I wince with guilt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bram throws the maul to the ground and gathers the kindling in his arms. His movements are pinched, like I have hit a nerve he is trying to pretend doesn’t exist. “Look, I’m sure you have your own reasons for bringing Lord High-and-Mighty along on your little trip to the underworld here, but he wasn’t part of our original deal. It surprised me, is all.”
I stalk closer, until there is only breath between us and the scent of death and dying. “He wasn’t part of my original plan either, all right? But if you have a problem with Ransom, take it up with him. I’m just here to find my mother.”
Recognition dawns in his eyes. Betrayal. My stomach sinks to my toes.
“You didn’t come for me at all, did you?”
The accusation in his voice breaks me. “Bram, I—”
He brushes past, the rough logs scraping my arm.
“Bram!”
He stops, turns back. “What?”
“I came for both of you. YouandMother. Please I—I just want your help in finding her first. Then we can all go home.”
The golden light seeps from his eyes, leaving them almost empty. “You seem to have come to the wrong place then,” he says. “I don’t know where she is.”
sixteen
I wander the church by myself. A mad woman. When Mother first got sick, she would stand at the foot of my bed, drenched in sweat and speaking nonsense. That is the first time I felt what it was like to be truly alone. To realize there was no one else to walk the weary world with me. And now, the feeling is only stronger.
The confessional box looms before me. It is nothing more than a warped relic in this dead world, varnish peeling away and leaving behind a sickly, darkened surface that only seems to absorb the red light leeching in through the high windows. I clench the bell in my fist and study the wood grain, the small carvings on the door of saints and sinners alike.
I could burn it. The bell. There are candles and matches in the vestry. I could hold it out over the flame, watch the handle turn to ash, the metal to liquid. Take it in my hand—never mind the heat—and throw it into some great, dead pool, where it would sink to the bottom and never be seen again.
I close my eyes and picture Mother. She stands at the edges of my vision like a ghost, and I go somewhere far away, somewhere no one can find me except her. Her fingers in my hair, her breath on my cheek.
Chase Death, my dearest. That way, he will never catch you.
I amtrying.
Father’s words cut sharp in my mind.Do you have something to confess?I bite the oily pink folds of my mouth, open my eyes to the dark wood of the confessional, and allow the anger to fill up all my sad and empty places. It is an emotion that makes sense. More sense than the grief, the fear, and uncertainty churning in my guts. I know what to do with my anger. Everything else just sits there like a stone at the pit of my stomach. Grief for Mother, for who Father used to be, for how they used to love me…
My eyes flood with tears, and I blink them back, tucking the bell into my pocket.
“Adelaide, are you all right?”
It is Ransom’s voice. I have half forgotten about him. Wiping my eyes, I turn.
“I’m fine.” The words come out in a rush, breathless and false.
Awareness brushes through his gaze—the knowledge I am lying. That I am far from anything fine. He stretches his long, broad arms and yawns, sleep gathering violet beneath his eyes.
“Bram relieved me sometime in the night, though who could tell with all the bloody red light.” He stands to his feet, fisting his jacket.
His hair is tousled, shirt crumpled and stained. I sigh with something similar to exhaustion but also like need. It clings to the back of my throat. The desire to be wanted.
Here, in the church with Ransom, I can almost pretend we are back home, our interaction delightfully domestic. The garden at night, when he wrapped his hand about my waist and drew me in so close I could almost taste him on the air. Gin, mint, and scented geraniums. Heat flushes my cheeks. The gardens of Blackbourne are a reality so far removed from the one I stand in now. It never occurred to me that I could be happy. Ever really. Yet here I am, losing myself in thealivenessof Lord Ransom Black’s eyes.
He catches my gaze and grins, eyes blurring toward something akin to hunger. “Did you sleep well?”
I stifle a laugh. The answer should be obvious by the bags beneath my eyes. “No, not really. Did you?”
He brushes past me, close enough that I catch the scent of him—all ink,roots beneath dirt, and the stale tang of alcohol. Gods below and above, I want to taste it. It is a foolish fancy, I know. But it is all I can focus on right now, in this dead place. All that makes any damned sense.
