He surveys me again, thoughtfully. “Can I trust you to honor your word this time? Can I rely on you towaituntil I return, and not go running off to the forest?”
I want to race into Wormsloe and scream my presence to the Barrow-Man. I want to give myself up and know that Anne is free.
But I want to be happy, too. I don’t want to languish in some otherworldly dungeon while the man I love suffers in my absence. Who knows what Beresford will do without me, what dark deeds his anguish will drive him to commit?
Slowly I get up, looking him in the eyes. “I swear I will wait for you. I’ll sit in the game room until you return with my mother.”
He doubts me. Of course he does. I looked him in the face once before and made I promise I couldn’t keep.
But today, no matter how much it pains me, I willwait. I will give him the gift of time and of patience, even if, in the end, we can’t come to an agreement and we end up right back here again.
Beresford draws a tight breath and backs out of the room, leaving the blue door ajar. Then he jogs away, with the house keys jingling at his hip.
My fists ache. I didn’t realize how tightly I was clenching them. I force my fingers to uncurl.
Mama left through the front of the mansion. I don’t know how she came to Valenkirk this morning—perhaps she borrowed a horse from a neighbor—but I’m convinced that she’ll return to our house and enter the forest by the path she knows. She won’t risk going into Wormsloe from this side and getting lost, like I nearly did.
She has a head start, but I’m sure Beresford will catch up to her. I imagine he’ll take one of the horses and ride bareback in pursuit.
In the meantime, I could go out the back of the mansion, cross the fields, and enter the woods from the estate. If I stand beneath the eaves of the forest and call for the Barrow-Man, he will hear me. He will send his creatures to bring me to him.
But I made a promise to my husband.
When Beresford threatened to lock me up, he nearly shattered my trust again. And here I stand, considering whether or not I should break his faith in me. We are a disaster, the two of us. And yet I believe with all my heart that we can build something beautiful from the mess.
It starts with patience, something Grandmother Riquet claimed I had in very short supply. She wasn’t wrong. I have always detested the agony of waiting, especially when something precious is at stake.
For Beresford, I can be patient. For my mother and my sister, I can sit down and take the time to strategize.
I leave the south wing and find a comfortable seat in the game room, where I mull over everything Beresford has told me about the Barrow-Man in particular and wights in general. Judging by my husband’s description of the wight’s character, the Barrow-man won’t be satisfied with just me. He will try to get Beresford as well, and I will not allow the soul I love to be tortured again.
In order to truly be free of the Barrow-Man, we need to destroy him. Which poses an unsolvable problem, because wights, according to Beresford, are invulnerable and immortal.
By the time I hear my husband thundering up the stairs, with another set of footsteps echoing his, I’ve succeeded in ruining the tassels on one of the sofa pillows. They’re not just frayed or braided—no, I’ve managed tounsewthem, to pullthem completely off. I stuff the bits between the sofa cushions as Beresford and my mother enter the room.
His face is taut with apprehension when he bursts in. The moment he sees me, relief floods his features. “You’re here.”
“As I promised.” I give him a swift smile, then I jump right into the issue at hand. “We need to figure out how to kill the Barrow-Man.”
“He’s a wight,” Beresford says. “He’s got no soul to leave his body.”
“You said he is ‘invulnerable.’ What does that mean, exactly?”
“He can take vast amounts of damage and still function on sheer mental and magical energy. His regenerative powers are unmatched. Even if we could injure his brain, it would repair itself within seconds and he’d be up and moving again—and that’s assuming we could even get close enough to damage him. Wights are wickedly fast and notoriously vicious. They are beautiful and lethal.”
“Beautiful?” Mama frowns.
Beresford shrugs. “They are, in a cold, bony sort of way.”
“You said he doesn’t have a soul,” I murmur.
“That’s correct.”
“Fuck me.” I press my fingers over my mouth. “This is either the worst or the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“Worse than running into the woods and calling the name of an evil entity?” Beresford says blandly. Mama gives a faint chuckle.
“Like you two are any better.” I arch a brow, pointing first at my husband. “Shape-shifting soul-eater who took on a false identity to get me to marry him.” I swerve my accusing finger toward my mother. “Killed my father and concealed the supernatural circumstances of my birth.”
