Page 133 of Moonlight Hearts

Ambrose signaled for us to wait on the stairs.Echo was up there with him on the landing.Ambrose opened the door a crack, peered ahead, and waited.Then he closed the door, turned, and silently came down the stairs to Elias and me.

“You two wait here.”His whisper was so quiet I had to strain to hear it.“I’m taking Echo ahead with me.”He glanced at Thaeros.“You’re coming too.”

“M-me?”

“Yeah.I have no reason to trust you, so you’re staying where I can see you.”

Thaeros looked at me with big eyes.His makeup was smudged and mostly gone, and underneath it, he was…scared and tired.Young too.It made me think of Florence, Florence in that house with the witch.Had there been a time when she’d understood what he was?When she’d seen part of the magic and been afraid of it?Of that thing she’d married and been living with?

I hoped so, because it meant that something of my sister, the person I’d known I should look out for, was still there.Then again, I also hoped that had never happened, because if it had, she’d have felt the terror.No one should feel that terror, and no one,no oneshould be alone with something that evil living in the same house, breathing the same air.

I looked Ambrose right in the eye.“They’re fine.They can stay here with us.”

I didn’t manage to keep as quiet as Ambrose, but I straightened, aiming for the kind of calm I’d show a difficult customer.

He sighed.“Look—”

“No, Ambrose.If Amory says it’s fine, then…” Elias gestured at Thaeros.“He’s fine.”

Echo put his hand on Ambrose’s shoulder.“We should go.There isn’t much time left until they get here.”

Ambrose stepped up close to Thaeros.“Hurt them, and I will hurt you tenfold.”

With that, he went up the stairs again, Echo following him.Ambrose opened the door, checking again that it was safe to go forward.He went through the door, and Echo followed him, looking back at us before he vanished from sight as well.

Once they were up there, the stairwell was eerily quiet.The lights turned off when they could no longer tell we were moving, and we huddled there in the dark, no sound from above or below telling us what was to come next.

When the lights flickered on again, it was still silent, something unseen having triggered them.My ears strained, and my heart raced in my chest.Then, I heard it—a soft sigh, nothing more than that.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Thefeelingofuneaseintensified, but not gradually.It flared up like a needle being jammed into the sole of my foot.My eyes were drawn to the windowsill again, where I could just barely make out the dead insects in the still flickering light.

Then, a beautiful female voice cut through the darkness.

“Ene, mene miste,

Er Kroch aus seiner kiste?

Ene, mene, muh

Und tot bist du!”

Rounding the stairs from below, I saw a woman, tall and beautiful.She had raven hair brushed out so straight it shimmered, and her lips were very red.She had a beautiful smile and the sharpest eyes.There was nothing even remotely human in her gaze.She scared me.She scared me like the witch had scared me.Theotherwitch.

Elias dug his fingers into my arm.It hurt, but it didn’t matter.

The woman came up to the landing where the insects had died, and with unnatural clarity, I understood that she had killed them, had brought them here to collect them.What she planned to do with them, I didn't know.Perhaps she was simply proud of having gathered death.

“Hello,” she said, her accent mild as spoiled wine being dumped into a river.“You are pretty little morsels, are you not?”She was right in front of me suddenly, and reached for my cheek, running her sickly warm palm over my skin.I shivered and gagged.“To think that something has come of my little pet.I can see you would make a good pet.”

Thaeros had sunk to the floor on the stairs at some point, he was crouching there and hugging his knees to his chest.

An awareness inside me stirred, the feeling of disgust at this woman’s touch making me remember something that was important, very important.Something I wasn’t supposed to forget.Heat moved on my back, and it felt as if feathers were touching me.

The watch.Soyer had given me the watch for a reason.

Elias was clinging to my upper arm and shoulder, and that was lucky.It gave me just enough movement to raise my wrist, letting it face her.