Page 69

19 January 1994

A tta’s hand slid toward Sonder in the dark, but he wasn’t there, his side of the bed cold.

Something felt eerily wrong. Like doom awaiting an invitation to seep in.

She rose and shoved her arms into one of Sonder’s discarded collared shirts. She was still buttoning it as she searched the top floor, headed toward the glow—flickering light bleeding out from his study into the hall.

“Sonder,” she said gently when she entered. Still, her voice startled him where he sat hunched over his desk, looking half-crazed.

“You should be asleep.”

“So should you,” countered. “What are you doing?”

“You forgot , .” His voice hitched and her heart sank.

“I’m only tired.”

Sonder stood, his chest rising and falling quickly. “An entire conversation we had. A very important one. You forgot it.”

rounded the desk and put a hand against his breastbone. He’d been out of his mind for days since she’d forgotten a pass of words between them. Though they both knew it was nothing so simple as that.

“Sonder, you know how tired I’ve been. Dead on my feet.” He flinched, and she withdrew her hand. Poor, poor choice of words. “Bits are coming back to me. I was only tired.”

Liar, Liar, trapped in briar, sliced by thorns and thrown in the fire.

“We need to find a way to know the possession has begun earlier. We have to— to—” He ran his hand through his hair, and closed the distance between them again.

“Those two things are not related, my forgetting our conversation and some of the Inhabited losing short-term memory.”

Sonder looked at her lips, his eyes glossy. “I need to know, a stór .”

“I’m fine, my heart, my soul.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his lips. “Cut me open, and you’ll see.”

That made the corner of his mouth twitch, but she’d never know his response because the night was rent by screaming.

They shared a terrified look and tore down the corridor, clipping her shoulder going around a corner too quickly.

“It’s Imogen!” Gibbs met them in the hall past the library, his glasses askew and fear shining in his eyes.

“What’s happened?” Sonder asked, moving past Gibbs into Imogen’s room.

Gibbs trotted behind. “I don’t know. I fell asleep on duty and I woke up to her screaming and convulsing.

Sonder flicked on the light and he and rushed for the bed. Imogen was flailing on the mattress, soaked in sweat. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and she was screaming bloody murder.

“What the fuck is happening!” Emmy’s terrified voice came from the doorway.

“Get an exorcism kit!” yelled. “Hurry!”

“And my medical bag,” Sonder barked at Gibbs over his shoulder.

When they were alone with the writhing girl, Sonder pinned with his gaze. “They got past the wards.”

A familiar laugh coated her skin. “No,” she whispered, her vision going spotted. “It was already in.” She felt the world spin, Sonder, Imogen, the room a blur. “Check the cellar.” And then she was falling, Sonder lunging for her, but the floor was coming at her too quickly.

Then Olivia was there. Here.

Just a young woman, younger than she’d yet seen her. She was singing, swaying amongst the Hawthorn Grove, the trees alive with vibrant leaves. They seemed to sway with her, their branches dipping and bowing. A court worshipping their queen.

, full up with peace and dread, curled onto a warm rock in the sun, her fingers toying with the moss as she watched Olivia approach the old, twisted hawthorn.

“What is it you seek?” the voice from ’s mind echoed through the treetops.

“Magic and majesty,” Olivia Murdoch spoke into the hollow. “More for my son.”

couldn’t make out the rest of their words, and the sky grew dark, the breeze cold. Olivia shrank away.

rose and turned back toward the manor, but it was different. Autumn. Foggy and crisp. Sonder was outside, arguing with someone. Curious, she darted forward, listening. It was his father. The spitting image of Sonder today, save for his mother’s eyes. They were arguing over her condition. She was sick and Sonder couldn’t make it better. His father had called Agamemnon.

moved past them into the manor, floating like a ghoul up the stairs. She went to her room, to Olivia’s room, put her fingers on the door and pushed. There she lay, twisted in the sheets, pale as death, crescent wounds beneath her eyes.

“Hello, Olivia,” she said quietly and sat down to hold her hand.

Olivia’s eyes opened and locked onto ’s a second before her vice-like grip latched onto her wrist. “You have to close it. Close the door.”

gasped horridly, finding herself in a heap on the floor, Imogen still screaming, Gibbs and Emmy throwing salt, spraying Yarrow serum.

Sonder had her face in his hands. “What did you see?”

knew then.

She knew too many things.

All at once.

Like a world of information shoved into her brain until it bled out her eyes, her ears, her mouth. Because someone was in her . She’d been Inhabited. And she would not let them take Sonder, too.

“What did you see?” Sonder asked again, fear making his voice catch.

“Patient Zero,” she said, her voice croaking too.

Sonder stilled, the chaos behind them continuing. Nothing would help Imogen. Not anymore. They wouldn’t get rid of the faeries. But knew how.

“Who was Patient Zero, Sonder?”

His eyes filled with tears and she knew she was right. About them being a tragedy.

?μαρτ?α.

Hamartia.

The tragic flaw.

Achilles and Patroclus.

“Patient Zero wasn’t burned, was she?”

From his lap, his arms around her, their friends screaming in the background, she watched Sonder’s throat bob as he swallowed. “No, she wasn’t.”

pulled free of him. She wanted to hate him. Hate his mother. But how could they have known? He didn’t know his mother was the key. That she’d unlocked the door. But she’d never opened it, because Sonder didn’t know what was inside his mother, and he’d not followed her true wishes about her burial.

put her palm to Sonder’s cheek. “You buried her under the wrong hawthorn tree.” And it had saved the world. For a time.

His lips parted, his brows knit together, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ll explain.” But she wouldn’t. “For now, help Imogen. I’ll be right back.” Another lie.

He could read it in her eyes, she knew that, and she watched terror flash there in his.

“I’ll be right back,” she lied again. And he let her go.