Only Oliver Lysander remains apart from it all. Removed, the way she’s removed, as if both of them have stepped outside the fabric of time and into a silent little pocket of their own. His eyes lift, searching. His gaze settles on hers. He doesn’t move, and neither does she. She knows what it feels like to be hunted.
Slowly, his mouth tips into a chilling smile.
A cataclysm, Van Haut called her. All around her, the night is in violent upheaval. Because of her. Because she couldn’t save herself. Because she didn’t know how. Because she knocked Oliver Keeling so far out of alignment, he came all apart.
Everything has an end, he told her.
The wind picks up, turning choppy. It whips her hair into her eyes, plucks the petals from the begonias. Pink swirls through the dark in a fluttering maelstrom as she peers overhead. At first, it feels like she’s seeing stars. Dozens upon dozens of them, spanning the sky in ruby-red constellations. Slowly, a helicopter coalesces out of the dark. It hovers, lights blinking, rotors spinning. She watches, arrested, as something is dropped into the carnage. It hits the ground with a bang she feels in her chest. There’s a spark, firecracker bright, and a heavy smoke pours out into the street. Shea throws herself down on the balcony, covering her mouth and nose with her hands.
She doesn’t know how long she lies there, exposed and afraid, before the helicopter moves on. The bladed hum of it goes out of the stone. The wind dies down. For a long time afterward, there is nothing at all. She lies flat, blanketed in petals, and waits for the air to clear. Carefully, she crawls on her hands and knees to the edge of the balustrade and peers over.
The stars have gone white again, pale in comparison with the wide face of the hunter’s moon. The street below is empty. A sickly sweet smell clings to the air. It slips down her throat, turning her breaths papery. She coughs into her fist, searching for any sign at all of Lys.
He’s gone. Disappeared, along with the rest of the crowd. A lone figure walks down the road. She’s dressed all in colors, a possum cradled in her arms.
“Poppy,” hisses Shea, waving her hands over her head. “Poppy, I’m up here!”
Poppy spots Shea and smiles, her mouth moving. Shea’s too far to read her lips. Her words are lost to the dark, soundless and adrift.
“Hold on,” Shea calls. “I’m coming down.”
Hiking up her dress, she eases herself over the railing, clinging to the begonia vines as she feels her way slowly to a pilaster. The way is fraught, and there are precious few handholds. She makes it partway before she falls, landing hard in a bloodred swath of burning bush.
“Ow.”
Poppy appears in her field of vision, talking still as she helps Shea up.
“I can’t hear anything,” she explains, brushing petals from her dress. “My batteries died in the middle of the attack.”
Poppy asks something else. It looks like,Didn’t you bring any spares?
“I’ve been busy.” The begonias were thorny, and her palms are gridded in scrapes. “Plus, this dress doesn’t have any pockets.”
Poppy holds up a finger, silently signaling for her to wait. Fishing through the bib of her overalls, she pries loose a half-empty blister packet, the remaining cells winking silver. The very last of Lys’s stock. Shea rushes to replace the old batteries with the new, taking a breath as sound comes rushing in on a dizzying wave.
“I could kiss you,” she tells Poppy. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re the best person in the world?”
“It’s been said,” says Poppy. “Are you okay?”
“Not really.” The smoke is gone, but the odor lingers, pungent and sweet. “Where’d everyone go?”
“I’m not sure. Those smoke grenades sent them running. It smells a little bit like the hawthorn trees behind the schoolyard. Did you notice? Whenever the wind blew through the blooms, I always thought it smelled like fish.”
“Why would that make them run?”
Poppy considers as they walk, edging carefully around each subsequent corner. Every alleyway is empty. Every road is deserted. There’s no one in sight for miles. “Maybe it’s trimethylamine. The smell, I mean. It’s the same chemical emitted by a dead body as it decomposes. I bet they don’t like it. The Rot needs a living host.”
Shea falters, glancing over at her. “Where do you even learn something like that?”
“At school,” says Poppy patiently. “You just never did the reading. Is there a reason you’re wearing a crown?”
“Oh.” Shea pulls off the circlet of bone and grips it tight in her hands. She doesn’t know how to tell Poppy how sideways everything has gone. “Poppy I—” Her voice sticks in her throat. She tries again. “I have to tell you something. It’s about Ellie.”
“She’s here.” Poppy’s eyes are bright in the dark. “We were right, weren’t we?”
Shea swallows sharply. “Yes, but it’s not that simple—”
“I knew it.” Poppy’s smile turns hopeful. “I knew we’d find her. Is she—she’s okay? Has Asher seen her yet?”
