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The sound of my name from his mouth almost breaks me and I snatch his arm. “Stay close to me.”

He nods once, though I do not know which of them hears and we run. Through smoke and through screaming guests. Past men who moments ago laughed over blood and bodies and now claw at locked doors like animals. Lazarus cuts down a guard who raises a pistol at Olive. Alcott throws a knife into another man’s throat with such precision I know Darkness is not far beneath the surface. Olive moves like fury given form, slashing a path when anyone comes too close.

I keep one hand on her whenever I can. If I lose sight of her, I will lose myself. Another blast rips through the manor. Heat punches down the corridor. The world becomes sound, smoke, light, bodies, panic. Masks fall. Faces show.

Rich men, the men who own courts and docks and newspapers, and now they burn like anyone else. We reach the eastern service passage Lazarus marked earlier.

The door is jammed.

“Alcott!” Lazarus shouts.

Alcott laughs once, not entirely sane, and then he produces a small device from his coat. The brother in me wants to scold him but the survivor in me steps back, the lock blows inward. Cold night air rushes in as we spill out into the dark beyond the manor as the estate screams behind us. The sky glows orange and the guests scatter across the grounds. The horses rear, servants flee, and somewhere in the chaos, bells begin ringing.

Olive turns back toward the house. I know before she moves and I catch her around the waist.

“No!” I shout.

“There are children in there!” Her scream tears through me.

Lazarus closes his eyes. Alcott stares at the flames, face empty. Darkness’s words remain between us like poison. 'Better off.'

No.

No.

I refuse it. I hold Olive as she fights me, only long enough to keep her from running into an inferno with no path out. She strikes my chest once.

Then again and again, until her hands curl in my coat and she breaks. She folds into me with a sound no stage could ever hold. Wrapping my arms around her small frame, I hold her. Lazarus stands guard with his sickle drawn, eyes on the tree line. Alcott watches the burning manor as though trying to remember whether the fire belongs to him and I stare into the flames, feeling every locked room of my childhood open at once.

We came here for names. For proof. For a way inside the machine. Instead, we found hell wearing perfume.

And Alcott, or Darkness, or both, answered hell with fire. I do not know if that makes us saviors. I know it does not make us innocent. Olive trembles in my arms.

“We need to stop it,” she whispers.

Her voice is ruined. I press my mouth to her hair. “Yes.”

“All of it.” Her voice cracks.

“Yes.”

“No more circuits. No more parties. No more rooms,” she states.

My eyes burn.

“No more rooms,” I promise.

Behind us, the manor collapses inward with a sound like the world breaking its own bones. And in the light of the flames, surrounded by masks in the mud and monsters fleeing into the dark, I understand something with terrible certainty. The Collector will not forgive this, but I do not want his forgiveness. I want his empire in ashes, his name swallowed by every fire Alcott can build. I want every rich man who laughed inside that house to spend whatever life remains to him looking over his shoulder for The Widow, The Slaying Sickle, the Twisted Twins, and Darkness that followed them out.

We are no longer infiltrating the web. We have touched it, burned it and now it will come for us. I tighten my hold on Olive as another bomb is set off, the earth shatters once more, as smoke envelopes all around us.

34. The Scream She Never Gave – Olive

Nowhere to Go

The world has become smoke and screaming. More individuals rush out of the manor, across the yard, forcing us to separate. I scream for my men, turning every which way to find them once more.

For several seconds, I do not know where anyone is as we were separated by the panicking attendees. I cannot find Edward. Nor Lazarus, nor Alcott. The manor groans behind me like a dying beast, its bones cracking beneath the pressure of Alcott’s dynamite. Fire eats through curtains, windows, walls, and all the silk-draped sins hidden within them. Another explosion rolls through the estate, farther off this time, then closer, then everywhere at once.