Preston’s low rasp slid through my veins like a thousand knives. Did he know? Was this all part of some sick and twisted game?
“Hello, Agnes.” A voice curled around me like smoke, sliding into my lungs like a suffocating breath.
I spun toward the sound but there was no one there. Only the shadows pressing closer to the mausoleum’s rusted gate, and a pair of eyes, glowing between them like fire.
CHAPTER FORTY
ELODIE
Hundreds of candles blinked to life inside the mausoleum, their flames escaping through the open gate and casting long, twisting shadows over the moss-covered headstones, like dark fingers stretching for the living.
“It’s been too long.” The voice returned, ancient and thick, pressing in on the edges of my mind.
The ghost’s gaze was fixed on the mausoleum, but she glided toward me, her faded brown hair swirling around her like seaweed drifting in a tide. Agnes. I knew that name.
Soft, deliberate footsteps approached, and then?—
“Elodie.” Lilian stepped through the gate, her white-streaked dark hair a shimmering crown on the top of her head. The purple feathers on her gown absorbed the light, but her eyes—golden, glowing—pierced through me like she was reading a journal.
My fingers twitched around the knife’s cold hilt as I slowly realized what—who—I was seeing.
“What a reunion,” The Great Monster chuckled, clapping her—Lilian’s—hands with delight. “Three generations of Thornburys. The first…” It pointed at Agnes. “The last…” Itturned to me, and I swallowed hard. “And of course, the shell I’m wearing now. The grieving widow.”
She swept her hands across her gown, stepping toward Agnes. “My beloved pupil. My first ward,” she crooned to Agnes, her finger twisting through Agnes’ hair as if she were flesh and blood.
The shadows slithered closer, their claws tracing our outlines like hungry vipers.
Then Agnes jerked her head toward me, her voice trembling, but stronger than I ever heard her. “Find the Bluebells.” And then she was gone, like a soap bubble that got poked, leaving behind nothing but her old, floral scent.
Air fled my lungs.
“Where did she go?” The Monster’s head snapped toward me, her eyes glittering with sorrow. “This isn’t how I wanted you to find out, pet,” it purred. “Are you afraid?”
I swallowed hard. Was I?
“You don’t have to fear the dark. I could teach you how to use it.”
Before I could answer, the Monster raised Lilian’s arms. The sky screamed in fury, lightning fracturing the air as the ground trembled beneath my boots. I barely kept my balance, clutching a nearby tree. The soil cracked behind Lilian like a splitting ribcage, and a pale purple glow seeped through the forest floor.
I held onto my gown as something began to rise.
Forms emerged, slow and steaming like breath on glass. Ghosts. Dozens of them, clawing free of the earth in fragments. Women and men, some young, some skeletal, all dressed in the finery they’d been buried in. Lace rotted to cobwebs and velvet eaten by time. Their eyes, sunken and luminous, locked onto nothing. Their mouths twitched open like they were trying to scream…
My stomach turned, even the wind settled, frozen, as if it, too, was watching.
The Monster smiled. “Do you have a favoured dance?” it cooed, lifting a hand. The ghosts jerked forward like dolls dragged by invisible strings, their movements rigid as if they were made of wood. A soft melody fell over the clearing like it was drifting up from beneath the earth itself, low and haunting. The ghosts twirled in broken synchrony. Their limbs cracked and shuddered through each movement. Some stumbled, others glided with uncanny grace, but none of it looked right. The Monster hummed along, conducting.
One of the youngest among them was shoved toward the centre of the clearing, her eyes wide, pleading. The remains of her burial gown shimmered briefly, its threads unwinding into the illusion of tulle, like a bruised flower forced into bloom.
My breath hitched, but I couldn’t look away.
Then another form stepped forward, a young man, gaunt with hollowed eyes. His shirt hung in torn remnants as though time itself had clawed it apart, revealing the pale echo of his chest beneath. He moved stiffly toward the girl, and their arms rose together, trembling as they did a slow, mournful pirouette.
The Monster hummed behind me, pleased. “Odette must have her prince.”
Only then did I realise I was seeing the grotesque re-enactment of Swan Lake.
“Magical, isn’t it?” the Monster asked in glee. But the ghosts’ eyes told a different story. Slow, silvery tears ghosted down the girl's translucent cheeks.
