The grounds are cleaved into a strangely narrow shape by an enormous, ivy-wrapped wall. The space is completely neglected, full of tangled weeds and flowers that have sprawled their way past once-tidy borders.
And beyond the wildflowers and the weeds … is the lake.
The water is black. Black as ink, darker than ink. It’s the same. Exactly the same as the water that filled my room last night, in my dream.
The shore is black, too, and torn. A sharp-edged wound all along the ground. It makes me hurt to look at it. I feel like someone has cut my skin and left behind the same jagged scars on me as on the earth below. This is the glass in my knees, the bruises on my wrists, the shadows in the night.
And down at the lake, three figures move across the shore. Clover and Arien, with Rowan beside them. I watch as he puts his gloved hand on Arien’s shoulder and leans close to speak to him. Then they all move forward to the edge of the blackened earth, the line where grass becomes mud, where mud becomes water.
No no no.
I shove myself back from the window. Rowan Sylvanan wants the darkness in Arien, wants his shadows that are more than dreams. And now he’s taken my brother to the lake. The lake where he drowned his family one by one.
I run.
I run down the stairs, through the kitchen, where pots clatter and steam on the stovetop, boiling over, out of the back door, and into the garden.
The Summerbloom twilight is heavy, air that smells burned. As I run along the path, branches scrape my arms and tear my skirts. Gravel scatters. My knees burn with a bright pain, like there are coals under my skin. The cuts reopen; blood washes over my legs.
I run until the garden becomes a forest. Pale bark. Dead leaves crushed under my boots.
“Arien!” My voice is lost in the trees.
I reach the shore. Up close, the lake is so much worse. Dark water that swallows the remaining sunlight. When I step onto the mud, I feel the cold through my boots as if it’s pressed against my bare skin. The darkness feels alive. It feels hungry.
My feet sink deeper with each step. My breath comes out in hard, short gasps as I fight my way across the mud toward my brother.
“Arien!”
Arien looks up, startled. His eyes are as black as the lake. I’m about to reach him when Rowan rounds on me and catches my arm. He wrenches me sharply backward. I fall against him with a thud that pushes out all my breath. He grips me tightly, his gloved hands around the tops of my arms, and pulls me away from the water. Away from Arien.
“Let me go, let me go!” I hit him. Scratch him. He hisses when my fingers scrape his throat.
“I told you!” His eyes are narrowed, his face flushed. He’s furious. “I told you to stay away!”
He drags me back across the shore. I fight him and fight him. I’m strong, my strength built on buckets of well water, on baskets carried to the village, on the ax chopped into firewood. I’m strong, but Rowan is stronger. I may as well be fighting against the rocks or the trees.
At the edge of the forest, he stops. We’re face-to-face for a moment; then he spins me around with a frustrated growl and pulls me tight against him. My back is pressed hard to his chest and I can feel his heartbeat; it’s racing as fast as mine, perhaps faster.
His breath is rough and unsteady. “You shouldn’t be here. I told you—”
“Get your hands off me!” I dig my fingers into Rowan’s arms. I can’t reach his skin because he’s covered by his gloves and his cloak, so I drive my elbow sharp against his ribs.
“Stop clawing at me, you little beast!”
I twist against him. I have to get away; I have to get back to Arien. “Let me go!”
At the sound of my voice, Arien looks up. He wavers for a moment, biting his lip uncertainly. Then he squares his shoulders, and his face sets into a determined expression. “Leta, get away from here! Leave me alone!”
His voice carries clearly over the flat shore. The shock of his words takes all the fight from me, and I go still. He turns away and walks down to the water.
Clover gives me a sympathetic look; then she and Arien begin to move together with slow, ritualistic steps. Five paces—I count them. Their footsteps make a disjointed circle, which Clover connects into a single shape by dragging her fingers through the mud. She leads Arien into the center of the circle. They kneel together. Arien presses his hands against the ground.
I start to struggle against Rowan again, my stomach tight with fear. A terrified confusion of images rushes through my mind. The blackened lake, the dead bodies of his family. His voice, rough, when he spoke to me beside the forest. I can’t promise you safety. “You told me you wouldn’t hurt him!”