“Me,” he counters, though this is a lie.
Oliver Lysander had run so far, he ran all the way here—to damp, dull New Hampshire. To the belly of Mercy Mountain, perennially frozen and perpetually dark. He dug out a home for himself in the shell of the old ski lodge and then assembled his crew from the ground up. Cyrus first, and then the rest. The Mercy Boys, his very own army. Ragtag and runaway and impossible to call to heel, but loyal to the bone. Heneedsthem loyal. He needs them united—a single defensive entity. One day, the thing that chased him so far north will come looking. If it finds him alone, it’ll destroy him.
He doesn’t plan to let it.
“Tell me what you’re running from and maybe we’ll keep you around.”
Tristan’s throat bobs in a swallow. Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to say. Lysander can just make out the wild flutter of the boy’s pulse in the soft curve of his neck. He canhearit, palpitating through his veins in frantic ticks. He cansmellit, ambrosia sweet.
His mouth waters.
“I graduate this year,” says Tristan. “My brother went to university, but my grades—my family expects me to enlist.”
“And you’re afraid to be on the front lines,” guesses Lysander.
Tristan balks. “That’s not—”
“You think this is the easy way out. Sleeping all day. Feeding all night. No responsibility to anything, or anyone.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve seen it before. No one wants to hunt us and die. Not when they couldbeus and live. You’re not special, you’re—”
“I don’t want to die for something I don’t believe in,” snaps Tristan, cutting him off.
It’s a pretty answer. Anobleanswer, full of conviction. Still, Lysander can hear the avoidance in it. The way Tristan skirts around admitting the whole truth. There’s something else. Something he’s too ashamed to admit. Here, now, is what he’s been looking for.Theseare the sorts of recruits Lysander needs.
The ones who have already shut the door behind them.
“Not everyone survives,” Lysander says. “Sometimes the Rot gets into your head instead of your blood. Sometimes it breaks you.”
Tristan’s eyes dart to Cyrus. “What does— Does this mean I’m in?”
Decisions, decisions. In or out. Live or die. Mercy Boy or carrion. The Rot is in everything. The beasts. The trees. The boys. They drink it up from the groundwater, let the hunger take hold.
If Tristan is in, he’ll live here at Mercy Ridge. If he’s not, they’ll cast him out and let the wolves have his body, let the forest gnaw on his bones. Either way, Tristan Choi won’t be leaving the forest again.
“Your membership is conditional.”
He watches as some of Tristan’s courage flags. “Conditional on what?”
“On what happens when you drink from the well.”
“Finally,”crows Cyrus, springing from the wall. “I can take him there.”
The well, as it were, is more of a pump. It sits in the courtyard, rusted and ugly and girded in lichen. Its pipes run deep, pulling from the same water that feeds the forest. The same spring-fed poison that gave the trees teeth. It gives them teeth, too—those who call the forest home. It makes them hungry. Sharp. Cold. Or else it consumes them.
Like he told Tristan, not everyone Turns.
“Thank you,” says Tristan as Cyrus ushers him toward the exit. He sounds a little regretful, the full weight of what he’s asked for dropping down on him like an axe. Cyrus tosses a knowing smirk at Lysander as he slings an arm over Tristan’s shoulder. There’s no undoing what’s about to be done, and both of them know it.
“I love an initiation.” Cyrus crooks his elbow, hooking Tristan in close. “It’s always a good time. Come on, kid, let’s go see how gods are made.”
The door skids slowly shut in their wake. Cold creeps in through the crack.
Outside, the hall is empty. Through peels of paint along the blacked-out windows, Lysander can just see the first few tinges of dawn. A pale, ashy light he’s never felt upon his skin. He sinks into an empty chair by the hearth, kicking out his boots. Letting the fatigue crawl into him. He’s only eighteen, but he feels a thousand years old. Like he carries the forest in his chest.
He shuts his eyes. Jabs a finger at his temple. He wishes for a sleep that won’t come. He’s not immortal—not in the storybook sense—but the possibility of eons stretches tauntingly before him regardless. A lifetime in the dark.
