Page 63

We go into a hedge-bordered courtyard. It’s built to frame the sculpture, a dreamlike creature carved in the abstract lines of a frenetic charcoal sketch. There’s a suggestion of a large, outstretched wing, the stark planes of a human profile, limbs with exaggerated proportions. The stone is so smooth and pale that it glows in the moonlight.

Hugo leans against the sculpture’s plinth, the wine bottle propped beside its carved marble feet.

“Did you manage to get a sensible answer from him?” I ask Camille.

She shakes her head. In a low voice, she says, “He told me the story about his sister, who was sacrificed by the Salt Priests.”

Alastair looks at Hugo. His brows knit together in a confused frown. “You never mentioned you had a sister before.”

Hugo meets his gaze, unapologetic. “There’s a lot of things I wasn’t able to explain when we were together, Alastair.” His wine-blushed mouth is drawn and serious. “But I can be honest with you now.”

Camille laughs with frustration. “A strange thing to say, considering how you’ve been avoiding all of our questions.”

“I had to be certain I could trust you.” Hugo collects the wine from the feet of the statue, raises the bottle to his lips. He drinks, wipes his mouth on his wrist. “After all, your brother did punch me in the face. And you all think I’m your enemy. I was afraid you might turn me in to the Salt Priests for revenge.”

“We don’t think you’re an enemy, Hugo,” Camille says. “We just want the truth.”

He holds out the wine to her, tentatively, as though he’s afraid she’ll slap the bottle from his hand. With a sigh, she takes it and drinks. Alastair straightens his tie, tucks his hair behind his ears. Every piece of him is lined by conflicted sorrow. I can see the hurts of his past with Hugo marked on him like old wounds, alongside all the other scars.

He reaches out for the wine from Camille, the bruises on his knuckles showing starkly as he takes hold of the bottle. “If you think I would turn you in to get revenge, Hugo, then you hardly know me at all.” Alastair drinks from the wine, scrubs at his mouth, offers me the bottle. “Now, answer us properly.”

Hugo spreads his hands in supplication. “Ask whatever you like. I am an open book.”

Alastair glances at me, gives a subtle nod. I curl my fingers tighter around the glass neck of the wine bottle, feeling the slosh of liquid inside. Trying to measure out what exactly to say to Hugo, this boy who has caused so much damage, yet could offer salvation. I don’t want him to know how deeply my fate is bound up with Therion. That I was made from blood and seafoam, that I am not the mortal girl he assumes I am.

Carefully, each word feeling as transient as a windblown flame, I say, “I want you to reverse Therion’s banishment.”

Hugo gives me a searching look. Slowly, he begins to move towardme. “I wonder, sometimes, if you realize how special you are, to have been chosen by him, loved by him, while the rest of us suffer. We bleed and drown and die in his name, all for the hope of a fleeting vision. And he barely deigns to answer. Why is my life—Georgiana’s life—worth so much less than yours, Lacrimosa?”

I swallow thickly, thinking of the truth of my life, how I wasmadefor the sole purpose of being Therion’s bride, how my entire existence was built on a lie. Being chosen is not the boon Hugo thinks it to be. But I know telling him this won’t ease his hurt. I wish there was some way I could unmake this, take his pain and bitterness, lift his sister from the waves and back to our world where she would be breathing, whole, unharmed. “Therion isn’t the one who did this, Hugo. Punishing him—or me—isn’t the answer.”

Hugo’s mouth tilts into a sneer as he brushes aside my words. His attention falls to my arm, where my sleeve has ridden up, revealing the pink line of a scar, the pale edge of feathers. His gaze lingers there a moment, then he turns to Alastair. He smiles, all teeth. “And she’s not the only one who has been favored. Tell me, Alastair, was your eye a betrothal gift, the same as her feathers? You always were so self-important, I suppose you believe it’s only your right, to have the attention of a god.”

“Hugo,” I say, my fists clenched.“Enough.”

He slips his hands into his pockets and draws out a box of matches and a bundle of dried herbs that has been bound together with string. With a strike, a flare, he lights a match and holds the flame to the end of the herbs until they begin to smolder. Hazy smoke trails up, patterning the air.

Then, Camille makes a faltering motion. She touches a hand to her lips, puzzled. Swallows, as though there is a strange taste in her mouth. Her knees fold, and she sinks to the ground, the skirts of her dress pooling around her like seafoam. Her eyes turn wide, blank, and her lashes flutter.

“Camille!” I stumble forward, reaching for her. The wine slips from my hand, liquid pouring out in a spiral as the bottle rolls away. Camille slumps down, curled up on her side on the ground. Distantly, I hear the scuffling of feet on gravel and turn to see Alastair bowed forward, his hand clutching the base of the sculpture for support as he staggers backward, a hand at his mouth.

Hugo walks over to where I kneel. He looks down at me with his bruised eyes and his cruel mouth. “It must have been difficult for you, to be made a widow so young. Even if your bridegroom was an uncaring god. But Therion isn’t gone, is he? Not completely.”

I scrabble backward, placing myself between him and Camille’s vulnerable form. Alastair has slid to the base of the plinth now, his legs outstretched, his head hanging forward, face obscured by the spill of his hair. I’m sobbing, frightened, my breath stuttering out in a mixture of fury and terror. “Hugo, what have you done to them?”

“It’s all right. They aren’t going to die, don’t worry.” He thumbs his chin, head tilted thoughtfully. “As for your husband… I won’t bring him back, Lacrimosa. I’ve given up too much already to allow him that. But I can help you. If you bring me to him, I’ll finish my ritual and banish him entirely.”

“No.” I shake my head. Tears spill hotly over my cheeks. I’m numb, pinned in place, as though my limbs are carved from marble, a twin to the sculpture that looks down over this scene with expressionless eyes.

Hugo crouches beside me. His mouth curves into a sorrowful frown. In the moonlight, his hair is a silvered, sinister halo. “I want revenge. My sister died for Therion; oblivion is what he deserves.”

The lit bundle in his hand is still burning, the smoke thick and acrid, stinging my eyes, filling my open mouth. He sets it down at our feet, then takes my hand, pushes back my sleeve. With cool, dry fingers he traces the scar on my arm, the feathers. I shudder at the feel of him, trying to push him away.

“Don’t touch her!” Alastair snarls. He struggles forward, he’s on hishands and knees, crawling to me. His voice turns rasped, desperate, as he calls my name. “Lark.Please—”

“Forgive me,” Hugo whispers, soft as a sigh, and then he draws the obsidian mirror from his pocket and lays it onto the ground beside the burning herbs. From my own pocket, he produces the betrothal ring I removed at dinner and slides it back onto my finger, as gentle as a lover. I try to pull away, but he holds me tightly. He begins to chant, a slow stream of Tharnish, his voice uncoiling like a venomous snake.“Sennvh devlient…”

I struggle against him, opening my mouth to cry out, to protest. But my words are lost beneath the rise of the waves, a spill of brackish water that pours down my throat, flooding my lungs. Everywhere Hugo touches me aches with wrongness. He means to finish what he began on the night of my betrothal. To use my connection to Therion, to reach that in-between world and push him into final oblivion.