And then, finally, she feels the panel on the other side. It slides out of the way, and there, at last, is the garden, the sky, the cool night air. Even though it tastes like moldy leaves and soot instead of grass and summer, she gulps it in, grateful to be out of the house.
She pulls Thomas to his feet, and together they run through the garden toward the waiting wall.
She doesn’t look back to see if the soldiers are coming.
Doesn’t look back to see if the master is watching from the balcony.
Thorns catch on her dress and she doesn’t look back.
Ivy scrapes her legs, and she doesn’t look back.
They reach the iron gate in the center of the wall, and Olivia’s gloved hand slides free of Thomas’s as she flings herself against the door, pounding on it, the iron itself buried beneath layers of debris. The sound is swallowed up before it reaches air, but Matthew must have been waiting, must have had his cheek against the metal, because a moment later she hears the hum of a lock turning deep inside the iron, and then it swings open, and he is there, Gallant rising at his back.
His eyes go wide as they slide from her to Thomas. He grips the gate, clearly resisting the urge to run forward, to wrap his arms around his brother. Olivia holds out a gloved hand for the boy, but when he steps forward, a shadow crosses Matthew’s face.
“Wait,” he says, studying Thomas.
Olivia looks back. The garden is no longer empty. She can see the glint of armor at the top of the garden, the milk-white eyes like candles in the dark. Her hand cuts through the air.
Get out of the way, she orders, grabbing Thomas’s hand and barging forward, but Matthew bars the door.
“Say something,” he demands, and for a moment Olivia thinks he’s talking to her, but his eyes are still on the boy. Thomas looks up at Matthew and says nothing.
And for the first time, she sees him as Matthew must. His fair hair, made gray by the silver light. His skin, pale from the years without sun. His eyes, not warm, but cool and dark.
A terrible sadness rolls through her as she watches the hope bleed out of her cousin’s face.
He shakes his head and says, “That’s not my brother.”
Olivia looks at Thomas, his hand vising around hers. She can feel his heart beating, can hear his lungs filling. He feels so real. But then, so did the dancers, so did the soldiers, so did her mother and father, and she saw them grown from nothing but a finger bone and a cloud of ash. This is not a boy. This is a gray thing, conjured from death.
But she could breathe life into him.
Beneath the silk gloves, her palms begin to burn. She has power here. This may not be Matthew’s brother, but it could be. If she brought him back, if—but she cannot do it. Not to Matthew, or Thomas.
Just like her parents, he wouldn’t be real.
He would never be able to step across the wall. He would be trapped here, all over again.
“Olivia,” warns Matthew, “get away from him,” and she realizes she’s not holding on to the boy anymore. The boy is holding on to her. He clutches her hand so hard it hurts, his small fingers digging into her glove as the shadows slide through the garden.
“Let go,” orders Matthew, gripping the doorway, but she can’t. The bones grind in her hand, and she gasps, trying to twist free, as the boy pulls her close, wraps his thin arms around her, and seems to grow roots.
And then the boy who is not Thomas smiles. A terrible, sinister grin. This time, when he opens his mouth to speak, a voice comes out.
The only voice beyond the wall.
“Olivia, Olivia, Olivia,” it purrs. “What will we do with you?”
His embrace tightens until she cannot move, cannot breathe. Her bones groan, and she lets out a stifled gasp, and then Matthew is surging through the door. He makes it a few feet before turning back and pulling the gate closed behind him, the warm summer night and safety and home vanishing behind the wall. He presses a bloody hand to the door and says the words, sealing them in. And then he is there, trying to pry the puppet’s arms from Olivia.
“Hold on,” he says. “Hold on, I’ve got you.”
The boy’s eyes flick to Matthew. “I called your brother and he came.”
He shakes his head, trying not to listen to the voice.
“I cut his little throat.”
“Stop,” snarls Matthew, drawing a dagger, fingers shaking as he moves to hack at the puppet posing as his brother. But before the blade can pierce skin, the skin simply crumbles. The ash-born boy collapses back into dust, a shard of bone abandoned in the withered grass.
Olivia stumbles, suddenly free. She gasps for air and straightens, only to see the two remaining soldiers closing in. The broad one frowns. The short one smirks.
And behind them comes the master of the house.
He makes his way down the garden path, tattered black coat billowing in the stale air. His black hair rises, wild, and his white eyes shine, and when he smiles, the skin of his cheek cracks and splinters like old stone.
Olivia feels Matthew’s fingers closing over hers. A single squeeze, and he does not need to speak for her to understand.
Run.
He drops her hand, and she surges toward the wall, looks back to find him standing his ground, a frail young man with nothing but a dagger. She hesitates, unsure if she can really leave him.
But in the end, it doesn’t matter.
Olivia is halfway to the wall when the broad shadow steps into her path, armor srapped across his shoulder.
Her fingers twitch, and she wishes she had Edgar’s knife or a stick or a stone or anything sharp, though she’s not sure what good it would do against the soldier. She tries to dart out of his grip, to make it to the wall. He is large, but she is quick, under his arm and almost to the door before his hands close around her. Before the force of his grip nearly lifts her off her feet.
Help! thinks Olivia, calling on the ghouls, and they come, out of the withered orchard and up through the ruined garden. But at the sight of the grim figure in the tattered coat they stop and shrink away, dissolving again into the night.
Come back! she calls out, but this time, they do not answer. It is her will against his.
And here, the dead belong to me.
And so she fights against the soldier, bucks and kicks, desperate to get free.
“So much life for a thing half-dead,” says the master of the house, amused. “And speaking of half-dead . . .”
He turns to Matthew. Her cousin slashes out with his blade, but the wolfish soldier dodges lithely and kicks him in the chest. He collapses to his hands and knees, gasping for breath, and she draws her sword, gauntleted fingers flexing around the hilt.
“Two Priors in my garden,” purrs the demon in the dark. “And they said that it was barren.”
Matthew tries to get to his feet, but the soldier kicks out his knees. The master of the house strides forward.
“Your brother died for nothing, Matthew Prior. And so will you.”
The soldier lowers the dagger to his throat. Olivia lets out a panicked breath. But when Matthew meets her gaze, he doesn’t look afraid. He has been waiting for this. Waiting to lie down. To rest. He has not been afraid to die, not since his brother and father did. He is ready. He is willing.
But there is a question in his eyes. Are you?
Olivia Prior does not want to die.
She has only just begun to live.
But they are the only thing standing between the monster and the wall, between death and the living world. And so she nods, and he closes his eyes and swallows against the soldier’s blade, relieved. And when he speaks, there is no quaver in his voice.