25

Daxeel is faster, much faster than I am.

I chase his bootfalls through the bedchamber, out onto the corridor—but I lose him before I can reach the stairs when he jumps over the railing and slams down on the next landing.

I follow the scream. It’s a cry that warps, shrill, panicked, from the shout of Aleana’s name into ‘ call the healer, call the healer !’

The screeching claws at my insides, talons scraping down my bones.

My bare feed pad on the steps, and I feel each one jolt through me. I make it a few steps before a hulking figure whooshes past me.

I stagger into the wooden banister with a grunt as a flow of buttery hair ribbons down the stairs. A yellow river; Rune’s sleep-hair as, shirtless, he barrels down the stairs, right by me, and disappears around the landing.

I shove from the banister and scramble down the steps.

But as I turn the landing to the next stairs, there’s no sign of Rune—then I hear the slam of the front door.

He’s gone to fetch the healer.

No question, no hesitation, he’s run for help.

I chase the corridor to the other end of the floor, and with each rushed, stumbled step, the candleflames in the lanterns brighten more and more.

The house has awoken to the panic and it banishes the Quiet’s dimness.

The light illuminates the most wretched sight I could imagine as I turn the corner—and see, at the bottom of the rear staircase, Aleana.

Black blood sludges out from the corner of her pale, chapped mouth, trickles onto the floorboards. Her wrists are twisted and pinned to her chest, her eyes rolled back and lashes fluttering.

I loosen a horrid, retched sound, like I might be sick right there on the floor.

Aleana looks as twisted as she does rattled, and she seizes on the landing floor. But it’s the blood that stops me in my tracks. The thick, tarry substance that oozes from her nose, her mouth, her ears—and even slicks out of her eyes.

My hand slaps to my mouth.

I fall back into the wall. The crown of my head knocks against the frame of a portrait. I don’t even flinch.

I can’t look away.

A boot steps into the small pool of black blood. Daxeel crouches at his sister’s side. He moves around his mother to slide his hand beneath Aleana’s head, then he stills.

His hand takes the brunt of the seizure.

I can’t move.

Eamon barrels down the stairs, a trace of purple wine staining his full lips.

His mother isn’t far behind him, an unfastened robe billowing behind her like a cape.

Morticia rushes for Melantha, knelt at Aleana’s head. Her hands fuss over Aleana’s twisted face, but she doesn’t settle, like she doesn’t quite know what to do but panic.

Morticia drops to her knees. She reaches out for Aleana’s shivering arms; she holds them in place throughout each jerk that jolts through her like a lightning bolt.

I can’t help.

Dare spears out of the shadows, a gold dagger cutting through darkness. No shirt or sweater conceals the smears of lip-paint that stain his marble-like skin. But as though he was up to nothing at all, his face is as severe as Tris’s behind him.

I flicker my horrified, wide eyes back to Aleana.

I don’t move from the wall.

I just… stare.

The clink of tonic bottles floods the crammed bedchamber. The sound rings through me like the wretched call of bells.

The healer hunches over the brown rickety table and fusses with the tonics. One by one, he uncorks a phial, pours a touch of liquid into the mortar, then adds a dusting of white powder. Then he mashes it up with the pestle.

I watch the movement ripple down his thin arm beneath the sleeve of his wrinkled white blouse, creased and stained, and I suspect he just threw on whatever clothes were within reach once he received the urgent summons.

The one who collected the healer stands behind him now. Rune’s anxieties are found in the faint chewing of his inner lip, the fidget of his crossed arms.

With Dare, he loiters near the wardrobe, but unlike Dare—who slumps against the door—Rune can’t find his stillness.

“Aleana.” The soft whisper from Melantha cuts me like a striking sword. “Aleana, can you hear me?”

I flicker my gaze to the dark-haired female curled over the side of the bed. She’s barely perched on the edge, hovering, and leans over her motionless daughter.

Those bony, spidery fingers of hers stroke along Aleana’s cheek.

I look away.

I look anywhere but at Aleana, limp on the bed.

Her lashes don’t so much as flutter. Her chest rises just a touch with her hoarse breath—then deflates with a sound that isn’t unlike lungs scraping over a grater.

I cringe away from the sound of her soul teetering on death’s door.

If the worlds are connected at the seams, Aleana lingers on the join, not quite here, not quite there, not quite anything.

And I don’t know what to do with myself.

Never before have I been in this situation, to watch a loved one die, to have lost someone I hold dear, or to be this—an intruder on a private moment.

To go to Aleana’s side would be to push my way through the others hanging back in the bedchamber, to manoeuvre my way around Morticia and Eamon and Melantha; the family that have the right to linger around the bed.

I could go to Daxeel’s side. I could come up to the back of the armchair he’s slumped in, his elbows dug into his thighs, face in his hands. I could put my hand on his back and soothe him.

But even that feels invasive.

Besides, Eamon does that for me.

He’s sat on the arm of the chair, his hand firm on Daxeel’s slumped shoulder, and the pair of them are enveloped in thick silence.

So I stay here, lingering near the open door, my back pressed into the wall. I keep to my silence like I keep to my place.

A sniff comes from the doorway.

I swallow the thick tears I fight back and turn my chin.

Tris rustles into the bedchamber. Eyes bloodshot, she snivels and wipes her nose with the back of her hand.

No one but me and Dare spare her a glance as she enters.

She drops into a curtsey and announces, “Caius Taraan,” in a mousy, hoarse voice.

Melantha’s head jerks up just as her bulking carved-from-muscle-and-stone son swaggers into the room. His build is so wide that his shoulders brush the doorframe he squeezes through.

Behind him, Samick slinks like frost creeping over a field.

And so he must’ve gone to fetch Caius, wherever he was.

Melantha lifts her tired hand and gestures in a lazy wave for Caius to join them at the bed.

He does.

Caius asks, in a grumbled voice, “Has she awoken yet?”

Rune pushes from the wall and leaves. He joins Samick out in the corridor.

“Not yet,” Morticia answers, her voice hushed.

Perched on the edge of a worn chair, she leans into Melantha, crouched on the side of the bed. Morticia’s hands rest like a spectre’s touch on her sister’s shoulders, as though too much weight will disturb the moment. The flat-mouthed look she glances at Caius adds the rest of her unspoken thoughts, ‘ She won’t wake .’

I tuck my chin down, then push from the wall.

Without another glance at anyone, not even Aleana, I take my silently falling tears with me—and I trade in the delicacy of the bedchamber for the quiet patience of the corridor.

Dare follows not a moment after, then Tris, and she shuts the door gently. It clicks, a soft sound.

The five of us stand here, still and quiet, submerged in the shadowy orange gleams of the lanterns. A loosely threaded circle of twisted faces, closed eyes and wringing hands.

Then, Tris takes a step back, and the poufy dress rustles around her. “I’ll make tea.”

No one answers. No one stops her.

The silence stays.

Tris returned with what she promised and more.

She set the tray of teapots, empty cups and some biscuits on a round table. Another slave, the male human I don’t know the name of, came with her—and brought chairs from the kitchens.

Now, those chairs are pushed up against the wall.

I sit on one, alone.

Perched on the edge of a sideboard, Dare picks at his nails with the tip of a pocket-dagger. He watches Rune pace back and forth, back and forth.

Tris fusses with dusting and re-aligning frames on the wall, and I would bet my tongue that she’s only pretending to be busy so she can stay in the corridor without one of us sending her back to the kitchens.

I wouldn’t do that. I don’t think any of us would, except maybe Samick—and even then, I don’t know.

In a pocket of darkness, Samick is an ice statue down the corridor, near the landing, hidden from the gleams of the lanterns.

The teas and biscuits are untouched, gathering secrets and dust on the little round table that no one so much as glances at.

Time is slow to pass in the corridor.

No sound comes from the bedchamber. Hemlock House keeps that moment private—and I’m certain it can silence the going-ons in a room from the rest of the home.

I slump in the chair with a quiet huff.

My heel bounces impatiently on the floor.

It’s taking everything in me, everything, not to push my way into that bedchamber and…

What?

What would I do?

Shake Aleana until she wakes? Shout at her to not be so damn selfish and leave me?

Or would I fall onto the bed with her and pull her into my arms and steal this moment from her family?

There’s a conflict in me.

Respect that this moment isn’t for me. But there’s guilt pooling in my gut, too.

My face twists with a frown and I cut my gaze down to the rumpled mess of my chemise. The hem is caught around my knees, a slight tear at the seam.

The seam…

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head, as though I can shake out the reality that she’s dying beyond the wall, my sister of the soul…

And I hate that we are just letting it happen.

I’m yanked out of my darkening thoughts.

The front door creaks, loud. The house is announcing someone. Then it slams shut, and I decide that whoever it’s announcing, it does not like.

Silence passes for a moment.

Then stomping bootsteps thud up the stairs.

Tris and I are the only ones to look over as General Agnar comes up the stairs, then stalks onto the landing. No one else spares him a look, and it takes my sluggish, wounded mind a moment to understand that they each probably sensed him, recalled his scent and knew who was coming. They don’t need to look to know.

I do.

And so I stare with my itchy, red eyes at General Agnar as he stalks across the landing, down the corridor, then moves for the bedchamber door without a hint of pain on his hard face or a glimmer of worry in his icy eyes.

He pushes through the door and disappears inside.

The door clicks shut behind him.

Rune sighs a weighted sound and runs both hands through his hair. He drops his hands with a slap to his waist and holds. The look he gives the door is one of longing and pain.

Then he draws back a step and turns for me.

I watch him approach, I study the slump of his shoulders, the red of his eyes, the weight of his lashes.

His throat bobs before he drops into the seat beside mine.

I turn my cheek to Dare’s flashing gold eyes, feeling the burn of his gaze searing into me.

I ignore him and reach out for Rune’s limp hand.

I take it into mine.

Rune’s mouth twists that bit more; a tear falls down his blotched cheek. He tucks his chin down… and his fingers tighten around mine.

Dare says nothing, but the sear of his gaze pierces through us both for a long while. Samick keeps to the shadows.

And for another hour, we stay like this.

Tris loiters near the lanterns when they flash blue. She’s given up on her pretence of cleaning—and she has her forehead leaned on the wall, her shoulders sagged.

Another hour passes, the flames flash blue.

And we close in on a third when the door creaks open.

Eamon is the first to come out into the corridor. His cheeks are streaked with tearstains. He doesn’t look at anyone as he stalks down the corridor, then disappears out of sight. But I hear the thick, wet swallow of his sobs before he vanishes.

Rune’s firm hand tightens even more around my fingers. His shoulders jerk. A harsh snivel runs through me.

Caius storms out, alone, hands fisted, face hard. But his chin wobbles.

My face twists to severely that I’m sure it looks mangled.

The healer is next to exit. His leather case of tonics and tools creaks in his grip. He keeps his head low as he glances around the corridor, not quite meeting our gazes.

Then he says it.

Those two words that make me want to shove him down the stairs, then rip apart his ribcage and scream and scream and scream.

“My condolences.”

He leaves.

A sob chokes me.

Rune crumples.

Dare storms down the corridor, Samick at his heels.

And Tris wobbles with a shuddering cry that cringes me.

Eamon often reads stories from the human realm. Words woven from false fantasies.

I loathe those books, I loathe them for this very reason. The lie of it all. In those books, characters get to say goodbye.

That’s the lie.

It blooms an ugly hope within us.

Then reality crushes it in its cold, dead fist.

Because I don’t get to say goodbye to Aleana. No one does.

I didn’t know the last time I spoke to her would be just that—the last time.

And now… she’s gone.

Aleana is dead.

And Hemlock House floods with cries.