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I rip the blade free, then drive it into his eye. His scream breaks apart before it can become sound. Lazarus had moved toward Olive, as Darkness took care of the guards by the door. I stay with the Collector. The man who had owned children, the man who had trained boys into weapons. The man who had taken Olive across oceans and called her a collectible. The man who had touched what is mine.

Not mine to own. Mine to love. Mine to bring home.

Mine to avenge.

I do not stop when he falls from the chair; I follow him to the floor. The tablecloth comes down with him, dragging silver, wine, plates, and candlelight into chaos. Flames lick across the linen. Glass shatters beneath my knee.

His hand slaps weakly against the floor. I catch his chin and force him to look at me with the eye he has left.

“Do you see her?” I whisper.

Blood bubbles at his lips.

“Look.” I turn his face toward Olive.

She stands in Lazarus’s arms, trembling so violently he has to hold her upright. Her gaze is fixed on The Collector. Not empty now, not fully alive, but awake. Watching. I press the razor against what remains of his throat but miss vital vessels.

“You never collected her,” I say. “You only taught us where to bury you.”

Then I cut until there is nothing left in him capable of command. For a moment, there is only my breathing. Lazarus whispering Olive’s name. Darkness laughing softly as the last guard hits the floor, then my Olive makes a sound. Small and broken. I drop the razor and it hits the floor with a tiny silver note. I turn to see she’s staring at me. Her gaze frantically looks at the blood, at my hands, at my mouth. At all the ruin I have become to reach her, I fear she will not know me.

Then her lips part, as no sound comes, but I know the shape of my name, Edward. I cross the room to her, slowly at first. Lazarus releases her only when my arms are there to take the place of his. She collapses against me, she is too light, too thin, but alive. Thank God, she is alive. I gather her carefully, as though every bone in her body might be made of cracked porcelain.

“I have you,” I say. The words break in my throat. “I have you. I have you. I have you.”

Her fingers curl weakly into my coat. That is enough to undo me, I press my face into her hair and shake. Behind me, Darkness speaks. “We need to leave.”

Lazarus’s voice is low. “Sicaro’s men have the lower exits.”

“Explosives are set,” Darkness says.

I lift my head, Olive trembling in my arms. Her eyes drift toward the man on the floor, then toward the table Darkness is setting ablaze and for the first time in one year and six months, I see something return within her. Not enough, not all, but something. Her mouth moves, this time, sound comes. “Burn it.”

Darkness smiles as Laz closes his eyes and smiles as well. I hold her tighter.

“As you wish,” I whisper and somewhere beneath the manor, Alcott’s dynamite begins to sing.

41. Her Kill – Darkness

Dethrone

The Collector lives. Barely and regrettably, but intentionally. That last part matters. Edward wanted him dead, and he did enough damage to ensure he was at death’s door. Lazarus wanted him carved into a sermon. I wanted all of that and more, but Olive had been denied too much already. Her home, her body, her fury, her kill and we would not steal that from her as well, so we kept him alive.

Alcott’s old medical lessons had become useful at last. All those hours spent over anatomy texts, all those lectures on arteries, sutures, infection, pressure, shock. How pleased the professors would have been to see their work applied so creatively.

The Collector had made quite a mess of himself on Edward’s razor, or Edward had made quite a mess of him. We stitched the bastard’s throat just enough to keep breath moving through him. Jagged work, but nice and efficient. The sort of stitching one gives a thing that must survive, not heal. His eye was a less successful matter.

Whoops.

A loss, certainly, but not a tragedy. He never needed two. One will be enough to watch Olive take back what belonged to her. He passed out from pain three times during the journey home and I slapped him awake twice. The third time, Lazarus told me to let him sleep. I considered arguing but then I looked at Olive, she had not spoken in six hours. So I let the monster sleep, only for her. A fascinating development; I have begun doing more things for her. Small things, little merciful things. Revolting, really.

We returned to England beneath a sky the color of old bruises. Le Havre received her as though the world itself had gone quiet. No cheers, no dramatic reunion, no foolish belief that survival required celebration. The women came to the courtyard and stood in silence. Some wept, others pressed hands to their mouths, while some turned away because looking at Olive hurt too much.

Elisa was the first to reach her, she did not throw her arms around her. She stopped several steps away, eyes shining, hands trembling at her sides.

“Olive,” she whispered.

Olive looked at her or near her, through her. It was difficult to tell. Then she walked inside. That was five days ago. Since then, Olive has become a room with no door. Edward will sit outside it, sometimes literally. The first night, he slept sitting upright against the hallway wall because she had locked herself inside her chambers and told him, in a voice as thin as paper, not to come in. He obeyed and the restraint nearly killed him. I watched him through Alcott’s eyes, his back against the wallpaper, mangled hand curled in his lap, face lifted toward a door he could not open. Pitiful. Beautiful, in its own way.