I rubbed my hands together. I’d felt so triumphant only moments before but now trembled against my godfather’s wrath.
“He was showing signs of edema. I…I had to operate if he was to live.”
Merrick sliced through my nervous chatter with the swift whack of an executioner’s blade. “He wasn’t meant to live.”
“But I—”
“Did you see the skull?” His fingers clenched the edge of the table, digging in so hard they left divots pressed into the wood.“Did you see the skull?”
“Well, yes, but it was—”
“Then what is this?” Merrick smacked the tray, scattering instruments across the room in a clatter of scarlet and steel.
A series of short, shaky gasps escaped my chest. Panic rose, choking me. “Merrick, please. I couldn’t let him die. I just…I couldn’t.”
“I told you yesterday it was a mistake to let him into your life, and now this,” he hissed. “What were you thinking, Hazel?”
“I couldn’t lose him, I couldn’t,” I repeated, wanting to hide from the heat rolling off him.
“I’ll never understand why mortals place such emphasis on the here and now. This boy will die and your life will go on. You can live without him. Youwilllive without him. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp? Your heart won’t stop if his does.”
“Itwill!”
“It won’t,” he insisted.
I sank to my knees, small and broken, as tears raced down my cheeks. “It will feel as though it has. It will feel that way to me!”
For a long moment, the room was silent save for my gasps for air, wet and trembling.
Gradually, Merrick’s shoulders fell and his fury faded. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, full of commiseration. “Leave him for a moment and come with me.”
“I can’t.” I pushed away the tracks of tears, but more only followed. “I need to finish bandaging him and—”
“Hazel.”
Merrick held out his hand, and for a moment, I was tempted to remain at Kieron’s side, flexing the untested muscles of my newfound defiance. But before I could resist, Merrick’s fingers wrapped around my wrist and with a snap of his fingers, we were gone.
Chapter 19
Even before I opened myeyes, I knew we were in the Between.
I expected to see my little house, the copse of pink-flowered trees, but Merrick had brought us somewhere new. There was a vast body of water before us, its beach made up of icy green sea glass. Shallow waves lapped at the shore, making the glass sing like ringing crystal. At the far end of the lake, tall boulders rose like a mountain and roaring cascades of water ran off their edges.
Merrick headed toward those falls now. A narrow path wound through the rocks. The stones were slick with mist, and I slipped twice as I climbed after him. He ducked behind the rapids and I paused, eyeing the gap warily, unsure if I could make the leap. I landed clumsily on a wet ledge, and Merrick had to grab my waist to keep me from plunging to the rocks below.
“What is this place?” I yelled, shouting to be heard over the roaring water, but Merrick, hunched low against the cave’s ceiling, didn’t answer. He dodged stalactites as he headed toward a slit in the rocks, opening before us like a puckered wound. Something about its narrowdarkness sent a cold stab of total dread down my chest, settling into my belly like a pickaxe. The darkness was alive somehow, watching us with an ancient interest.
If Merrick felt any of the malignant energy, it didn’t affect him. “Come,” he urged.
Stomach clenched, I shook my head. There were some secrets of the universe mortals were not meant to know, and whatever lay down that path was one of them. I felt the wrongness of being here. It pinged off my teeth like lightning crackling through a storm-lit sky, throbbed through my veins, and set my very blood on edge.
I was not meant to see this.
“Hazel.”
He held out his hand, and against my better judgment, I took it. As his fingers closed around mine, I felt as though I’d just made a gravely important bargain but was uncertain of the exact terms. Glancing back at the falls, I longed for the breezes and light gray sky of the world beyond, the forests of my home, my little cottage. Even Kieron lying unconscious on my table, surrounded by bone chips and blood. Anything but this.
Without hesitation, he led us into the void.
