She says it like that’s an excuse—like I should soften into her arms and forgive her.
But all I can think now is…what Ellis must have thought of me. How pitiful I must have seemed to her: the girl who may or may not have killed her friend, the girl who believed in ghosts, the girl who went mad. And I’ve proved her right, haven’t I? I’ve proved Alex right, too.
I meet Ellis’s gaze and feel something cold close around my heart, a feeling like a door slamming shut.
“No,” I snap, starting toward her abruptly enough that Ellis rears back, even though I never reach for her, never close my fist. “No. I won’t let you destroy my life for entertainment. I’m not Melpomene, to inspire your next great and tragic art. You don’t have the right.”
Ellis’s cheeks have gone pallid. She stands out against the backdrop of her quick-darkening room like a ghost in the night. “Is that so?”
For the first time, I think she might actually kill me. I can see her the way Clara must have seen her in that moment—a vengeful spirit ascended from hell, charging ceaselessly toward annihilation. My gaze flicks over to the épée hanging from its hook on the wall, equidistant from both me and Ellis.
And Ellis, it seems, has the same idea.
We both lunge for the sword at the same time, but Ellis—who has spent years training for this, has poured hours into practice at the gym, soaking her lamé with sweat in pursuit of mastering this sport—gets there first.
“Stay where you are,” she demands, poised in perfect posture with the sword outstretched, its blunted tip inches from my face.
“Or what?” I laugh. “These swords aren’t sharp. What are you going to do, poke me with it?”
But Ellis doesn’t move, her gaze fixed, unblinking, around the vicinity of my shoulders.
She holds the blade with her right hand. All those times I watched her practicing forgery…She isn’t left-handed. I could never have faked her handwriting, and she made sure of it.
My chest hurts with every breath I manage to take. And there’s no way to know what Ellis is thinking: If she is even now calculating the worth of leaving me alive. Or if she will invite me on a final Night Migration, if my body will curl up with Clara’s corpse and Alex’s ghost in the ruined grave.
I can’t stay here.
I dart forward, but Ellis is faster. It’s a simple motion, a flick of her wrist, and pain erupts on my cheek. I stagger back, one hand rising to touch the blood that drips down my skin.
“Don’t move,” Ellis snaps.
This time, I obey.
The tip of Ellis’s sword trembles. The edge of it is stained red.
“I can’t trust you,” she murmurs, but she isn’t speaking to me. Her voice is low, tight. It’s not a statement; it’s a realization. “Sooner or later, you’ll betray me. Next time—”
The slam of the front door cracks the tension like thin ice. I startle, and for a moment Ellis is frozen in place, épée grazing my throat.
Then Kajal’s voice calls up the stairs: “Is anyone home?”
Ellis’s sword falls away, dangling from one limp hand. We stare at each other, Ellis’s eyes pale and wide, her throat shifting as she swallows.
I tilt my chin up. “I suppose you’ll have to kill me some other day.”
I edge past her, shoulders brushing the wall in my effort to keep distance between us. Ellis’s gaze follows me until I’ve left and shut the door behind me, another barrier between me and her.
For however long that lasts.
Ellis and I circle each other in that house like twin vultures over dying prey.
If I am in a room, she is sure to follow. She stalks at my heels, silent and watching, as Leonie ropes me into a game of checkers, as Kajal asks me to help pin her too-large skirt. Such casual activities, and yet they’re frayed, fraught. Leonie’s hand shakes when she moves the checker pieces. Kajal flinches when my fingers graze her spine.
We are all ghosts in this house, waiting to hear the death knell.
I don’t sleep that night, or the next. Even with my desk chair lodged under the doorknob, I flinch at every creak of the floorboards outside, every scrape of branches against my window. I light candles for protection. But if those couldn’t frighten off my own phantoms, they won’t do anything against Ellis.
My world reduces to sensation. The lights are too bright, sounds overloud. People speak to me, and although I hear them and respond, two minutes later I can’t remember what they said or what it meant. Ellis and I exist on opposing planes. We scratch at that veil between us. Eventually, one of us will sweep it aside and move in. Eventually, one of us will lose.