Gallant(46)

Olivia waits, wondering if that is meant to be an apology. He swallows hard.

“I do not want you here,” he mutters, and she lifts a brow, as if to say, I couldn’t tell. But he is no longer looking at her; his gaze has drifted past her to the window and the garden and the wall. “But you deserve to know why.”

He stands then, already turning toward the door. “Follow me.”

And Olivia does. She takes up the fallen journal and trails him out of the music room.

“I should have told you about the wall,” he says, “but I was afraid, if I did, you would go looking. I guess I hoped, if you left soon enough, it might not know that you were here. It might not find you.” He glances back over his shoulder. “But then you went and found it anyway.”

They walk down the hall of portraits, Matthew’s gaze flicking for just a second to the patch of bare wall where one has been removed. His steps are slow, his breath audible, as if his body is working too hard just to carry itself along. She can hear Hannah and Edgar chatting in the kitchen—surely they don’t mean to let her go without so much as a goodbye?

Matthew leads her past the ballroom, and she understands then where they are going.

The study door swings open, and Olivia follows him inside. For the briefest moment, she is back beyond the wall, in the other study, shoving the chair under the door as the wolf-like soldier barrels toward her.

But then she blinks, and the chair is in its place, and the shelves are lined with books, the wallpaper smooth, the sculpture waiting on the old wood desk. Her eyes flick to the far wall, wondering about the secret door as Matthew sinks into the chair behind the desk, as if the short trek across the house has stolen all his strength.

“It’s not your fault you are a Prior,” he says, “and Hannah is right, I cannot make you leave.” Olivia’s heart thrums, spirits rising, until he says, “But once you know the truth, you’ll understand why you should.”

He runs his hands through the thicket of his light brown hair and rests his chin on his folded arms and stares at the metal sculpture on the desk, his cheeks hollow and his eyes fever bright.

“So I’ll tell you the story, as it was told to me.”

He reaches out and rests one finger on the metal sculpture, giving it the slightest push. The whole thing tips into motion.

“Everything casts a shadow,” he begins. “Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.”

Olivia’s heart quickens.

The wall.

“The wall,” echoes Matthew. “The world you saw beyond the wall is a shadow of this one. But unlike most shadows, it isn’t empty.”

His gaze flicks up.

“Did you see it?”

She knows, without asking, that he means the gruesome figure in the other house, the master made of rot and ruin. Milk-white eyes and coal-black coat and jawbone shining through its tattered cheek.

Olivia nods, and Matthew swallows and goes on.

“Perhaps it began as nothing. A weed poking up through barren soil. Or perhaps it was always what it is—a destructive force—it doesn’t matter. At some point, the thing in the dark grew hungry. It realized that it was living in the shadow of the world. And it wanted out.”

Matthew keeps his gaze on the sculpture as he speaks, and Olivia too finds herself drawn to the revolving houses, the rhythm of them as they turn away and come together.

“Some people are repelled by darkness. Others are drawn to it, to the static crackle of power in a place. To the hum of magic, or the presence of the dead. They can see these forces staining the world like ink in water. Our family was like that. I told you Gallant wasn’t built by Priors. The house was already here. Empty and waiting. And the Priors came. They felt called to the house, and when they arrived, they saw the wall for what it was—a threshold. A line between.”

Matthew’s voice is low and steady. He knows these words the way she knows her mother’s.

“By day, the wall was just a wall. But at night, when the lines between shadow and source grew thin enough, it became a gate. A way from one world into the other. And the thing in the dark began to press against the stones. The center of the wall began to split and crumble, and the Priors knew that soon enough, the thing in the dark would force its way out.

“So they forged an iron door and mounted it over the cracking stone, to keep the darkness back. And for a while, it was enough. And then it wasn’t.

“One night, it escaped. The stone broke, and the iron fell, and it simply stepped into this world. Everywhere it walked, things died. It fed on every living thing, every blade of grass, every flower and tree and bird, leaving only dust and bones in its wake. It would have eaten everything.”

Matthew drags a finger along the turning sculpture until it slows and slows and stops.

“The Priors all fought, but they were still flesh and blood and it was a demon, stealing every life it touched. They couldn’t win. But they managed not to lose. They forced the creature back beyond the wall. Half the Priors held it there, and the others put the door back up. And this time, they soaked it edge to edge in their blood and swore that nothing would ever cross that gate without their blessing.”

Olivia looks down at her bandaged hand, remembering her cousin’s rage when she first cut herself. The way her skin split open as she pounded on the door, desperate to get free. Matthew’s bleeding palm as he pressed it to the iron and sealed it shut again.