Lux hurtled back around the corner and pressed herself against the wall, trying as best she could to quiet her breaths. Who the devil was down there?It couldn’t be a collector.
Whomever it was dressed all in white.
“A buried girl. Let her out.”
Be quiet!she snarled at the voice. The girl might be real. For all Lux knew, she might be an attendant.
Dressed entirely different from any of the others…
Lux edged along the wall. She would look again. If this was like the bathwater and thus a figment of her mind, the person would be gone. Or at least standing the same as she had been before. And if she were real, she must have moved by now.
Lux breathed a deep breath at the corner’s curve before peering around—
Right into another’s eyes.
She screamed.
The figure had come partway up the stairs, and though she’d moved as Lux had hoped she would, it was in the worst possible way. The steps were solidly beneath her; the girl’s feet did not touch them. They somehow suspended above.
It can’t be. Ghosts arenotreal.
But why wasn’t the figure fading?
Why did it look just like Lux herself?
Lux’s heart racketed against her ribs. Because—saints above—maybe ghostswerereal. Maybe madness took over families and elixirs could make the dead speak and if her forgery of an aunt had to cough up her appendix for a seed what else could happen?
Really, what did Lux even know of the world?
She stared into the apparition’s empty eyes. When it moved closer, she backed away. “If you can’t even stand on the stairs, then you cannot hurt me.”
Maybe that would be true too.
“Tell me who you are,” she ordered when the figure floated only several stairs down.
The apparition’s dark tresses hung curled but limp, wet over a nightgown, and its feet were bare and dirty. Aside from the soulless stare, Lux would have been positive it was human. But then the figure opened its mouth and revealed rows of pointed and blackened teeth.
Lux’s head lightened. “Nevermind. I don’t wish to know.”
“Lucena Thorn. Necromancer. Thief. Murderer.”
Lux would go back. This instant. She’d obey Corvin and return to her room; she’d even lock herself inside.
“Shine bright, little Lux. And do not forget your dreams.”
“Enough,” she hissed.
“So hateful. So lonely.”
Lux stepped up sideways, keeping the curved wall at her back. The apparition didn’t move, but its stare followed her. “Leave me alone!”
“Never alone. Not anymore.”
“What in the devil’s own hell are you?”
“I am you.”
Lux had taken two steps more before the apparition began to follow again. “You are nothing like me.”
