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There’s no one here.

But the smell lingers in the air, faint and unmistakable, the way a presence leaves a trace even after it’s gone.

We stand in the doorway and look at the empty corridor and neither of us says anything.

A Hollow was here.

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

BAZ

The slime is on the floor about six feet from her door, a smear of it against the base of the wall, dark greenish-black and faintly wet-looking. I grab a candle from the wall and crouch and hold the flame close without touching it. The rotten smell of death still lingers.

“That’s proof,” she says, standing behind me. “That’s proof that a Hollow Person was here.”

“That’s proof,” I agree, and straighten up.

We stand there for a moment looking at it. There is nothing else to see, no shadow moving down the hall, no tracks, no indication of where it came from or where it went. Just the smear, and the smell, and the knowledge that something had been standing outside her door.

We go back inside and I double check the lock.

The candle goes on the nightstand and we sit on the bed in the narrow dark and neither of us says anything for a while.

I don’t know how long we’ve been in this room together. Long enough that the smallness of it has stopped feeling strange, long enough that I know which drawer sticks and that she keeps lavender sachets in with her winter clothes because the smell of them drifts out every time she opens the press. Long enough that lying beside her in this bed has become the ordinary end of every day and I’ve found myself thinking less and less of destroying that tether.

She’s sitting with her knees drawn up, her chin resting on them while her dress poofs out, looking at the window. The Bleeding sky is deep burgundy tonight, leaning more toward purple as the season wears on, and the light it casts through the glass puts color in her cheekbones and at the curve of her throat.

I reach over and tuck a strand of hair back from her face and the look in her eyes is so raw it causes my heart to flip.

“Is it the tether?” she asks quietly.

I frown. “What?”

“This.” She gestures between us, a small open-handed movement. “You wanting this. Is it because of the tether? Or because you feel you owe me something for bringing you back?”

I look at her for a moment, at the careful way she’s holding herself, like she’s prepared for the answer she doesn’t want and has decided to be fine with it. The question cost her something to ask, that much I can tell.

“I want you,” I tell her. “That’s all it is. I’ve wanted you since before I died and the tether has nothing to do with it.”

She holds my gaze, studying me, as if she can reach through my mind and find the truth. I hope she can because then she’d know I’m being honest.

“Okay,” she says finally, and the careful posture comes down.

I reach for her properly then, my hand at her jaw, and she turns into it, and that solidifies everything.

I reach for the buttons at the back of her dress and she turns slightly to give me access, and I undo them one at a time with more patience than I usually have for anything. The dress loosens and I push it off her shoulders and let it fall and she gets up and steps out of it and turns back to face me, and for a moment I just look at her.

She’s in her underthings, her hair loose, the candlelight on the curve of her shoulder, and she lifts her chin slightly the way she does when she’s about to pretend she isn’t self-conscious.

I get to my feet and wrap my arms around her.

“None of that,” I say. “No pretenses.”

Her chin drops a fraction. Good.

I take the laces at her back next, slowly undoing them, feeling her breath change as I work them loose, and when the stays come free, I draw them off her and set them aside. Then I step back and look at her properly, because this is a gift that I’m not about to squander, and she lets me.