“That was your candle, Hazel. That wasyou! Do you have any idea what I had to do to get those candles?”
I kept my spine curved low, my forehead pressed against the cold ground. “No.”
Merrick released a cry of frustration, striking out and hitting the pillar. It shattered, raining shards of stone down upon us. I felt one slice my cheek, but it was only my godfather I thought of as I saw him pull back his fist, wincing.
“Merrick!” I cried in alarm.
He shook off the blow and stalked away from me, his breath hot with muttered curses. “You stupid girl,” he growled. “You stupid, stupid girl.”
“I had to,” I whispered, my lips brushing the rocks beneath me.
His laugh was thunderous with disbelief, making my sternumache.
“I did, I…” I was at a loss to explain it. “There’s a war going on, and…all the orphans…His daughter wrote him a letter, and…” Everything I said sounded small and wrong, excuses too minuscule to cover the full expanse of what I’d done.
“There will always be wars. There will always be orphans.”
“Yes, but…” I faltered again. I wasn’t going to persuade him to my side with the scope of the good I’d wanted to do. He didn’t care about that. He cared about me, his goddaughter, the one mortal in all the world he held in his heart. “If I did what the deathshead wanted me to do, I’d have the blood of thousands on my hands. Not just the king’s, but that of everyone else who died because he was not there to protect them.” My voice broke. “I know I disobeyed you. You have every right to be upset with me, but I couldn’t have so many souls haunting me through eternity, Merrick. I just couldn’t.”
His eyes narrowed to ruby slits as he considered my words. He was unquestionably still mad at me, but I could see a change stirring, softened with curiosity. “Do you feel remorseful for the lives you’ve taken?”
“Of course.”
He frowned. “How strange.”
“It’s not.”
“I’ve always been so proud of you, knowing how many lives were saved by your hands in those moments of mercy. Yet you only remember the scant number you’ve taken?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know any of those saved, not definitively, not for sure. But the people who I…” It was so very hard to say the word.
Merrick thought for a moment. “Freed.”
“Killed,” I corrected him unhappily. “They were people I knew, family members and neighbors and people I was acquainted with.” I thought of the dark Kieron-shaped ghost who trailed after me now like a dog on a leash. “People I loved.Thoseare the ones I remember, the ones I can’t forget, ever.”
The ones who were forever following me, always there, always wanting to be closer.
“I still see them,” I confided in a hushed whisper, finally admitting my darkest secret to Merrick years after he’d saddled me with its curse.
Merrick’s eyes flickered behind me, staring at the wall of tiny flames. “I…I suppose it’s natural to feel that way, to want to remember them,” he finally allowed. “But I’m sure with time—”
“No,” I said, stopping him short. I couldn’t remember ever daring to interrupt my godfather, but this was an important moment that I could not afford to let him get wrong. “Iseethem. All the time. They’re always with me, always following me.”
“Memories,” he guessed.
“Ghosts.”
Merrick straightened, studying me with fresh eyes. “That’s not possible.”
I kept my gaze steadily upon him, using silence to make my point understood.
“Hazel, I…”
Never before had I seen my godfather at a loss for words.
“They’re with me all the time. My father and my mother. Kieron,” I added, feeling my eyes prickle. “I have to keep them at bay with lines of salt, but it doesn’t stop them forever. They’re always pressing in, always seeking me out, and when my guard slips, when I forget or the wards get too weak, then they’re upon me….”
A pitiful sob welled up, breaking my argument apart as I remembered their touch on me, that sticky spiderweb sensation as they pulled at my memories, pilfering the good ones and leaving me a hollowed-out shell of misery.
