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My heart drops to the pit of my stomach.

“Or Lazarus? The Sickle is dramatic, certainly, but drama bleeds like anything else.” His hand loosens only enough for me to drag in one thin breath through my nose.

“Perhaps Alcott,” he adds, amused. “Though with him, one never knows who will answer the wound.”

My eyes burn as fury rises, completely useless. I cannot reach him, cannot warn them. For hell's sake I cannot even say their names. The Collector moves backward, dragging me with him into the fog. One step. Then another, the burning manor fades behind a wall of smoke. Edward turns sharply, his mouth opens. The Collector’s hand clamps harder.

“One vowel,” he reminds me. “Dead.”

My throat locks and I meet Edward’s gaze through the fog for the briefest second. I pray he does not recognize me, because if he sees me he will come and if he comes, he will die. So I do the hardest thing I have ever done and look away.

The Collector laughs quietly against my ear. “Good girl.”

The words curdle inside me. He begins pulling me toward the tree line, where black carriages wait without lanterns. Each step takes me farther from the men, from the fire. Farther from everything that had only just begun to feel like mine. Morrigan. Thanatos. Elisa. La Sirene. The laughter at breakfast. Edward’s hand in mine. Lazarus’s mouth at my ear. Alcott’s wicked smile.

No.

My people, my monsters, and my almost-home. The fog swallows the lawn, behind me, the manor screams as another explosion rips through its heart.

Ahead, the carriage door opens. The Collector’s voice slides over me one last time. “Come along, Widow. We have so much to discuss.”

I bite the inside of my cheek until blood fills my mouth. It is the only scream I can afford, as he pushes me into the dark carriage. The door closes between me and the men who do not yet know they have lost me, one thought burns brighter than the fire behind us. This is not over. He may have taken me, may have silenced me and have won this moment, but I am still The Widow and widows know better than anyone how to bury a man.

PART III – When Love Becomes Leverage

35. Dead End Road - Edward

Exit Wounds

The smoke, panic and fog take her. For one second, Olive is there. A shape through smoke and fire. Garnet silk. Dark hair. One hand lifting as if to call my name. Then a shadow moves behind her. A gloved hand closes over her mouth. And she is gone. No. No. No.

My body moves before thought can catch it. “Olive!”

The shout tears my throat raw. The world is all smoke, screaming, fire, and bodies crashing through the dark. Guests flee across the lawn with their masks askew, silk torn, jewels flashing like little pieces of hell scattered in the grass. Behind them, the manor burns in great orange mouths, devouring its own windows.

I shove through them and a man collides with me. I throw him aside hard enough that he hits the ground and does not rise quickly.

“Olive!” My voice vanishes into the fog.

I saw her. I know I saw her, a hand on her mouth. A black foreboding glove. Familiar in a way that makes my stomach turn over. The Collector. My mind wants to refuse the thought, but then reality hits and fractures around it.

“No,” I gasp.

Lazarus appears through the smoke, sickle drawn, blood on his collar. “Edward!”

“He has her,” I state through gritted teeth.

His face changes. “What?”

“He has her!” I seize the front of his coat. “He took her. I saw him. I saw his hand over her mouth.”

Lazarus’s eyes sharpen, any trace of theatricality stripped away. “Where?”

I turn in a frantic circle. There is fog and smoke everywhere. Fire and running bodies, surrounding the trees. Carriages. Too many carriages and too many shadows.

“I saw her here.” I stumble toward the place where she had stood. “She was here. She was right here.”

Alcott reaches us, breathless, mask gone, one side of his face streaked with soot. “Edward, what happened?”