But when he takes it out, it is only a golden chain that looks strangely familiar. Like the one my mother used to wear around her neck.
Not the bell.
He did not lie, then.
I close my eyes, biting down hard until blood coats my the tender skin of my mouth.
Sometimes, pain tastes sweeter.
And Lord Ransom Black knows nothing but pain.
seventeen
A day passes, and the bell is nowhere to be found. Bram is insistent we do not leave the area surrounding the church. Ransom tries to argue, but we are in Bram’s world now, and he will tell us when it is safe to leave.
I would smash their heads together and march out of this church myself if not for the blooming dread that I will be stuck here forever. A living soul amongst corpses. The thought freezes my bones.
The Haunts do not bother us, even though we hear them in the distance, their cackling like the baying of wolves.
Ransom and I do not speak of the kiss. He keeps mostly to himself, only bothering to move from his pew when it is his turn to take watch, slipping swigs of communion wine when he thinks no one is looking.
I steal glimpses at Bram sometimes. He is a strange creature. Someone so familiar yet so far away. Like something out of a dream, a mirror image of the world as it once was. A man who lived and laughed, but now, the only remembrance of that life are the gentle lines around his amber eyes.
He barely speaks to Ransom, stewing in his anger. It is rather beautiful, like that I see in myself. Angry at the world for what it did to him, what it took away. And the smell of him. Like lemons. It haunts me—a reminder of the mother we now might never find.
On the third morning, I wake to an empty vestry. Even Rascal has abandoned my side. My bones are stiff and heavy, the result of sleeping too many nights in all my skirts and bodice. To hell with decency, I want to say and rip the fabric from my body until I wear nothing but a shift. But I fear what Ransom might do if he saw me like that. And I shudder when I realize I don’t think I would stop him.
I push the thoughts away and step clumsily from the cot, my hand instinctively going to the pocket I know to be empty. The open space greets me like icy wind, and I dig fingernails into the soft flesh of my palms.
In the nave, our fire from the night before dwindles, cores of half-gnawed apples rotting on the floor. Bram does not say where they come from—he does not need them—and sometimes, I wonder if it is safe to eat the food of the dead, drink their drink. But it seems, for now, I have no other choice.
My fingers curl around the edge of the door, and I peek outside, praying against any Haunts, against whoever—or whatever—Bram swears followed us that first night into the wood. There is nothing but red, dusty light and, beyond that, the crumbled walls of the vicarage. I have to approach it, to feel the somehow alive bitterbloom petals, soft and damp between my fingers.
Fear boils hot in my belly. I have stayed within sight of the church, hardly leaving the stones behind.
Outside, the air hangs with a chill, the scent of creeping hoarfrost on the wind. Ransom is nowhere to be seen, but Bram, his back turned to the church, kneels near the line of the forest.
My feet crunch on the frozen grass. He straightens when I approach. I stop just behind him, a metallic scent filling the air. My stomach turns. When Bram shifts to look at me, I notice his hands are covered in blood.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, falling to the cold ground beside him.
I do not need an answer, though, for the truth lies clear before me. A creature of fur and bone lies prostrate on the frozen earth, its blood warm and sticky on the grass.
“How…”
Bram gathers spilled guts into his hands, shoving them back inside the carcass. “I didn’t mean for you to see this.”
“What exactly is it that I’m even seeing?”
He does not answer at first and, instead, covers the dead beast with leaves and twigs. The mangled pile of bones and crimson blood holds my gaze.
“Sometimes,” Bram begins, “humans aren’t the only ones who get through.”
I blink blearily at him. “You’re saying this…whatever it was…is the thing that followed us into the wood? So, you killed it?”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not like that. It’s hard to explain.”
“Two nights ago, you told me I have Reaper’s blood flowing through my veins. Try me.”
