Page 99

Wake up.

I was being carried through Harrow. Caleb had hold of me, and Eli strode alongside. It was the night I’d woken up in the halls. The night the Folded attacked me.

“We don’t know if this is fatal or even harmful. It could—” Eli began. Caleb cut him off.

“Look at her.If it spreads any more, we’ll lose Helen, and I don’t know what’s going to be in her place. Do you want to find out?”

“Take her to the stone. I have an idea.”

I lay limp in Caleb’s arms. He took me to the hidden door and carried me to the stone. He set me down and twisted around. I followed his gaze. Eli had a butcher’s knife. His eyes snagged against mine, as if to askare you certain?I gave him a small nod. He raised the cleaver and swung, and pain exploded through me. My eyes rolled back as I fainted.

Wake up.

I was standing in the folly, a yellow cup in my hand and the buzz of alcohol already starting to zip through me. “Let’s spill all our secrets,” Desmond said. I lifted the cup to my lips as the four of us gathered in our strange communion.

“Never have I ever...”

Wake up.

I picked at the scab on my scalp as I sat in Caleb’s office, finding out just how insignificant a man like Roman could become once he was dead. Another secret for Harrow to swallow up. I hugged Caleb, burrowing against him briefly for comfort. My slashed brow pressed against his face.

When I broke away, my blood was smudged across his cheek.

Wake up.

I knelt to place Haley’s bones on her shallow grave. A purple butterfly barrette and a class ring fell to the ground. I left the ring there, at the base of the Harrow stone. I didn’t forget it. I’d whispered to Celia to steal it for me, after all, touching her mind gently. She’d been able to hear me more easily than the others, ever since the night they tried to give her to me.

Wake up.

I stood beside the Harrow stone as Bryony’s lantern disappeared into the long tunnel beyond. I spoke the names of the dead, a litany of pain and loss. The lineage of Harrow. Not its masters but its victims. The true heart of this place.

Wake up.

We flowed into each other, Helen and the dark soul, until there was no difference. No shadow blotting out the stars. We were whole, and we were one, and we had walked this spiral willingly.

I found the heart of Harrow, and the thing at its center was me.

We opened our eyes.

—

I stood before the Harrow stone, my family arrayed before me, Bryony beyond them. She wasn’t alone. Desmond stepped through the door. Then Celia. She’d done as I asked, as I’d known she would, stealing the key to let them out of their rooms. The others didn’t notice yet.

“It’s time,” Caleb said. He took a flask from his pocket. “This will stop your heart. It’s relatively quick.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to drink that.”

Caleb sighed. “It works if we kill you violently, Helen, but no one wants that. You won’t even really die, not until we divide your body properly. You’ll just sleep a while. Like before.”

“You don’t understand,” I told him, energy beneath my skin like the air before a lightning storm.

“I don’t understand what?” he asked, irritated.

“I was named the Master of Harrow,” I said. Bryony and the others moved along the outside wall. I stepped forward, speakingslowly and calmly. “I have stayed on the grounds for a full year. I have made an offering of my own flesh—my hand. I have marked your face with blood. I have stood with my three witnesses and shared a communion of spirits and of secrets. I have placed your ring in the heart of Harrow to draw you here, and I have spoken the names of Harrow’s daughters. You cannot claim me, Caleb. I claim myself. I claim the dark soul. I claim Harrow and all its land, every stone and tree and soul within its gates.”

The air had gone perfectly still. “That’s absurd,” Caleb said. “Harrow doesn’t recognize you as its master. The family—”

“I recognize Helen as the Master of Harrow,” Celia said loudly, and everyone jumped. Her eyes were sharp and fierce, even though she was shaking like a leaf. “I am the descendant of Nicholas Vaughan. I recognize her.”