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Maybe she kills me, instead. If so, she might as well get on with it. I will fight her, of course—my nature won’t allow me to give up without a struggle—but we aren’t even close to equally matched. She’s a goddess who magics creatures to life. I’m a daughter grown from dirt, who she can return to the earth just as easily as she coaxed me from it.
“I’m happy for them,” I add.
Disbelief blooms on her features. “You don’t care that a boy who promised to love you, to give his life for yours, murders you for the chance to live a long, happy life with another girl? Have you no pride?”
I rise to my feet. “I told Declan I might die tonight if I couldn’t convince you to set me free. Deep down, I think he knows there’s no way forward for us.” I glance back at his pale face and wide, sightless eyes, my heart squeezing tight.
I wish I could see him again as he really is. Just one more time.
If Mother’s telling the truth…I suppose I will.
When he kills me.
“I should go,” I whisper, starting toward the Thieving Trees and the gate beyond. “Sounds like Declan and I have unfinished business.”
Mother rushes over to catch my arm, making the back of my neck prickle and my stomach pitch. I can’t believe I ever found her touch comforting.
Now, her fingers bite at my skin like vampire fangs. “You think I’m lying, but I’m not,” she whispers. “If you go back, you’ll die. Tonight. And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
“Saving isn’t what you do, Mother,” I say, holding her gaze. “My sisters can testify to that.”
Her eyes narrow and her grip tightens on my arm, squeezing hard enough to send pain flowing down to my fingertips before she releases me. “Go, then. I can grow more daughters. Obedient ones, this time. With no free will and no choice but to love and obey their mother.”
Love isn’t love without free will. I don’t waste my breath saying it aloud. Mother doesn’t understand, and she likely never will. And though I feel sorry for the girls she’ll grow next, there’s nothing I can do for them, either.
All I can do is walk my path, do the work that’s mine to do, and hope choosing to be the kindest version of myself is enough to make a difference.
I want things to be different. Better. Gentler. Not just for myself, but for all the people I’ve hurt and the people I love and the people I’ve never met. Holding Adrina and Timon and their sweet mother and Declan’s father and Declan—Declan most of all—in my thoughts, I leap into the air, transforming into a raven in a flurry of inky feathers.
And then I fly—hard and fast through the trees, over the Wig and Skritch gardens, through the gate and into the void without a look back.
The garden is truly behind me now.
Forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Clara
I was in the garden longer than I thought.
By the time my smoky self seeps from the little girl’s mind and out through the gap below her windowsill, the moon is sliding behind the mountains. I shift back into a raven and lift my sharp beak, scenting sunrise in the air.
For a moment, the smell gives me hope—maybe Mother was lying. She said Declan would kill me tonight, after all, and it’s nearly morning.
But I know better. It’s still dark. A few bright, brilliant stars still spin across the sky as I land on the edge of the well beside the Barolo home and everyone inside is still asleep.
I can feel them now, each sleeping mind a thread I could tug on if I choose, but Declan and Timon’s threads call to me most strongly. That’s where my magic wants to go, to burrow deep, to poison and destroy and leave two of the dearest boys I’ve ever known unfit to lead a healthy life.
The call—still so strong, though the witching hour has passed—is all the reminder I need. I transform, sliding into my girl’s skin for the last time and padding barefoot toward the open window in Adrina’s room, where Declan sleeps. On my way across the yard, I grab a nightshirt—not sure whose—from the clothesline and slide it over my head.
There’s no time to return to the log in the woods for my dress, and I’ve already said my goodbyes to Wig and Poke. I can’t do it again. I have to save my strength for this last thing.
For dying with dignity and grace and letting Declan know I forgive him.
Breath coming faster and pulse thready with a mixture of fear and determination, I hoist myself up on the window ledge, gulping as my gaze lands on the bed.
There, Declan sleeps, just as I left him, so pale and still it’s hard to imagine him waking, let alone rising from his bed and plunging a knife into my heart.
