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They’re talking too, their voices low and hushed.
“It didn’t work,” Brom says. There’s no disappointment in his voice, just fact.
I open my eyes to see Brom sitting up beside me, his knees drawn to his chest, staring out at the woods.
“Do you know for sure?” Crane asks cagily.
Brom nods. “We’re still connected. He’s not here right now but…we’re connected. The ritual didn’t work.”
Crane exhales and presses his mouth against my head again. “Alright,” he says quietly. “Alright.” He lifts his head and brushes my hair off my face, his actions so soft and tender. “We knew that this might not work on the first go. The horseman has been bound to you by a spell cast by the Sisters, so of course it will be harder to break. We will have better luck on the full moon, and if not then, Samhain. I will keep reading and learning. I won’t give up on you, Brom. We won’t.”
Brom looks at us, his brows lowered, casting his black eyes into shadow. “Maybe keeping the horseman inside me wouldn’t be so bad, if it has to be that way.”
I gasp and sit up. “Are you being serious? No, Brom. You can’t go around the rest of your life being possessed by the Hessian soldier. We will get him out of you. No matter what.”
He looks at Crane. “Maybe I could learn to live with him.”
“Out of the question,” Crane says stiffly. “You want to spend the rest of your nights in chains?”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t have a problem with that,” he mumbles, looking away.
“I like my sleep,” Crane says indignantly. “Don’t be such a misanthrope. This ritual is new to all of us. In time we will get better. Perhaps the dark moon was working against us. We don’t know. But we will try again, and none of us are giving up hope, including you. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” he says flatly. He looks around the clearing. “What do we do about the ghosts?”
I follow his gaze, the shadows still gathering at the edge of the circle, their hunger palpable.
“We wait until the elixir wears off,” Crane says. “Should be soon. And then I’ll close the ceremony and open the circle.” He sighs. “And then, we’ll go back to our beds and try to get some sleep if we can.”
Crane sounds so tired as he says that, and I can’t help but feel for him, the burden of having to make sure Brom doesn’t go around harming those on campus. But it’s necessary, especially since, so far, Brom being under restraint has meant the actual spirit of the Hessian hasn’t gone around killing people either.
For now, that is.
Chapter 21
Brom
In the darkness, I will do thou bidding.
In the darkness, I will wait.
For you to awake.
To let me in.
Use me, Abraham Van Brunt.
Let me rule you. Let me be your power.
You never have to feel alone again.
I dream of a black wood. I am a raven in the trees. I look down on the three writhing, naked bodies. I see myself, and Kat, and Crane. I see us as what we really are—heathens. We are no longer civilized people, no longer humans; we are animals, succumbing to the most basic, mindless desires to rut, to mate, to make and take pleasure. To use, to be abused. To want, and crave, and hunger.
I watch us from above, Kat in the center, the vessel for our seed, for our power. She glows golden from within, her hair shining like cornsilk, her body sunfire, and she revels in it, in this creation of her true self. A witch, a goddess, the love of my life. Crane and I are just two heathens in her orbit, sharp enough to provide the spark. She is the flame. She will always be the flame.
I flap my wings and take off, flying through the darkness and the mist until it clears and I’m soaring over Sleepy Hollow. I pass by my old house, where my parents are—or the people pretending to be my parents. I know they’re not. I can’t prove it, I’ve never been able to, but I know they’re not. They’re just minders. They had a job, and that was to raise me. It was never to love me or save me or protect me. It was to raise me like my father’s prized bull. When my purpose is over, I’ll be sent to the slaughter. It’s around the corner, waiting for me. My body will be sliced into chunks and fed to the pigs.
I keep flying straight to town, circling over the police station.
I have been pulled here in the dream, but now I’m starting to think this isn’t a dream at all.
Because I saw this on the ground, through my own eyes.
Through his eyes.
At the back of the station is a small house.
