Page 74

For the first time in what feels like forever, I fall asleep alone. Dreaming of brave girls with their hair braided like a crown, of burning swans, of a boy and a god, lying together beneath the blackened salt.

Hugo has gone when I wake; I come downstairs to an empty house, with the quilt and pillow that he used folded neatly at one end of the chaise. I search around for a note but there is nothing, only the folded pile of quilts and his sorrowful, murmured apology from last night taking the place of goodbye.

In the kitchen, I light the stove and fill the kettle. While it boils, I eat stale bread with strawberry jam, sitting on the threshold of the open back door. The air smells of salt and pollen. I can hear the drone of bees as they circle the flowers in the arbor.

Past the breakwater, the sea is flat as glass. It’s as though the high, violent tide that fought against the coastline last night was nothing but a dream.

The kettle begins to hum. I make myself a pot of Oberon’s strong black tea. With a steaming mug in my hands, I drift through the house, taking a shirt to wear from Henry’s wardrobe, opening all the windows to let in the clean spring air, going back to the bathroom to gather up the handful of white feathers from the edge of the tub.

I tuck the feathers away inside my room, placing them like pressed flowers inside my book of Caedmon’s sketches. Then, standing before the mirror, I untie the ribbons from my hair and let it fall into soft, crimped waves.

I sit on my bed for a long time, finishing my tea as I watch the swaying grass and flowers on the clifftop fields. In the distance, Saltswan is a darkened thumbprint against the sky. Everything feels stilled, like time stopped last night when we watched the swan boat turn to ashes on the sea.

But though I am alone, my cottage as empty as a chambered shell, I can still sense a phantom pull. As though there is a ribbon, loosely tied to each of my wrists. It stretches out in two directions. Toward Saltswan, where Camille is, and toward the mine. Where Alastair lies with Therion beneath the weight of crystalline salt, kept safely in the solemnest dark.

There is only one thing left to face, right now.

Quietly, I set aside my empty cup and go down the corridor. Past my brothers’ rooms, and up the narrow stairs into the attic. The door hangs open, the latch splintered where Hugo broke it to escape. I take the keys from the lock and slip them into my pocket.

With a deep breath, I step inside the room. It’s bright up here, the high window catching a shaft of sun. The air sparkles with dust motes. The attic is warmer than the rest of the house, and a bead of sweat tracks down my spine like a caress.

The evidence of the previous night lies scattered on the floor: the razor and the flask and the burned-out salt lantern. I take Henry’s diary and put it back in its hiding place under the boards. There’s a stain from the spilled liquor that will probably never come out; but it feels right somehow, to have a mark left behind, a reminder of what happened here.

Finally, with a scrap of cloth covering my hand, I pick up the mirror. I shiver as my fingers brush over the weight of it, as the familiarshape of the silver frame settles into my hand. Even shielded by the cloth, it feels unnaturally cold, like I have just lifted it out from the sea.

Slowly, I fold back a piece of the wrapping to reveal the broken glass. The obsidian mirror is shattered irreparably, the polished surface turned to fragments. I lay my fingertips against the center of it, feeling them shift slightly against my skin.

I stand, shivering, blinking, waiting. And for a moment, I’m not even sure what I want to happen. When the corners of my vision stay free of darkness, when none of me fades, I exhale with a mix of disappointment and relief.

I gather up everything into an empty wooden box: flask, razor, the wrapped mirror. I’m about to leave the room when a noise from outside draws my attention. I stand on tiptoe and peer out of the window.

Parked on the dirt road that passes by our house is a taxicab. And my brothers are beside it, Henry leaning down to the front window as he pays the driver, Oberon unloading their luggage from the trunk.

I run down the stairs with the box in my arms, slamming the attic door behind me. In my room, I shove the box underneath my bed. I take a final look in the mirror, tuck back my wavy hair, and go out to the landing. I’m at the top of the staircase when my brothers come inside.

Henry sets down his suitcase on the floor with a heavythump. None of us moves, or speaks. It’s as though we’re all pinned in place. Then everything is in motion at once—I am tripping down the stairs as Henry and Oberon hurry up toward me. We meet at the center of the staircase in a tangled, desperate embrace.

All the things I wanted to say are wiped clear from my thoughts. My cheeks are wet with tears, my heart is racing. I bury my face against Oberon’s chest as Henry’s arms wrap tightly around me.

“We missed you,” Henry murmurs into my hair. Then, drawing back, he inspects me with a puzzled frown. “Are you wearing my shirt?”

I snort out a helpless laugh, nodding as he pulls me back toward him. Oberon, his hand at the small of my back, starts to speak. “Lark, we’re so sorry—”

But I catch hold of his arm, squeezing tightly as I cut off his apology. “I forgive you.”

I was born of their blood and the ocean and the salt, made to belong to a god. And though it aches to know all the deceptions laid through my life, it is the way my brothers have loved me—and I them—that has always been the truth.

For now, I only want to be here, and held, with Henry’s cheek against my hair and my ear on Oberon’s chest, the sound of his heartbeat as rhythmic as the hush and sigh of the sea.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWONow

Alastair’s memorial is at eventide, the following fortnight, when sunset marks a golden path across the waves from the smooth sand of the beach all the way to the clouded horizon.

The Felimath sea crypt is in a network of caves below Saltswan. The central chamber contains their altar to Therion, a smooth marble shelf that holds a single iron candelabra and a display of ornate shells. Past this is a smaller space, a natural hollow that has been hewn into a second cave.

In this dim alcove the walls are lined with engraved stones. Each one contains the remains of the family members who are immortalized in portraits in the house above.

It’s a quiet ceremony, only five of us gathered. Camille leads the service while her father watches in silence. As she recites the funeral prayer at Therion’s altar, Marcus stands at the rear of the gathering, his arms folded, his face an expressionless mask. In his severe, dark suit and with his hair combed back, he’s as still as the marble sculpture on its plinth in the Saltswan gardens.