Page 114

Hamartia.

The tragic flaw.

Achilles and Patroclus.

“Patient Zero wasn’t burned, was she?”

From his lap, his arms around her, their friends screaming in the background, she watched Sonder’s throat bob as he swallowed. “No, she wasn’t.”

Atta pulled free of him. She wanted to hate him. Hate his mother. But how could they have known? He didn’t know his mother was the key. That she’d unlocked the door. But she’d never opened it, because Sonder didn’t know what was inside his mother, and he’d not followed her true wishes about her burial.

Atta put her palm to Sonder’s cheek. “You buried her under the wrong hawthorn tree.” And it had saved the world. For a time.

His lips parted, his brows knit together, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ll explain.” But she wouldn’t. “For now, help Imogen. I’ll be right back.” Another lie.

He could read it in her eyes, she knew that, and she watched terror flash there in his.

“I’ll be right back,” she lied again. And he let her go.

Atta

Tears mingled with snot slipping down her nose, but Atta kept on.

She could still hear Imogen’s cries of pain, of terror. Hear Sonder bark orders.

This was it. She knew now what she had to do, and she was terrified. Determined.

She didn’t know what had connected her to Olivia, to the Fae, to another world, but it was all for this moment. She knew that with a stark clarity that terrified her.

Atta went into her room. Olivia’s room. And pulled down the photo of Sonder, his smile making her heart crack. A sob hiccupped out of her, and she wanted to drop to her knees. Turn around and run back to him. Face the slow fade, the cataclysm. But she knew it wouldn’t do to run from Fate.

She was a tragedy, and he was her peace.

Atta tucked the photo and a vial of black salt into the pocket of Sonder’s shirt, not bothering to change. There would be no point, and Sonder was too wound around her soul to be fooled for long.

The Fae would take Imogen, then Gibbs. Then they would take her and Sonder. Here, at the epicentre of it all.

Olivia Murdoch had begun to open a portal into another world with her fairytale book,Into the Faerie Wood. Her death, with her husband’s, would have opened the door fully. But Sonder, sweet Sonder, had buried his parents beneath the wrong hawthorn.

What called to Olivia called to Atta, beckoning her to the old, twisted hawthorn, the one that would set them free and doom the world to die. The same faerie scuttled beneath her skin, singing lyrical nonsense, turning her blood to sludge.

But not if Atta closed the door. Locked it. Threw away the last key.

With one last look in the mirror at the newly black veins in her neck, Atta snatched the book from her bedside table and let the Faerie Songs of the Hawthorn pull her toward it.

The foggy wood grew around her, expanded, surrounding her with endless trees.

Terror gripped her heart, squeezed. And Atta took off at a run, afraid she would turn back if she didn’t.

Behind her, someone was calling her name. They sounded more frightened than she was. She could feel freezing tears on her cheeks, her throat burning, her eyes stinging.

No, she thought.Stay back. Stay away.

“Atta!” The voice again, bellowing. It was familiar, that deep, resonant voice.

The tears fell harder, her legs pumping faster.