The restaurant! Surely, there were still some crew or guests awake. Someone might have a gun –
I ran to the restaurant entrance. The handle was in my hand when a sound made me pause. Steps behind my back. Not a Twisted One. Human.
“Daphne?”
No—
The world spun around me, my breathing turning erratic. How, in the name of everything holy, was that even possible?
“Arthur?” I turned, blinking. He stood ten feet away from me. “What are you doing here? How—” My mind was still struggling to grasp the truth. Maybe I was fast asleep in Emrys’s arms, and this was all a nightmare.
“I came with them, Daphne.” He pointed his thumb behind his back, where that fisherman’s barge was, where Emrys was tearing through the ranks of Hollowborn.
I shook my head in disbelief. “Impossible.”
“I came to visit you in St. Dismas,” he said. His voice was flat — oily. “But you were not there. Instead, I found a miracle.”
He stepped closer. I narrowed my eyes, trying to see his face. Something was different about him.
“I came here on the wings of his loyal ones. One day, I’ll be like them, Daphne. Cagliostro showed me his magic. He chose me.”
Cagliostro –
No.
My God. He stood before me, the scarce moonlight trickling over his short hair.
“Come, Daphne. Time to bring you home.”
“Arthur—” My voice broke. This was surely some trick of the Hollowborn?
He stretched his hand. I could see him clearly now.
This was no illusion. It was my brother, wearing his favorite gray gloves and the mustard-colored scarf Charles had given him the previous Christmas. I saw his thick blondhair graying at the temples, the scar over his upper lip, the left shoulder higher than the right one. But instead of his amethyst eyes, there were two terrifying black holes. Dried blood caked his face like grotesque tears. The urge to bend over and retch was so overwhelming that I had to press my hands to my mouth.
“Arthur,” I said, “who did this to you?”
He swept his arms wide like a magician, unveiling the final act of a dark, impossible trick. “I did it myself, dear sister. There’s only one way to bask in the Grandmaster’s glory. And I don’t need any primitive senses for that. Seeing his light with my eyes would’ve burned them.”
“Arthur! What have you done?” I pressed my back against the door leading to the restaurant. Would I still have a chance if I ran fast enough? But something was keeping me here, filling my limbs with lead.
His blood-smeared grin under his trimmed mustache had never been more terrifying.
“He showed me the light, Daphne. He showed me the truth. Miracles beyond my understanding. And he’s waiting. Now come.” He tapped his boot impatiently, and I bristled. “I’ll take you to him.”
The Twisted Ones from the bridge circled us: a wall of pale, expressionless faces that glitched when I blinked, revealing the death lingering beneath.
“Come, sister. Let’s not keep the Grandmaster waiting.”
The ring of Twisted Ones was closing around us. I was cornered. Terrified. But fear had ruled me long enough. Istraightened, breathing through the panic, and looked into my brother’s disfigured face.
Alone among monsters. Good thing I was used to it.
“Artie, remember the stories about Excalibur you loved telling me?” He stilled for a moment and shook his head.
“If you think that this would work, that you’d appeal to my memories, and I’d let you go, you’re wrong, sister. You killed our parents!” He shouted the last words, and I winced. A part of me panicked and wanted to curl into a fetal position, preparing for his fists. But that part of me was buried deep in the past. I left it behind that night when I climbed down the wall to see La Traviata.
“But I didn’t, Artie,” I said, my voice so loud that he tilted his head, curious. “There was something in the lake that night.” I peered into the mist behind him and listened to the sound of the sea. It was changing. A cold breeze brought the smell of seaweed and driftwood. “Something waited for us in the water.” Arthur raised his hand, ready to strike me. There was my brother again. The man who hit me every time when the world around him didn’t make sense.
