I clench my jaw. I know she’s hoping to use her physical beauty to gain the wight’s favor, and the idea makes me want to vomit. “He was aroused after an especially successful experiment. He made lichen grow out of a lizard’s eyes, something he’d been trying to do for weeks. He finds eyes difficult to work with. He can rarely manage to alter them, only multiply them.”
“I see.” Her shoulders slump a bit. “So if I strip naked for him, it won’t have any effect?”
“It might,” I grit out. “He’ll see your beauty, your perfection, and he’ll want to corrupt or change it. But Sybil, I’d caution you against such a strategy.”
“Why?”
“Because if he lays eyes on you while you’re naked, I will lose my mind and try to rip his head from his shoulders.”
“Would that work?”
“No. His body and head would still be animated, and he’d be able to corrupt me with a touch. Your plan is our only chance to defeat him.”
She glances over her shoulder at Henry Partridge, then lifts the cloak from her mouth to say in an undertone, “I’m worried it’s too much to ask from Henry.”
“He told us he’d do anything to save Anne. He loves her.”
“Yes, but are we doing the right thing?”
“We are playing the cards we’ve drawn. Accepting the dice as they were cast. We have no choice.”
Sybil seems as if she’s about to answer, but then her eyes focus ahead, widening slightly. “You were right. The Barrow is already open.”
I follow her gaze to the dark seam along the hillside, like a crack in a blister. The trees soar over the Barrow, afternoon light filtering through a lattice of branches dripping with tendrils of black moss.
I hear myself saying, “I’ll go first,” even though they’re the last words I want to speak.
When I came into this world, I didn’t have to traverse a portal or step through a door. I simply appeared in close proximity to Sybil. A moment of despair on my part coincided with matching desperation from her, and thanks to the bond of my blood in us both, that was all it took.
This is different. I have to physically walk through the boundary between worlds, into the lair of my captor. Dread contorts inside me, twisting my organs into icy knots. But I am no longer the fragile shadow-creature on the point of death. I am Beresford, husband to Sybil, brother-in-law of the girl whom the wight now holds captive. I have people—a family. They are mine to protect.
Taking a deep breath through my handkerchief, I stuff it back into my pocket and take a moment to light one of the lanterns we brought. I hold it up, surveying our little group.
Sybil’s eyes meet mine. She knows I’m afraid, and she’s frightened too. But together, we are brave.
Lantern in hand, I forge through the ragged slash in the hillside.
At first it’s all dirt and worms and roots, compacted earth laced with threads of sickening, glowing green, the evidence of the wight’s corrupt magic. Then it’s stone in layers of brown and gray. As we proceed down the tunnel, the hue of the rock shifts to deep blue, a darker shade than my beard, with flecks of glittering azure in it. There is no rot here. Like I told the others, the wight likes to keep his lair relatively tidy. Even after the messiest sessions of experimentation, he cleans up after himself.
There was no overt sign of our passage into the Under, but the air is different here. I recognize the smell, the texture of the walls.
“We’re in,” I tell the others quietly.
“Then it’s time for me and Mama to go ahead,” says Sybil.
Words cannot express how much I hate that idea, but she’s right.
“Follow this passage,” I say. “Everything in this lair is laid out like ribs and a spine. I believe we’re in one of the ribs. If I’m right, it should connect with the main hallway soon.”
Sybil’s pale face glows in the lantern light. She’s clutching handfuls of her cloak, squeezing them rhythmically with her fingers. “Once we reach the hallway, how will we know which direction to go?”
“He wants you to come to him,” I reply. “He’ll send you a sign.”
She hesitates, still gazing at me. Impulsively I duck my head and kiss her mouth.
One of her hands leaves the cloak and catches the back of my head, her fingers tangling in my hair. She kisses me like she expects it to be the last time, and I devour her mouth with equal fervor.
“All right, all right, children.” The faint humor in my mother-in-law’s voice doesn’t disguise the note of dreadful anticipation beneath. “We need to move.” She sidles past me, carrying her own lantern.
