“Harlow?” Henry’s hand on my back nudges me forward.
“I think we should go back,” I rasp.
He takes my hand, which has begun to tremble, and places it on his arm as he guides me into the center of the space. “I just want to see what this monument says.”
I glance back the way we came. My heart is beating so hard. There isno active danger here, but I still want to hide. Every muscle in my body is coiled—ready to run the moment the invisible trap springs.
My steps are leaden as we walk closer to the stone.
Panic clamps down on my chest. My breath becomes swift and shallow. My heart thunders. Something is wrong.
Run. All I can think is how badly I need to run right now.
Henry comes to a stop in front of a white marble stone bracketed by beautiful white rose bushes.
I can’t stand still. My skin is crawling, a cold sweat rising on my back despite the chill of the day. I feel sick to my stomach.
“What’s this, lovely?” Henry nods to the stone. His voice is somehow both gentle and on edge.
He turns to look at me, and I must look the picture of fear and terror. I am a statue. I can’t move. Some deep part of me knows, if I look at that stone, something horrible will happen.
I don’t come to this part of the garden for a reason. I glance up at the tall walls of my family home, at the balconies jutting out from each bedroom and the perfectly manicured florals that decorate them, and the bright blue family banners that hang down over the walls.
“I don’t like this part of the garden.” My voice is barely a whisper.
The barest hint of doubt lights Henry’s eyes. “Just look at this stone and we will leave. Unless—” The corner of his lips tips up. “Unless you’re afraid.”
I have lost the will to argue with him. My fear is indescribable—so intense my eyes blur and burn with tears. It’s a bone-deep terror that I can’t pretend away.
But there has not been a challenge Henry has laid out that I haven’t risen to. Every irrational instinct in my body screams for me not to look, but I force myself to glance at the stone.
I blink the tears from my eyes, and my vision finally focuses on the white marble in front of me—a headstone that bears one name:Aidia Rose Carrenwell.
The truth slices through me with precise violence. I’m fractured between the past and present, rent from the dissociation that has kept me alive for the past six months.
“No.” I’m breathless, my chest hollowed out by the truth I’ve postponed—a secret I’ve kept even from myself.
I don’t know what he thought he was doing bringing me here, but I watch his face morph from anger to shock, and then to horror.
“Why would you do this?” I rasp, shaking my head. “Why would you bring me here?”
His entire demeanor has softened. His voice is low and pleading instead of tight and angry. “Harlow, it’s okay. I’m right here.”
“I have to leave. I can’t—” The air whooshes out of my lungs.
Henry takes a step toward me. “Kellan told me Aidia died six months ago. He said you didn’t leave your room for a month.”
I shake my head, turning away from the memorial, trying to ignore the memory that flashes in my mind of curtains drawn over windows, of my stiff muscles and brutal headaches from crying so hard I thought I’d die too. I had never been so devoted as I was to Divine Asher when I spent days on end begging him to take me with her.
“No, this isn’t right. I’ve seen her. She’s not—” I choke on a sob. “It’s a mistake.”
But some part of me knows it’s not. I’ve seen her. I’m mad. This is it. The whole time I thought I’d been spared, but the well has taken my mind too. Because I’ve seen her, alive and animated and whole. I’ve felt her touching my hair. Haven’t I?
I look up at the balcony three stories above us—my bedroom balcony—and I can’t speak. All the air has been sucked out of the world, and I cannot bear to be here breathing when she’s gone.
An awful jarring awareness yanks at the center of me. I’ve been wrenched from the shroud of ignorance and thrust into bright sunlight—confronted at last with the fact that there is no “we,” only a terrible, lonely me.
“Harlow.” Henry’s voice brings me back. “Kellan said she jumped from her balcony.”
