The walk through the red wood is filled with sounds that send my skin crawling. Groans and screams, the laughter of young children morphing to the scraping of nails on stone. It turns my stomach, makes me cling fast to the bell. I hold it so tightly I fear it might come apart in my hand with each step.
Bram does not know of this, not now, not after everything I have put himthrough. When we reach the ruin of Rixton, I pause at the vicarage. Look up. Envision what it looks like back home.
Even there, it is a broken thing. Even there, so am I.
Little Reaper. I leave Bram’s side and dive through the opening, spilling out on the other side where the bitterbloom weaves, rebellious in the light of a dead moon. Bram chases after me, his feet crunching the broken earth beneath us.
“Adelaide, what the hell are you doing? We need to reach the castle.”
I shove hair from my face and stare down at the flowers. “I don’t understand—”
He reaches for my wrist, his fingers like dagger points. “If we don’t get to the castle soon, who knows what Ransom will wind up doing.”
I spin, my cheeks racing hot. Ransom’s greedy hands still linger on my skin, and I taste the bitter bite of his lips. I close my eyes for a beat, brushing away the memory and trying desperately to replace it with a daydream. Ransom running to the castle before us, finding our mothers, apologizing when we arrive. Saying he’s sorry, but look, he found them! Doesn’t that make up for it? But trying to make the thought real, force it to fit, is like shoving solid rock through cheesecloth.
Bram lifts his hand from mine. My skin tenses, but I continue to stare at the blooms, reach a finger to brush the velvet petals. Each one so vibrant. So alive. How can they grow in a world where the faces of people are sloughing off?
“How are these alive?”
Bram shifts beside me, his voice thin with irritation. “How would I know?”
“Because I know nothing, remember?”
The bitter bite of my words hit their mark. He rubs his eyes.
“I honestly have no idea, Adelaide. It doesn’t make sense. There, is that the answer you wanted?”
A sort of blush rises in his cheeks. It is horribly distracting.
Ever since he spilled the rabbit blood and watched me hold the heart, I swear there is something more human about him. More pain, more joy, more fear set behind those amber eyes. Even when Ransom had mepressed against the wall, I couldn’t stop thinking what if it was him—Bram—to make it better. Make it safe. Because that is what he makes me feel more than anyone else in this wretched world ever has.
Safe.
I could imagine it was Bram who had his hands at my waist, his fingers like knife points in my thigh—
The flowers. Back to the flowers.
“Touch one.”
Bram lifts his brows. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, touch one.”
“Adelaide, we don’t have time for—”
I grab his hand and pull it toward a snowy bloom, the centers like drops of honey. Almost instantly, when his fingers brush against it, the bitterbloom shrivels. He gasps and pulls away.
“What the—”
I stare at the dead flower, each petal now a burial shroud. None of the others have been affected, only the one Bram touched. I reach out toward it, my finger like a butterfly kiss. And the petal unfurls. Turns white once more. Gray to cream to pure milky white. I pull away, my skin stinging.
“What the hell did you just do?” Bram brushes his hand along the bed of flowers. The blooms go dead at an alarming rate.
I do not look up, my eyes trained on the bitterbloom. It seems to waver, as if a breeze has come. And then, I reach for all the flowers. I gather them in fistfuls, careful not to pull them from the earth, and watch while each and every one turns a shade so bright they are almost blinding.
Bram goes slack-jawed. “This is impossible.”
I touch every flower until the bed is bursting. Honey yellow, nacreous pearl, pops of almost unnatural green. They seem to grow right from my very fingers, kissing my flesh as though I am the sun. They take my breath away. Something sizzles in my veins, and I press my hand against Bram’s arm.
