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Darkness glances toward the sound. “Your cat is persistent.”

“She is going to eat you.” I state matter-of-factly.

“I suspected as much.” He moves toward the door, then pauses.

I do not know why I speak. Perhaps because the room is too full and his words have opened something I cannot yet close. “Does Edward know you are here?”

Darkness looks back, his smile that appears is almost sad. “No.”

“Does Alcott?” My question gives me pause.

His fingers rest upon the doorframe, “that depends on what you believe Alcott is allowed to know.”

Before I can answer, he lifts my pistol from the shadowed shelf beside the door and sets it carefully on the table. Then he looks to the blade on the floor. His expression hardens, not teasing, not cruel, almost angry.

“Do not let the pain convince you it is the only thing that listens. We are a strange little constellation of damaged people.” The words strike with such force that I cannot breathe.

Then he is gone. For several seconds, I stand motionless in the steam-filled room. Blood cooling on my skin, as my heart hammers, world blazing with impossible color. Then a crash sounds from the adjoining room, followed by the unmistakable yowl of an offended ocelot. I close my eyes.

“Coming, Morrigan.” My voice trembles.

I pick up the blade from the floor. I do not use it again. Instead, I wrap it in a towel, cross the room, and drop it into the locked drawer beside the washstand. Then I open the wardrobe. Morrigan explodes out like vengeance given fur.

She streaks across the room, leaps upon the bed, and hisses toward the hallway where Darkness vanished.

I sit beside her. For once, she does not bite me when I touch her head. The bathwater grows cold. The blood dries, and I am left with one unbearable truth. The Afton brothers did not simply survive monsters. They were raised by them. And if The Collector believes he may take what belongs to broken people and call it ownership, then perhaps Darkness was right about one thing. I am ruthless enough to do something useful.

18. Hours Drifted to Sand - Alcott

Anything > Human

I glance down at my notebook.

For a moment, the page appears unfamiliar. The handwriting is not quite mine. The ink is fresh and a single sentence sits near the bottom.

She belongs with us.

I frown. I do not remember writing it. Strange.

Perhaps I was tired. That happens occasionally where moments vanish and hours disappear. Entire conversations escaped my recollection. The physicians called them “episodes.” I called them inconveniences.

Closing the notebook, I slide it aside. Whatever had compelled me to write such a thing was undoubtedly mistaken. Olive belonged to no one. And yet… A peculiar sensation twists within my chest. I'm unsure if it is possessiveness, recognition, or something darker. Something watching from behind my own eyes and for one brief moment, I feel as though I am not alone inside my own skull. Then the feeling disappears.

I blink. The room returns and my notebook waits. The sentence remains. She belongs with us.

How absurd. How interesting.

I return my attention to the bomb beside my stack of anatomy books.

After all, there would be plenty of time to think about Olive later. I had some prior plans to attend to with Lazarus.

I’ve grown rather fond of Lazarus Graves. Which is inconvenient.

I do not make a habit of growing fond of people. Fondness complicates things. It creates preferences, loyalties, expectations, and occasionally the dreadful urge to care whether another person is bleeding in an alleyway.

Terrible business. And yet there he sits beside me in the stalls of La Sirene, dressed in a dark coat that has seen better decades, one boot propped upon the seat in front of him, a glass of whiskey held loosely in one ringed hand as though he owns the theater. He does not. Olive does. Which is, naturally, why we are here. Again.

“For the arts,” Lazarus says, lifting his glass toward the stage.