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I nod. He sits, close enough to stay but far enough not to crowd, then Alcott moves next, but instead of approaching, he goes to the side table.

“I am making tea,” he announces, voice too bright and too tight. “No one object. I am in need of a task.”

Lazarus glances up. “Tea is a good task.”

“And biscuits. Normal biscuits,” Alcott says.

Edward’s hand moves slowly over my back, one pass, then stillness, waiting to see if I tolerate it.

I do.

“I am scared you will tire of this,” I whisper.

Edward’s body stiffens beneath my cheek.

Lazarus’s voice drops. “Of you?”

“Of waiting. Of asking. My flinching. Of me not wanting touch and then wanting too much of it, unable to decide whether I want to scream, sleep, vomit, or burn the world down,” I explain.

Alcott returns, setting the teapot down with a little too much force.

“Olive,” Alcott says. I look at him, his mouth trembles before he controls it. “We are not waiting for you to become easier.”

Lazarus leans forward, elbows on his knees. “We are not here because you perform strength beautifully.”

Edward’s arms tighten around me. “We are here because it is you.”

The answer is too simple. I press my face into Edward’s chest and cry until there is nothing elegant left in me. They remain, Edward holding me, Lazarus sitting guard on the rug.

Alcott pouring tea with trembling hands and placing biscuits on a plate as though assembling an offering for a wounded god. Morrigan appears at some point and climbs onto the sofa, glaring at all three men with murder in her golden eyes. Good.

Someone should supervise them.

They wait nine more days before asking. The Collector remains below Lazarus’s manor, kept alive by Alcott’s skill, Darkness’s cruelty, and Edward’s restraint. My kill, they call it that without saying the words. No one stole this from me, no one ended him in my absence. They brought him home breathing because they believed I deserved the choice. I hate them for it and I love them for it. The first time I try to go downstairs, I only make it to the cellar door.

My hand touches the iron latch, and my body locks so completely that Lazarus has to speak my name three times before I hear him. The second time, I descend four steps. Then the smell hits me, damp stone, old blood and my vision tunnels. I turn and walk back up without a word. No one follows until I reach the top. The third time, I make it to the corridor outside the cellar. Edward stands beside me and Alcott farther back, though I know Darkness watches from beneath his skin.

“Not today,” I say.

“Then not today,” Edward answers.

No disappointment, that almost hurts worse. On the fourth attempt, I enter. The Collector sits bound to a chair in the center of the room, thinner now and ruined. One eye gone beneath a black patch, his throat a jagged seam of ugly stitches. His skin pale from pain and confinement, for one heartbeat, he does not look like the man who took me. He looks mortal, then his remaining eye lifts to mine and I am back in the blue room.

My breath vanishes.

“Well,” he rasps.

His voice is damaged but still his.

Still soft, still able to slide sickly beneath my skin. “The doll returns.”

The room tilts. Edward takes one step forward and I raise my hand. He stops. The Collector smiles, a terrible, broken shape. “Oh. Still commanding them. How sweet. Did they tell you that makes you strong?”

My fingers numb around the knife in my hand. It is not my cane, not my pistol and not poison tucked beneath a ring. Just a knife, plain and heavy.

“You look better,” he says. “They have been feeding you. Painting you less, I see. A shame. You were prettier when arranged.”

The knife trembles, and I hate that he sees. His gaze drops to my hand.