Page 26

“Will she be better when she wakes up?”

Amy glances up from her work. “What if I give you the exact same answer again? You know, ‘no telling’?”

“I was kind of hoping you’d have a different one,” he admits.

Amy smiles benevolently at him. “You’re new,” she says. “You’re eager and optimistic and all of that stuff. It’s cute.”

Jordan rolls his eyes. He resents being called cute.

“Hey now, don’t make that face. We need people like you,” Amy says earnestly. “I mean, deep in our hearts, we know there’s hope for these patients. But it’s so hard here. Last month there was a sixteen-year-old so charming and amazing that I couldn’t understand what she was doing here. Then one night she took out a smuggled razor blade and made so many slashes on her thighs it looked like she was wearing goddamn red plaid pants.” Amy’s brow wrinkles. “Things like that can break you if you let them.”

Jordan lets this awful story sink in for a minute. Then he asks, “Do a lot of patients here try to self-harm?”Does Hannah?

“Some definitely struggle with urges,” Amy says. “That’s why we don’t give patients pens with sharp tips or actual silverware. But for some of these kids, it’s not about them hurting themselves. It’s more about who hurt them.” She sighs. “Like Hannah, for example.”

A chill runs up Jordan’s spine. “What do you mean?”

“Hannah hasn’t ever tried to hurt herself,” Amy says. “I think she was the one who was hurt.” She shakes her head. “Something really bad happened to Hannah before she came to us, that’s what I think. But we can’t get her to talk about it. Sometimes I’m not even sure that she could, even if she wanted to.”

CHAPTER 26

The guards dragged me into the courtyard and dropped me onto the dirt. For a moment I lay there, shivering uncontrollably. My breath came in painful gasps.

Hundreds of people had gathered in the courtyard, and they were whispering and gabbling in anticipation. It was just as Father Alderton used to say:Not even God can draw a crowd the way a hanging can.

When I’d pushed myself to standing again, one of the guards grabbed my hands and roughly tied them behind my back. Then he shoved me between the shoulder blades, sending me stumbling forward. The crowd parted so quickly, you’d have thought I was a knife slicing through it.

As I walked, the women cursed me and the men spat at me. I felt more than one slimy glob hit my cheek and slide down my face.

“Traitor,” yelled a toothless, ancient man. “Thief!”

I held my tongue. He was right.

As I got closer to the center of the courtyard, I saw a wooden cage guarded by men in chain mail and boiled leather. Inside it was Vazi. He was bloody and bruised, his eyes rolling in confusion and terror. Through the bars, children jabbed at him with sticks, taunting him like they would a wild animal.

“Oh, Vazi,” I cried. “Don’t let them—”

“Shut your mouth, girl.” The guard struck me across the shoulders with the shaft of his halberd.

Vazi threw himself against the bars of his cage, wanting to protect me, but two soldiers shoved him back. He let out a high, strangled squawk, the only sound I’d ever heard him make. Then he pointed at something behind me. I turned around, and my heart stopped.

Otto was twenty yards away from me, and he was already standing on the gallows platform. His wrists were bound in front of him, and a rope was looped around his neck. His feet were bare and streaked with filth. There was blood caked all along the side of his head, and a horrible dark and empty circle where his left ear had been.

“Oh, my love,” I gasped.

I had kissed that ear, whispered promises into it. Otto’s beautiful mouth was battered and purple. His eyes were so swollen he could barely open them.

Otto, what have they done to you?

“He’s been there all night with th’ rope round his neck,” my guard said. “Deserved worse, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask,” I said through clenched teeth.

I didn’t want to look, and yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Looming over Otto’s shoulder was the executioner, a massive man with a face that could’ve been carved from wood. Only his small black eyes raked hungrily over the crowd, as if he hoped to find more men to hang.

Then, with a curse, he turned back and tightened the rope around my beloved’s neck.

“Otto,” I cried, struggling to get closer to him. “I’m here!”