Camille burst back into the bedroom, her face flushed and smudged in soot. “Lightning struck the roof. The fourth floor is on fire! We have to get out!” She came to a screeching halt as she saw the writhing mass on the bed.
The thing flipped over, exposing its winged back, and grabbed at its umbilical cord. It tugged on the opposite end, and Morella cried out in pain, clutching her stomach. Raising the cord to its mouth, it bit through the muscle in one snap, freeing itself. I turned to the side, unable to stop myself from throwing up.
Camille grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. Servants ran by, shouting for us to hurry downstairs. The fire couldn’t be controlled. We needed to escape now.
“Wait, don’t go!” Morella called to us, her voice high and reedy. For a brief moment, her eyes lost their madness and she looked like our stepmother again. “I can’t get downstairs by myself! You wouldn’t leave me to burn to death, would you?”
Standing on the threshold, I dug my heels in, stopping Camille’s race for the stairs. “We can’t just leave her here.”
She groaned in exasperation. “That’s exactly what she’d do to us!”
Morella struggled to free her blood-soaked legs from the wet sheets. She tilted her head, listening to something beyond our hearing. From the adjoining sitting room came the sound of heavy footsteps. My mouth went dry as a black spider of fear sank its fangs deep into my stomach.
Viscardi had arrived.
Camille yanked on my arm again. “We can’t stay here! The fire is already in the hallway!”
The door to the sitting room whipped open with a crack, stopping us in our tracks. A familiar dark figure appeared, silhouetted in smoke and flames. His silver curls sprang out, writhing like snakes.
As he strode past the fireplace, like a king traversing his throne room, he cast a shadow on the far wall. A great horned three-headed dragon was shown in stark relief, wings puffed out in ferocity and teeth bared.
Morella burst into a fresh set of tears before him. “My lord, I don’t understand. My son was born dead. You betrayed me!”
He raised up one finger with fluid grace, swishing it back and forth. His voice dripped like honey, melodious and modulated. “Morella, my sweet. Is that any way to greet me?”
“You lied!”
In a shaky, jittering flash, he stood over her, looming, leering like a gargoyle from hell. On the wall, his dragon shadow glowered, flexing and snapping, while Morella’s writhed beneath it.
“I. Never. Lie!” he snarled.
“My son is dead!”
He shook his head. “Our son lives.”
“Ortun’s is gone. You swore I would have a son! You swore—”
He held up his hand, silencing her. “I swore you’d have a son. And you did. Was the little body taken from this room by your husband not the perfect specimen of maleness?” His face turned stony, his eyes narrowed. “Next time you summon the god of bargains, remember to ask for exactly what you want.”
“I did!” she howled.
Viscardi shook his head, his eyes hidden in the dark shadows. “You went into great amounts of detail with what you wanted—the husband, the house, the son you so foolishly thought would inherit the estate—but you failed to specify the child should be born alive.” He reached out and cupped her cheek, running an elongated thumb across her lips. “But just think, my darling. Your boy provided ours with all the nourishment he’ll need for the long trip home.”
He scooped up the squalling monster from the bedclothes, peering down at the tiny, fanged face. Viscardi’s visage softened with tenderness. He even gurgled coos as the creature bit at his finger.
“No!” Morella cried, struggling to stand on the uneven mattress. “No! I gave you your son. You’ve taken two of the Thaumas girls. Our deal is off. I want this bargain broken!”
He whirled back to her, cradling his son in the crook of his arm. “Broken? Who are you to take back an oath?”
“I don’t want any part of this oath. You took my son; you don’t get the other girls!”
With fire swirling in his eyes, he licked a forked tongue over his teeth, considering the small woman in front of him. Across the wall behind them, the dragons reared back, giddy with bloodlust. “You can’t just say you want our bargain ended and expect it to be so. You know the price I demand. The only thing I’ll accept in payment.”
Morella blew out a shaky breath and nodded, resignation clouding her face. She glanced over his shoulder, meeting my eyes. “Don’t tell your father any of this. Tell him…tell him I loved him. Always.”
Viscardi looked back at us again, his lips—too thin to even call them that, really—raised into a painful smile, and he winked. Then, in that strange blur of movement, he descended on Morella, suddenly so much more than a man. Wings and scales and talons slashed in and out of the bedlam.
Cries rose from the chaos, and for one awful moment, they echoed the sounds I’d heard her make when I’d walked in on her with Papa. But the pleasure was short-lived, and her whimpers of ecstasy soon turned into shrieks. The shrieks turned to screams. And then the screams cut off into silence.
Camille covered her mouth, holding back cries of her own as we spotted the pale curve of a rib rising from the bedding. Morella had come from the People of the Bones and was now reduced to nothing but a pile of them.
A man once more, Viscardi turned to us, a lusty appreciation shining in his flaming eyes. “I always did like dancing with you two best,” he said, his gaze burning over our bodies like scorched earth. “Pretty, pretty Annaleigh and my darling Camille…what fun we could have together…you need only ask.”
Camille’s jaw clenched as she stepped forward. “How powerful are you, Trickster? Are you able to change the course of things? To change the past?”
“Camille, no!” I shouted, sensing what she was about to do. I grabbed at her arms, pulling her away from the grinning god.
“He could bring back our sisters!” she hissed. “He could bring back Mama!”
“At what cost?”
“I could,” Viscardi said, raising his voice to be heard over us. “I could do all that and more.” A forked tongue slithered out from his blood-covered mouth, beckoning us. “And you might find you quite enjoy the trade.”
I shook my head. “Never!”
He looked at me with his glittering, fiery eyes. “You’re worried about what happened to Morella? I understand completely, Annaleigh. But you’d never be so foolish as to make the same mistakes she did. You’re far more clever and so much more…dazzling.”
My feet started to inch closer, seemingly under my control, but as I tried to force myself to stop, they continued forward. He drew me toward him like an anglerfish luring in prey with its hypnotic, flashing orb.
His fingers traced over my cheek, caressing the skin with a seductive tenderness I was unable to resist. It wasn’t until I nuzzled back into his palm that I realized it was covered in Morella’s blood.
“Annaleigh, stop!” Camille cried out, grabbing my hand and yanking me out of the trance and far from Viscardi’s reach. She squeezed me tight, rooting us to where we stood.
Viscardi sighed, a cloud of sulfur wafting from his lip, but shrugged it off, offering a low bow to us both. “Suit yourself.” Swooping up his wailing progeny, he disappeared in a crack of thunder.
Camille and I stared into each other’s eyes, gasping in the smoky air, as we absorbed everything that had happened on this horrible day.
Was it truly over? I’d expected to feel different, to feel less marked. Surely there ought to be something to signal the bargain was broken—but there was nothing.
A cry from the corridor snapped us back to the present. The fire raged unchecked through Highmoor. If we didn’t leave right now, we would not get another chance.
We raced into the hall as a ceiling timber, blazing as red as Viscardi’s eyes, splintered to the floor, catching the runner on fire. Orange flames licked up the wallpaper, and in a sudden burst of fire, an oil painting of Eulalie and Elizabeth was gone.
“The back staircase!” I had to shout to be heard over the crackling flames.
“The third floor is already on fire,” Camille said as we reached the landing. “Where are the Graces?”
“They were on the first floor with Lenore.” I prayed they’d not ventured upstairs.
The fire traveled fast as we fled down the stairs, a monstrous orange fist trying to smash us. Bursting out into the garden, we choked back smoke. The storm raged across Salten, whipping sharp flakes into our eyes. It should have been cold, but the blaze threw off so much heat, we were in no danger of frostbite.
People gathered around the fountain, huddling together for warmth and comfort. I sobbed in relief as I spotted Lenore, Honor, and Mercy pressed together under a blanket.
“Camille? Annaleigh!” Hanna cried, seeing us. “Thank Pontus! The main staircase was already in flames when we tried to go up for you. I was so scared we’d lost you both.” She pulled us into a painfully tight embrace. “Have you seen Fisher?”
I stared at her dumbly.
“Fisher!” she screamed again, as if I’d simply misheard her. “I couldn’t find him when the fire broke out. Did he go with Roland and the others to the shipwreck? Did you see him then? I don’t know where he is!” Hot tears ran down her face.
I ran my fingers over my own cheeks, smearing soot and pushing aside the last of Kosamaras’s beguiling.
It had been a lie, earlier in the Blue Room, one of Kosamaras’s tricks. There’d been no accident. No funeral. I was the only one who knew Fisher was already dead. Had died before ever arriving for the triplets’ ball.
Lenore left the fountain, joining us. Her eyes were bright with tears, and the flames reflected across them, reminding me of Viscardi’s burning irises. “Where’s Papa? Why isn’t he with you?”
Hanna let out another wail. “He helped the little ones out, then ran back in, saying he was going after Lady Thaumas. You were up with her…” She trailed off, taking in our silence. “Didn’t you see him?”
I locked eyes with Camille. She shook her head, silent tears welling up.
“We didn’t see him. Not since he took the baby…not since he went downstairs.”
“We must go after him.” Hanna let go of us, looking for other servants to rally. As I squinted through the snow, I could see there weren’t many to call upon. Roland and many of the footmen were missing. Regnard and Sterland too.
I grabbed her sleeve. “The back stairs were already engulfed as we came down. He wasn’t there.”
As if confirming my words, there was a great rumbling crash from deep within Highmoor, a section of flooring giving way under the weight of charred wood and flames. Honor and Mercy let out shrieks, and Hanna started crying again.
I wrapped my arms around Camille, bracing myself against her sobs. No one ever needed to know what had actually taken place tonight. We held on to each other with a fierce protectiveness and watched Highmoor burn.
