I see Flo before she can notice me. She sits huddled in the corner of the cell at the end of the corridor with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her skin is paler than usual and her entire body shakes in the icy prison. She looks so small and innocent there, curled around herself in the shadows of the cell. She looks afraid, too, and I almost forget why I’m here.
“Millie?” She unfolds her arms from around her legs and drags herself across the floor of the cell until she can wrap her hands around the bars. “You came. I was so scared.”
I notice the slashes on her arm, oozing with blood. “You lied to me.”
“Millie, please—”
“Don’t call me that.” Her breathing is ragged and uneven, her freckle-covered face contorted with pain. “Why did Charles send you?”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I came here.” She coughs as she tries to stand, but her knees buckle and she slumps back to the ground. “I wanted to find you; I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you.”
“Stop lying to me.”
“I’m not lying.” She grips the bars. “I’m sorry about what happened, it was so wrong. You’re my best friend.”
“Best friends don’t plan to murder one another and then lie about it. Best friends don’t do what you did!” I snap. I’d kept it pressed down for so long I was almost able to ignore it, but in front of Flo, the wall tumbles down.
“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why? Why did you pretend to care about me?”
“I never had to pretend.” She pulls herself to her knees. “I swear, Millie. I promise, it was never a lie.”
I wipe the tears from my cheeks. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t understand how hard it was! When I turned sixteen and found out the truth, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you, but it would have ruined everything. I couldn’t bear to be your friend but Charles made me.”
“He made you be my friend?”
She nods, her bottom lip wobbling. “He said if everyone treated you badly you might run away.” I wrap my arms around myself. I know it’s foolish, but there was always a small seed of hope inside me that prayed she didn’t know, that she was just as in the dark as I was. But that seed is now crushed. It hurts more than I thought it would. “It was so hard for me, Millie. I never—”
“It was hard for you? Hard for you?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. You don’t know what I went through!”
“I would never have done what you did. I would never do that to my friend.”
“Please, let me make it up to you.”
I don’t want her to know that I still care about her, that there’s a part of me that wants to scoop her into my arms and cry. She can’t know that my heart aches to laugh with her again. I want her to hurt like I am. “I will never forgive you.”
She falters. “Are they going to kill me?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care.”
“I can help you,” she says quietly.
“Tell me why Charles wants me.”
“You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“It’s impossible. There’s nothing.”
“It’s obvious. You’re a wisper. He needs a wisper.”
“Is this why Charles sent you? To fill me with more of his lies?”
“He didn’t send me and I’m not lying. The immortalia sacrificium needs a wisper, a creature, and a human.”
“I know that. But there are shifters and humans everywhere, and I’m not a wisper.”
“You’re wrong, Milena.” She leans forward, scrambling for the pocket of her dress. “Your parents didn’t die in a raid as Charles said. Your parents weren’t even human.” I take a step closer when she brings out a crumpled slip of paper. “Everybody thought wispers were extinct until twenty years ago, but then Charles heard of a wisper who’d killed their family,” she explains shakily. “When he got there, they were already dead, but there was a child— you. And so he took you.” Her eyes meet mine, so bright in the dark cell. “You’re a wisper, Milena.”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Stop lying, Flo.”
“I’m not.” She puts her arm through the metal bars, holding out a crumpled paper. “Look. I stole this before I left because it might help. Charles took it from the cabin where he found you.” Tearing the paper from her hands, I frantically unfurl it until sketched lines are visible. And when they are, my stomach tightens. “You see?” Flo says. “It has to be—”
I don’t hear the end of her sentence because I’m already out of the prison cells and in the halls. When I reach the library, I find the stool and climb atop it, frantically pulling books from the shelf in search of the one with the same gray cover Elias had been looking at when he rejected me that night. It’s beneath a stack of books. I pull it from the pile and smack it down on the desk, flipping through the pages with shaking hands. The sixth page is the one I’m looking for, the sketch staring me right in the face as my shaking hands smooth out the edges of the paper Flo had given me. I place them side by side.
Elias’s voice fills my mind. Ana sketched two—one for my parents and one for her. I examine the pictures, heart picking up.
The woman’s lips are curved into a smile, the father has his arm around her, and the child looks halfway between crying and laughing. I remember this day. Ana kept getting annoyed because I wouldn’t sit still. My entire body shakes and I step backward.
The images lie side by side, like in a spot-the-difference picture book Charles let me read when I was younger. But there are no differences because the sketches are identical.
~
Eric has no shirt on when I burst into his room. He quickly snatches his shirt off the bedpost before scowling at me. “Ah!
Did the hollowers not teach you how to knock?”
“Where’s Cassia?”
“You came here to ask me where Cassia is?”
“Where is she?”
He shakes his head, irritated. “In her room, why?”
“I went to see Flo.”
His expression turns from annoyance to anger. “You did? We told you not to talk—”
“Meet me in the library. I’m going to get Cassia.”
I’m gone before he can say anything else, bursting into the room three doors down. Inside, Cassia is sprawled across her bed, book in hand. “Uh, hi?”
“Come to the library,” I say. “I have to show you something.”
She scrambles off the bed to keep up with me as we head down the hall to the library. When we get there, Eric is standing by the fireplace with a less-than-impressed scowl, dark shirt crinkled and crooked. “This better be good,” he says. “Because you blatantly lied to me and Cassia about going down to see that girl.”
“You went to see Flo?” Cassia’s mouth falls open. “Milena, we told you not to!”
I run a hand down the side of my face. “Guys—”
“I told you, she never listens,” Eric complains.
“Oh, come on, Eric.” Cassia plants her hands on her hips. “Just because it happened this one time doesn’t mean—”
“Guys! ” My voice is so loud that they both shut up. “Flo told me that Charles thinks I’m a wisper.”
“She’s lying, we already know that’s not true,” Cassia says.
“That’s what I thought at first. But then she told me why he thinks that, and it all makes sense.”
Eric steps closer, eyeing the desk with the sketches. “This is Elias and his family. Where did you get the other one?”
“Flo gave it to me. She said Charles heard of a wisper who’d killed her family. He went to look for her and found me in the house. He took this drawing too.”
“Elias’s mother killed his father,” Cassia says.
“Exactly.” I watch as Cassia pushes past Eric and snatches the sketch, holding it in front of her face to check for imperfections.
“For so
me reason, I was in that house and Elias wasn’t. Charles thinks I’m the one in the drawing, he thinks I’m the one whose mother was a wisper but . . .”
“But it was really Elias.” Eric doesn’t look at either of us. “He should have been looking for Elias all this time.”
His words fill the air with a bitter chill. I was never the one Charles wanted; he was raising the wrong person the entire time. He’s been after me when the one he really needs is Elias.
But Eric doesn’t seem surprised, he speaks matter of factly.
“You knew?” Cassia gapes.
Eric looks at me, his expression void of emotion. “Yes, Elias too.”
I step back like he’s struck me. “How long? How long have you known?”
“Since we saw Ana in the mountains.”
“And you didn’t think to say anything?” Cassia demands.
“We’ve wasted all this time trying to figure out what they want with Milena and you knew all along?”
“I won’t apologize for not telling you. We couldn’t risk revealing Elias’s secret.”
The ground feels unsteady with betrayal. The entire time they’ve known that I was the wrong person, that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They let me believe that I’d done something terrible to warrant the hollowers coming after me, when all along, they were actually looking for Elias.
“Why on earth has Elias gone to see the elders, then?” Cassia asks. “Or is that trip fake too?”
“He was never going to the elders. They wouldn’t have told us anything we didn’t already know.” He pauses. “He’s going to the hollowers, to kill Charles.”
My blood runs cold.
“What? Is he crazy?” Cassia demands.
“I tried to talk him out of it, but you know how he is.”
Eric’s loyal to a fault, even when he doesn’t agree, even when it goes against everything inside of him. And now Elias is going to reveal himself to Charles. “We have to leave now. We have to stop him. Charles can’t know that he’s a wisper.”
“He wouldn’t want us to leave the village,” Eric says. “We’re staying here.”
“Cassia?” She looks away. I frown and step toward her. Cassia is always so sure of herself, so confident. But the look in her eyes now is something unfamiliar. She’s standing right in front of me but seems worlds away. “You know I’m right. We have to get Elias before Charles finds out and gets to him.”
Cassia looks at the fire. “We have to go now.”
Her voice is a whisper but we both catch it. Eric scoffs. “Elias wouldn’t want us to risk going out there.”
“Elias isn’t here.”
“Cassia—
“I’m in charge, Eric. We’re going.”
Tension lingers in the air like a thick cloud of smoke. “We should bring Flo,” I say. “Just in case we run across some hollowers.”
“I’ll go get her. You two go down and get some weapons.”
Cassia snaps into motion, spinning and staring at the door. She grabs my arm on the way. “Get two daggers—one in your pocket and the other in your boot. Always have one in your boot, do you hear me?” I nod, but she shakes my shoulders. “Promise me, Milena.”
“A knife in my pocket and one in my boot, I swear.”
“Good. Flo and I will leave first so we’re ahead of you.”
“What? No.” Eric catches her arm before she can leave. “We should stick together.”
“Eric, listen to me.”
“No. What’s going on with you? Splitting up is the last thing we should do.”
“I am doing what’s best.” Her jaw clenches and she tears her arm from his grip, voice so sharp that Eric actually shuts his mouth. “I’m going to walk ahead of you two. If I come across any hollowers, I’ll send you a signal. It’s the safest way.”
They stare at one another, the tension between them like a rubber band stretched to its limit. I shift from one foot to the other, the battle of wills between the two of them setting me on edge. Eric looks away first and scowls at the fireplace. Cassia takes the opportunity to dash from the room, leaving me alone with Eric. “Shall we get some weapons?” I ask.
He snarls and heads for the door. “I want you to know that I disapprove of this.”
“You disapprove of everything.”
~
We fly down the staircase to the training room. My head spins as Eric eyes the weapons lining the wall. I remember the last time I was here, with Elias, and a familiar ache rocks my chest.
“You learn how to use any of these bigger weapons yet?” Eric asks.
“I could probably use the machete if I had to, but I feel more comfortable with the daggers. Besides, I promised Cassia.”
He pulls two daggers from the wall, sliding them into cot-ton covers and handing them to me. I put one in my boot and the other in my pocket, like Cassia instructed. After scanning a little longer, Eric chooses knives similar to those that Cassia used when we were heading to the village, before Elias and Eric stopped us.
“You ready?” Eric asks.
“Shouldn’t we wait until Cassia goes ahead?”
“She’ll be long gone by now.” He puts his knife in the sling over his shoulder and moves to the staircase. “Stick close to me and don’t go off on your own.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious. If you even have a scratch on your head when we get to Elias because you didn’t follow my instructions, I might just have to kill you myself.” Eric disappears through the door and into the castle entryway. I follow him into the foyer and out through the creaking wooden doors. The trees crowd in clusters, darkness weaving throughout the branches in the absence of the moon. “Are you coming or not?” Eric stands at the edge of the forest, his eyes the only light in the night that surrounds him. I swallow my fear and nod. And together, Eric and I begin our trek into the forest.
Chapter Fourteen
Paranoia creeps up my spine as we walk through the forest; I feel like someone’s watching us. Eric walks three steps ahead and I stick close to his heel, shivering. His knife glints each time he moves, a dangerous reminder of where we’re heading. The farther we walk, the harder my heart pounds. We’re leaving safety but getting closer to Elias, and for that reason, I can’t turn around. It’s barely been a day since I last saw him but he dominates my thoughts all the same. The possibility that Charles might figure out who he is terrifies me.
Whispers and distant howls haunt the night air. I stare at Eric’s back and pick up my pace. “Won’t Elias be there already?”
“He went to scope out another colony on the way, to see if they’re collaborating. We should intercept him on the way to your hollowers.”
Sticks crack loudly beneath my feet while Eric somehow walks through the forest without making a sound. “What if we accidentally miss him?”
“We won’t.”
“What if—”
Eric swings his arm backward, shoving me sideways and perching protectively in front of me. Where I was standing, there’s now a knife on the ground. I fumble for my dagger as Eric darts away. One second he’s a blur and the next he’s standing in front of me, his arm a sleeve of blood and a limp body beside him. I blink in horror. “We need to go now, ” Eric says.
I scramble to my feet but it’s too late—shadows lurk behind him. Eric sees the look on my face and turns around, holding his arm out to shield me as he crouches low to the ground. Two dark shapes scatter through the trees, coming toward us. The closer they get, the easier they are to make out. Crooked smiles play on their faces as they step forward, mere inches away.
“Stay back,” Eric growls. “I’ll cut your throats out.”
The one on the left laughs. “I’d like to see you try.”
Instantly he appears beside the man. I stumble backward, nearly tripping over the dead body lying on the ground, and grip my dagger. Icy fingers scratch the back of my arm and wrap around my wrist, spinning me around before I can run. I’ve never
seen the man before, but the smile that spreads over his face makes my skin crawl. His eyes gleam with danger and he tightens his grip. “Hello, Milena.”
My wrists erupt with pain when his fingernails break skin. I wince and try to wrench my arm free, but his grip is too tight.
Alarm flashes through my mind as he reaches for my other hand, the one without the knife. Aliyah’s words float into my mind: Thumb across fingers, go for the soft parts of the body.
Before he can get a hold of it, I swing my fist back and launch it at his throat, my knuckles crunching when they collide with his face. Pain blossoms in my fist. The man staggers back, a gurgling sound erupting from his mouth as he clutches at his cheek.
I take the opportunity to put my hands on his shoulders and bring my knee up between his legs. I don’t waste time watching him fall; clutching my dagger as I turn, I see Eric slash his knife across the throat of a woman trying to hold his arms. The woman falls to the ground and Eric faces me. The color drains from his face. “What’s wrong? Eric?”
I turn, following his gaze, and step back when I see what he sees. The shadows, scattered in a circle around us, outnumber the trees. I stumble back, knocking into him. He wraps his hand around my wrist to steady me, but I don’t miss the shaking in his fingers. A dark shape steps into view and holds their hand toward Eric. She wears a torn, yellow shirt and dark pants ripped at her ankles. “Give us the wisper.”
Eric tightens his grip on me. “Over my dead body.”
“Oh, how I would love that. But unfortunately, it goes against our agreement, and I’m not one to break my word.”
“Agreement?” I glance at Eric. “What agreement?”
The woman laughs. “Didn’t you hear, little girl? The creatures are trading you for their safety.”
“Don’t listen to her, Milena.” Eric doesn’t look at me, his eyes focused on the hollowers. “She’s trying to get in your head.”
“What agreement is she talking about?”
“I haven’t made any damn agreements with the hollowers!” He turns to the hollower. “If you want Milena, you’ll have to kill me first.”
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