Mouthless dead. Charles Hamilton Sorley.
One more time, my little love. It’s almost dawn.
“It creeps me out when you do that,” says Asher. “Shut up for a little bit, I need to sleep.”
Lysander is quiet as long as he can stand it, the suspension clunking horribly, his molars grinding down to dust.
Caving, he asks, “Who’s driving?”
“Parker.” Asher’s voice slips from beneath his cap.
Where Asher’s name skimmed into his subconscious, Shea’s pierces it like an arrow. He sucks in a punctured breath. “She’s hitting every fucking pothole in Pennsylvania.”
Asher snorts, and then he’s out, breathing deeply. He sleeps on his back, his throat exposed and his pulse slow. Lysander holds himself still and wonders if this is what it feels like to be trusted. He falls asleep counting Asher Thorley’s heartbeat.
They’ve come to a stop by the time Asher wakes. The room is dark, the light at the edge of the blinds tinged red with a sunset. Lysander stands propped against the low-lying cabinets and untangles a Slinky he found stuffed in one of the drawers.HisSlinky, the steel wire hopelessly jumbled. He waits for Asher to notice him. It doesn’t take long. From beneath the cap slips a bone-weary sigh.
“Is thereanythingelse you can do to occupy your time?”
Lysander pries the coils apart like an accordion. “You know what I find interesting?”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s deeply disturbing—”
“You haven’t asked me about your sister since we left Mercy Ridge.”
The Slinky trills shut. Asher lifts his cap off his face and peers out at Lysander from beneath. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’ve been under attack at every turn.”
“That’s not it,” says Lysander. “I think you know your sister is dead.”
The pause that follows is too long. Too damning. It takes Asher a beat to recover.
“If I really thought that, then what the hell am I doing here? Why would I desert my post and get a bounty put on my head in the process? Why would I follow you into the Gravewood on a suicide mission? Why would I give upeverything?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” admits Lysander.
“Yeah?” Asher drops his cap back onto his face. “Well, do me a favor and leave me alone until you do.”
•••
They’re deep in the devil’s backbone, surrounded on all sides by towering loblolly and ancient red maples. A former state park, gravel lot shot through with spurge. Through the windshield, Lysander can just make out the last of the daylight glinting off a metal slide. Shea perches on the bottom, the crossbow in her lap.
Waiting for the last of the sun to fade, Lysander drops into the dinette alongside Poppy. She shifts to the side without ever once looking up, too absorbed in her knitting. There’s no discernible pattern to the garment in her lap. The colors clash. The yarn is knotted. It reminds him of his mother’s cross-stitching. He watches her complete a row before he speaks.
“Tell me about Asher’s sister.”
Poppy glances up at him, her brow crinkled in concentration. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything,” he says. “Everything. What was she like?”
Poppy considers the question before answering, “She’s a lot like her brother, actually.”
“A giant stick-in-the-mud?”
“No,” says Poppy, stifling a smile. “Assertive.”
“Ah.”
“But in a protective way, you know? She’d do anything for her friends.”
