“Go on, then,” I say, turning back. He’s advanced across the lawn. Despite the fear and shame churning in my gut, I’ve beaten greater monsters than this cruel, cowardly man. “Shoot me. Get it over with.”
His grip tightens on the trigger, and the revolver clicks. Nothing happens. What soaked him also soaked the gunpowder. Now there are no lingering qualms to muddle my resolve.
“Oh bravo, Thomas.”
He scowls at me as he tries in vain to fix the revolver. What does he know of shooting a gun?
My legs strain to keep me standing now, their strength siphoned tothe blaze. He sniffs unpleasantly and turns to witness the growing fire still deep in the trees. When he turns back, his expression is stony.
In another world, one where he never abused me or Liney and I had no need to escape him, we would be oddly well matched in countenance. Stern by nature, seeing the world in the absolutes of good and evil and how we could transcend them, always immune to the rules we placed on everyone else.
But I’m not the same young woman who escaped from his threats in the dead of night. There’s no longer room for fear inside me.
“Sir will do,” he says, ever sharp and bitter. “You really only asked for…this?” he continues, raising his arms to the clearing around us, the lighthouse, sand, and ocean waves that glow red from the sun. “You bargained your soul for a rock and a lighthouse? One that’s not more than a stone’s throw away from me? I expected better, Eleanor. A challenge.”
“Did he promise you this place?” I ask. “Once you all…dealt with me?”
“No.” He laughs at the thought. Mirthless, cruel laughter. The same laughter that accompanied every bruise, every cutting remark, every promise of more. “Bigger. South. Much suffering, much temptation to be had. A new frontier. There will still be use for you, though. Always use for a woman who can commune so effectively. It’s a compliment. The hardest-hearted woman the Devil’s ever seen, that’s what he told me.”
I want to tell him that his dreams are already ruined. That Pratterman is dead. The pool of misery he wishes to extend is soaking into the ground under his feet. Second by second, its fuel is being consumed. But then what? He could turn tail and run, search for Liney across the continent. No. While it would feel so damn good to rub this loss in his face, I mustn’t give in.
I do what I’ve always been best at. I endure.
“You thought he’d pick you over me?” Thomas continues. He’s close enough for me to make out the rough bristles of his mustache, the faintlines across his forehead, and the jawline so many used to tell me was handsome, of good breeding. “A pathetic bitch. Ol’ Pratterman left you too wild. You must come to heel.”
He flashes the sword in his hand, its dark metal surface familiar. The same as my stiletto was. A cursed weapon.
“Something special, Eleanor. Made for you.”
Pratterman played every angle of our lives. Douglas to me, me to Liney, Liney to Thomas, and Thomas once again to me. All of us trapped in this wicked net. His catch. Wriggling uselessly and hurting one another, over and over again.
But this fish has a knife of her own. And while it may destroy us both, it’ll also set us free.
The fire has spread deep into the forest, from the roots up. It won’t be tamed. Every new tree consumed is another muscle inside me tearing apart. I swallow the pain and take a step forward, which he doesn’t expect. He brandishes the weapon between us. Arrogance mixes with hesitation across his face. Like he never really thought it would come to this between us. Like he still doesn’t believe I could ever fight back.
I grasp my knife with one hand and hold the other out, flat-palmed.
“I know what it feels like,” I say through labored breaths. This is impossible. But I try, because for all that Douglas granted me my right to kill this man, I need to know I’ve doneeverythingI could to not stain my soul with another soul. “I know the temptation. It feels impossible to resist—”
“You resist because you’re a weak-willed woman with no more ambition than brains.” He spits each word out as its own kind of curse.
Death, then.
I walk forward, step after step until we are close enough to touch. His sword meets my hand.
But his sword isn’t a sword. None of the steel in Pratterman’s collection was. It’s a vessel for suffering. It’s vengeance and violence coalesced.Like the oil, the souls within the oil, and the lighthouse that looms behind me, I can harness it to kill him. But I won’t.
I don’t need their tools. Manipulation can be multifaceted. That man’s was a diamond. Pure, hard, with new edges of misery at every turn.
The sword resists my hand for a split second. Then it punctures the meat of my palm. I would wince, but this pain is merely an echo of every other muscle’s scream in my island body. The surges of power from the souls’ chaos protect me from the full brunt of my wounds. For now.
I press forward, sliding my hand down the sword until I’m nearly to the hilt. Blood runs down my arm. It bubbles. I’m boiling inside, rot burning into ash. Yet the sword’s power thrums through me, mixing back into its source within the lighthouse and granting me a moment free from pain. The power doesn’t have to create suffering.
Behind Thomas, the first lick of flames cuts through the branches.
“What in…” Thomas is lost for words for once.
“He told you the sword was dangerous. His power to wield.” We’re so close now. I can feel his quick, shallow breaths in my face. “For a liar you sure are gullible, Thomas.”
