Starling House(98)

I find Arthur’s wrist and squeeze it once. I know the second he sees the girl, because a shiver runs through his frame.

“What happens if you go toward the House?” I ask.

“They attack.” Arthur’s chin points at one of the Beasts, a feathered thing with too many teeth. It holds one of its legs curled into the white down of its chest. Its blood is a startling red in this colorless place.

“Ah,” I say. I stare hard at the girl in the window and make a guess, lifting my voice. “Nora Lee?”

I shouted the name, but the girl doesn’t flinch. I know I’m right, though—I’ve seen that small, angled face in the pages of The Underland,I’ve dreamed myself wearing that fusty old dress, running down and away from everything.

I glare until her face begins to blur in my vision. It merges with the face that glared down at me from the portrait in Starling House, the face I saw sleeping in the river. I already knew their stories were distorted reflections of each other, like a single girl reflected in a cracked mirror. The letters of her name dance in my head, pirouetting gracefully to new positions.

“Eleanor?” I don’t yell it this time, but I don’t have to. The girl cringes back from the window, and her eyes meet mine.





THIRTY


Until I said her name, Eleanor Starling’s face was entirely empty, her eyes like a pair of hard black periods typed in the center of a blank page. She looked down at the gathered Beasts without dismay or surprise. I wondered if she could still feel anything at all, or if this place had reduced her to a thin illustration rather than a person.

But the sound of her true name hits her like a fist through a window. Her eyes widen. Her lips part, as if she can taste the word through the glass. She looks at me intently, almost hungrily, before turning abruptly away. She vanishes into the shadows of the House.

“Arthur, I think—” I begin, but a sound interrupts me. A high, wavering howl, like a cornered cat, or a distant coyote.

Another Beast picks it up, and another. A ripple moves through them. A hoof hits the earth. They are not impassive anymore.



I make a noise somewhere between a sob and a snort. “I thought you befriended them, or whatever.”

“Apparently it didn’t stick.” Arthur’s voice is dry but he’s lifting the sword again, one elbow high, blade laid flat across his forearm. “Get to the House, Opal.”

My eyes slide between the Beasts, stalking closer, and the hard knot of his face. “Because you think that’s the way out of here or because you’re being a jackass again?”

Half his mouth curves, joylessly. “Yes.” The curve flattens. “Please, Opal. This time, just this one time, will you go when I ask you to?”

The thing is: I think he’s right. I think if there’s a way to destroy this place or escape it, Eleanor Starling knows it. I take a breath, short and hard. “Okay. Alright. But don’t—you can’t—” Swallowing is harder than it should be. “I’m not letting you kill yourself fighting these things. I don’t even think that sword is real—”

Arthur takes a wide warning swing at one of the Beasts and it hisses, recoiling. “Real enough,” he says.

“Fine! Whatever! But I’m coming back for you, and if you’re dead, I’ll kill you.”

He smiles that small, bitter smile, so I hit him again. “I’m not joking. I’ll go, if you swear to stay.”

Maybe it’s the way my voice splits on the last word. Maybe he just wants me to go. But he meets my eyes and nods once, so deeply it’s almost a bow, or a vow.

It’s not enough; it’s all we get before the Beasts are on us. It’s hell—lips retracting over long pearled canines, muscles coiling, talons extending—but so is Arthur Starling. The sword arcs and bites, hacks and sings, cutting so quickly through the air it leaves a silvered trail behind it. There’s no beauty to his movements, no grace. He doesn’t look like a dancer. He looks like a boy who wanted to grow flowers but was handed a sword instead. He looks like a man who gave up on hope a long time ago, but who keeps fighting anyway, on and on. He looks like a Warden of Starling House, gone to war.

Arthur takes two steps forward, another to the left. He slashes, fast and brutal, and wrenches the blade out of splintered bone. The Beasts draw away from him, just a little, and there it is: a way to the House.

I don’t hesitate. I run, arms tucked tight to my chest, head ducked low.

My feet slap on stone. I fly up the steps of Starling House and hit the door hard. It’s locked.

But surely, even in whatever upside-down sideways version of the world we’re in, Starling House won’t turn against me. For months now I’ve fed it my sweat and time, my love and blood. My name is on the deed and my hand held the sword; I am the Warden.

I press my palm to the scarred wood and say, softly, “Please.” I pour all my wanting into the word, all my foolish hope.

I feel a softening of space around me, a sense of unreality, like being in a dream and realizing, suddenly, that you’re dreaming. The world bends for me.

The lock clicks. The door opens. I look back once at Arthur—my brave, stupid knight, my perfect goddamn fool, still fighting, his form vanishing beneath a snarling, ravening wave of Beasts—before I slip inside Starling House.