Page 131

“Then imagine me meaning it.”

His smile does not falter. “Oh, I do.”

For a while, only the ship speaks. Wood creaking, water breathing. Candleflame trembling between us. Then the Collector lifts his glass, though he does not drink. “I suppose we should begin properly. Secrets are so tiresome when allowed to fester too long.”

I hate the sudden tightening in my chest. The instinctive understanding that whatever comes next will divide my life into before and after. He reaches up and adjusts the lamp beside him and light spills across the side of his face. I see the burn then, not a small scar, not some delicate mark. The left side of his face is a ruin of old fire, as skin pulls tight and uneven along cheek and jaw. One brow nearly gone, the corner of his mouth twisted slightly downward, not enough to steal the smile but enough to make it monstrous.

My breath leaves me.

No.

The word does not pass my lips, it opens inside my skull. His eyes remain on mine.

“Yes,” he says softly.

I grip the edge of the table. “That is impossible.”

“Fire is rarely as thorough as people hope.” His tone is playful.

My pulse pounds in my throat. As the memories float, the manor. The smoke. My stepfather. His children. The locked room and the flames I had believed swallowed all of them whole.

“You died,” I whisper.

“No.” His smile trembles with something like hatred. “I survived.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I crawled through the same fire that took my siblings. My father, your mother’s husband. Everyone you meant to erase.”

“I did not—”

“Mean to?” he cuts in.

The softness disappears and for the first time, rage shows through the polished veneer. “No, perhaps not. Children are so rarely precise with vengeance.”

My throat closes. I had been fourteen, completely terrified and cornered. My stepfather had intended to sell me, my mother had been murdered by him, lost in every way that mattered. The house had become a cage. Fire had seemed like the only door, I had told myself no innocents remained inside, and told myself that because I’d needed to live.

The Collector leans forward. “You remember me now, do you not?”

The boy, he was much older than me. Never kind, but not the worst of them. Not yet a stepbrother whose name I had buried beneath ash and my stomach twists.

“What are you called now?” I ask.

He smiles again. “There she is. Still refusing to give me the satisfaction.”

“What was your name?”

His eyes harden. “That boy burned.”

“Not well enough.” My words are like venom. The backhand comes so quickly I do not see it and pain bursts across my cheek as my head snaps to the side. The pistol behind me shifts but does not fire, I hear only the rush of blood in my ears. Then I let out a small laugh. The Collector stills as I turn back to him slowly, tasting blood at the corner of my mouth. He sits back, smoothing his sleeve as though I am the one who has behaved poorly. “I have carried the weight of that night for years,” he says. “The smell of burning skin. The sound of beams collapsing. The knowledge that a little girl with a pretty face and murderous hands walked away while I crawled through Hell.”

My chest burns, the guilt rises. It is old, and sour, he sees it and smiles. That is exactly what he wanted.

“I did not know you survived,” I say.

“No. You did not care to know.” The words strike because there is enough truth in them to wound. I hate him for it and I hate myself more.

“I was a child,” I state.