Sandow flinched in surprise.
“You knew?” asked Alex. “Did you eat her soul too?”
“I am not a dog to come running when the dinner bell rings. Why would I trifle with a
soul like that when I had a feast set before me?”
“Oh,” said Sandow, pressing his fingertips together. “I see. Alex, she means you.”
Belbalm’s glance was cold. “Don’t look so pleased, Elliot. I’m not here to tidy up your
mistakes, and I don’t intend to waste any time worrying about you blabbing my secrets.
You’re going to die in that chair.”
“I think not, Marguerite.” Sandow stood, his face suffused with the same determination
that had possessed him the night of the new-moon rite, when he’d looked into the fires of
hell. “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, the lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea
—”
North cringed backward. He cast a desperate look at Alex, scrabbling futilely at the walls as he began to fade through the bookshelf, fighting his banishment even as fear of
the death words seized him.
“North!” Alex cried, holding out her hand to him, trying to pull him back into her. But
it was too late. He disappeared through the wall.
“The plowman homeward plods his weary way,” declared Sandow, his voice ringing loud through the room. “And leaves the world to darkness and to me—”
Belbalm rose slowly from her chair and shook out the sleeves of her elegant black tunic. “Poetry, Elliot?”
Death words. But Belbalm didn’t fear death. Why would she? She’d already met it, bested it.
Sandow focused his hard eyes on Belbalm. “Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid some
heart once pregnant with celestial fire—”
Belbalm drew a deep breath and thrust out her hand to Sandow—the same gesture Alex
had used to welcome Hellie, to draw North into her.
“Stop!” Alex shouted, lunging across the room. She grabbed Belbalm’s arm, but her skin was hard as marble; she didn’t budge.
Sandow’s eyes bulged and the high whistle of a teapot beginning to boil emerged from
his parted lips. He gasped and fell back into the chair, with enough force to send it rolling across the floor. His hands gripped the armrests. The sound faded, but the dean remained
sitting upright, staring at nothing, like a bad actor miming shock.
Belbalm pursed her lips in distaste and daintily wiped the corner of her mouth. “Soul
like a mealy apple.”
“You killed him,” Alex said, unable to look away from the dean’s body.
“Did he really deserve better? Men die, Alexandra. It’s rarely a tragedy.”
“He won’t pass behind the Veil, will he?” Alex said, beginning to understand. “You eat
their souls and they never move on.” That was why North hadn’t been able to find Gladys
or any of the other girls on the other side. And what had become of Tara’s soul, sacrificed
to Sandow’s ritual? Where had she gone in the end?
“I’ve upset you. I see that. But you know what it is to carve out a place in the world, to
have to fight for your life at every turn. You can’t imagine how much worse it was in my
time. Women were sent to madhouses because they read too many books or because their
husbands tired of them. There were so few paths open to us. And mine was stolen from
me. So I forged a new one.”
Alex jabbed a finger at Belbalm. “You don’t get to turn this into some kind of feminist
manifesto. You forged your new path from the lives of other girls. Immigrant girls. Brown
girls. Poor girls.” Girls like me. “Just so you could buy yourself another few years.”
“It is so much more than that, Alexandra. It is a divine act. With each life I took, I soon
saw a new temple raised to my glory—built by boys who never stopped to wonder at the
power they claimed, only took it as their due. They toy with magic while I fashion immortality. And you will be part of it.”
“Lucky me.” Alex didn’t have to ask what she meant. Belbalm had rejected Sandow’s
offering because she hadn’t wanted to spoil her appetite. “I’m the prize.”