Page 224 of Blood Curse

She waited for me to choose that touch as well.

I closed my fingers around hers.

“You aren’t going to ask whether I’m coming back,” I said.

Her green eyes held mine. “If I ask, you’ll think you owe me an answer.”

“Do I?”

“No.” Her grip tightened once. “Go and find out what you want.”

There was fear in her face. She didn’t hide it or use it to hold me in place.

I lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. Then I let her go.

The first step carried me level with the pillars.

Old magic ran across my skin, cool and familiar. The wards recognised my blood. They knew the shape of the man crossing them.

They didn’t close.

I took another step.

My boot landed on the lane outside Harrowmere.

Nothing tore through my chest. My knees didn’t buckle. The earth didn’t tilt me back towards the house. The gate remained open behind me, and my body remained mine.

Air moved into my lungs.

I hadn’t realised I was holding it.

The court stayed quiet. Elias watched my face. Mara watched the gate as if she might need to attack the hinges. Lenora stood with her hands in her coat pockets. Bryony looked only at me.

I stepped farther onto the lane.

Then I turned away from them and walked.

The lane sloped between wet hedges. Mud pulled at my boots, and water dripped from the branches above. Every few paces, my body prepared for the curse to seize it. Each time, my next step belonged to me.

I passed the first bend.

The gate disappeared, though the roof of Harrowmere still showed through bare branches. I kept going.

The wound beside my heart began to ache. I slowed rather than stop. Pain meant I had walked too far while healing. It meant nothing more.

At the second bend, the last chimney vanished.

Harrowmere was gone.

I stood alone on a country lane with mud on my boots and damp air cooling my face. A car passed on the road beyond the trees, tyres hissing over wet tarmac. The driver didn’t slow. To him, I was only a man out walking at dusk.

For a hundred and twelve years, I imagined this moment as escape. I thought freedom would feel like a force driving me away from the gate, as fierce as the curse that kept me inside it.

There was nothing.

The silence inside me left me untouched. Every direction was open, and none of them insisted.

I could follow the lane to the road. I could call for a car, take a train and keep travelling until Harrowmere became a name on legal papers. The idea didn’t frighten me.