“Thorley. Nice of you to join us.”
Asher’s voice is tight. “What the hell did you do to her?”
“Nothing she didn’t ask me to do,” returns Lys smoothly.
“You’resick.”
“Incurably,” agrees Lys. “What are you still doing awake? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“You asked me to keep a closer eye on her. Choi said her room was empty.” Asher’s lip curls in thinly veiled disgust. “Clearly the two of you are occupied. I’ll see myself out.”
“Stay.”
Shea hears her voice from far away, drifting down with the snow. Asher and Lys turn to look at her in unison. Everything feels slow, slow, slow, like they’re all underwater. Afloat, her heart thuds dully between her ears. Lys is the first to recover.
“You heard her,” he says, smiling affably at Asher. “She wants you to stay.”
“You have to do what I tell you.” She can hear how ridiculous she sounds, even buried in the fog of a feed. It doesn’t stop a snicker from bursting out of her. She drops into a mock curtsy, ankles crossed. “Didn’t you hear? Conall Sullivan says I’m a princess.”
Asher’s face is stony. “Conall Sullivan is dead.”
“Well, he wasn’t being very nice.”
Another snicker. Asher looks at her as though he’s seeing her for the first time. The blood at her wrist. The glaze in her eyes. The way she inches nearer to Lys without even trying. She’s a moon in his orbit, winking through the black infinity of his pull.
“Is this good for you?” he asks Lys. “Having her like this?”
“Not at all,” says Lys, with complete sincerity.
“And yet here you are anyway.”
Lys smiles and shrugs. “We all have our crosses to bear.”
Asher’s eyes land on the crumpled letter, his name still partially visible. He stares at it for a long time without speaking. Darkly, he says, “You asked me for a favor.”
“Did I?” Lys swipes his hood from his head. “Or did I suggest a plan that would be mutually beneficial to the three of us?”
“It’s not benefiting anyone,” bites out Asher. “You’re screwing it up.”
The quiet stretches out and resettles. Off in the distance comes the faint call of a whippoorwill. A winged herald of death, alerting to the presence of a predator.
“No wonder Sullivan went after her,” says Asher.
Lys’s jaw clicks. “Sullivan made a mistake.”
“And you’re delusional if you think so.” Asher huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “My sister’s life might just hinge on your ability to maintain control of the Gravewood, and right now you don’t even have control over yourself.”
“That’s what this is about?” asks Lys. “Your sister?”
Asher’s scowl deepens. “You want me to see this through? You want me to put on a show for Paris Keeling? You’re going to stay out of my way. Do you understand?”
“I’m not sure I do.” Lys isn’t smiling anymore. “Why don’t you spell it out for me, Sunshine?”
“Find somewhere else to get your sick little kicks,” orders Asher. “From this point on, you and Parker are done.”
Here is another memory—an earlier one: Hornbeam Academy in March, the air thick and wet. Not quite winter, not yet spring, only the hardiest of daffodils pushing through the granulated slush. Yellow on white. Gray on everything. She’d been ten years old, sitting on the swings at recess and watching the forest through the chain-link fence. Every memory of that day is a somatic pulse: the rattle of the swing, the creak of old chains, the stream of her ribbons in the leonine wind.
Nearby, Poppy Zahar and Heather Borkowski jumped rope and sang a skipping rhyme. Between them, Camellia Thorley executed a perfect double Dutch, her voice cutting loud and clear across the blacktop:
