I’m so entranced, I almost miss the Shades that have slithered through the cracks in the walls, coalescing in the corners. There are over a dozen now, and their hollow eyes are fixed on Inana and Henry. I can almost feel their hunger. Their fascination. A trio slinks across the faintest strips of shadow until they’re pressed between the wall and the edge of the lantern light that encases Inana and the duke.
Henry shifts his grip on his knife, his hand now at his side. “Useless, Inana. Your attempts to escape me are utterly useless.Youare useless.”
She continues to hum, but her lips wobble and tears stream from the corners of her eyes.
“You’re a sinner. A criminal. Do you know what I am? Do you know I am your better now?” His voice rises to a shout, and the Shades around the cell vibrate with the growing intensity of it. “I am a fucking duke. Andyou. Will. Submit. To. Me.” He lunges for her, and her mouth opens in a heaving breath, her song cut short. It takes me several seconds to understand what has happened.
Then my viewpoint shifts to the side. Then closer. Closer. Another step closer. A crimson stain blooms over Inana’s abdomen, the hilt of the knife protruding from her bodice.
Henry pulls out the blade and stares at the wound with wide eyes. He whirls around, running a hand through his hair. “I fucked up,” he mutters, a frenzied look in his eyes. “I fucked up. I fucked up. Hurry. I need to hurry.”
He whirls back toward Inana, knife raised toward her chest again, but she swings her hand toward him, slicing his cheek with her needle, once, twice, then pierces it through the side of his throat. He staggers back. The slices on his cheek are already healing, but blood seeps beneath the needle, a vein nicked open and unable to close around the foreign object.
The Shades hiss and clamor at the sight of the blood, clustering closer within that sliver of shadow.
Henry doesn’t notice them. Doesn’t notice anything but the needle he pulls from his neck as he steps to the side, his heel planted directly on the divide between shadow and light. Bridging it.
The Shades surge forward.
They slither up his ankle, beneath the leg of his trousers. He kicks out, whirling around and flailing his arm as bulges appear beneath his white-and-gold jacket. His hand strikes the lantern, sending it rocking side to side.
The light swivels across the room from the momentum of the lantern, casting Henry in shadow, then light. Shadow then light.
His bleeding neck falls under a faint beat of darkness.
The Shades funnel out from beneath his collar and into that still-open wound. Barely a pinprick, but they claw at it, opening it wider, slithering into that nicked vein one at a time.
I count the number of Shades that enter his flesh.
One.
Two.
Three.
My heart races. I know what’s happening. I know what this means.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Henry doubles over, screaming.
My eyes meet Inana’s over his bent-over form. Her rage seeps into me. Or maybe it’s my rage.
One thing is clear.
She wants Henry Berkham to die.
Iwant him to die.
Death. Vengeance. It’s all I can think about. All I can taste.
It thrums through everything I am, everything I ever was.
