“You want me to Turn,” says Shea.
“I’m renegotiating the terms of our deal.”
The light filtering through the window has almost reached him. He doesn’t flinch back from it. His stare is black as a void. Cold and expectant, like he knows he has her cornered.
She thinks about Turning—the permanency of it. If she agrees, she’ll spend the rest of her life bound to the dark. Beholden to the Gravewood. She’d never see another sunrise. Never feel the heat of summer on her skin. She thinks of how—when she was very small—she used to believe she could carry sunlight home in the folds of her skirt. She remembers her mother kneeling in the kitchen, scooping great handfuls of nothing from the crumpled pleats, cupping her hands around the empty air like it was liquid gold:You brought all this? For me? Oh, let’s go quick and show your father.
Her father is gone. Her mother is disappearing.
There’s no one waiting for her to carry the sunshine back home.
“When would we leave?”
Lys knows a yes when he sees one. “A week from tomorrow.”
That’s seven days at Mercy Ridge, in the company of killers.
Seven days in the dark with the devil.
When the Gravewood swallows someone, it doesn’t spit them out.
“How can I be sure nothing will happen to my mom while I’m away?”
“I’ll put a watch on the house. No one in or out.”
“What if she starves?”
“She’s already starving,” says Lys, and she knows that he’s right.
She knows this is all there is—this is the singular path forward.Hispath. The devil’s road. The only way to get something important is through a Mercy Boy, and a cure for her mother is the most important thing of all. If it truly exists—if Lys is the one who can get it for her—she’ll do whatever it takes.
“I’ll do it,” she says. “You get my mom a cure, and I’ll Turn.”
Lys’s smile is all teeth. His eyes swallow the light. In a voice that sinks into her stomach, he says, “Looks like the three of us are going to a party.”
I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
Shakespeare’sA Midsummer Night’s Dream
Cyrus is waiting for Lysander when he arrives back at his room.
He’s sprawled across the armchair by the window, a smear of blood darkening his chin. Remnants of his most recent feed. Lysander doesn’t see him there until the door swings shut. Immediately, he tugs it back open.
“Get out.”
Cyrus doesn’t move. Not a muscle.
“You let the watchdog live,” he says.
“He made me a compelling offer.”
“That’s not the reason. If you killed him, shewouldn’t forgive you.”
His room is sparsely decorated. A bed. A trunk. A table. It lacks character, the way hotel rooms do. It was never meant to be anything more than temporary lodging for out-of-town tourists—a scenic stopover for travelers hoping to catch a ride on the old cog railway. There’s a view outside the window, but he doesn’t see it. The glass has been blacked out. Sunlight gathers on the other side of the paint. A tantalizing bit of brilliance in a room dark as pitch.
“When I want your opinion,” says Lysander, “I’ll ask.”
