Fenwick Thistleboom's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The vial's light sank into Fenwick's wound and the bleeding slowed. He pushed himself up on one elbow. She was already standing again, the locket lifted in her palm. Her thumb found the small catch. The silver shell sprang open with a soft click. She went very still beside the cracked glass greenhouse, its dark bottles glinting behind her shoulder. She did not breathe. Fenwick followed her eyes down to the open locket. A small bone ring sat nested inside the hollow, pale and smooth, its surface crowded with carved names. Her fingers shook. She tipped the ring into her hand and read the names twice. Fenwick saw her mouth shape one of them and stop. Above them, the tattered roof of a mossy pavilion creaked in the wind. She sank down onto its low step like her legs had forgotten her. "They kept it from me," she said. Her voice was flat and certain. She closed her fist around the ring. "My sisters knew." She looked at Fenwick then, really looked at him, and the soft brightness was gone. Something harder had replaced it. "I need to go back to that house. Tonight."