“Think hard before you do this, Zora Novak,” he said. “I’ve seen things you could never imagine. I know things you have no way of finding out on your own.”
My fingers tightened in his hair.
“What’s the one thing you want?” he went on quickly. “More than respect, or friends, or freedom? I could give it to you. I could give you the truth.” He paused, and so did I. He smiled. “I know what happened to your mother.”
“Zora.” Artemis put her hand on my arm. A soft squeeze around my elbow. She watched me in silence.
“Is it that obvious?” I said.
“You take me out of this cave,” he said, “and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you what happened to her that day in the woods. I’ll tell you where she is now. I’ll tell you how tofind her.”
Was it that obvious that I wanted to find her? Was it that obvious how much I missed her, obvious enough that Ludwig could tell? I couldn’t even get angry at him for trying to use her to trick me. There was only an emptiness inside my chest, an understanding that there was a good chance I’d never know what happened.
“Zora.”
A second hand rested on my other arm. It flickered at the edges. Another hand on my shoulder, and one on my forearm. Bodies pressed in from all sides. They smelled like the dank must of the mines. Ludwig’s gaze darted over and past me. Dozens of them pressed in.
There was a good chance I’d never know the answer to Mom’s disappearance. But I also knew that if that answer existed, I already had everything I needed to find it, and it didn’t matter if other people knew I was looking. I was allowed to hunt.
It was my job.
Ludwig began backpedaling. “Don’t you at least owe me the benefit of the doubt? You know better than anyone that doing bad things doesn’t make you a bad person. You gave Bach a pass. I can do good, too. I know the truth.”
He wasn’t wrong, but here’s the thing: no one owes you the benefit of the doubt when your actions have shown, repeatedly and without reparation, that you do not deserve it.
Ludwig would not have me or anyone who lived here. He wouldn’t have Addamsville. It wasn’t for him. It was for me and Sadie and Dad. It was for Artemis and Aunt Greta. It was for Hal, Mads, Lorelei, the chief and her officers. It was even for Buster Gates. It was for George Masrell.
It was for the dead.
It was for my mom.
“You always think you know the truth,” I said. Then, with all the disgust I could muster, “Fuckingtourist.”
And I hurled his head across the bridge.
He disappeared into his entrance. The darkness and the pressure sucked inward, like his head had hit a curtain and the curtain was collapsing on the spot. A stale wind roared past us, kicking up dirt, dragging on clothes and hair. I grabbed Artemis, and the ghosts braced us, and we huddled there against the force of the entrance closing until it was over.
Dust swirled through the flashlight’s beam. I raised my head first. Artemis lifted hers a second later. The hands holding my jacket let go, one by one, until there were only Artemis’s, slowly unclenching from my arm.
As we exited the mine, the only sounds to be heard were the rustle of the wind in the trees and the scraping of leaves across the ground. The Chevelle waited for us by the fence.
Artemis’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen.
“Sadie,” she said. “She wants to know where we are.”
“Yeah,” I replied, exhausted but wide awake. “We should get back.”
Artemis started toward the Chevelle. I grabbed her arm. She looked back, puzzled.
“Thanks for doing this with me,” I said. “I don’t think I would’ve lasted very long on my own.”
“Oh, it was just—”
Before she could finish, I pulled her into a hug.
“Ope,” she said, surprised. Then she hugged me back.
“Is this the weirdest thing that’s happened to you all week?” I asked.
