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She turned and strode away, and in the hall, I heard her crying.
Time slipped—no.
My mother was weeping in the hall, and my heart was in agony, and I held on to that pain. Harrow had done that to her. No,Ihad. And it hurt. God, it hurt. But if I hurt, I was alive. If I hurt, I had something to hold on to.
I would not surrender. Enough of this. I couldn’t just let myself be dragged along toward the end, to whatever violence was waiting for me.
I wanted to scream. To rage. To hit something. To cry. But all of it was denied to me. I couldn’t tell my mother,Of course I loved you. I love you now. I need you and I love you and I’m sorry. I’llwalk away. I’ll leave these gates and keep walking and you won’t ever see me again.
But the pattern was unceasing, unbroken. Something needed to change, or I would be trapped forever in this brutal gyre.
Time slipped.
Morning, and the bell was ringing. Afternoon, in the drawing room, mindlessly turning the pages of the book. The bell ringing, sitting at the dinner table. Salad fork, dinner fork, knife, soup spoon.
Night, and the spiral. Again and again, exactly the same.The knife.I held the image of it in my mind. There was a knife on the table every night.
Morning. Afternoon. The book. The bell. The dinner table: salad fork, dinner fork,the knife in my hand—then night. The spiral.
Morning. Afternoon. The book. The bell. The dinner table: salad fork, dinner fork, the knife in my hand,Caleb beside me, Caleb with his hand on the table. Night. The spiral.
Morning. Afternoon. The book. The bell. The dinner table, the knife in my hand, Caleb beside me, Caleb’s hand.
The knife plunging down. The knife pinning Caleb’s hand to the table. The knife wrenched free, bloody, Caleb shouting, Celia screaming.
The spiral.
Dinner. Salad fork, dinner fork, soup spoon. No knife. Caleb with a bandage on his hand. The pattern cracked open. And me, sliding through the cracks.
I held on this time. I didn’t drift but stayed aware for everysecond. I didn’t fight against the pull of the pattern, not yet. When the night bell rang, I let the pattern carry me into the hall. It was time to walk the spiral.
I’d walked these halls again and again and again. But tonight, at last, I held fast against its pull. I stood rooted and trembling with Harrow’s will hooked into my flesh like thorns.
“Keep walking,” Caleb said. Because, of course, he was behind me, shadowing my every step. I turned toward him. He had the gun, but he didn’t point it at me yet.
“No,” I said. My voice was gravel and broken glass, unused.
“We can always start again,” he said, and lifted the gun.
I threw myself recklessly toward him and to the side. The shot was like a clap of thunder in the tight space, leaving my ears ringing. The bullet creased the air beside my cheek.
That sure as hell broke the pattern.
I bolted. Caleb chased me, but he couldn’t catch me, not here. I had walked these halls every night for months. I careened around corners and through doors. I wasn’t fast enough. The pattern was snagging at me, slowing me down. Caleb shouted. I scrambled around a corner.
A rough hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into a room—the library—pressing me against the wall. Eli. He put a finger to his lips, and then ran into the hall before I had time to react. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“She took off. She must have shaken off the pattern,” Caleb said, cursing. “Did you see her come by?”
“I was reading. I heard her run past.”
“Wake everyone. We need to find her.” Caleb’s footstepsretreated swiftly down the hall. Eli waited, then stepped back inside. I stared at him, panting, my back still pressed against the wall.
“That took you long enough,” he said. “I was starting to worry you’d never break free.”
“That was you talking to me, wasn’t it?” I asked. That voice I’d thought was my grandfather’s, right after I woke in this horrific loop.
“You had to work it out yourself. Otherwise, it would just pull you back in,” he said. He glanced into the hall. “You need to get out of the house. Find the witch.”
