A flash of glass and gold liquid caught the lamplight from the corner of my eye, and then a needle pressed into my throat, finding the gap beside the ribbon.
The vine turned my head sharply.
Agnes’s trembling hand dropped away, her feet scrambling back quickly to put a safe distance between us.
The compound entered my bloodstream with a warmth that spread in every direction simultaneously. The vine fought it, pulling against the mixture with everything it had, the fury still drumming through my nervous system even as the muscles that had been executing it began to lose their rigidity. It tried to hold on, pressing at every surface of my mind, raging against the dissolution of its control with the desperation of something that had been interrupted at the most critical moment of its plan.
Then it released me.
The clay pot slipped from my fingers and hit the floor, splitting it with a sound that echoed through the space liketiny bones cracking. Soil scattered, the flower spilling free—a grave-bed hastily spread at my feet.
My legs went out, the cold stone rising to meet me.
The last thing I saw was Nicholas. His face lay against the stone mere inches from mine, the flower’s pulsing glow catching in his lifeless amber eyes.
My fingers twitched at my side, aching to touch him one last time, but I could not move.
Darkness pulled me under and his voice moved through my mind one last time.
“The human body is such an optimistic arrangement, considering how easily it comes apart, and how quickly it begins to rot.You have three minutes, perhaps, before the brain begins to fail without oxygen. Five, if fortune is feeling generous…”
Epilogue
TWO MONTHS LATER…
The garden had never looked more beautiful.
Summer had arrived with a vengeance, transforming the bare branches and rain-softened soil into an explosion of color and life. Roses bloomed in shades of crimson, gold, and white, their petals opening beneath the sun with shameless abundance. Wisteria draped over the arbor in cascades of purple, heavy with fragrance, while bees moved drunkenly from flower to flower, intoxicated by the very excess.
I knelt beside the botanical riot with my hands buried in rich soil, pruning dead growth from the rose bushes.
There was satisfaction in the work—a quiet, steady pleasure in cutting away what had withered so something healthier might bloom in its place. Once, such a thought would have invited some grotesque observation from the dark corner of my mind.
Now there was only silence.
The vine inside me had its companion.
Agnes came up the stone path carrying a tray of tea and tiny sandwiches, the china clinking with every careful step. She walked more slowly these days, or perhaps I had only become more aware of how much she held.
Agnes Bramblewick carried all of us in one way or another, with flour on her sleeves, worry in her eyes, and a will strong enough to drag the dead back across the threshold when science and love had both failed to make themselves useful.
I sat back on my heels and shaded my eyes from the sun with one hand.
She smiled when our gazes met, her cheeks already flushed from the warmth.
We had become quite the team, the two of us. The woman who had slaughtered everyone she loved, and the woman who had loved all of us too much to let us go.
“Dr. Ambrose says you have been in the sun too long without nourishment,” she said, tsking as she bent to place the tray on a small table beside the bench. “And I will not be fixing you up again if you collapse. The lot of you will be carted to the cemetery next time.”
I laughed softly and pushed myself to my feet, brushing soil from my palms. “I suppose I cannot blame you. It must have been rather stressful for your nerves.”
Agnes huffed, waving one hand as though batting away a gnat. “Stressful for my nerves, indeed. You were out of your mind, he was bleeding, Hawthorne was half-severed from himself, and there I was with three impossible creatures, one set of hands, and no one sensible to assist me.”
“You did beautifully.”
“I did adequately,” she corrected, though her mouth softened. “And I have no desire to do it again.”
I looked at her then, really looked at her, at the woman who had once lied to me with kindness, hidden truths from me with trembling hands, and loved this house full of monsters with a loyalty so fierce it had become its own form of courage. My lips curved despite the ache that rose in my chest.
