“We’re going to take Rose home to get cleaned up,” her mother told me. “She’ll need some time. You understand.”
“I understand,” I repeated, though I didn’t entirely. The whole situation was unfathomable, starting with eight people willingly drinking deadly poison and ending with watching humans be carved up like fatted cows.
Rosie’s father tipped his chin to me. I returned thegesture, then stood as they walked away, feeling better but far from well.
I still hadn’t budged when I heard raised voices in the near distance. The commotion made me turn and scan the area until I spotted Anders and Thoma squared off on the other side of the Ossuary. Anders towered over him by a full head and nearly doubled him in breadth. The size disparity was jarring enough without the realization that Kit stood between them with his arms outstretched, barring them apart.
Cold clenched my lungs as I raced toward the confrontation, arriving in time to see Anders retreat from where Kit had held him at bay. The lumberman clutched something dark red and glistening that he held aloft. Pure wickedness glinted in his eyes as he offered the thing toward Thoma. Blood dripped from it onto the stark white snow.
“Saved this for you,” Anders chortled. With Kit still positioned between him and the smaller man, he tossed the lump of what must have been flesh to land on the ground at Thoma’s feet.
I gasped when I recognized it as a human heart.
Kit stared, slack-jawed and stricken, and his arms fell limply to his sides.
Thoma surged past him, launching himself at Anders with a ferocity that managed to tip the big man over. The two fell into a tangle of flailing arms and legs—mostly Thoma’s—while Anders roared with laughter.
I gaped until Kit broke into motion. He went toward the skirmish, and I followed suit, both of us diving into the mix. I grabbed Thoma’s elbow and hauled him backward while Kit stepped over to put his feet on either side of Anders,ensuring he stayed on the ground until I’d moved Thoma a good distance away.
Thoma’s face was streaked with tears, and his dark eyes were bloodshot. He looked almost crazed, veins pulsing in his neck and his arms bowed with meager muscles as he thrashed against me to get back to Anders.
“Have some respect!” Kit snarled at the downed man. “You dishonor his sacrifice with your cruelty.”
Anders shook his bushy head. “Nonsense,” he scoffed. “It was a gift. Eeus doesn’t need it, so I thought the little lover would like to have it.”
Thoma clawed at where my arms restrained him, and it took all my effort to keep him from launching himself at the other man again. When he found he couldn’t shake me, he let out a sound that was halfway between a wail and a roar, and something inside me broke. Shattered. It must have been my heart, beating hard and wild unlike that dead thing in the snow.
I rounded on Anders, barely holding Thoma who had gone from struggling to sagging in my grasp.
“You bastard!” I shouted through the strangle of sudden tears. “Did you even try to save him? Did you care?” The words ripped up my throat, chased by one cough, then another. I drew a tight breath to rage on. “It should have been you who died. Who would you leave behind? Would anyone even notice? I think not, because no one loves you, you awful man. You monster!” Air thinned along with my thoughts. I gasped for half-breaths that barely filled my lungs, and my head felt as light as if it could lift into the sky and leave the rest of my body behind.
Somewhere near but somehow far away, Anders laughed, Thoma sobbed, and Kit shouted in a voice that was full of panic.
I collapsed, coughing out what little air I could grab while Thoma draped against me. Kit joined us, wrapping strong, warm arms around us both. I smiled weakly and leaned toward him as he gathered me into a careful embrace.
“Breathe, Pen,” he murmured, trying to sound soothing, but I could tell he was scared. “Breathe for me.”
It hurt as I willed my body to settle and my lungs to fill. But Kit was insistent, holding my gaze and talking me through each raspy inhale. Beside us, Thoma huddled in a sniveling heap and, several feet away, Anders had been caught by an irate Levitt who was giving a lengthy speech about propriety.
When I finally had enough air in me to turn into words, I glanced up at Kit. “Can we go home?”
He nodded and tugged both Thoma and me to our feet. I pressed into Kit immediately, burrowing into his cloak for warmth and a brief but soothing embrace. Thoma stood aside, still looking small, almost shriveled in his misery.
“We’ll take you home, as well,” Kit told him, but Thoma shook his head.
“I can’t go there,” he said between wet sniffles. “Not now. Not alone.”
I remembered the days after my father died when our little farmhouse felt somehow cavernous. We were still crowded in there, Mother, Sayla, Merrick, and me divided between two tiny bedrooms, but the void my father left was like a pit we had to tiptoe around to avoid falling into. Little wonder Thoma wasn’t ready to face that absence when it was so fresh.
“You can stay with us,” I offered, my voice ragged.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t… impose. I think Reimond’s family may need me.” He nibbled on his lip and cast his gaze aside before mumbling, “I may need them.”
Levitt had broken away from his conversation with Anders and stood near enough to make it clear he wanted our notice. Kit turned toward him while keeping me closely alongside. He gathered Thoma in, too, and together we must have been quite a sorry sight.
“If you have time,” Levitt began, then trailed off. “Perhaps this afternoon,” he attempted again, but didn’t get the whole statement out before Kit nodded curtly.
“Let me attend to my business, then I’ll assist you with yours.”
