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All my choice. On the third morning, I tell them I am ready. No one believes me and I nearly do not either, but ready is not a feeling that arrives politely dressed and carrying flowers. Ready is sometimes only the moment when fear grows tired of eating everything else.

So I dress in black. Not silk, nor lace. I refuse to dress in something he would have admired. So just a simple black gown, with a high collar. The sleeves go down to my wrists and my hair is braided down my back with no jewels, no pins, and no pretty ornaments. I do not paint my face. I do not make myself into The Widow for him, he does not deserve the performance.

Edward waits patiently outside my door. When he sees me, something breaks across his face, but he holds it still. “Olive.”

“I do not want him to see me shake.”

Edward’s jaw tightens. “He will not.”

“I will shake.”

“Then he will see a woman shake and still end him.”

I close my eyes. The words settle somewhere deep. When I open them, Lazarus stands at the end of the corridor, dressed in black, sickle absent for once. Alcott is beside him, pale and hollow-eyed, fingers twitching against his coat. Darkness is there too, I can feel him watching from beneath Alcott’s skin. Waiting. No one touches me until I reach for Edward’s hand, then he takes mine. As if my fingers are both weapon and wound, then together, we descend.

The cellar beneath Lazarus’s manor is colder than the rest of the house. The air smells of damp, blood, old smoke, and the faint medicinal sharpness of Alcott’s supplies. The Collector is tied to the chair and for a long moment I only stare. He looks smaller than before, emaciated from days of captivity. Pale from blood loss. His once-polished suit has been replaced by a torn shirt and stained trousers. One eye gone beneath a black patch. His throat held together by ugly stitches, yet he is still breathing, which offends me. His remaining eye lifts when I enter, that old cold slides beneath my skin. The blue room. The ship. The knife near my eye. His voice telling me stillness made me lovelier. My hand tightens around Edward’s. Then The Collector smiles, it may be weak, but it is still poisonous.

“There she is,” he rasps. “My Little Doll.”

My breathing stops as Edward’s hand tightens in my grasp. Alcott whispers something to Laz, that I cannot hear. For one second, the room tilts. Then Darkness steps forward through Alcott’s face.

“Answer him,” he says softly.

I hate him. I need him. My lips part; nothing comes.

The Collector’s smile widens. “Still quiet. Good.”

Something inside me recoils, as something else rises. A coal catching flame.

“I was quiet,” I say, “because I was surviving you.”

The Collector’s smile fades. The room changes as Edward’s thumb brushes over my knuckles, as I slowly release his hand. I step closer to The Collector, alone. Every pace feels like walking through water.

My heart pounds. My palms sweat. My body wants to run, but I steady my breath and I do not.

The Collector watches me approach. “You cannot undo what I made you.”

“No.” My answer surprises him.

It surprises me too, I stop before him.

“No,” I repeat. “I cannot undo it.”

His eye glints. “So you admit—”

“I admit you changed me.” My voice shakes and I let it. “I admit there are rooms in my mind that still sound like your voice. I admit there are nights when I wake and do not know whether I am home or still beneath your repulsive hands.”

His lips curl. “But?”

This time, I study the burned face, his missing eye, his torn throat. The man who crawled from the fire and chose to become worse than the flames.

“But you mistook damage for ownership.”

Silence. His eye narrows. I reach into my sleeve and withdraw the knife, a declaration. He looks at it, then at me.

“Is that all?” He whispers. “After everything? One little knife?”

“No.” I step closer. “This is not all.”