“Charles?” It came out as a hiss, and Frankie recognized Mistress Oglethorpe standing regally thin with her sharp nose. Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching. “Charles?” she called again, a sound laced with the beginnings of panic.
Frankie’s stomach grew heavy. She wanted to leave so desperately, and her sister needed to be somewhere with softer, sweeter air, but she wasn’t sure she could actually take Charles’ place on the ship.
She began to shake her head, her throat tightening as she forced herself to decline his offer. “I can’t. It’s not right.” The panic surrounding the wharf made her heart beat faster, the blood scour through her veins.
Charles gripped her shoulders with both hands. “Your sister’s ill,” he told her. “You can keep her alive if you leave. But she’ll never make it here. The plague’s getting worse—more people are falling sick, and the city’s going to start cracking down hard on anyone who shows the slightest symptoms. This is the only chance she’ll have.”
The boat slid against the dock with a thud that vibrated through the damp wood. Around them the air filled with the tension of so many hopes pulling tight and frayed. People began leaping aboard, all trace of order abandoned with the fear that any moment they’d be caught.
“Charles!” Mistress Oglethorpe wasn’t even bothering to keep her voice quiet as she called for her son. Someone tried to herd her toward the boat, but she broke free. “My son’s supposed to be here,” she said. “He’s not here. Charles!”
Her hysteria over her missing son was so clear that it physically hurt Frankie. She knew what it was to love something beyond yourself like that, to risk anything for their safety. “You take Cathy, and I’ll stay,” she said, pushing her sister toward Charles.
The boat was growing full, only a few stragglers left. One of them had to physically force Mistress Oglethorpe to board, his hand cupped over her mouth to keep her from screaming and giving away their position. In the distance a cannon roared, and Frankie heard shouting.
Suddenly a bright light swept across the wharf, eliciting a few muffled cries of alarm from the boat. Two men dipped oars into the water, ready to push back for the ship waiting farther out in the bay. Not too far away whistles began to blow, a siren amping up to roar.
Any minute the wharf would teem with enforcers and beaked doctors and anyone else tasked with maintaining the quarantine.
“Go,” Frankie urged Charles, but he pushed her and her sister closer to the boat.
“If the enforcers catch either of you here, you’ll go straight to the bowels of the hospital. Trust me,” he said. Charles pried Frankie’s fingers open until he’d pulled free one of the two coins. He thrust it at Cathy and shoved her hard enough that she teetered on the edge of the dock before tumbling toward the boat. Her arms pinwheeled, and she would have hit the water if one of the oarsmen hadn’t risen to catch her and eased her on board.
“Then what about you?” Frankie asked. “You’ll get in just as much trouble.”
“I’m only a beaked doctor trying to keep the peace.” He grabbed her shoulders. “I was attacked trying to keep you from escaping. There’s nothing they can do to me.”
Frankie’s throat was tight, her eyes raw. Charles tugged off one of his gloves and held his soft hand to cup her cheek. Frankie reached up, tentatively, and began to pull the mask from his face.
At first she felt him stiffen, resist, but then he allowed her to free him and trail her fingers along the raw bruises where the straps had bitten into his skin.
Lights began to blaze in the warehouses, and the oarsmen started to pull the boat away from the pier. But Mistress Oglethorpe must have seen that it was her son standing there because she cried out for him and lunged toward the dock, holding the boat in place.
Men tried to break her grip, but she kicked them away. “Charles!” she cried out. “Jump! Come on, Charles!”
Frankie felt his hands tense on her shoulders and knew that in one heartbeat or two he would shove her toward the boat just as he did with Cathy. “What will happen to you?” Her voice was a broken little noise in the dark night.
He touched his lips to hers, just barely grazing her mouth. “The plague will pass, and you’ll come back and you’ll walk up to the house on the hill, and I’ll be in the garden waiting for you.” He pressed the kiss deeper, as though he could breathe hope into her, and then broke free. She tried to hold on to him as he pushed, but he was too strong.
“I promise,” he added as she fell backward toward her sister’s waiting arms.
Men wrestled Mistress Oglethorpe toward the center of the boat as she screamed for her son. Oars lit against the water, no longer caring about stealth or not creating a wake. All along the sides of the craft, people dug their arms against the surface, adding any momentum they could to escape the rush of enforcers crowding their way onto the wharf.
The ship with black sails was already under way when the little boat with the last of her cargo caught up at the mouth of the harbor. The escapees climbed rope ladders and huddled on the deck, where they stared into the dark unknown, some of their faces gleaming with tears at all they were leaving behind.
Frankie stood with her sister at the back of the ship, the wake from the rudder dissipating back toward the fading lights of Portlay. The night air felt fresh and full, and Frankie inhaled it deeply, letting it seep into her lungs and clear out any lingering miasma from the swamp.
She could hear that Cathy’s breathing came easier as well, her cheeks flushed not with fever but with the crispness of clean air. She didn’t know if the sickness would ever fully leave Cathy, but for now they were safe.
Frankie looked down at where she clutched the rose petals Charles had tucked in her palm as a promise. Already the color was fading, the scent only a lingering memory. She imagined Charles going back into the town with the ranks of the beaked doctors and saving those few people he could, either by finding a way to smuggle them free or giving them another day with their families before being dragged away. She wondered if he’d spend his afternoons surrounded by the flowers, thinking of her.
She closed her eyes and pictured the gardens covered in snow, ice clinging to the bare vines and dripping in frozen daggers from trees. Her feet would leave a trail as she made her way up the hill to the Oglethorpe house, everything around her silent and still. The house would be empty—any servants who survived the plague would be allowed home to care for the families that remained.
Frankie would push open the trellis gate and maybe it would creak on its hinges from disuse. And there he’d be, sitting on the bench, waiting for her. She’d bring him a fresh hothouse flower from wherever Cathy and she settled after escaping, and she’d let him trail it over her lips and down along her neck.
He’d plant her a garden in her room and another in Cathy’s room, and from then on they’d live out their lives surrounded by blooms and beauty.
As the last glow of Portlay faded on the horizon, Frankie breathed in the fresh smell of the sea and clutched the rose petals tight in her hand. Her sister was safe, they were both free, and for a moment Frankie allowed herself to believe in dreams once more.
About the Author
KELLEY ARMSTRONG (“Branded”) has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers’ dismay. Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She’s the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Darkest Powers/Darkness Rising young adult series as well as the Otherworld and Nadia Stafford adult series. Kelley lives in Ontario, Canada, with her family. You can visit her online at www.kelleyarmstrong.com.
RACHEL CAINE (“Dogsbody”) is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of the Morganville Vampires young adult series as well as the Weather Warden series, the Outcast Season series
, and the new Revivalist series in urban fantasy. She has published more than thirty novels and has been translated into more than twenty languages around the world. You can visit her online at www.rachelcaine.com and on Facebook and Twitter @rachelcaine.
KAMI GARCIA (“Burn 3”) is the New York Times and internationally bestselling coauthor (with Margaret Stohl) of the Beautiful Creatures novels. Beautiful Creatures, published in forty-four countries and translated in thirty-three languages, is currently in preproduction as a motion picture with Alcon Entertainment. She is also the author of Unbreakable, the first book in her solo series, The Legion (Little, Brown 2013), which is currently being developed as a major motion picture by producer Mark Morgan (of the Twilight Saga) and Black Forest Film Group. When she is not writing, Kami can usually be found watching disaster movies or drinking Diet Coke. She lives in Los Angeles with her family and their dogs, Spike and Oz (named after characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer). You can visit her online at www.kamigarcia.com.
NANCY HOLDER (“Pale Rider”) is the New York Times bestselling and multiple award–winning author of the Wicked, Crusade, and Wolf Springs Chronicles series. She’s written tie-in projects for “universes” including Teen Wolf, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Hellboy, and Saving Grace. Hot Blooded and Vanquished are her newest young adult novels. She also writes comic books and teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. She and her daughter, Belle, are published coauthors, and they spend every dime they make together at Disneyland. You can visit Nancy online at www.nancyholder.com and on Facebook and Twitter @nancyholder.
MELISSA MARR (“Corpse Eaters”) is the author of the New York Times bestselling Wicked Lovely series, Graveminder, and Carnival of Souls as well as a manga series (Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales) and various short stories. She is also the coauthor, with Kelley Armstrong, of the upcoming children’s series the Blackwell Pages and is coeditor of the Enthralled anthology (also with Kelley) and the upcoming Rags & Bones anthology (with Tim Pratt). When not writing, editing, or traveling, Melissa is buried under a plethora of books, dogs, and children in Virginia or online at www.melissa-marr.com.
BETH REVIS (“Love Is a Choice”) is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult science fiction novel Across the Universe and its sequel, A Million Suns, as well as several other short stories set on the spaceship Godspeed. A former high school English teacher, Beth drew inspiration for her novels from her students and their lives—although she took the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in a small town and enclosed her characters on a spaceship instead. Beth currently lives in rural North Carolina with her husband and dogs, and she believes space is nowhere near the final frontier. You can find out more about her online at www.bethrevis.com.
VERONICA ROTH (“Hearken”) is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the dystopian thriller Divergent and its sequel, Insurgent, the first two books in the Divergent trilogy. Her books are inspired in equal parts by her Chicagoland upbringing and her twisted imagination. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and can be found online at www.veronicarothbooks.com and on Facebook and Twitter @VeronicaRoth.
CARRIE RYAN (“Miasma”) is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Forest of Hands and Teeth series, which has been translated into more than eighteen languages and is in development as a major motion picture. She is the editor of the anthology Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction as well as a contributing author to the Infinity Ring series. A former litigator, Carrie now writes full-time and lives with her husband, two fat cats, and one large dog in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can visit her online at www.carrieryan.com.
MARGARET STOHL (“Necklace of Raindrops”) is the author of the forthcoming futuristic thriller Icons and is the New York Times and internationally bestselling coauthor (with Kami Garcia) of the Beautiful Creatures novels, which have sold more than a million copies in more than forty countries. Beautiful Creatures, named Amazon’s Top Teen Title of 2009, is currently in development at Warner Bros. Studios. Studying American literature while living on Emily Dickinson’s street in Amherst and earning an MA at Stanford University, Margaret came to her love of the South much as she comes to her love of everything—through books. Margaret spends most of her free time traveling to faraway places with her husband and three daughters, who are internationally ranked fencers. She can be found online at www.margaret-stohl.com.
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Also Edited by
Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong
Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions
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Credits
Cover art © 2013 by vimark/Max Mitenkov
Photo of girl © 2013 by Marcus J. Ranum
Cover design by Joel Tippie
Copyright
Shards and Ashes
Copyright © 2013 by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong
“Hearken” copyright © 2013 by Veronica Roth
“Branded” copyright © 2013 by Kelley Armstrong
“Necklace of Raindrops” copyright © 2013 by Margaret Stohl
“Dogsbody” copyright © 2013 by Rachel Longstreet Conrad
“Pale Rider” copyright © 2013 by Nancy Holder
“Corpse Eaters” copyright © 2013 by Melissa Marr
“Burn 3” copyright © 2013 by Kami Garcia
“Love Is a Choice” copyright © 2013 by Beth Revis
“Miasma” copyright © 2013 by Carrie Ryan
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-06-209846-7 (trade bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-209845-0 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062098474
12 13 14 15 16 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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Melissa Marr, Shards and Ashes
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