Ten minutes until the New Year!” Kane shouted into his cupped hands. He was standing atop the clock’s concrete foundation with an arm hooked around the pole, swaying back and forth. Flatlanders huddled together below him, but it did nothing to ease the cold as we all waited for midnight to strike in Town Square.
Storefront lights were out and the string lights draping from the eaves to the gazebo hadn’t dazzled above in weeks. Aside from the gas lamps lining the cobblestone walkways, night swallowed us.
Beyond the crowd, bodies spilled onto the streets and scattered in the grass. Shop owners stood on their stoops, watching the entertainment or preparing for mischief. Some townies were zoned out, staring at nothing, their expressions blank. Others were delusional, seeing things that weren’t there. Shoulder to shoulder, our bones shook in our thick coats, but we were awake.
The Shadows hadn’t taken a life in weeks. Safety could be on the horizon, but no one was willing to take the risk and sleep for longer than minutes at a time. If there was an opportunity to keep us awake and moving, we took it. This time it was New Year’s Eve.
Kane jumped down from the clock platform and landed ten feet from Cyrus and me. A grotesque grin stretched across his face, likely influenced by mermaid blood and caffeine as if he’d been injecting both straight into his veins for several weeks.
I couldn’t find the will to fake a smile, even for the boys’ sake.
Two days had passed since I’d last seen Stone. The image of him chained up inside the barn was a scar in my mind—a deep, brutal scratch from a poisonous claw. I spun the pearl bracelet around my wrist, pretending to be all together and not falling apart. It was a difficult task as the thought of Stone kept me unfocused, unfazed, unraveling, un-everything. And the last thing I wanted was to celebrate a new year he may never enter.
The thought alone ripped through my chest, and I looked at the ground to fix my face again. Only a few more weeks and Kane will be dead, and Mom will be awake, I reminded myself. It’s what you’ve always wanted. For it, you fought. For it, you sacrificed. So why, with every passing memory of Stone pressing into me from all sides, did it feel like all of it no longer mattered, and there was a chance I’d explode into a rage at any moment?
I stood with my heart heavy and lying at the bottom of my ribcage, casting a shadow across my bones. People were pushing and shoving into each other, some delirious, some dejected, some delusional, and I wished to trade places with any of them. Anything was better than wistoragic crawling inside me.
I suddenly felt closer to this word, clutching my chest as wistoragic wrapped around my heart, sounding more like a lethal virus trapped in a planetarium than a feeling. I suppose this was what love could feel like should I have fallen into it—a sickness born from stardust. It sounded magical, but it wasn’t. Not at all.
Just then, in the cobblestone cracks between my feet, a pale green vine sprouted through melted snow—the first alive thing I’d seen in weeks. I looked to my left and right with my heart slamming against my palm, unsure if what I’d seen was real.
When I looked back at the root, a beautiful black lily sprouted from it and brushed my ankle. I bent down and quickly plucked it from the street before anyone noticed.
The petals were silk between my fingers, and I closed my eyes, imagining Stone.
He’s okay, my heart screamed. I held the lily close to my chest. Somehow, he let me know he was okay, and a smile ghosted across my chapped face.
There was a sense of someone watching, and when I looked to my right, Julian’s little sister was staring at me. She was wearing an oversized black sweater, a tiny black skirt, tights, and knee-high boots, her only layers to combat the cold. She had a lot of hair falling around her, the color of crushed black velvet with a sheen. It slapped her cheeks and hid her profile when she quickly averted her attention.
From the corner of my eye, Cyrus gazed down at me with a smile, and I shoved the flower into my coat pocket. He stepped behind me, laid his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs stroking my neck.
He dropped his mouth to my ear. “I get it,” he said over the crowd. “You miss your sisters. But you know Ivy would never agree to come out here, let alone allow Fable out of the house in the middle of the night. Try to enjoy yourself.” He moved my hair off my shoulder. “We don’t get many nights like these anymore.”
Jolie glanced back over, her face young, naïve, watching Cyrus with smoky, caramel eyes embellished with black liner, as if I wasn’t standing in his arms.
“Your stalker’s here,” I said, pushing Cyrus’s attention off me.
He cocked his head just enough to catch sight of her—the girl who’s been obsessed with him since she was nine. Cyrus then dropped his head back, looking up at the night sky for a second, either gathering or releasing something. And when he came back to earth, he drummed his fingers on my shoulder. “Don’t pay her any attention. She’s harmless.”
“I don’t know, Cyrus, I’m your fiancé now ... A crowded room, everyone distracted ... she may just slip past me and stab me in a lung.”
Cyrus tsked. “I would be more inclined to believe you would do something like that rather than her.”
Each Valentine’s Day, Cyrus received a letter from a secret admirer.
He’d never let us read these letters, fearing we’d taunt the girl, but we all knew it was Jolie. I didn’t know why the poor girl couldn’t drool over someone from her own coven, and someone her own age. She set up her heart to break from day one.
I looked up at Cyrus, but he was already looking at her.
My head fell back against his chest, and I studied how she was looking at him, wondering what she was feeling. Does it hurt, Jolie? Does your hurt, hurt more than mine?
I sighed. “I bet her tender heart is crushed after finding out the man of her dreams is getting married.”
“The Heathens aren’t here.” He was distracted.
“So?”
Cyrus scanned the crowd and all of Town Square. Then he looked back at Jolie. “Julian would lose his mind if he knew she was here alone.”
Then a tear slid down her cheek. I hadn’t known for sure until she caught it with her finger. “She’s crying.”
I shook my head with a slight smile. She could cry so freely in a crowd in front of Cyrus without the worry of anyone believing she was crazy or weak, and I had to swallow mine. Suddenly, I was jealous of a fifteen-year-old. I thought her to be brave, like the snow, letting herself go and not apologizing for it.
“Give her a break,” he said, wrapping his arms around my chest from behind, still watching her from the corner of his eye. “Don’t you remember what it was like at that age?”
At fifteen, I had no time to dote or dream. There were dresses to be designed and a mother to take care of. I swapped the thought of boys with the thought of blood, love for murder, and sipped Heathen tears to send myself off to Euphoria whenever I was alone. “Hormones were all the rage.”
Kane pushed through the crowd and joined us. The top three buttons of his dress shirt beneath his coat were opened, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his throat, imagining silver and red—steel and blood.
“Aren’t you two just adorable,” he said, pulling a tiny vile from his front pocket. He dabbed a crimson drop onto the pad of his thumb and sucked it off. “So, Cyrus,” he had the nerve to swipe my bottom lip with the same thumb without warning. “How are we going to do this sharing thing with Adora? Do you prefer lunch or dinner?”
I didn’t have a chance to react, and it only took half a second for Cyrus to leap around me and shove Kane in the shoulder. “What’s the matter with you, man?”
Kane’s palms flew up in the air in front of him. “Calm down, calm down, it’s my bad, all right?” he shrugged, his smile glistening. “I forgot you’re a brunch guy.”
Cyrus fisted Kane’s shirt at the chest, snatching him up on his toes.
The drugs left Kane’s eyes crazed, the color of no-sleep surrounded them. He was positively going mad.
“You don’t want to do this right now,” Cyrus said through his gritted teeth. “You’re high and worn out. Go home and sleep before you get yourself killed.”
Kane laughed. “Always has to be the bigger guy. Always has to be the beloved. Always has to be the first.” But then his laughter faded, and his gaze turned serious, hazel eyes sliding across Cyrus’s face. “What if I told you I took her virginity in your bed?”
Cyrus’s jaw tensed, his teeth grinding. I watched as if it happened in slow motion, the muscles in his neck straining, the blue veins popping. Kane smiled, seeing it too.
“You won’t hit me,” Kane said, eyes narrowing and sizing him up. “You have never hit anyone a day in your life. You care too much about what people think. You—”
Cyrus’s decorated knuckles cut the air in half and smashed into Kane’s jaw.
Blood sprayed as Kane’s head popped backward.
He stumbled, swayed, but surprisingly avoided crashing into the street.
He looked at Cyrus with gaping eyes.
“You just fucking punched me,” he said, then a grin stretched across his face. “Oh, man, I fucking love when you stoop to my level.”
“Go home, Kane,” Cyrus said, looking down to check his rings with his fingers stretched straight.
To our right, one flatlander shoved another in the chest, and he fell back into a group of girls. To our left, a teenager was yanking the purse off a woman’s arm as she screamed for someone to stop him.
Around us, the crowd was closing in, pushing and shoving from all sides. They were getting paranoid and rowdy from the excitement. Cyrus turned his back on Kane and scanned the crowd as he searched his front pocket.
He looked at me, grabbing my hand and dropping his car keys inside. “I have a feeling. Something bad is about to happen, and I need you to wait for me in the car.”
He had a feeling, and he was leaving me? “Come with me,” I insisted.
“There’s something I have to do. Just go to the car,” he said. “Five minutes, Adora.”
The clock on the dash flipped to three past twelve.
Midnight had passed.
The earth had danced entirely around the sun, and this new year had arrived without him. A new year Stone and I hadn’t existed in together. I held my breath to keep myself from exploding, refusing to let it go until my lungs forced me. The only thing left to hold on to was this black lily.
Stone was out there somewhere, holding on too.
Eventually Cyrus showed up, slid into the driver’s seat, and white knuckled the steering wheel. His voice was thick inside the heated cabin of the car when he said, “Did you really fuck Kane in my bed?”
No explanation for where he’d been, No Happy New Year.
Yes. “No.” Lies, lies, lies.
Cyrus looked at me without really looking at me.
I didn’t know if he believed me or not, but he put the car in reverse and looked back, holding on to the back of my seat as he reversed out of the parking space. That was the last thing he said.
The rest of the ride was in silence.
When we pulled into the Cantini driveway, Viola barreled out of the front door and stumbled upon the steps.
Cyrus slammed on his brakes, dropped the car into neutral, and jumped out of it.
I followed him, and when I reached Viola, Cyrus already had his mother cradled in his arms.
“What happened?” Cyrus demanded. And I’d never seen Viola hysterical and distraught. She usually held herself together stronger than a steel pole, but at this moment, her knees shook and her hands trembled. She was nothing more than a pile of black lace and tears in Cyrus’s arms.
“Th-th-the Shadows are here,” her voice wobbled as she gripped Cyrus’s arm tightly, her knuckles turning white. Cyrus’s horrified gaze sprinted to me, and we exchanged glances. And then I sprinted into the house.
My only thought was of Camora and the boys.
“Adora, stop!” Cyrus shouted from behind. “Mother, let me go!” But I was already sprinting up the stairs and heading for Cillian and Kaser’s bedrooms.
One after the other, I pushed open their doors.
The maids had each of the boys awaken in their arms in a comforting embrace as they cried, terrified. I dashed across the hall to Camora’s bedroom.
“Camora!” I shouted, my hand reaching for the door handle.
I flung the door open, and it slammed against the wall.
Only a maid with a stricken face stared back at me from the other side.
Camora wasn’t there.
I clutched the maid’s shoulders. “Where is she? Where did she go?”
“I don’t know, miss,” the maid stuttered in a cry. “She was here one second then disappeared.”
Her father. Camora must have run straight for her father to protect him.
I flew down a flight of stairs when Cyrus grabbed me. “Adora, please stay here,” he said, desperately. “Let me handle it.”
I faced him with rage crawling in my blood. “No, I can’t just stand here. This is your family!”
“And you’re the other half of me!” Cyrus shouted with a panicked look in his eyes. Then he calmed. “Please, Adora,” he said, quieter this time.
I broke free from his grasp. “I can’t.”
I skipped the elevator and hurtled down another flight of stairs to the cellar, where Darnell’s bedroom was. It felt as if my heart was in my throat, blocking my airways. I couldn’t breathe, thinking of Camora and the absolute worst, that maybe I never would have made it in time because she was already dead. The vision of her body lying on the cold ground with a frozen shock in her pupils propelled me forward. Faster, longer strides.
I ran through the wine cellar until I was pushing against Darnell’s bedroom door.
It flew open, and a gasp of sea salt and brine breathed on my face.
I froze, was paralyzed, hearing the knocking in my ears.
The thump … thump … thump ..
Five slithering black shadows had Camora cornered against the wall.
I couldn’t move. Only my eyes were able to slide across the room.
Darnell’s thin and bony body draped halfway off the bed, eyes shut and mouth ajar as if he’d died mid-yawn. My gaze was anchored to his face, and I tried to tear away from it, but it was difficult. The sight of him and Camora’s cries were whizzing away from me, sinking to the end of a long black tunnel. Stars exploded in my peripheral vision.
“ADORA!” Camora’s voice pounded into the room again.
My eyes darted to her.
Suddenly her terror was in my ears, and the room came back into focus.
“Adora, he’s dead,” she cried, the Shadows still surrounding her.
She must not be able to see them.
Because she was awake.
But how could I see them?
I bounded forward, breaking the black mist apart, and stood between them and Camora. When I faced them, they were slowly piecing back together, the knocking shouting in my ears as if it were their heartbeats.
“No!” I screamed. And my scream spilled with great power. It allowed me to erect my spine and narrow my eyes at the five filthy things.
The Shadows stood straight and, like a snap of a finger, lost all their horrific vibrations. They’d heard me. They were listening to me.
“Leave,” I hissed through my teeth, keeping Camora behind my outstretched arms.
The Shadows seemed to bend their form, and all five ripples of smoke rocketed through the air.
I turned to Camora and took her into my arms. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” My fingers combed her black hair as I searched her face for clues.
Camora couldn’t speak, an ocean of tears leaving her eyes.
The following day, Cyrus, Cillian, and Kaser looked handsome in their deadly-black suits.
Camora, despite her mother, wore the same one-piece I’d designed to Darnell’s funeral. The same pantsuit she’d worn when she’d last danced with her father in his wheelchair at the Founder’s Day Ball only four days prior.
I stood next to Cyrus on the shoreline, the wind sweeping around my skirt. His eyes remained on his father’s coffin, mine on Bone Island in the distance.
As Cyrus had explained, Crescent Beach wouldn’t be where Darnell would rest in peace, unlike the rest of Sacred Sea. We were only here so Sacred Sea could say their goodbyes. Later, the Cantini family would perform a ritual in the Crypt of Secrets, where Darnell would rest alongside the ancestors of his bloodline.
As much as I wanted to be present for Cyrus, my mind was elsewhere throughout the ceremony. I hadn’t realized it had ended until Ivy wrapped her arms around me in an embrace. I looked around as everyone was walking down the shoreline with their backs to me.
“It could have been you,” she said into my neck in a strangled whisper.
I pulled her close, hugging her back. “But it wasn’t. I’m safe.”
The events of what happened the night before played in my mind. From running through the manor, finding Camora cornered by the Shadows, to them leaving because I commanded it. Had they listened to me, or was it something else entirely? Would Ivy think of me as insane for telling her this?
She pulled me to the side, where no one else could hear. “I can’t help but think this isn’t all a coincidence.”
She had my full attention. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Adora. You had an altercation with all of the Shadow’s victims. First, with Mrs. Edwin at Oh My Stars. When you accused her daughter of stealing.”
“Yeah, but that happened before the Shadows got here.”
“Just listen to me for a second.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Then Jacob Taylor because he grabbed your ass and you tore him to pieces, remember? Viola’s handyman looked up Fable’s skirt, and it wasn’t that long ago I told you about Darnell. And look what happened.”
“It doesn’t explain the others … and it definitely doesn’t explain Mrs. Madder. She loved me like a daughter. She even helped me open Oh My Stars. She always believed in me and never wronged our family. Not in any way.”
“Did you say something to her? Were you angry with her for any reason?”
I tried to think back.
There was the night just before she died when I was incredibly rude to her. But I had just found out I was going to be married to Cyrus, and my entire world had flipped upside down. I didn’t mean the words I said. I hadn’t meant the thoughts in my head. I had only taken it out on her. Was Ivy right? Had the Shadows sensed this and viewed Mrs. Madder as a threat?
“Just be careful,” Ivy said when I didn’t answer. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”