Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(37)

Kade was quiet for a few moments before he said, “I could do it.”

“You?” Jack glanced his way. “You’re squeamish. You dislike the sight of blood. You couldn’t help us melt the flesh from a corpse. No. I appreciate the offer, but no. My sister’s death is my responsibility, and no one else’s.”

They had reached the base of a narrow stone stairway. Jack stopped, taking a deep breath, and turned to the others.

“It may seem hypocritical to do this now, but I feel I must offer you the opportunity to stay behind,” she said. “You’ve been invaluable in getting me to this point. From here, I can continue alone.”

“You won’t win alone,” said Sumi.

Jack inclined her head. “In all likelihood, no. But I’ll feel less as if I’ve drawn my only friends to their doom. I’d prefer it if you accompanied me. I am … afraid. More so than I expected to be. One way or another, no one is going to refer to ‘the Wolcott sisters’ after tonight, because there won’t be any. If I fail, if I fall, please take Alexis back to the school. She won’t be safe here.”

“We will,” said Kade. “But you’re not going to fail, and you’re not leaving us behind.”

“I drowned because of this girl,” said Cora. “I’m seeing this through to the end.”

Christopher said nothing, only nodded and ran his fingers along the flute he clutched so tightly in his hands.

Jack sighed, and smiled, and turned to begin the long, slow walk up the stairs, toward the castle heights, to where a vampire and his daughter waited.





14?CAME TUMBLING AFTER


THE STAIRS WENT on for the better part of what felt like forever, until all of them were plodding, and even Sumi had stopped trying to pick up the pace. When they finally reached the top, Jack paused, pressing one hand against her chest, and wheezed.

“Would it have killed her to go jogging once in a while?” she asked, a note of fear behind the peevishness. She was going into battle while wearing a body whose limitations she didn’t understand and had no time to learn. “I swear, ‘I’m going to become a deathless creature of the night’ is not a substitute for a comprehensive fitness plan.”

“Maybe you should let us go in first,” said Kade.

Jack shook her head. “That’s not how these things are done,” she said.

“I never thought you were stupid,” said Sumi. When Jack whipped around to glare at her, she shrugged. “Doing something you know could get you hurt because it’s how things are done isn’t smart.”

“Maybe not,” said Jack. She sighed and straightened, her breathing leveling out. “But I have to live with myself when this is over, and that means I go in first.” There was a crash beneath them. The castle shook on its foundations. The crack of thunder split the sky. There were no windows, but the air became harsh and electric, and they knew, every one of them, that the lightning had followed the thunder almost instantly, out of order and intentionally so, that the storm was perched directly above them.

Jack closed her eyes. Only for a moment; long enough to take a deep, ozone-laden breath.

“It’s time,” she said. “Thank you for coming this far.”

Then she opened her eyes, and turned, and opened the door.

The room on the other side was opulent to the point of becoming ludicrous, a child’s dream of a princess’s life made somehow manifest. The bed was large enough to border on obscene, surrounded by hanging veils of lace and mounded with pillows and comforters. Wardrobes and dressers lined the walls, bulging with silks and satins and covered in heaps of discarded jewels, like pearls and garnets had no value beyond how many could be placed in a single pile. The floor was covered in thick rugs, hiding all trace of stone, and the rugs were covered in turn by pieces of clothing, idly tossed aside.

Jack stepped into the room alone and walked toward the bed, where a scrap of too-bright fabric poked out from under one of the pillows. She pulled it loose and held it up: a child’s shirt, too small for any of them.

“She was wearing this when we found our door,” she said, dropping the shirt back onto the bed. “Jill has never been good at letting go of the things she thinks belong to her. The things she thinks she deserves.”

“This room is sort of…” Cora paused, trying to put her appalled thoughts into words.

“Excessive,” said Sumi. “Coming from me, that means a lot.”

“Yes, well. We made our choices when we were too young to understand them, and maybe she needed a little excess.” Unspoken went the fact that if a little excess had been enough for Jill, none of them would have been standing here. She sighed. “We haven’t been close in a very long time. The body I’m wearing knows this bed better than my heart knows my own sister.”

Lightning flashed outside. The stained glass in the room’s wide window broke it into a glittering rainbow of color, painting it across their skins. All of them felt the hairs on their arms and the backs of their necks as they stood on end. Jack walked to the door on the far wall and opened it, revealing a wider, brighter hallway than the one below.

“Come,” she said, and walked on.

The sounds of fighting were audible once they were in the hallway. They reached a split in the hall, and Jack went right, leading them to the base of another, shorter stairway. She reached up, untying her cravat. The scars on her neck stood out starkly, tiny white dots outlining the arch of her veins. She pulled the cravat free, wrapping it around her hand.