Page 143

No question, no hesitation, he’s run for help.

I chase the corridor to the other end of the floor, and with each rushed, stumbled step, the candleflames in the lanterns brighten more and more.

The house has awoken to the panic and it banishes the Quiet’s dimness.

The light illuminates the most wretched sight I could imagine as I turn the corner—and see, at the bottom of the rear staircase, Aleana.

Black blood sludges out from the corner of her pale, chapped mouth, trickles onto the floorboards. Her wrists are twisted and pinned to her chest, her eyes rolled back and lashes fluttering.

I loosen a horrid, retched sound, like I might be sick right there on the floor.

Aleana looks as twisted as she does rattled, and she seizes on the landing floor. But it’s the blood that stops me in my tracks. The thick, tarry substance that oozes from her nose, her mouth, her ears—and even slicks out of her eyes.

My hand slaps to my mouth.

I fall back into the wall. The crown of my head knocks against the frame of a portrait. I don’t even flinch.

I can’t look away.

A boot steps into the small pool of black blood. Daxeel crouches at his sister’s side. He moves around his mother to slide his hand beneath Aleana’s head, then he stills.

His hand takes the brunt of the seizure.

I can’t move.

Eamon barrels down the stairs, a trace of purple wine staining his full lips.

His mother isn’t far behind him, an unfastened robe billowing behind her like a cape.

Morticia rushes for Melantha, knelt at Aleana’s head. Her hands fuss over Aleana’s twisted face, but she doesn’t settle, like she doesn’t quite know what to do but panic.

Morticia drops to her knees. She reaches out for Aleana’s shivering arms; she holds them in place throughout each jerk that jolts through her like a lightning bolt.

I can’t help.

Dare spears out of the shadows, a gold dagger cutting through darkness. No shirt or sweater conceals the smears of lip-paint that stain his marble-like skin. But as though he was up to nothing at all, his face is as severe as Tris’s behind him.

I flicker my horrified, wide eyes back to Aleana.

I don’t move from the wall.

I just… stare.

The clink of tonic bottles floods the crammed bedchamber. The sound rings through me like the wretched call of bells.

The healer hunches over the brown rickety table and fusses with the tonics. One by one, he uncorks a phial, pours a touch of liquid into the mortar, then adds a dusting of white powder. Then he mashes it up with the pestle.

I watch the movement ripple down his thin arm beneath the sleeve of his wrinkled white blouse, creased and stained, and I suspect he just threw on whatever clothes were within reach once he received the urgent summons.

The one who collected the healer stands behind him now. Rune’s anxieties are found in the faint chewing of his inner lip, the fidget of his crossed arms.

With Dare, he loiters near the wardrobe, but unlike Dare—who slumps against the door—Rune can’t find his stillness.

“Aleana.” The soft whisper from Melantha cuts me like a striking sword. “Aleana, can you hear me?”

I flicker my gaze to the dark-haired female curled over the side of the bed. She’s barely perched on the edge, hovering, and leans over her motionless daughter.

Those bony, spidery fingers of hers stroke along Aleana’s cheek.