For blood.
For murder.
For rage and hatred and?—
“Did you know?” I ask. “Did you know, all this time, that it wasme?”
She still doesn’t look at me. She drops the yellow memory into its jar, carefully screwing the lid into place. I try to bepatient. I wait until she’s tucked it back into her bag, but when she grabs the next memory—the last one—I speak again, louder.
“Did you know?”
“I owe you this last memory,” she says. Her voice sounds fuzzy, far away, like she’s speaking from across a canyon.
We’re sitting in the same patch of dirt from before, separated only by this black memory stone. We haven’t moved, but we suddenly feel a thousand miles apart.
“Once you watch it, you can decide,” she says. Her words tremble, even as her hands don’t. “I can take it all back, and I’ll never make you see it again.”
“I don’t want to watch the memory,” I say. I try to sound calm, but it’s impossible. “I want to know if youknew.”
“Of course I knew,” she says. She sounds miserable and angry and desperate, and still, she won’t look at me. She’s trying to uncap the jar, but it’s stuck, and that only pisses her off more.
“You said I wasn’t a killer,” I say. “That first time I came to the manor, you said?—”
“You’re not,” she says. “That wasn’t a lie. You aren’t a killer, Elliot.Imade you one.”
“No, you didn’t. I made that decision all by myself. If I couldn’t handle it, if that’s why I made you take them?—”
“Just watch the memory, Elliot,” she interrupts. “Take it, and you’ll understand. This last one is when you came to see me that night. You’ll see how upset you were. You were scared and I promised to make it better. You opened your mind because youtrustedme, Elliot, and I violated that trust. I stole your memories because I was fifteen and scared and you had just ruined your whole life for me! I didn’t know what to do. Okay? I loved you, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“Secora,” I say. She’s curled into herself, still clinging to the jar and avoiding my gaze. “Look at me.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Elliot,” she says. She hugs the jar against her stomach. “It was mine. Everything comes back to me and I tried to fix it, and I think I did. It was all fine until you came back, and I don’t…I never should have made that deal with you. I was just…”
“Breathe, honey,” I say. I extract the jar from her clenched fingers and place it in the dirt. Then, I take her into my lap, pressing her chest against mine, until I swear I can feel her heart beating against mine. “I am so sorry, Secora.”
“Don’t hug me,” she says. But when I loosen my grip, she surges closer, burying her head against my chest. Her hands clench the fabric of my shirt, and a wild sob wracks from deep within her soul. “I don’t deserve it.”
“You deserve every good thing in the world,” I whisper. “That’s what I thought at sixteen. That’s what I think now.”
Tears burn my eyes and I let them fall.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I am sorry foreverythingbad that happened to you, but especially the parts that were my fault. I’m sorry for making it worse.”
“You were the good, Elliot,” she says, words muffled against my shirt. “Then. Now.”
We don’t talk muchfor the remainder of the trek, but I keep Secora’s hand in mine. Though she hasn’t explicitly said, I know she’s waiting for the fallout. Maybe she thinks I’ll blame her for what I did to Harrison. Or that I’ll hate myself so much for it, I’ll beg her to take the memories again. Maybe she thinks I’ll abandon her once we get back to the Night Realm, that I’ll need distance or time or a chance to think things through.
Though I haven’t explicitly said, I couldn’t feel more at peace than I do now. Ever since I laid eyes on Secora in that vampirichellhole, my world has felt broken. There were pieces missing from an otherwise perfect puzzle. Now, the puzzle has flipped, but all the pieces are in place.
It makes a better picture than before, since she’s part of it.
“The Cursed Grounds were first used for the gargoyles,” I say. I’m sure Secora knows the lore already, but I’m desperate to end the quiet. And as much as I’d like to create a to-do list of wrongs to right, I doubt Secora would welcomethatconversation. “Two hundred years ago, the council made a deal with the Flight Realm. A certain harpy tribe had become a problem, terrorizing their lands. The council offered to resolve it for them, in exchange for this little slot of land—and more importantly, the black sand that’s only ever been found here.”
Secora nods along. She’s staring straight ahead, so I can’t tell if she’s interested or just humoring me. I continue regardless.
“The council arranged a meeting with this rebellious tribe, under the guise of an alliance. So the harpies show up, only to find no witches. Just this ashy sand and a massive black table. They wait, and wait, and wait, but no witches come. Eventually, the harpies get pissed and decide to leave…only to realize they can’t.” I pause for dramatic effect, and Secora’s lips twitch into the tiniest smile. “Their wings aren’t working. Too late, the harpies realize they’ve been betrayed. The council had laced the table with magic, cursing anyone who touched it to turn to sand and stone. By nightfall, they were all completely calcified, their bodies carved from the same material that cursed them. The harpy tribe had fallen, and the Flight Realm was safe once more.”
“Is this your round-about way of warning me not to touch the table?” Secora asks. Now, she’s smiling for real.
