Page 67

Forty

The chorus of spirits faded and disappeared. Lydia could hear her own heart beating in the crystalline stillness. The book lay open on the floor, unchanged.

Slowly, she reached out and brushed the weathered page with her fingertips. The brittle paper parted easily at her touch, collapsing into a shapeless pile of ash.

“Putain de merde,” Rebecca gasped. She sat on the floor and covered her face with her hands.

It didn’t seem real. Lydia sat, staring for several long seconds at the space that the Grimorium Bellum had once inhabited.

“Lydia?” Henry whispered.

She looked into Henry’s eyes and realized he was holding back from her, waiting to see if she, too, would crumble and turn to ash.

She felt as if she could. There seemed to be an empty space deep inside of her that hadn’t been there before.

Something had been taken from her as the Grimorium Bellum had disappeared from the world—that piece of herself that she had given over when she’d bound them together.

She could survive without it, she knew. But she would feel its loss forever.

Henry pulled Lydia into him, wrapping her in his arms and holding her as tightly as he could. She relaxed into his embrace, listening to his heart as they sat in the silence.

“Henry,” she whispered after a moment. “I can’t see them anymore. Are they still here?”

He looked around. “Some of them. They’re starting to go.”

She hesitated. “My mother. Is she…”

“She’s here.”

She paused, trying to feel her. There was so much she wanted to say, and she was suddenly choking on her grief, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I need to tell her—” She faltered, unable to form the words.

“I love you,” she said to the air. “And I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry I couldn’t save—” The words caught in her throat and lost their shape. Henry held her tighter.

“She’s so proud of you,” he whispered.

He looked up suddenly, almost as if he were listening to something. After a moment, he nodded.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

···

Henry held on gently to Lydia’s hand as she closed her eyes, letting just the tips of their fingers brush against each other. She waited, unsure what was about to happen, feeling her skin prickle in the chilly room.

Then a rush of cold swept over her. It spread through her bones and her flesh, and suddenly she felt as if she were not fully alone inside her own skin. Her body felt strange to her. Alien, but also familiar. She could feel emotions that were not hers, a deep, primal love.

She saw things inside her mind, as clearly as if she were watching a film.

She saw herself as Evelyn had once seen her—a squalling infant with thick black hair and startling gray eyes.

The serious child, all knees and elbows, who seemed to see everything, and miss nothing.

The woman—that beautiful, brilliant perfectionist, so hard on herself that it broke her mother’s heart.

Evelyn had adored them all with a savage, sharp-edged love.

And she saw Evelyn too. Not just as she’d died, but as she’d once been—a young woman, fierce and vibrant, running wild through the streets of London, bursting with magic so strong her skin could barely contain it.

An expectant mother, barely older than Lydia, carrying her child inside of her, singing lullabies to her daughter in those last quiet days before she greeted the world.

We shared a body once before , she heard her mother say. I loved you then, long before we’d even met. I will always love you.

She sounded so far away, Lydia thought, and even as she thought it, she began to feel Evelyn fade. The memories were slipping away from her, like waking from a dream.

I think I’m going, love.

“No, Mum, stay.” Her hands felt warm, when just a moment ago she’d been so cold. Something was seeping out of her, slowly but surely. Henry twined his fingers more tightly with hers. “She’s leaving,” she sobbed.

“I know.”

She had never felt so alone.

“Mum?”

Silence. Terrible, heartbreaking silence. Lydia held her breath, and there, underneath her own thoughts, and her heartbeat, she thought she could hear her mother’s voice. She was humming a song. A lullaby.

And then she was gone.