“I’m not taking his teeth,” I assure her. “Just what they remember.”
“I’ll be here if it turns ugly—if he sends you something violent and fucked,” she promises, moving to stand on the other end of the coffin. Then she flicks her fingers at me. “And hey, I’ll syphon the worst of it. Don’t fight me.”
“I won’t.”
She glares at me for the lie. I peel my right glove off with my teeth and spit it into the dirt. Bone is delicate, yes, but what’s buried within it is even worse. Nanna’s lessons rise to the surface. Touch too soft and the memory won’t form; too hard and you shatter it completely. Percy makes a dying cat noise when I kneel beside the body and press bare skin to his mandible. My thumb swipes over his teeth. They’re cold, smooth, and some are loose under my touch.
“Cillian Sallow II,” I murmur. “You saw Lord Hildebrand to bed the night he stained himself with my duchess’s blood. Show me where his shadow fell. Show me his words when he lied. Show me the fear he swallowed and the words he made you keep.”
The vision unfurls like a thunderclap behind my lids, and the first thing I’m thinking is that the night is too bright for murder. Godwyn’s boots strike the stone floor in a hurry, andI’m following after him with legs that aren’t mine. They’re too muscular and long, bedecked in what looks like linen breeches. We enter a massive chamber where Godwyn drags his hands through his hair, streaking it red.
He’s handsome because, of course, he is. Rarely are the villains outwardly grotesque, or else they wouldn’t be able to captivate us so readily. There’s a maniacal smile on his face, the kind that must’ve lured Adelina closer even as her gut begged her to flee. His jaw alone is enough to have slit her throat, and the gleam in his eyes would make one beg for him to drink. He paces in a pool of crimson, polished shoes staining the perfect print of the streaks dragged across the floor. Long grooves where he’d dragged her body—the body of his wife. The woman who built him into something greater than he ever deserved.My duchess.The claim steadies my heart even as her betrayal bleeds across the floor.
Freshly crowned a murderer, Godwyn turns to me with a head shake and a laugh.
“She made me unto holiness—then loathed the work of her own hands.”He tugs his hair again, throwing an arm out towards the arched windows. In the distance, I can see Redford’s courtyard. “She shall return. Of this I am certain, Cillian.”
“My lord, wash and be easy,” slips from my mouth without command, and the enunciation is too faint. Centuries eat it, and the memory grows thin. “The dead may yet hearken.”
Godwyn laughs at that, a shrill, disbelieving noise that goes muffled. “Hearken? Aye, she doth, Cillian. She is not wholly gone—death could never claim her in full. We’ve little time now, days, if that. Ready thyself for what must be done.”
I’m speaking again, but this time the words are fragmenting and becoming noises. Godwyn’s nodding at me, and my teeth grind as I try to force the exchange back into shape.Fucking hell, my chest caves inwards, vision burning scarlet, and a thousandneedles find purchase down my spine. We’re shaking hands; I can barely feel the touch. Godwyn’s face tears like parchment, the walls disintegrate, but they’re still conversing. The vision splits as Percy screams my name, and I feel that axe right down the centre of my skull.
Sweaty silk wraps back around me, and the scent of dirt rushes to fill my nostrils. I’m forcefully slammed back into my body, doubled and gagging over Cillian’s corpse. His teeth crumble underneath me. Blood walks warmly from my eyes, casting the last ruin onto my dress. I grab Cillian’s jaw again, even as Percy protests, but there’s nothing.
Whatever was left of that vision is now in splinters.
“Chess—can you,fuck, can you hear me?” Soft skin wipes at the blood on my face, cupping cheeks so that I’m blinking up at her. She’s hazy within the crimson filter.
“Godwyn wasn’t afraid that night,” I say to the vague shape of her. “He knew. He bloodyknewshe’d return, told Cillian so and everything. Nanna’s journal was right. It’s always the fucking butler, isn’t it? Percy, I think he—I think he did something with her blood in the room. It was pulsating, I dunno.” More blood drips when I blink. “Oh shit, I need to go back in. Need to try and salvage it. Need to see what?—”
Percy grabs me by the front of my dress, nearly exposing my tits for the entire graveyard to see. “Listen to me, psycho. That memory is over five hundred years old, and you tried to keep it together with your bare hands. It’s not just fragile; it’s dangerous. Jesus Christ, you’re lucky you’re only bleeding. What if it’d been yourmind, huh?”
Her voice splinters on ‘mind’, knocking the air right out of me. Blue has faded within her eyes, making them nearly translucent. She’s feeding. Not by choice, nor by hunger. My panic has become her meal, and with each heaving breath, she sucks it into her lungs. So I choke it back, pushing all thoughts ofCillian and Godwyn aside. And it’s the way she’s holding my face that truly does me in, that practically screams she doesn’t even care whether she drowns in emotion bearingmyname. A very prominent fear takes a seat beside us then, laying a hand to each of our throats in warning.
Cillian’s teeth could’ve claimed me. It could’ve swallowed me whole, allowing my personhood to tear alongside the memory. Could’ve spat me back into reality half-empty like Nanna. Still alive, still breathing but wandering the land of our ancestors she no longer knows.Alzheimer’s, we say politely when the press asks. In Percy’s eyes I see the truth of it, the price of a witch who pushes too far.
“I’m fine,” I rasp, voice raw with the remnants of a fifteenth-century butler.
“Fine? You’rebleedingfrom the eyes and still lying to me, oh my god,” she snaps, then scrambles to her feet and walks in a panicked little circle. Nearly trips straight into Cillian’s coffin but saves herself on the headstone. “I shouldn’t have agreed to this shit. Why are we still digging through Godwyn’s dirt? You passed the testfour monthsago when you killed Gabe. You’re free; I’m free. Done!” She gestures at the corpse. “Instead I’m here babysitting your necromantic ass again.”
“Because my daughter won’t be! You’re free, I’m free, yes, I get that. Butshewon’t be unshackled from this just because I survived.”
Percy spins around, heavy skirts working against her balance. “Whatdaughter? You’re risking your life for the ghost of a girl that doesn’t even exist yet?—”
“And when she does exist?” I deadpan, pressing a hand to the ache in my sternum. “Would you want me to lead her to that chapel on the eve of her tenth birthday? Gran was fine passing this curse to us. Great-Granny Priscilla was fine passing it to the twins. But I’m not going to look at my daughter’s face and tellher that someone’s gonna hunt her until she either kills them or dies. That shit messed us up; don’t even pretend it didn’t. I’m not doing that to her, even if I have to dig up every dead man in Sheffolk.”
She stares at me for a few heartbeats, jaw working like an old woman chewing peanuts. As though she’s tasting her words before she tests them. “Okay. Okay, you’re completely right.” More chewing. “Obviously I remember the chapel. Could never forget it. And I wouldn’t want that for your future zygote either, just for the record. I’m just scared of losing you to something reckless.”
The snort I give only aggravates the ache. I push to shaky knees, allowing Percy to lift me the rest of the way. “I’m not trying to be reckless, you know. I just wanna break this damn curse. We should be the last girls to be taken to the chapel and told they’re prey. This test needs to die. Will you help me?”
“Of course I’ll help you,” she says, quiet. Another crow calls out. “I’m not gonna be the aunt chanting,‘Decem numerus perfectionis est! Decem clausura circuli est!’to your zygote—fuck no.” That pulls a laugh from me, and she grins. “I’m all in. If anyone’s gonna help, it might as well be the only other girl dreaming about that night.” She kicks the coffin. “What are we doing about this guy, though?”
I look at Cillian again, at how the worms crawl freely over him. A bug fidgets with a portion of his temple. It’s disgustingly offensive how a past as haunting as ours, with poison still seeping into the present, can be reduced to a few boxes of fucking bones. How convenient for them to be nothing but dust. They get to start wars, doom a duchy, murder wives and throw curses all willy-nilly.
Then what? Kick the bucket. And I’m supposed to work with that? Fuck off.
I pull my ruined lace glove back on, flicking some maggots off. “We can’t just leave him here.” Even I can hear the petulance in my tone. “It’ll draw attention.”
