Selene Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Selene climbed the stair with Meridian at her back and Nightshade drifting beside her. Three floors up, a narrow door stood ajar. Inside, a table held a rolled deed and an iron key shaped like two towers. Meridian lifted the key and passed it to Selene. Selene closed her fingers on it. They shook, but they held. "The deed," Nightshade said. Selene unrolled it. The signature at the bottom read Selene Nightshade in a child's careful hand. She rolled it again and tucked it into her coat. On the stair down, Meridian stopped. She set her staff across the step and blocked the way. "Before we go out that door," Meridian said, "I need to know what settling her grave means. You promised it. I want the shape of it." Selene looked at Nightshade. "Tell her." "I don't know," Nightshade said. "You said settle your grave." "I said a name back on a stone. That is what I know." Meridian shook her head. "That isn't settling. A carved name on scoured rock washes off again in a season. Settling means the ground accepts her. It means whatever holds her here lets go." She looked at Selene. "You promised me a finished job. What finishes her?" Selene's hand tightened on the key. Sunrise was closing. She had the deed. She had a ghost who would steady her hands. She did not have this answer, and Meridian would not move without it. "Ask her what she wants," Selene said. Meridian turned to the ghost. "What do you want, girl?" Nightshade's black eyes did not blink. "The family off my ground. The stone recut. My name spoken by the one who paid to erase it." "Who paid?" Meridian said. "The grandmother. She still lives. Top floor of the east tower. She sleeps with the key under her pillow, or she did." Nightshade looked at the iron in Selene's hand. "That key." Meridian exhaled. "So settling her means dragging a dying woman out of bed to say a name. In this house. Before dawn." "Yes," Nightshade said. Meridian looked at Selene a long moment. "I'll hold you to it. Not tonight. But before the next new moon, you bring me back here and we cross that hall and we make the old woman speak. Swear it on the thing you love." Selene thought of the pale woman on the ridge with her mother's moon cradled in borrowed hands. "I swear it on the moon." "Then we go," Meridian said, and lifted her staff. They came out of the tower into wet grass. Nightshade was already fading toward the wall. Selene followed with the deed against her ribs and the twin-tower key heavy in her pocket. She had bought her steady hands. She had also bought a second night inside this house, and a debt with a name on it.