Page 20

CHAPTER EIGHT

Now

I’m in the dark, falling, falling. I hear howls and screams, the scrape of claws against stone.

Pale feathers cloud the air and they are crumpled, spattered with blood.

As though they have been violently torn loose.

An enormous, flame-bright eye blinks open, the pupil dilating as it struggles to focus on me.

I open my mouth to cry out, but I’m beneath the ocean.

Salt water pours down my throat as I gasp and choke; a strand of seaweed binds my neck like a snare.

Then the brisk wind rushes over me. I reach out, desperate, and clutch a roughened edge of stone.

I’m on the shore, curled in the hollow of an empty tide pool.

It’s night, the sky is full of stars, a cleaved moon reflects silver against the beach.

Past a wide stretch of sand, waves crest and break with a hush , hush , hush .

I push myself up to my knees. Far in the distance I can see my cottage, wreathed in ivy and tucked behind the breakwater. All the windows are dark. My brothers are gone. I am alone, out here beneath the starlight. But— how ?

When I was in the bathroom, my hands plunged into the icy water, the sun was still setting. Now it is thickly dark. I’ve lost hours or more, but it feels like the space between one single breath.

I think of the torrent of water on the stairs. The veil on its hanger. The faces I saw outside my room: Therion’s furious image, the anger in his eyes. He’s angry at me . I imagine him back in the chthonic realm, awash in rage as he reaches out for the bride who escaped him.

I betrayed him. I never intended it, but the fact remains. We’re married. I promised to stay with him in his world until the end of the salt season. And now I am not there.

I clamber out of the empty tide pool and brush the sand from my skirts.

I’m filthy and bruised, my knees throbbing and my palms scraped.

My bare feet are cut and bleeding. I drag in an aching breath, still lost to the memory of being caught beneath the water.

The thought of going back to my empty house fills me with renewed fear.

But if I don’t go home, there’s only one place I can go.

I turn toward Saltswan, tall on the cliffs, windows glowing beacons in the dark. Memories come back from the night of my betrothal, fleeting and tangled. Alastair, cutting my hair, his strong arms as he carried me out of the mine. Alastair, taking my obsidian mirror and hiding it in his pocket.

He lied to my brothers. He stole from me. The last time I went to Saltswan—four years ago, after the summer bonfire—I swore I would never speak to him again. But I don’t have any other choice. Right now he’s the only person I can ask for help.

As I make my way to the clifftops, there’s a frantic rustle from the grasses.

I stumble back, caught by panic. My imagination paints shapes against the dark.

Orange eyes, a snow-white wing, a sharp-toothed snarl.

The sound of the waves below becomes Therion’s howl as the brazier scattered, as the boy pulled me away from him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I say, my voice trembling, reedy against the stillness of the night. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

There’s a burst of motion from the field, the wildflowers parting. I clutch at my throat, too afraid to even scream. An enormous hare bursts from the grass. It rushes past me, close enough that I feel the hot, fleeting touch of its fur against my ankles.

I stand, frozen in place, as the sound of the hare dies away into the field. All I can hear is the thunder of my own heart. It fills my ears as I force myself to move, to follow the moonlit path toward the iron gate of Saltswan.

The house is exactly like I remember. The manicured garden, everything clipped back and espaliered into shape.

The front door with its frosted glass panels.

The iron bell, the silken rope. This time I’m not afraid to ring.

I grasp hold of the rope and pull it, hard.

It clangs out a harsh, metallic note. A sound comes, muffled, from deep inside the house.

I ring the bell again. There’s footsteps, a blur of movement. Finally, Alastair opens the door.

He’s holding a book with his finger marking the page.

A loosened silk tie drapes about the unbuttoned collar of his shirt.

He scowls at me and I’m fourteen again, my hands clasped around a ribbon-tied bundle of letters.

My voice sticks in my throat. I want to turn and run back to my cottage. It takes all my effort to be still.

When I don’t speak, Alastair’s brows slant into a heavy frown. “What do you want?”

“I want my mirror back.”

He closes his book and tucks it under his arm. “I don’t have anything of yours, Lacrimosa.”

“You took it from me outside the mine.”

“Why would I have been anywhere near that sinkhole?” He shifts his stance, planting his feet widely in the doorway as though I am planning to force my way inside. My stomach twists, my cheeks turn hot. I imagine myself snatching his book from him, throwing it onto the ground.

“There’s no one here but you and I, Alastair. Stop pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

His mouth thins, his fingers tighten around the book. “Not that it makes a difference—because I have nothing to say to you—but we are not, in fact, alone.”

He gestures toward the stairs, where Camille is on the landing. She’s wearing a gauzy cotton skirt and an oversized blouse patterned with tiny flowers. The paleness of her outfit is interrupted by a pair of black woolen socks that are far too big for her feet.

The sight of her, sleepy and flushed, sends a rivulet of newer, softer feeling through my anger. Picked out in hues of gold and umber by the lantern light, her hair as rich as chocolate ganache, her cheeks rosy, Camille is beautiful as a forest nymph.

She leans over the banister to smile down at me. “Hello, Lacrimosa.” Then her eyes narrow as she looks me up and down, taking in my disheveled nightdress, the cuts on my feet. “Is everything all right? I thought you’d be with your betrothed by now.”

“There was…” I pause, searching for the words. “A change of plans.”

Alastair, not turning to look at his sister, says, “Camille, go away.”

Camille ignores him, descending to the lowermost step. “Gods, he’s so rude. I’d say he’s been raised by wolves, but wolves have better manners. Come inside, don’t stand out there in the dark.”

An ache tugs at my chest as she holds out her hand to me, inviting me into the house. I can’t help but think how different it would have been if she were here the last time I came to Saltswan. I wouldn’t have felt so small when Alastair turned cruel if Camille had defended me like she is now.

I take a step forward. Alastair casts a murderous glare at Camille, but he moves aside to let me pass.

Inside the front hall, a salt lantern burns on a sideboard table.

The entranceway is decorated similarly to the parts of the house I saw on my first and only time inside.

Flocked wallpaper, expensive furniture. Countless frames hung up like in a gallery.

The paintings are all of sour-faced Felimath relatives, staring down with disapproving expressions.

Alastair goes up the stairs without waiting for me. He calls impatiently over his shoulder, “Well, are you coming or not?”

“See what I mean?” Camille laughs, rolling her eyes at me. “Even wolves are more polite.”

Alastair leads me to a room at the end of the hall.

It’s a library, with three of the walls filled by shelves and the fourth taken up by the polished hearth of an unlit fire.

Another small salt lantern, like the one downstairs, is the only source of light, and the corners of the room lie in dusky shadows.

High ceilings give it the feel of the carved chambers in the salt mine, a sense of being far from the rest of the world.

A velvet chaise is drawn close to the hearth, and a rumpled blanket at one end marks the place where Alastair must have been sitting. There’s a stack of books on the side table, a teacup beside them.

Alastair lays down his book on top of the pile, lifting the cup and taking a sip of tea while eyeing me over the rim with irritation. “When your brothers told me you’d agreed to be married to pay their debt, I didn’t realize your bridegroom was Therion.”

I stand in the doorway, my arms folded. “It’s nice to know you’ve had a sudden return of your memories. I thought you were nowhere near the mine on my betrothal night?”

“I can’t believe they would actually sell you off to him, to our god.”

Anger prickles beneath my skin, turning me hot and restless.

He’s completely unapologetic, though why should I have expected otherwise?

“They didn’t sell me. I wanted to go.” I cut off, letting out a tense, irritated sigh.

“I’m not going to justify my choices to you, Alastair.

Maybe if you’d forgiven the debt when I asked—”

Alastair snorts disparagingly and puts down his cup. “This isn’t my fault, whatever you want to believe.” But his teeth clench, and his eyes slide away from me toward the open window. “Anyway, it seems you’ve gotten away lightly, despite that idiotic bargain.”

“As per usual, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Did you come all the way here just to argue with me?”

I move into the room, closing the door. Beyond the house, past the window with its curtains looped back, is the distant gleam of inky ocean shifting beneath the moonlight. “Alastair, what were you doing in the mine?”

“I was sick of the crowd at the bonfire, so I went for a walk along the clifftops. And there you were, sailing in that peculiar boat. So I followed you.”

“You followed me,” I echo. “Why?”