I laid in Logan’s bed, but I couldn’t sleep. The moonlight rolled in through the glass, casting weird shadows around the room.
He was still next to me, and I rolled over to look at him.
I touched his face.
We’d gone to the cabin after everything fell apart. Railius had offered us shelter at the Haunt’s headquarters, but with the dozens of Hushed that had showed up from different cells to cover us in addition to the six new ones we’d saved from Ironbark, I knew it would be a tight fit as it was. Railius said it probably wasn’t safe for me to be alone, but I told him I wasn’t alone.
We got away before the blue-and-red police lights flooded the mountain pass, followed by the reporters. It would be interesting to see how they explained this one.
I’d meant what I’d said to Adelaide about choosing my own life, and I didn’t realize how much I’d meant it until the gunshots died down and I made sure Fabian was still alive. Stunned, confused, hurt . . . but alive. Svenja took him to the church—it’s where he said he wanted to be—and told me she’d stay with him until morning.
When I turned back to Logan and threw myself in his arms, I knew.
My name was Eerie, not Samira.
I was made by a man who regretted the secret he made, but who had no choice but to trust it. To trust me. That’s what the letter had said.
And I wanted Logan.
Adelaide had been wrong back in the Adrenian Pass, when she’d told me that compassion would kill me. And she’d been wrong at Mal’s when she told me that my secret didn’t matter.
I was whole, and the choice was still mine.
I leaned down and kissed his lips, and then stood up, walking to the window.
It was snowing, and the flakes refracted the moonlight, throwing the whole night into crystal chaos.
Just outside, beyond Logan’s window and past the back porch, a figure sat on a tree stump, looking up at the moon.
I threw on Logan’s snow jacket and boots and crept outside without a sound.
* * *
“Your place a little crowded?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest as I stepped over a tree root and crossed the clearing toward Railius. Logan’s boots were huge, so I’m pretty sure I looked like I was cross-country skiing.
He shrugged. “Something like that. I hate sharing a bathroom.”
The snow fell on his eyelashes, and he looked down.
“I shouldn’t have helped her. It was my fault she got away,” I said finally.
He looked up at me and shook his head.
“She can’t do anything with the box without Fabian. She needs the key . . . and he has it. Once she burns out all her options, she’ll be back.”
I bristled. “You mean for Fabian?”
“We’ll be ready when she does,” he said.
I nodded and looked down at Logan’s boots. I hadn’t even thought about how I was going to navigate Logan and Fabian being near each other. I hadn’t let myself fully consider that they couldn’t be. It was too painful.
“I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe it was Rory. This whole time.”
“Keep your friends close,” Railius started.
“And your enemies seducing your brother while counseling you on all major love decisions and being your best friend.” I joked to keep from having a complete breakdown. This was the worst night, and all I wanted to do was tell Rory about it.
He laughed. It was genuine, and I remembered it from a glimpse of the in-between years. I remember the sound of it echoing in a tavern hall or beside me as we walked along the Thames, throwing day-old bread to the ducks while Adelaide talked to a soldier, catching my eye just long enough to wink at me over his shoulder.
The memory scattered like dandelion dust.
“We used to laugh like this all the time,” Railius said quietly, and I looked down.
“I don’t quite remember. I hope I will,” I said, looking up. “She said I’d betrayed her,” I said, looking up at Railius. “I don’t remember it. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
He leaned his head back at my words, and then licked his lips, slowly. They were chapped against the cold. He pushed himself to his feet, and I looked down.
“Did I? Did I betray her?” I pressed.
Railius stuck his hands in his pockets and brought his shoulders up to his ears.
He eyed me skeptically, and I glared at him.
“Tell me.”
“Things will come back to you in time, Samira—” He stopped, and I looked down again. Calling me by that name was a slip, and he was embarrassed. It was true, but at the same time, it wasn’t. I wasn’t Samira. Not really. I was mismatched. A body and a soul and free will all working to try and meld together.
He sighed. “I remember where we came from. I know, in painful detail, how dark the deal was that made us. You were—and are—the next phase. The one that Adelaide thought would bring freedom, but would also bring death to everyone that touches it.”
He was right. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered Connelly telling Dr. Davie that it would be used only on prisoners of war. Only on murder suspects. But he knew it was a lie, even then. Humanity wouldn’t use it as a precaution. It would be a weapon. It would be used to pull secrets out of anyone and everyone. It was a threat to the very existence of free will.
“And Adelaide?”
He looked down. “She knows how to end this curse.”
I swallowed hard.
“What does that mean?” I asked. He shrugged, and I pushed. “Don’t you know? Through drifts, or something?”
“She has always kept it closely guarded. As I had. You could access mine because of who you are. Because of our history. Our trust. I guess it was like muscle memory.”
I looked at him. There was pain in his eyes, but he pushed past it.
“But I’ve never been able to crack Adelaide.”
“She won’t tell?”
“She told you that she could end it, but never told you how. She thought you’d agree that she should keep the secret to herself.”
“I didn’t,” I filled in quietly.
He shook his head.
“You told her she should tell her Wounded.”
“I told her to go die.”
Railius exhaled sharply. “In your defense, you did convince me to kill you at one point, so I think that whole situation probably begs for context. I was not there, so I can’t help you.”
I shivered and shut my eyes tight. “I don’t remember doing any of that. I don’t even know what she told me.”
I looked down, taking a deep breath. The time will come again, and you will betray me.
“So the Hush-a-Bye rhyme . . . it’s about us?” I asked, thinking about the words.
Then there was one where once were few.
Railius nodded. “Adelaide convinced the humans that I’d been the one killing villagers. She used my killing you as proof of my violent nature, collected the reward for turning me in, and started a deep fear of our kind, back then. She got her revenge and the spark for war all at once.”
“They arrested you?” I asked. I hadn’t thought about what happened after the drift ended.
Railius smiled sadly. “That’s a story for a different time, when it’s a little warmer and there is more whiskey, I think.”
I pressed my hand to my forehead. “I always thought Exhumed were a myth. I’m still not sure I understand how this happened.”
Railius shrugged. “Last time we were created, it was through magic. It seems Dr. Davie was able to replicate the same phenomenon through science, and you came back.”
“How? It doesn’t seem like that would be possible.”
“Magic and science aren’t that far apart, Eerie.”
He said it with such assurance, without a hint of hesitation in his voice. Like it was something everyone should understand.
“This is all . . .” I laughed through the tears that welled up in my eyes. “It’s all a lot,” I said.
“I know.”
I looked up at him.
“It’s so strange,” he whispered, “you’re here, but you’re not. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
He touched my cheek, and I wanted to pull back. I wanted to gasp, but I couldn’t. Because somewhere deep down, in a place that had just woken up, I missed him too. I didn’t know what to do with that.
Railius smiled at me. It was genuine, but sad. “I don’t mean to push you, but we have other things to talk about.”
The silence was heavy around us as the snow fell. His eyes met mine through the falling ice, and I looked down. “Look. I know that . . . I know that we had, um. History, no pun intended. And I just—”
“Eerie,” he started, and I shook my head harder.
“I just—”
“Eerie.”
“I’m with Logan. That’s what I’m trying to say. Completely. Embarrassingly. It’s pretty bad.”
I lifted my eyes, and Railius raised his eyebrows. “Well. Okay. I was going to talk about the Haunt’s next move, but glad we cleared that up too.”
It was freezing, but my throat flushed horribly, and I tucked my chin to my chest.
“Right. The Haunt.”
“I want you to take your rightful place, Eerie. Next to me—not like that,” he said, when I cocked an eyebrow at him. “But if the Hushed from tonight are right, we have to move quickly. There is something coming. Something worse than what was happening at Ironbark.”
I looked down and remembered Dr. Davie’s note.
“Tell me,” I said, glancing up at Railius.
Railius met my eyes. “We didn’t get all Connelly’s Hushed tonight. A man at his level didn’t just have secrets in Ironbark. And we weren’t the only ones tracking him.”
“The Internment? Gravediggers?” I asked.
“I think there is a sort of alliance between the two, and more dangerous than both. And they are going to be looking for Connelly’s Hushed. Eerie, any of those Hushed could have periphery that point to what Dr. Davie was trying to discover. They could point to you. It might have already happened. We have to find Connelly’s Hushed, wherever they are, before the humans do.”
“And before Adelaide,” I added, because I knew it would only be a matter of time before she discovered this as well.
“But even if they figured out I existed . . . I can’t tell them anything if they’re not my Wounded.” I put a hand to my chest. There was a dull ache in between my ribs.
Railius didn’t say anything, and I felt my stomach drop. There was more, and I knew it. All of this, and there was still something worse I needed to know.
“That’s just it, Eerie. We’re not the same as most Hushed. We don’t just have one Wounded. You, Adelaide, and I all belong to everyone who has been affected by Hushed.”
Everything in me stilled. “What do you mean? Every human is my Wounded? I could tell anyone?”
“It means the Pull won’t be as intense, because it isn’t directed at one person. But yes, Eerie. The whole world is our Wounded. We’re the only ones who have ever dealt with this. Other Hushed have come close, even lasted centuries. But we’re the only ones who have lasted this long. I can teach you how to cope with it, but it’s never going away. I need you to help me, Eerie. And you need me to help you. If you give into your Pull, no human will ever be safe again. Including the one you love.”
“You know his name,” I shot back.
Railius nodded and looked out over my shoulder. “Logan. Logan won’t be safe. You need to stay close to me to protect him.”
A week ago, I would’ve told him to piss off.
Two days ago, I wanted to kill him.
Tonight, I knew he was right.
There was evil in this world, and it wasn’t going to wait for me to be ready. Whether I liked it or not, I was in this. I’d been in this since the beginning.
“If I go with you, I bring Logan.”
“Logan is a human, Eerie. We’ve talked about this.”
“Take it or leave it, because I’m not going anywhere without him. Also he’d probably just keep showing up in the middle of raids in various costumes until you let him join anyway.”
Logan could kill me, but I wasn’t doing this without him. I was stronger than I’d ever thought, and I wasn’t going to run from him now. We would figure this out.
Railius rolled his eyes, but I saw the hint of a smile turn up the corner of his mouth.
“Fine,” he said, reaching out to shake my almost-numb hand.
His skin was warm, and his hand swallowed mine.
He met my eyes, and I fell into his out of habit.
I didn’t want to remember anything more. It would only hurt.
I tore my eyes away from his and turned around.
“Tomorrow?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” his voice rang out behind me.
* * *
When I went back inside, Logan was awake, reheating coffee in the microwave.
I went up behind him and wrapped my arms around him.
He turned around.
I’d told him everything by the fire earlier, before we’d fallen asleep. He’d lain next to me, twirling my hair in his fingers, and he didn’t freak out once. Not even when I told him I’m technically two thousand years old. Or that I’d once kissed Railius. Whatever that had been, it died with Samira. I couldn’t show him the note Dr. Davie had left me, but he understood that there were things I had to keep to myself.
He had been pissed that I’d lied about going to Ironbark, but I told him it wouldn’t happen again. It wouldn’t. I meant it when I told Railius that Logan and I were in this together.
And Logan would’ve let me cry about Rory, but I didn’t want to.
How do you mourn someone who wasn’t dead? How do you mourn someone who never really existed?
“What does Railius want?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. I’d been trying to figure out the way to phrase this as I walked back inside.
“Remember when I said we were done with the Haunt?”
Logan nodded slowly.
“What if I was second-guessing that?”
The microwave behind him beeped, and he reached up and hit the button without breaking my gaze.
“I would say it was about time.”
I straightened, and he turned around and pulled his coffee out of the microwave.
“I thought you’d be fine just leaving it alone?”
He blew on his coffee and nodded. “And I was. When this was about vengeance. But it’s not. This is about right and wrong, now. And I know which side is right.”
I looked down.
“It will be dangerous,” I warned.
He stepped closer and slinked his arm around my waist. “Felony record, remember?”
I looked up at him.
My whole world had fallen apart, but he was still the same. He was constant. He was still Logan, and he was looking down at me. Eerie.
I kissed him, and he pulled me closer.
I pulled back, slightly.
“Are you drinking a reheated pumpkin spice latte?” I whispered against his lips.
Logan smiled and pulled me close, kissing me as the pink light of morning broke over the hills.
It broke over a world of charred, broken things. A world of bones, coming out of their corners, rising out of shadow to kick up embers and set the world on fire.