My head spins. Rascal nudges closer, nose wet through a tear in my sleeve.
“It was supposed to be just Bram and my mother, and then you came along and—”
“Yes, what part do you exactly play in all this, Black?” Bram narrows his eyes.
Ransom wrinkles his nose. “It’sLordBlack to you.”
“There are no lords in the land of the dead.”
It is a simple enough statement, and it shuts Ransom up as soon as it is spoken. My gaze flicks between them, their edges going hazy.
“Ransom has lost someone too.” I struggle to press the words from my mouth. “Isn’t that enough?” I grit my teeth while the room tilts, my body feeling light as a feather. What is wrong? I try to reach a finger to my throat, but my muscles are weak.
Neither of them says a word, but Bram drops away from the pew and holds out his hand. “That cut on your leg looks nasty.”
I blink in surprise, and only then do I notice the pain. My onyx blood stains a ripped shred of my skirt. My fingers hurry to pull up the fabric, and a gasp gets caught halfway to my throat.
A deep gash runs from ankle to mid-calf, raw and bleeding. Different from the cut on my heel. Jagged as broken glass. Sick suddenly swims in my belly, and at my side, Rascal whines.
“It must have happened when I fell.” My fingers shake toward the wound, coming away sticky and hot. My skin shimmers in pain, roiling off me in waves. I lean heavy against the back of the pew, watching the blood drip, drip, drip.
“She’s going to faint!” Ransom hurries to my side, but Bram brushes him out of the way.
“She’s not going to bloody faint.”
Bram’s hand curls around my knee—such an intimate touch it startles me from the blackness encroaching the edges of my vision.
“Adelaide, I need you to keep looking at me, all right? Look in my eyes.”
I try to do what I am told, leaning forward, but my stomach swills, and I heave. Bram’s hands are at my shoulders now. Shouldn’t he be panicking? Shouldn’t he be asking Ithrandril why my blood beads black as midnight?
“Well, what are we going to do?” Ransom reaches for the pouch on his belt. “Ithrandril, we can’t let her die.”
Die?Part of me wants to punch Ransom for planting the thought in my head, but the walls seem to be melting, and I am barely able to keep my eyes open.
Bram growls. “We’re going to keep our damned heads about us, Black. She’s not going to die, not if I have anything to say about it.” He turns back to me. “Listen to me, Adelaide. Wounds work differently here than back home. Especially if you’re, well, still alive. You’re going to have to trust me, all right?”
His words are murky when they spill between his lips, as though they’re coming from deep beneath water. I nod and sink my fingers deeper into Rascal’s warm fur. Feel for his steady heartbeat.
Bram shouts something to Ransom, something I cannot make out, and then Ransom is gone, deeper into the church, a flash of shredded black satin and lace.
Bram’s grip tightens, his fingers so cold. Sodesperatelycold. “Adelaide, I need you to look at me.”
His hands are on my jaw, soft against my cheek. He turns me to look at him, but through my eyes, he is only mist and color. If I die here, will I die forever? Rascal whimpers, and Bram swears under his breath. His fingers go to my leg, and the pain sends shockwaves through me. I scream, and the world brightens.
“I’m so sorry,” Bram says. “This is going to hurt.”
I nod, though I don’t know why. There is something swimming around inside me. Something that doesn’t belong to me, and I want it out.
Out, out, out.
Ransom dashes back into the nave, a knife glinting in his hand. My brain goes sharp-edged. My fingers scrabble on the pew.
“What are you doing?”
Bram takes the blade from Ransom, bends back at my side. He looks me dead in the eye.
“When someone is wounded here, someone more alive than others, the wood latches on. I’ve seen it with animals that slip through by accident. It desires nothing more than to feed off that life. It sends pieces of itself inside you, and the only way to stop them from reaching your heart is to cut them out.”
