But no, this smelled like smoke. Like burning.
Terror struck my heart. I knew I should have run downstairs, outside, and found help. That I shouldn’t open the door and face whatever was inside alone.
But I did.
When the door opened, I was greeted by a steadily building inferno. Black smoke was billowing up toward theceiling, our bed entirely ablaze. Flames licked their way up the twisted bedposts, the bedding already eaten away.
And then I saw her.
Hunched over, my gown in her arms, studying it, with a knot in her brow. She startled when she saw me, her twisted scar tissue glistening on one side of her head. On the other, long white-blonde hair curled over her shoulder.
“It’s you,” I whispered, as if I had half-expected to find her there. As if she had never truly left.
She scowled at the sight of me, her eyes narrowing to dark pools. Her fingers tore at the dress in her hands before she threw it into the blaze, never taking her eyes off me even as the flames consumed it greedily.
The smoke was noxious, choking. I doubled over and coughed profusely.
“You’re the girl in my bedroom,” she said in a soft, raspy voice. “You took Nicholas away from me.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She was lucid, not a bit like she was when I’d seen her last.
But still, she was so vulnerable, and dangerously deranged. I didn’t have time to ask her how she got in there, or what she wanted. I only knew we had to get out of there, to evacuate immediately, or else die.
My jealousy evaporated with the vapour from the flames.
“Louisa, come with me. We need to get out of here right away,” I said, my chest getting tighter as I inhaled some of the smoke.
The suggestion seemed to infuriate her.
“Youget out.” She spat. “Get out ofmy home.”
She lunged at me, then, and I wasn’t ready for her.
Louisa tore at my hair, taking a handful of it and winding it around her wrist. Like me, she was small but strong, deceptively so. I fought against her, my head pulled down and to one side. I scratched at her neck, her face, screaming at her to get off of me, but she was merciless.
She wrestled with me, seemingly guiding me toward the bed, by now a great fireball. The heat was excruciating, searing my skin. Flames licked at the hem of my skirt and took to it immediately, snaking its way up, eating away at the layers of fabric. Pain shot up my exposed leg as the flames lapped at my skin.
With our arms locked around one another’s shoulders, we turned, each of us fighting against the weight of the other. The combination of the heady smoke and the torrent of fear coursing through me was almost fatal. I used what strength I had to tear my hair from Louisa’s hand. I righted myself in time to collide with the wooden bust of the crow. I caught sight of the terrace window and acted immediately. I tore the crow from its stand and threw it hard against the glass panels of the terrace door. The old single-glazing gave way immediately, sucking on the flames as the howling wind beckoned it outside, and the crow fell away into the garden far below. Black smoke poured from the shattered window and out into the night.
The flames were growing to an inferno now, having swallowed up the bed and spread to the rugs, the drapes. The heat forced us towards the window. Louisa screamed, beating my head and shoulders with her fists. I took her around the waist and dragged her out while her fists collided with me, dizzied as I was by the smoke. I prayed one of the guests would see us out on the balconyand understand immediately what to do, but I could see nothing in the darkness, nobody out on the lawn.
We were a long way up, and if we fell, we’d die.
At last, I dragged her to the balcony. I threw Louisa off me and screamed for help, only for her to tackle me again, her nails scratching, her fists pummelling. Her relentless fury would one way or another kill us both.
Her hands found my neck, encircling it. I choked in her grip. She pinned me against the old railing, making it release an agonising moan of aged wrought iron, bending beneath us. Her eyes found mine as she squeezed my windpipe, watching me, enraptured, as the light faded from my eyes. She wanted to watch me die. Her twisted face so close to mine, half beautiful and half scarred, made me feel terrible for her. She wanted me dead, and yet all I saw was the pain in her eyes, in her scars.
I wished I could tell her just how much we had in common. All the ways we could have been such good friends. But it was too late for that.
The fragile balcony moaned and gave way beneath us, collapsing under our weight. Louisa lost her footing, and her grip.
We fell into the night air, the both of us, like two wooden dolls from a playhouse.
My dress padded my fall as I collided with a thicket of bushes, falling hard and heavy in my bundle of skirts, winded but surviving.
A sickening thud sounded above my head, accompanied by a wetness that I couldn’t place. I looked up.
Louisa was impaled on a wrought iron spike, bentbackwards, limp and silent and still. Her tangle of hair swayed in the wind like hanging vines.
