My father stands before us, drenched in inky shadows. Father and yet not Father. His face is the same: stone-set and heavy-browed. But there is something else, something that clings to the hollows of his cheekbones, the citrine irises of his eyes. When he meets my gaze, a smile spills along the line of his lips, dripping a cloying sweetness I have never seen him use. The shadows form a cloak at his back, embracing him like raven wings.
Here, he is Father—Vicar Thorn—but he is someone else too.
He is Death incarnate.
A Reaper.
“Daughter of mine,” he muses, voice like cracking ice. “I have been looking for you.”
My body tenses, goes rigid. Everything I have ever known seems a lie. Our home near the river, the flower beds beneath the window, Mother and Father dancing in the kitchen before the world turned gray. Before Mother wasted to ash in their marriage bed. And if that is all a lie, what does it make me?
Father takes a step closer, the pin on his cloak glittering in the moonlight. “So, you have discovered my secret?”
Clara trembles beside me. I tighten my grip on her hand.
“You lied to me.”
Amusement glistens on his face. “I never lied, Adelaide. If you would have only asked me.”
“Asked my father if he was Death? A Reaper? If he was the thing that killed my mother?”
He scowls, the shadows deepening around him. Rascal whines and paws at the dirt.
“I did not kill your mother,” Death growls. “I have killed no one, in fact. I only harvest souls once they have died. A faceless blur on the wind. Your mother was responsible for the actions that led to her loss.”
Anger boils hot in my veins, tearing down my arms like cinnamon. “You watched her die. You allowed it to happen, and in the end, it was me who lost.Me!”
The darkness grows, closing in around us, but I do not care. I only shake. My heart pounds while Clara’s hand loosens in mine. Father steps closer.
“Your mother was sick, Adelaide. Her mind had grown weak. Her obsession with life eternal grew like a weed in her gardens. She did notwantto be human. She wanted to be agod. I did my best to pluck it out, to show her that death was only a beginning, that no matter what we could always be together, but that was not what she wanted.” His shadows swirl and brush my cheek with the scent of pine needles and sage. “In the end, I had to let her go.”
His words are a punch to my gut, lungs collapsing, and the breath rushes from me.
Let her go.
“You let her die?”
Father takes a step forward, one hand outstretched to cup my cheek. I do not pull away, though his touch is ice.
“I could not save her, Adelaide. So instead, I tried to save you. To keep you from your true nature. I thought, if I hid the truth from you, you could live some semblance of a normal life. But you were bred from light and shadow. Your mother was special, touched with a hunger for life that inspired me, drew me to her. But after we wed, she discovered my secret, caught me ferrying souls in the rowan wood, and stole the bell.”
My fingers go to my pocket, where the brass greets me, cool and clear. “She knew about the bell?”
Father nods. “She told me she only wanted to use it once, to bring her own mother back from the dead. But I told her it didn’t always work thatway. Most times, souls made their choice quickly. For Ithrandril or Erybrus. Light or shadow. But she was desperate for power and took it. I chased her down to the river, struggled with her to gain it back. She fell and cracked her spine along the stones.”
My mind goes dark, fills with memories. Mother and Fathernotin the kitchen, their voices rattling from the riverbank, my face pressed against frosty glass while he brought her up the hill, slung like a rag doll in his arms. She was never the same after that.
My father continues. “With her body so broken, she could no longer carry on with her work and, eventually, gave herself the bitterbloom poison so she could continue on from the other side, through the soul of another.”
Ransom.
My stomach swills sick.
“But what happened to the bell?” I ask, one finger still tracing the sharp edges.
“I abandoned it. I knew it was only a matter of time before Esme found it. She had been killing those girls for so long, burying them in her flower beds, and I knew—”
Breath hardens in my chest, turns to iron rock. “What do you mean, she buried them in her flower beds?”
