“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.
“It does not matter,” he says. “You cannot take our blood by force, and we will not give it to you.”
The master does not seem surprised.