Chapter 17

The Sixteenth Birthday

The morning of my sixteenth birthday, I woke to thunder and a chorus of dead faces pressed against my bedroom windows, staring in with hungry white eyes.

There were four of them, one for every deathshead I'd seen.

One for every murder I'd committed.

Papa.

Mama.

The baker three villages over, whose wicked case of consumption threatened to infect every customer unlucky enough to purchase his blood-flecked loaves.

A soldier who'd broken his ankle chasing after a maid who'd wanted no amount of his kisses.

Their mouths opened and shut again, wordlessly, like the great carp that surfaced in the pond behind my cottage, forever looking for a little something to fill their bellies with.

The first time I'd seen one of them—Papa, stumbling into my cottage the night after I'd poisoned him, with Mama not far behind—I'd been terrified out of my mind. For one long, horrible moment, I'd believed the poison had not worked. I'd feared them still alive, come to exact a horrid revenge.

I'd backed into my dining room table, blessedly knocking over the set of shakers and shattering one of the crystal baubles. A spray of salt scattered across the floor and my parents had recoiled, staggering back from the grains as their faces twisted in painful rictuses.

I'd spent the rest of the night pushing their foul specters back, inch by inch, tossing salt at them until they were out of the house, then had raced around the inner perimeter, dusting each doorway and window to keep them out.

I rolled over now, pulling my quilt to my chin, and lost sight of the soldier, my father, and the baker. Only one ghoul was at the window now.

Mama.

I studied her face, wondering if she remembered what today was, wondering if she remembered anything at all.

The ghosts recognized me, obviously, forever trailing after the person they'd spent their final moments of life with, but did she still know it was me, or was I simply a lantern, a beacon bringing in the moths of those I'd killed?

I pushed myself out of bed and joined her at the window, huddled safe and warm on my side of the salted glass. Somehow sensing me, she raised her hand to the pane in greeting. Her flesh had recently begun to fall away, and the tip of her finger bone tapped at the glass.

I raised my hand to hers, marveling at the difference between us.

My heart weighed heavily within me, full of so many things I wished I could tell her, things I wished she could understand.

It seemed an especially cruel irony that while she'd wanted nothing to do with me in life, she found herself drawn to me in death.

"I'm sixteen today, Mama," I murmured, and outside she cocked her head. She could hear me speak, even if my words no longer made sense. I knew they didn't. I'd seen her brain liquefy and fall out of her nose and ears, months ago.

My ghosts were nothing like any of the stories my siblings had made up to spook one another on long winter nights. They weren't translucent, glowing forms, forever rattling chains or howling with off-pitch moans. They were like shadows to me, dark shapes seen from the corner of my eye until I willingly focused upon them, and only then could I see their terrible visages, the rot, the decay.

My fingertips trailed over the chilled glass, mirroring hers. There was no heat warming her side, and I wondered if she could feel mine.

I wasn't sure why I saw the ghosts of those I'd killed. I didn't know if it was meant to be a punishment for lives ended too soon or merely part of my responsibility, to hold on to the memories of those I'd snatched away as the world kept turning and the people they'd loved gradually forgot about them.

I hadn't found a way to ask Merrick.

I'd tried, nearly a dozen times, but the question always hung in my mouth, impossible to get out.

He'd never mentioned it, never indicated that he saw them. There was so much about my life that he already knew, that he'd foretold, it felt like a small victory to keep this one secret from him, however gruesome it might be.

I stayed with Mama for a moment grown too long, till the other ghouls noticed and made their way over, shuffling and stumbling slowly—they were always so slow—to press themselves closer to me.

I gave my mother one last uneasy look before turning to go.

"I suppose it's time to salt the fences again."

Merrick was sitting on a stool in the kitchen as I went in, still adjusting my hair. I'd never worn it up before and had had a bit of difficulty figuring out where to jab the combs and pins to get the chignon to stay in place. I missed my childish braids but wanted Merrick to see me as the grown-up I supposed I was. Especially today.

This year's cake was already set out. It was a grand, towering confection three tiers high, frosted pale pink and studded with sugar-dusted strawberries. The candles lit themselves as I entered, fizzing like tiny fireworks in bursts of rose-gold sparks.

"You've outdone yourself," I greeted him, leaning in to kiss his cheek and accept his warm squeeze.

"You only turn sixteen once," he said fondly.

"Is sixteen too grown-up for cake for breakfast?" I asked, already taking down two dessert plates from the shelf. I knew he'd never pass on the chance for sweets.

Merrick had changed out my servingware again, I noticed, spotting the raised flowers circling the plates. Their pink matched my cake, and the edges were ringed with what appeared to be real gold.

"What happened to my white plates?" I asked, turning the new ones over to study. They were impossibly thin and felt as though they'd shatter if I held them too tight.

"I thought these were far better suited for a young lady of sixteen," he said, pushing himself off the stool to look for forks and knives. They too were shining gold, every bit as ostentatious as a king's ransom, and I made a mental note to tread lightly.

Merrick had been after me for months to consider moving. He said my skills had grown past the point of Alletois and he wanted me to spread my wings in a larger city, often telling me how well I would take to Chatellerault, rubbing elbows with courtiers and nobles. I always sighed, remembering the one time I'd been in the presence of nobility, that dreadful day when I'd met Prince Leopold. I had no desire to move anywhere near him.

"Would you like some tea?" I asked, turning to light the stove with the flick of a match. "Assuming you haven't whisked away my kettle too?"

"I haven't whisked away anything," he protested grandly. "Nothing is missing, and everything I removed was replaced with something far nicer."

"Adeline Marquette gave me three lemons yesterday," I boasted, spotting the new pink kettle. I fumbled with the top for a moment before filling it with water. "Shall we cut one up for our celebration?"

Merrick had been rummaging in the ice chest and turned, holding a crystal pitcher. A dozen lemon slices bobbed in the pink fluid. "I already made us lemonade," he said, obviously pleased with the spread he'd created.

"Merrick!" I exclaimed, forgetting to temper my disappointment. "I was saving those lemons for something important!"

He frowned. "What could be more important than your birthday? Let's cut the cake and I will tell you the story of your birth."

I glanced in the sink, relieved to see he'd at least had the decency to save me the peels. Long curls of dimpled yellow lay in the basin like forgotten confetti, and I made a mental note to hang them up later, to dry. Powdered lemon peel helped with aching joints, and the butcher's wife would be pleased I'd thought of her come the next cold snap.

"Will you be staying long?" I asked, looking about the cottage for the best place to eat. There were windows everywhere, and I could already see Mama making her way across the back garden, her gait slow and unsteady.

"If you like," Merrick said. "But go on, make a wish, make a wish," he insisted, waving at the candles.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as I blew them out. I'd long ago stopped wishing for anything—I was more than capable of getting whatever I needed, and Merrick provided far too many extravagances in my life as it was. It seemed gluttonous to ask for more.

But it was one of his favorite mortal traditions, so I always played along.

"Kieron was planning on taking me for a birthday picnic," I said, watching him begin to cut into the top tier of cake. The inside was marbled pink and yellow. "Strawberry?" I guessed, accepting the plate.

He grinned wide, pleased to have fooled me. "With all the sugared berries, you'd think so, wouldn't you?"

"What is it, then?" I asked, poking at the sponge. I waited for him to serve himself before taking a bite.

"Dragon fruit," he intoned, his eyes fixed on me as he motioned for me to try it.

"Oh," I mused after swallowing a mouthful. Its sweetness lingered too long, and I wished there was something other than lemonade to wash it down with. "I thought it would be spiced, for some reason."

"Spiced?" Merrick asked, then took a large bite. He chewed with relish. "I have. I have outdone myself."

"Because of the dragon, I guess," I said, shoveling another piece onto my fork as though I were going to eat it. "Fire…spice…" I shrugged. "Would you want to join us?"

"You and Kieron?"

I nodded, watching dismay color his features. He didn't want to, but he also didn't want to tell me no. Not on my birthday.

There had been a recent change to my godfather and Kieron's relationship, one I wasn't sure the cause of or the solution for. No longer would Merrick join us in a game of cards after supper or a long stroll through my carefully salted acres. He always seemed to be rushing away whenever Kieron knocked on the door, snapping himself into the void after a harried remembrance of needing to be elsewhere.

"You said it was to be a picnic?"

A jagged bolt of lightning crackled down out of the sky as if on cue, and I absently wondered if he'd enlisted the help of the Divided Ones to turn my fortunes sour today.

"We could spread out a blanket in the parlor and pretend," I suggested. "It would mean a lot to me if you did."

"Because you miss me," he tried, already cutting a second piece.

"Of course. And because Kieron is so special to me as well," I answered carefully.

The edge of Merrick's fork dug into the plate with a decisive screech. "He's not good enough for you," he finally said, his voice quiet and subdued.

"You'd say that about anyone," I reasoned.

"And I'd mean it."

"That's not helping your cause," I teased him, and refilled his lemonade.

"I wasn't aware my cause needed assistance." Merrick frowned. "I don't like that you've gotten so serious about the boy. You're so young. You have so much of your life ahead of you. I don't want to see you hurt."

I set my fork down. "Kieron would never hurt me."

"You don't know that."

"But you do," I said playfully, nudging his side. "You see everything, and you know that it will all be well. You can see how happy he makes me."

"It…it's only going to make things harder."

"What do you mean?" I asked, a nasty, peevish worm twisting in my stomach. Any trace of lightheartedness had faded from hiseyes.

"When he—" He bared his teeth as he ground to a halt, stopping the words that wanted to spill out. "When you, " he tried again, putting too much emphasis upon the new word. "When you leave."

I couldn't stop the sigh from escaping me. "I don't want to go. Alletois is my home. The home you picked out for me," I reminded him. I didn't want to fight, not on my birthday, not when I'd been hoping to make headway with him and Kieron.

"When you were a child," he said, his voice irritatingly patient and level. This was a god who could argue for millennia and not raise his tone even once—he didn't have to. He was the literal last word. "You're not one any longer. It's time you took the next step. It's time you left Alletois."

"Then Kieron can come with me," I said, brightening as the idea struck me for the first time. "So I'll have someone with me in the capitol."

It was absolutely the worst thing to say. I could see it the second the words left my lips, and in that moment I would have done anything to take them back.

"You'd have me, " Merrick said, sounding wounded.

It was a dangerous thing to hurt the feelings of a god.

"I only mean…" I pressed my lips together, trying to come up with the right set of words that would stop this from happening, that would keep him mollified. "I only mean that you have to travel so much, for all the important things you do. It would be nice to have a friend."

"A friend," he repeated skeptically.

I felt like a small beetle cornered by a scorpion. I could practically see the barbed tail thrashing back and forth, ready to strike with venomous speed.

"Don't assume my absences mean I don't know everything that goes on here. The two of you have been more than friends for quite some time now, and you'd have to be a fool to think I wouldn't notice." He leaned across the table, growing even taller as sudden anger swept through him. The red of his eyes sparked with fury. "And you know better than anyone that I will not abide a fool!"

Thunder rumbled outside, a long roll blanketing the land as he stalked out of the room, heading for the parlor. The windowpanes rattled in their lead casings, and my sternum ached from its force.

"We weren't trying to keep anything from you," I called out to him. "Truly, Merrick. We are friends…just…more now."

The more had begun last autumn.

Kieron had finished work for the day and had brought by a basket of apples to surprise me with. I'd taken them from him and, on impulse, leaned in to offer him a hug. It was meant to be nothing but a small squeeze of thanks, but it had somehow changed into something more, and when he'd pulled away, his face had held the loveliest look of wonder and astonishment.

And then I'd kissed him.

Or he'd kissed me.

It didn't matter who had begun it, because both of us had quickly surrendered to the magic of it, tracing shy fingertips across the other's face, the basket of apples forgotten.

It was my first kiss, and I hadn't known what I was doing, only that it felt wonderful and made me happy and that his lips had been a heady mix of crisp apple and a sweetness that was wholly Kieron.

I couldn't get enough of him, and later that winter, when he told me he loved me, that he'd always loved me, that he'd spend the rest of his life loving me, I knew I was his—and he was mine—forever.

I knew Kieron planned to propose today.

He'd been making noises about a grand surprise for weeks, and only days before, I'd caught him poking around in my jewelry box, looking at the sizes of rings Merrick had gifted me through the years.

I pressed the palms of my hands to my eyes. They felt hot with welling tears. This was not how I wanted the day to go. I wanted all of us together, happy and here. I wanted Merrick to smile as I accepted Kieron's hand and heart. I wanted us to eat the terribly sweet cake and plan for a dizzyingly bright future. Merrick and Kieron were my family now. Why couldn't we all be at peace with one another?

I sighed, turning to glance into the parlor.

It was quiet, and I could picture Merrick seated beside the fireplace, staring broodingly into its flames. I listened to the falling raindrops, counted the seconds, and wondered if enough time had passed. I'd go to my godfather and tell him how much I loved him, how he was right about leaving the village, how much I looked forward to being in Chatellerault. I'd tell him everything exactly as he wanted to hear it, coax him into a better mood, and then he'd see how he'd overreacted. He'd see how much Kieron cared for me and how we both could be right at the same time.

"Merrick?" I called softly.

He didn't answer.

Of course he was going to make this harder than it needed to be. There was nothing in the world worse than a god nursing a wound. Rolling my eyes, I cut him another slice of cake and carried it with me to the parlor, knowing he'd appreciate the gesture.

But when I surveyed the room, it was empty.

Merrick was gone.