache.
“What’s left.” His voice is cracked and splintered, a dry husk. But it is still him.
I hear scuffling, Clara coming closer through the darkness. “Did you say Bram? Damnit, I can’t see a bloody thing.”
My fingers go to my pocket, where the bitterbloom blossoms and the bell and bead lie. Quickly, I fish them out and lay the little plant against my palm. If Mother could use it to do evil, I can use it for good. I close my eyes, search for the rapid beating of my heart, the reminder—
A-live, a-live, a-live.
Something like honey spills from my hand, a drip of light so gold it might be stolen from Ithrandril Himself. And maybe it is. Maybe that is what makes me different from both my parents. Touched by Ithrandril and Erybrus alike.
Clara gasps while the light grows, weaves itself around my hand and up my arm, until even the darkest corners of the room we lie in are alight with the glow leaking from the bell. I look up, my chest contracting.
Bram is slumped against the nearest wall, hands limp in his lap, head lolling to the side.
His skin is so gray it might be made of paper, and the amber glow of his eyes is all but gone.
His chest heaves, breath coming shallow and dry.
I scramble across the stone and dirt, reaching toward him, and that’s when I see it.
The place where Ransom’s blade carved Bram like some hunter’s prey.
His shirt lies open, ribs and flesh exposed beneath. Where healthy pink should be, all is dry and ashen. Tears prick the corners of my eyes. My fingers brush the fabric of his shirt. He sucks in air, putrid lungs pressing against skin.
“Don’t,” he rasped.
“Bram.” I reach forward. “You have to let me help you.”
I almost cry out when his hand wraps around my wrist. “I can’t let you. Not now. You shouldn’t have come. Ransom—”
“Stop being a noble idiot. I can help.”