Love.
Tears pool in my eyes, and the dead girls join hands. They are more solid now, colors and lines instead of bits of white smoke. Hester nods to me and the bell.
“We came to find you, Adelaide.” Her voice brings fresh sobs from my throat. “We came to help you. Hold the bell, and we will give you what little we have left.”
The words frighten me. Just another deal, or something worse?
“It won’t kill you, will it?”
Hester laughs, a sound I know so well. Something like spring rain. “We have already passed on to the light, Adelaide, but we will not leave you to do this alone. This place is not our home, but there is an echo of home in you. Enough for miracles to be worked. And we want to help with that.” A shadow crosses her face, and a tear slips down her cheek. “Please. Addie. It’s the least I can do.”
I do not understand a word of it, but I feel it. The warmth traveling through my body like cinnamon tea. Hester’s hand goes to my shoulder, and the breath whooshes from my lungs. My bones turn to diamond. I am rigid, life and death passing through me like wind in a tunnel. For the light and for the shadow.
Golden rays shoot from my palm. White flowers, green leaves, a cascade of spring air. I open my mouth to cry out, but there is nothing more than breath. Rich, living breath. My palm burns, but it does not hurt. The light swirls, shoots up toward the sky, and the brass puddles in my hands.
One by one, the dead girls smile and drift away, evaporating like puffs until all that is left is Hester. Her black hair tumbles down her back, and for a moment, I remember her as she was. Living, running through the fields, dancing in the reeds of the River Thine.
“Take it, Addie,” she says. “Take it and work miracles.”
And then she, too, disappears into nothing but sweet-smelling vapor.
“Adelaide, what—what happened?”
Clara looks as though she has seen a hundred thousand ghosts. And perhaps she has. I smile, the warmth in me so deep and delicious it is like being drunk on wine.
“There is only one thing that can come from Death,” I say, looking down at my hand. “Life.”
And there, amongst the oh-so-familiar lines in my palm, is the bell and clapper bead, whole and good and mine.
“Let’s go get Bram.”
twenty-nine
Haunts circle the sky around Blackbourne Castle, their long arms flowing behind them like limp wings. The bitterbloom is thick, petals white as snow, wavering in the cold breeze that licks up from the forest. How many dead girls lie here, unburied from their graves in the churchyard, to be cut and sewn and pieced together like patches from an old quilt?
I still feel them, the last remaining life force threading through my veins. The bell thrums in my pocket and, with it, the power of life just there, shimmering beneath my fingertips.
Clara’s breath is fog in the air beside me. Rascal is at our feet, teeth bared. My skin tenses when one Haunt swoops low, eyes sightless, slitted nostrils flaring for a scent.
I do not know if Bram is alive, if one already dead can die again. But I can picture his mouth, the shape it made when he tried so desperately to tell me he loved me. What I would give to have him say those words now.
“How do you know those monsters brought Bram here?” Clara’s voice is a whisper at my shoulder.
“Because my mother and Ransom are working together.” The truth is wormwood on my tongue. Bitter and sharp. “And she controls those things.”
No matter what state his body is in, Bram is here. I feel it, a gentle tug in the center of my chest.
“Do you have a plan?” Clara asks.
I pull the bell from my pocket, letting it reflect the vibrant petals surrounding us. “Honestly, the only plan I have is to go in there and rescue Bram and get us all home.”
Clara gives me an incredulous look. “Right, easy. So, we’re just going to march into a castle filled with hundreds—maybethousands—of living dead people under the control of your homicidal mother. Who knows where your father is hiding, who is Death incarnate, if you don’t remember. And what am I missing? Oh, right, the fact that the skies are currently filled with beings that are sort of dead but also can definitely kill us.”
I flash her a toothy grin. “See? Shouldn’t be that difficult.”
She returns the smile and buries one hand in Rascal’s coarse fur. “I’ll be honest. When I followed you through that door, I just wanted my friend back. I didn’t think I’d get myself wrapped up in a demon battle.”
I shrug. “There are worse things.”
