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Alcott makes a small sound that is dangerously close to a giggle. I glance toward him and he looks back, eyes bright for the first time in days. For one awful, aching heartbeat I remember what it felt like to have a brother, before grief made weapons of us both. Then the manor lights shift and a guard crosses the upper terrace. The moment vanishes.

Lazarus pulls the black mask over his face. Alcott does the same, though his shoulders still tremble once with restrained laughter. I cover my face last.

The air shifts, there are no more jokes, no more almost-laughter, no more mercy. The Collector had expected grief. He had expected desperation, expected Edward Afton to arrive hollow-eyed, obedient, and begging during a dinner. He had not expected Lazarus Graves with a fleet of mercenaries outside the iron gates. He had not expected Alcott Afton place dynamite beneath his floors and he had certainly not expected Darkness, that would be his final mistake.

She’s here. The moment I enter the dining room, I know. Not because I see her first, but because my heart recognizes the shape of her suffering before my eyes can bear the proof. Olive stands beside the far end of the table. Stands, because some guard behind her holds her upright by the arm.

Her hair was brushed, and it now shines. Her gown is pale and perfect, fitted to a body made emaciated by cruelty. Powder softens the bruised hollows of her face. Rouge paints false life across cheeks that should have been full from laughter, wine, and all the colors I failed to give back to her. Her eyes are open, but they are vacant. For one unbearable second, I think she does not know me. Then her gaze shifts. Barely. A flicker. A spark buried beneath ash. Olive.

My Olive.

My heart does not break, it broke long ago, over and over, across every dead lead and empty port and false report. This is worse. The crack she once placed in my onyx heart becomes a cavern, and that cavern splits into a thousand glittering shards. We did not save her in time. We fucking failed her. The Collector sits at the head of the table, round and polished and pleased with himself. His burned cheek pulls tight when he smiles. One hand rests beside a crystal glass of wine and the other taps idly against the linen.

“What?” he asks. “Cat got your tongue? Or shall I say, Olive got your tongue?”

I say nothing. If I speak, the razor will shift. If I speak, I might lose the one advantage he has not thought to take from me. So I stand there and taste metal.

The Collector’s smile widens. “Oh, how I love this. Truly. Look at you, shaking with fury, and there is absolutely nothing you may do.”

His laugh fills the room and it is a wet, sickening sound. I keep my eyes on Olive. Her lower lip trembles when his hand strikes the table. A reflex. Trained. My vision darkens at the edges.

“My goodness, chap,” the Collector says, leaning back in his chair. “You look as if your eyes might spawn tears for her. I thought you were a killer.”

I take one step forward and the guards shift. The Collector lifts one finger.

“Ah, ah. Do not embarrass yourself. You cannot touch me.” He takes a pleased sip of wine. “I have your beloved as a broken doll. Your brother and your counterpart are likely trapped with my guards by now. With one order, they will be beheaded and sent to you in matching boxes.”

My jaw clenches as the razor cuts into my gums. Blood floods my mouth.

The Collector notices and his face lights with delight. “My God, are you so stressed that it has caused your mouth to bleed? Is this similar to a nosebleed? What a mess you are.”

I move closer. Slowly, past the end of the table. Past silver platters of untouched food and my fingertips brush the edge of her skirt as I pass. Only once. Barely enough to disturb the fabric. Her fingers twitch. She knows. She’s still in there. The realization nearly brings me to my knees.

The Collector laughs again. “Careful, Edward. Touch the doll without permission and I will have another procedure performed. The last one made her far more agreeable.”

My body stops as I turn to assess her and the room vanishes except for Olive’s face. There, at the inner edge of her upper eyelid, near the delicate skin no blade should have ever touched, is a scar. Small. Precise. Monstrous. A surgical wound disguised by powder and I cannot breathe.

“She fought terribly at first,” The Collector says conversationally. “Such spirit. Such noise. I warned her that resistance could be corrected. Eventually, she understood.”

Olive’s gaze drops. No. No. No.

Rage does not rise in me. Rage is too human. What fills me is an older thing with no language except annihilation. The dining room doors open behind me and two figures enter, covered in blood. Lazarus comes first, sickle in hand, dark hair loose, face empty of every jest I had ever known. Beside him stands Alcott. No. Not Alcott. Darkness.

He wears my brother’s body like a blade finally drawn from its sheath. Blood paints his cuffs. His eyes settle upon the Collector with a calm so cold the room seems to lose warmth. The Collector’s smile falters.

"How did you? My guards! My…" The Collector's words are cut off as we all fall upon the room.

Darkness smiles. “You didn’t account for me.” The icy words tear through the room.

The Collector’s eyes widened, but before the Collector can utter one vowel, I move. My fingers rise to my mouth as I part my lips, and retrieve the razor. The blade rests beneath my tongue, tucked carefully along my gums. Familiar pain. Familiar control. A sin from childhood now turned into strategy.

The blade slides free slick with my blood. The Collector has time to see it, only see it, before I drive it into his throat. Not once. Not neatly, I bury it deep beneath his jaw and drag it hard across the soft, fat line of his neck. Crimson erupts hot over my hand.

He begins choking, his face becomes a portrait of terror. I want him afraid, I want him to understand, but he will not die yet. For I want each miserable second of his life to belong to the girl he tried to turn into a doll and to the men he’d believed too broken to come for her. He claws at me, weakly. I catch his wrist and slam it to the table.

“You thought silence was fear,” I say, blood spilling from my mouth with every word.

His eyes bulge as I lean closer, “That was why I did not speak during dinner.”