Page 117

We continue deeper into the house. Each room is another argument against God. A dining hall where masked guests recline around a table dressed in white cloth and red flowers, raising crystal goblets filled with something too dark, too thick, while servants stand like motionless ghosts along the walls. A gaming room where debts are written beside names that are not amounts of money. A gallery where portraits have been turned to face the wall, as if even the dead refuse to witness what their descendants have become. Everywhere, laughter, that is what I will remember. Not only the screams, but the disgusting laughter.

The delighted, careless laughter of people who believe anguish is a luxury good. Olive walks beside me like a woman made of glass and gunpowder. Lazarus moves ahead, his jaw tight. Alcott is still gone and my mind begins to split around the absence.

He is dead.

No.

He has been taken.

No. The Collector found him. No. Darkness has— A hand grips my arm. I nearly strike before I recognize Olive.

“Edward,” she says.

I am breathing too fast, again.

Her eyes hold mine through the mask. “Stay with me. I need you.”

I nod. Then Alcott appears at the end of the corridor. He walks quickly, too god damn quickly, one hand pressed to the inside of his coat. His hair is slightly disheveled. His mask hangs crooked, eyes are bright in a mischievous way I know far too well.

Relief hits first, then dread.

“Move,” he says.

Lazarus straightens. “What did you do?”

“Walk,” he demands of us.

“Alcott,” I warn.

“Briskly,” He states.

I seize his arm as he reaches us. “What did you do?”

His smile flickers, for a moment, I think it is my brother, but then there is something behind his eyes that shifts. The temperature of him changes, it is Darkness looking out through Alcott’s face.

“Found the bones of the house,” he says with too much excitement and Olive goes still.

Lazarus mutters, “Oh, hell.”

Darkness’s smile widens. “Likely.”

My blood turns cold. “No.”

“Yes,” he hisses with delight.

“Tell me you did not,” I caution.

“I did.” A wicked gleam stretches across his wild face.

Olive looks between us. “Did what?”

The first explosion answers for him. The manor shudders, somewhere beneath us, a deep boom rolls through the floor like thunder trapped in stone. The chandeliers sway, as dust rains from the ceiling. Then a scream rises from the rooms behind us. Then another. Then many and panic erupts.

Guests rush into the corridor, masks askew, silk skirts lifted, men shouting orders no one obeys. Servants run. Guards draw pistols. Somewhere, glass shatters.

Olive grabs Darkness by the forearm and shouts, “What have you done?”

“What your pretty conscience would not allow quickly enough,” he remarks as swiftly as her answering slap to his face.