We had not drowned in the sea, after all, not given up and allowed ourselves to breathe in water, because we had not been certain what would happen. I had survived after one death, yes, but did that mean I would survive endless deaths?
I did not care, however, because if she was dead, I wanted to be dead.
They might as well kill me, if she was gone.
I tried not to think of the idea that perhaps the demon watch gave us both one survival chance, and then we really died. Which would mean she was alive and after they hung me, I was dead.
I tried not to, but of course, I did.
So, when they came for me, to string me up, I decided I might as well fight.
Not that it mattered much, for there were a number of them, and they easily subdued me. All that it meant was that my last few moments there, alive, in the south of France, were considerably less pleasant than they would have been if I hadn’t struggled.
Also, in regards to dying, I highly recommend a bullet to the hangman’s noose.
The bullet is quicker.
I can’t say which hurts worse—they may hurt about the same.
But the prolonged element of dangling there, being unable to draw breath, the world fading out, and one’s lungs burning until—
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
fitzwilliam
Oh, Lord, Rosings!
I was alive.
It had worked. I suppose I could die again and again, then. Well, that was relieving. I swung my legs out of the bed and massaged my neck.
Now, to go and find Elizabeth, I supposed.
I started across the room towards the door, and I heard the sound of very loud bangs, one after the other. It sounded rather like gunfire.
I paused, alarmed.
It sounded as if it was coming from downstairs.
But… that wasn’t right. I had lived this particular Thursday, in Rosings, ad nauseam, and this sound never happened.
I threw open the door, still in my nightclothes, and I rushed down the stairs.
When I got to the bottom, there were bodies.
Servants, slumped over, bleeding from their heads and chests and throats. I let out a cry and rushed off for the breakfast parlor. Usually, Richard was in there, reading some gossip sheet or other. Usually, I would sit down and he would tease me aboutsleeping late (because he got up with the dawn due to being used to being in the army and loved to rub my face in that) and then my aunt, Lady Catherine, would arrive with Anne trailing along behind her.
But when I got to the breakfast parlor, Richard wasn’t there.
I went over to his seat. The gossip sheet wasn’t there either, but there was a stack of letters sitting out on the sideboard next to some kippers and sliced bread. I sorted through them until I found the sheet.
Yes, it was Thursday, all right, not that I had come to expect anything else.
I went to the door of the breakfast parlor and thrust it open.
There was my aunt, Lady Catherine, coming down to breakfast.
Bang.
