Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(38)

Without a word, she began to climb. The others followed, a step at a time. The air grew colder, and the scent of rain tickled their noses, until they emerged onto the high parapets of the castle. There, standing with her hands resting on the edge of the wall and the wind whipping her gown into a pale froth around her legs, was Jack’s twin.

Jack stopped just inside the narrow chamber separating the castle from the storm. “Hello, Jill,” she said, voice low and almost apologetic. “You know I don’t like it when you touch my things.”

“Do you mean your body or your precious teacher?” Jill turned, leaning languidly against the wall as she ran one bare hand down the slope of her side. “I can’t apologize if you don’t tell me which I’m apologizing for.”

Christopher, who had never wanted to think of Jack like that, flushed and turned away. “Uncool either way, Jill.”

“Christopher?” Jill sounded unaccountably delighted. “Kade! And—Sumi? Didn’t I kill you already? I know things were a trifle hectic there toward the end, but I usually remember when I kill someone.” Her attention flicked dismissively to Cora. “And you. Who are you?”



“You did,” said Sumi. She twirled her baling hook, seemingly unconcerned. “I got better.”

“You went back to school. Why, Jack, I didn’t know you had it in you.” Jill beamed. “See, we can all be happy: you can take your friends and go sit in math class washing your hands until all the skin comes off. I’ll stay here and keep watch over the Moors with my father, forever.”

“He’s not your father,” said Jack. She tilted her chin upward, exposing the soft, scarred skin of her throat—Jill’s throat, really. Jill was the one who’d willingly submitted to a vampire’s idea of love. “Would a father do this?”

“He’s better than the one you have,” snapped Jill.

“I don’t know whether you mean Mr. Wolcott or Dr. Bleak, and I don’t care,” said Jack. “Mr. Wolcott was a fool who should never have had children. His genetic donation is noted and appreciated. Dr. Bleak is not my father, but he loves me, and he cared for me when no one else would, and you had no right to kill him. Where is his head, Jillian?”

“Oh, full names, now? Are you trying to remind me of the time when everyone thought you were the pretty one, and I was the useless extra?” Jill finally pushed away from the wall, taking a step toward the group. “He took you away. He deserved to suffer.”

“Where is his head?”

“Where you’ll never find it!” Jill balled her hands. “I’m going to be a vampire! I’m going to be happy! You’ve always taken everything from me! You don’t get to take this, too!”

“Christopher,” said Jack, “this is the sort of confrontation that always plays out better with a bit of musical accompaniment. If you’d be so kind?”

Christopher blinked. “But my flute—”

“Please,” she hissed, through gritted teeth.

Christopher hesitated before he raised his flute to his mouth and began to play.

It didn’t look like a functional instrument to the casual viewer. The “holes” were merely slight indentations in the surface of the bone; the chamber, while hollow, was neither regular nor polished. It was a Halloween decoration, a toy, and no matter how hard Christopher blew, it never made a sound.

Far below them, around the foundations of the castle, the bones of those who’d fallen from the windows trying to escape began to stir, pulling themselves together and rising on legs that lacked flesh or tendon, yet functioned all the same.

In nooks and crannies and sheltered spots throughout the castle proper, the Master’s victims began to wake and rise, clattering through the building, heading for the parapets. Some were caught in the fighting that had broken into the ballroom from the entry hall, and they fell to pieces under swords and the furious thrusts of the servants, dying for a second time. Their unintentional sacrifices bought the attackers a few precious seconds, and they turned them to good use, cutting down the Master’s faithful like so much poisoned wheat.

Christopher played and the skeletons marched, as Jack walked toward her sister beneath the shattered, stormy sky.

“I never tried to take anything from you, Jill,” said Jack. “We were children. We didn’t ask for any of this; we never did anything to deserve it. I left you here to protect you. The Master would have chosen me, and you would never have been safe.”

“Because I needed your castoffs? Your charity?”

“Because you wanted to be taken care of!” Jack’s words became a howl, half-drowned in the crash of lightning. She whipped her glasses off, squinting at her sister. “You wanted someone to pet you, and pamper you, and—and let you be fragile for a while! And I didn’t! I was done being fragile. I wanted to have an adventure, I wanted to learn things and do things and not just be someone’s precious trinket! Neither of us had any choices, Jill, we never got to be sure of anything! So I left you, because if I didn’t choose to go, we were going to keep not choosing anything. I’m sorry. I failed to be your sister. I didn’t realize you needed me. But that doesn’t make it right for you to take whatever you want and act like no one else matters. People matter. I matter.”