I drop the heart, wiping my hands with leaves, but Bram does not seem concerned. He holds the yellowed organ up to the light.
“Poisoned, I’d say. Ancient scholars used to believe the liver was the source of life and death.” He drops his hand and stares directly at me. “Ransom is not to be trusted.”
Before I can stop myself, a laugh cracks against my teeth. “You’re getting that from the liver of a rabbit?”
I don’t want to believe him,can’t, but the way he looks at me—the hard-set line of his jaw—tells me that the words he speaks, his very existence in this dead world, is the only thing there is to believe.
He drops the liver beside the dead beast and cleans his hands off in the damp grass. “I don’t make things up for sport, Adelaide. I only speak what the animals tell me.”
I watch him, curious. “Are you a witch, Bram Avery?”
I mean it as a joke, something to lighten the air between us, but he doesn’t smile.
“I don’t knowwhatI am, to be honest, but I’ve always been able to do that.” He nods to the rabbit. “My mother caught me in the gardens with a dead sparrow in my palm, its intestines spilling out, telling of how my father would die, his own body poisoning him. All that damned wine he drank. That’s when we stopped attending church. What was the point of trying to please Ithrandril when we were already struck through by Erybrus?”
I almost choke on his words. “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“There’s a lot you don’t mean, Adelaide, but things happen anyway.” He gets to his feet, brushing the last of the blood away on his trousers. “We should get going, pack up after we eat, set out on our way.”
I try to ignore his former words, the way they singe my skin like I’m standing too close to a fire. “On our way to where?” I ask.
“To find your mother, of course. Your leg seems healed up enough. Ransom isn’t good for much, but he’s adequate with a needle.”
I blink stupidly and scramble to my feet. “Right, of course. Do you know where to start looking?”
Bram is already walking away from me, back toward the church. “Haven’t the foggiest. Though, I do know where we can go for information.”
Anticipation threads through my bones. “Where?”
He turns, a slick smile on his face. “Where everyone goes for a bit of gossip—a dead pub.”
His words stop me in my tracks. Whatever this destination is, I don’t like the sound of it.
I gnaw on the inside of my mouth. If I’m going to find Mother, there are probably many things I will not like. I go to follow him, but something rustles in the grass behind. My stomach folds.
Beside the torn rabbit, the heart lies in a pool of blood.
And it seems to be beating.
eighteen
We set out when the Haunts are least active, though the air kissing the nape of my neck tells me we are not alone. But how can one truly be alone in a wood of dead souls?
The moon shines so white it nearly blinds me. Around it, the sky swims red as blood, and the trees glisten, like the heart did in my hands. It is foolishness to think it was beating when I left it. In a land of dead things, life cannot just return, can it? And yet—
Ransom nudges me in the shoulder, and I look up. His hair is almost pink in the light. I still taste his bitter-gin lips on mine, though we have not spoken of the kiss since. Bram stalks the ground in front of us, Rascal at his heels.
What a strange party we are. A hellhound, a dead man, a high lord, and the daughter of a vicar, whose heart sometimes feels as though it is not her own. Yet, the odd thing is, I have not had a fit since the moment my foot touched down in this realm in between. No rush of untethered movement, no rapid pounding of my heart, no pain blossoming at the base of my skull.
I lift fingers up to the soft flesh of my throat and wait for the steady beats. It is almost a comfort, but in some ways, it is like waiting for the shoe to drop. For the rug to be pulled out from underneath me. For my heart to go skittering and my end to come.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Ransom asks.
“Father used to tell me my thoughts were wicked,” I respond. Our feet crunch on the crimson leaves.
Ransom grins. “Wicked thoughts tend to be my favorite.”
I whisper a silentthank youthat the sky floods us with such scarlet light, or else I fear Ransom would see the blush washing down my cheeks.
