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Alcott steps forward one pace. “You left a room that harmed you, that is not the same as running.”
The words land strangely, not enough to heal, but enough to hear. I lower my face into my hands. “What if I never become her again?”
Edward crouches then. Still not touching.
“Then we will love who you become instead,” he explains.
My sob catches. I look at him through tears and he looks wrecked as Lazarus nods once.
“I was rather fond of the Widow,” he says softly. “Terrifying woman. Excellent taste in threats, but I did not fall in love with a title.”
Alcott’s mouth twists, “I did not become fascinated with a myth.”
Edward’s voice breaks, “And I did not wait behind curtains for years because of a blade.”
My chest caves, “Then why?”
Edward’s eyes hold mine. “Because it was you.”
The words break whatever remains of my resistance and I reach for my him.
Edward moves only then. The second my hands touch his coat, he gathers me into his arms and pulls me against him. Lazarus joins carefully when I reach blindly for his sleeve. Alcott kneels beside us, and when my fingers find his hand, he grips mine like a vow.
I crumple between them. Not fixed, not brave, not ready, but held. For now, held is enough. Behind us, beneath stone and locks, The Collector still breathes. Let him. My revenge can wait, my rage can sleep another night. Tonight, I am a woman in the mud, sobbing beneath the fog while three monsters kneel around me and do not ask me to be anything other than alive. And that is the first thing he failed to take. Not my body. Not my name.
This. The unbearable, impossible fact that even broken, even trembling, even unable to hold the knife. I am still loved.
43. Strike the Match – Darkness
FERAL
They coddle her and it is pathetic. Beautiful, perhaps, in the way broken things become beautiful when arranged carefully enough, but pathetic all the same.
Edward speaks to her as though every word might bruise. Lazarus sits beside her like a faithful hound, all sorrowful eyes and careful hands, ready to fetch tea, blankets, biscuits, books, silence, anything she asks. Alcott and Lazarus make lists. No questions unless offered, no pressure, no expectation. I hate the lists most of all. Alcott believes order is kindness, Edward believes restraint is love and bloody Lazarus believes devotion means waiting outside the locked door until she chooses to open it. Maybe this is exactly what she needs, but I have watched Olive sit in the library for days with fire buried so deep beneath her ribs that even she has stopped believing it exists. I have watched her stare through windows, through people and through herself. I have watched her flinch at the world, having the audacity to continue moving.
They are gentle with her, too gentle, and gentleness has become another room she cannot leave. That is the problem. The problem is that Olive has begun mistaking numbness for survival.
I know that lie, I was born from it. So, naturally, I decide to be useful. Alcott is easy to move when he is tired, he has not slept properly since Austria. He drifts near the surface of himself like a man walking along a frozen river, pretending not to hear the ice crack beneath his feet. I press once. He resists but I press again and I take the body.
Breath enters our lungs cleanly for the first time in hours. My fingers flex as my mouth curves. Alcott falls quiet behind my eyes, frightened and furious and helpless.
Good.
He can watch. Olive is in the conservatory, where plants ask nothing of the wounded except that they be near light. She sits near the far windows, wrapped in a dark shawl, pale hands folded in her lap. Morning rain streaks the glass behind her. Morrigan sleeps near her feet, one golden eye opening when I enter. Clever little beastie. She bares her teeth so I bare mine back.
Olive does not turn. “If you have brought tea, leave it on the table.”
“No tea.”
Her shoulders tense, she knows it is me. “What do you want?”
“To speak.”
“No.”
“I had not asked.”
“I know your voice.”
