She’d tried. She’d paid attention. She’d felt Cecily’s soul overwhelming—overtaking—her, and she’d demanded her body to contain it. Souls had never fought her this way. They’d always been a welcomed warmth in her chest when her own had lacked that light. But now it seemed as though both her and another couldn’t coexist. That it was too much for her to bear.
Maybe she wasn’t broken—but she was certainly cracked. And she hated it.
Lux pushed to her feet and then hauled the girl up too. She bent to gather her things. “You died, Cecily. What do you remember?”
She glanced upward to see the girl shivering in her scant clothes, her eyes wide and alarmed, absorbing the eeriness of the sanctum. Lux had nothing to give her, but she glanced at the alcoves.
Moving to the nearest, she wrestled a black robe from its skeleton. Bones rattled, disturbed dust rising to meet her nose until she sneezed, but when it was free, Lux adjusted the pendant belonging to the dead.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said.
Shaking the garment of anything that might yet cling, she presented the robe to Cecily. The girl took it with pinched fingers and pursed lips.
“Icannotwear this.”
“I have nothing else to offer but a feather and loose parchment.”
Cecily pressed her eyes closed. She noticeably swallowed. Then she donned the robe.
It puddled about her bare feet.
“You’ll be their smallest collector,” Lux said. “Make sure you raise the hood once we leave.” She slung her pack over her shoulder.
“I remember dying.”
Lux’s fingers paused in their adjustment. She waited, terribly impatient, for what else Cecily would say.
“It was peaceful—once the pain faded.”
Lux raised an eyebrow.
“The garden. The stems with teeth. He took me to them. I couldn’t do much of anything after I drank the elixir for the salt-sick, and I still had the shackles.”
“Devil below.” He had her blood drained. Sentenced her to death in that graveyard garden.Lux’s insides were abuzz now with more than the revival’s energy. She ground her teeth. “Corvin.”
The name came to her tongue sure and resolute—but Cecily shook her head. “No. The large one. Kent.”
“Kent?” Lux frowned. “Why would he?”
Cecily sniffed, her nose pink and running. She scowled immediately afterward. Lux knew the robe did not smell fresh. “After they struck, he told me I’m not worth the trouble I’ll cause. That empaths are better off gone.”
Lux could make no sense of it. “They wanted you badly back in the courtyard. They even mended you when you were hurt. Why would they turn around and sacrifice you hours later… How did he feel?”
“He was…” Cecily trailed off, her brow scrunched. “Not excited, exactly. Bitter and angrier than that. He felt like…retribution.”
Retribution? Involving a girl who only wants to go home?
Lux shook herself free of trying to rationalize it; time was slipping, and they’d yet to plan any means of escape. She reached into her pack and removed every goldquin she could find. Then she shoved them within the pocket of Cecily’s robe. “Let’s get you to the gate.”
Chapter forty-five
Theendoftheunderground corridor revealed a steep climb that spat them out behind Mothlock’s grand staircase. Lux didn’t push the hidden door fully open, but remained stuck partway between, assessing.
The foyer had filled with people.
The guests of the Hallowed Banquet were not dressed in bright colors as Bartleby Tamish’s partygoers had been but in a sea of darkness and riches—deep jewel tones and silvers. Many were in black. The grim architecture surrounding them, coupled with flickering blue flames and lashing rain, had Lux thinking she shouldn’t be surprised of any evil committed here tonight.
She could see the front doors.
