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Bryony stood by the edge of the lake, a shawl around her shoulders and mist coiling at her ankles. She whirled at the sound of me crashing through the brush, her mouth dropping open in shock. “Helen!”

I stumbled to a halt, swaying. I tried to speak, but the only sound that came out was a strangled whimper. She strode forward and grabbed hold of me, burying her face in my hair. Her shoulders shook, and it took me a moment to realize through the haze of my shock that she was crying.

“I tried to get to you. Desmond snuck out a couple of times, but we couldn’t risk him getting caught—if they knew that he wasn’t on their side, he couldn’t keep an eye on you, make sure you were safe, and Caleb was always watching, and we couldn’t...” She trailed off. “Helen, are you all right?”

My legs went out from under me. I collapsed onto the ground on my knees, and the sob that had been trapped in my throat since a bullet first pierced my heart tore out of me at last.

—

We staggered to the witch’s cottage and huddled there amid the comforting ruin.

“We can’t stay here forever,” Bryony said. She ran her fingers in formless, wandering lines across my palm as my head leaned against her shoulder. “When the sun rises, your family will come for you.”

“They’re not my family, are they?” I asked bitterly.

“You made yourself a Vaughan, and that’s who you are,” Bryony said. “I might question your judgment, but it’s the reality of the situation. Which means that we need to find a way to deal with them and get you away from here.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“Do what?”

“Treat me like...” I closed my eyes.

“Like you’re not a monster? You aren’t,” she said, her voice suffused with tenderness.

“Stop.”

Shetskedsoftly, chidingly. “Do you want me to tell you that you’re evil? That you’re wicked and horrible and I hate you?”

“Yes!” I said. My eyes snapped open. “I want you to say all those things because they’re true. Because it’s how I feel. Because—” Because it felt righteous, this misery. A sweet poison filling my veins. I could claw my way out of this grave if I tried, but it was so much easier to let myself sink into the damp earth. “I ruined my mother’s life.”

“None of this was your fault,” Bryony said softly. “You were only protecting yourself. And you didn’t even know you were doing it. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“Of course I can,” I said. “How am I any better than Dr.Raymond? Just because he used a blade and I used the dark soul’s power? I lobotomized her.”

“That’s not true.”

“Do you have a better word for it?” I demanded.

She sighed. “What do you want, Helen? What are the answers you’re looking for?”

“I want to cut myself free of the Other. I want to escape,” I said. I wanted to stop being thisthing.

She shook her head. “You can’t. It’s not a limb you can hack off. Itisyou. We need to make you whole, not wound you more.”

“You want me to become part of that thing? To let it take me over?” I asked her. “Is that really what you want?”

“That’s not what would happen,” Bryony said.

“Bryony—”

“Rabbit, hold out your hands,” she said sternly, and I obeyed, my heart still throbbing with the hurt of it all. She covered my hands with hers, palm to palm. “Okay. Close your eyes.”

“Will you tell me what you’re doing first?”

She glared at me. “No. Because arguing with you right now is impossible and you’re making bad decisions. Close your eyes.”

I let out a long breath, and then shut my eyes. She began to whisper softly. Not words that I could recognize—it was, somehow, the sound of moss growing over stone, rain striking the shivering surface of a pond, a deadfall blooming with mushrooms.