“Good.” Another grin, and her blue eyes sparkled. “Now, I’m serious about those seeds. There has to be a ceremony to make this all official. That’s the only way you can do it, you know.”
“Is that so?” he said, amused, and he clasped her hand in his. “Very well. For you, I will do it.”
She squealed and threw her arms around his neck. “Can I wear a dress? A really pretty one?”
“The most beautiful dress you can think of,” he promised, kissing her knuckles. “You can have whatever you want.”
Her grin relaxed into a warm smile, and she cupped his cheek. “Hasn’t anyone told you? I already do.”
Her words were a greater salve than any medication in the world, and he gathered her up, holding her in the sunshine. They would be happy together. Perhaps not as happy as he’d once wanted to be with Persephone, but Ingrid was all the things Persephone never was. And Henry knew exactly how lucky he was to have found her.
The weeks passed until finally it was the night of the ceremony. Ingrid had planned every detail, from her dress to the food to where the council would sit. They had obliged her at Henry’s request, though he suspected they would have anyway, considering how pleased they seemed to be at the prospect that he wouldn’t fade. Regardless, everything was falling into place. Only three more tests, and she would finally be one of them.
As the council arrived and settled in the throne room, Henry headed toward Ingrid’s suite. He was on edge, his nerves frayed and his stomach doing flip-flops, but he did his best to appear as calm and composed as he normally did. Even if Ingrid did not make the best of impressions on the council, it didn’t matter what they thought of her. What mattered was that she pass the tests, and so far she was doing marvelously. Everything would be all right.
Knocking on her door, he waited, expecting she was putting the finishing touches on her hair. She wouldn’t be late, after all, not to her own party. But as the seconds ticked by with no answer, he knocked again.
Silence.
“Ingrid?” he called. Had he perhaps missed her on the way to the throne room? No, there was only one direct path, and she had no reason to take another. “Ingrid, I am coming in.”
Opening the door, he didn’t know what he expected. Ingrid curled up in bed, perhaps, struck down by anxiety. Or her with pins in her mouth, putting the finishing touches on her hair.
What he did not expect was to see her crumpled on the floor, lost in the layers of her yellow dress. And bleeding from the head.
He was by her side in an instant, his body numb as he searched her for signs of life. But as soon as he’d spotted her, he’d known: she was gone. His best friend was dead.
A scream unlike any other ripped through the halls of Eden Manor, and it took Henry several moments before he realized it was him. He cradled her body, trying to will life back into it, but the bubbly girl he’d loved was lost.
“Brother?” Diana’s voice whispered toward him, and the air beside him shifted as she appeared. “Oh. Oh. Is she…?”
He nodded, his eyes filled with tears and his throat closed. He clutched her fragile body to his chest, his fingers tangling in her blood-soaked hair. This wasn’t an accident. She was in the middle of the suite, far from anything that could’ve caused so much as a knock on the head, let alone a fatal injury. And her skull was all but crushed.
“Who did this?” Walter’s voice rumbled behind Henry, but he didn’t turn toward him. He couldn’t move.
“I don’t know. Perhaps she fell,” said Diana tightly, but even as she said it, Henry heard the doubt in her voice. Not even she believed it.
As she set her hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off. This was his fault—if he hadn’t let Diana convince him to do this, if he had just stepped down and faded as he’d wanted, Ingrid would still be alive. She would grow old, she would have children and she would have a full and satisfying life. But because she’d had the misfortune of knowing him, she was nothing more than a lifeless body now.
Calliope knelt beside him, her eyes huge as she clasped her hands between her knees. “Henry?” she whispered, but he couldn’t bear the pity in her voice. They were all there now, the entire council watching him, some horrified and others grimly neutral.
“Leave,” he said thickly. “I will have no more of this.”
He expected a fight, but miraculously they all backed away, disappearing one by one. And once only he and Diana remained, he looked at her, her face swimming through his tears.
“Please go,” he whispered, rocking Ingrid’s body back and forth. Diana touched his cheek, her own eyes red.
“I’m so sorry, Henry. I’ll find another girl—”
“I don’t want another girl.” His voice cracked, and he turned from her, burying his face in Ingrid’s hair. She grew colder by the second.
“Henry, you must—”
“I will not risk another life,” he said, and she took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.
“Very well. Then I will have another daughter.”
“No.”
“I’ve been thinking about it anyway, and if you don’t want to risk another girl’s life—”
“I said no.”
She sniffed. “Those are your choices, Henry. You may either allow me to select another girl, and we will do our utmost to protect her now that we know there is a threat, or I will have another child. It is up to you.”
He shook his head as tears streamed down his cheeks. She didn’t understand. How could she, when her goal was to keep him in this hell of an existence? “I wish to fade.”
“I’m sorry, brother, but you gave us a hundred years,” she said in a gentler voice, placing her hand over his. “We all love you too much to give up.”
He closed his eyes, struggling against the flood of anger and guilt and sadness inside him. “You will not have a child because of me. Any daughter you bring into this world will live the life she wants, and you will not force her to be with me. You owe Persephone that much.”
Diana swallowed, growing still for a fraction of a second. “And you will allow me to choose another girl not only so we can find you a companion, but so we can flush out the killer and bring them to justice. You owe Ingrid that much.”
The knife her words formed burrowed deep within him, becoming as much a part of him as his very essence. And as she stood and walked away, her bare feet silent against the thick carpet, he knew she was right. He owed Ingrid everything—even if it meant losing himself in the process.
* * *
Eleven girls.
That was how many he lost. After Ingrid, it was Charlotte; after her, Maria. And so on and so forth, as each name and face scarred another part of him until there was nothing left inside him but guilt and misery.
Some girls made it only a few days. Others, weeks—and the worst deaths were the ones who made it months, who came so close to the halfway point that he nearly let himself hope. But no matter how well protected they were, no matter what security measures he implemented, they always turned up dead. Some were clearly murder; others were questionable, with no visible signs of struggle or attack. Diana, Walter and other members of his family were certain they’d cracked under the pressure of the tests, which had never been meant for mortals. Henry wasn’t so sure.
After each girl, he tried to fade. And after each girl, another member of the council convinced him to keep going. Murder after murder, body after body, he selfishly allowed another girl to risk her
life for him in hope that perhaps this time, they would discover the killer. Perhaps this time, they would win.
They never did.
“How did it happen this time?”
Henry tensed at the sound of her voice, and he tore his eyes away from the lifeless body on the bed long enough to look at her. Diana stood in the doorway, a beacon of calm in the middle of the storm that was his existence, but even her presence didn’t help rein in his temper.
“Drowned,” said Henry thickly, turning back to the body on the bed. “I found her floating in the river early this morning.”
He didn’t hear her move toward him, but he felt her hand on his shoulder. “And we still don’t know…?”
“No.” His voice was sharper than he’d intended, and he forced himself to soften it. “No witnesses, no footprints, no traces of anything to indicate she didn’t jump in the river because she wanted to.”
“Maybe she did,” said Diana. “Maybe she panicked. Or maybe it was an accident.”
“Or maybe somebody did this to her.” He broke away from her, pacing the length of the room in an attempt to get as far away from the body as possible. He hadn’t known Bethany nearly as long as he’d known Ingrid, but the pain still slithered through his body, choking the life out of him. “Eleven girls in eighty years. Don’t tell me this was an accident.”
She sighed and brushed her fingertips across the girl’s white cheek. “We were so close with this one, weren’t we?”
“Bethany,” snapped Henry. “Her name was Bethany, and she was twenty-three years old. Now because of me, she’ll never see twenty-four.”
“She never would have seen it anyway if she’d been the one.”
Fury rose up inside of him and threatened to bubble over, but when he looked at her and saw compassion in her eyes, his anger drained away.
“She should have passed,” he said tightly. “She should have lived. I thought—”
“We all did.”
Henry sank into a chair, and she was by his side in an instant, rubbing his back in a motherly gesture. He tangled his fingers in his hair, his shoulders hunched with the familiar weight of grief. How much more of this was he supposed to endure before they finally let him go?
“There’s still time.” The hope in her voice stabbed at him, more painful than anything else that had happened that morning. “We still have decades—”
“I’m done.”
His words rang through the room as she stood still next to him, her breathing suddenly ragged and uneven. In the several seconds it took for her to respond, he considered taking it back, promising he would try again as he’d done so many times before, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do so. Too many had already died, and she knew it. He’d stopped fighting after each death, his thirst for justice growing stronger with each soul he had to usher through the Underworld, but this time was different. This time he meant it.
“Henry, please,” she whispered. “There’s twenty years left. You can’t be done.”
“It won’t make a difference.”
She knelt in front of him and pulled his hands from his face, forcing him to look at her and see her fear. “You promised me a century, and you will give me a century, do you understand?”
“I won’t let another one die because of me.”
“And I won’t let you fade, not like this. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
He scowled. “And what will you do? Find another girl who’s willing? Bring another candidate to the manor every year until one passes? Until one makes it past Christmas?”
“If I have to.” She narrowed her eyes, determination radiating from her. “There is another option.”
He looked away. “I’ve already said no. We aren’t talking about it again.”
“And I’m not letting you go without a fight,” she said. “No one else could ever replace you no matter what the council says, and I love you too much to let you give up. You’re not leaving me any other choice.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She was silent.
Pushing the chair aside, Henry stood, wrenching his hand away from her. “You would do that to a child? Bring her into this world just to force her into this?” He pointed at the body on the bed. “You would do that?”
“If it means saving you, then yes.”
“She could die. Do you understand that?”
Her eyes flashed, and she stood to face him. “I understand that if she doesn’t do this, you will die.”
Henry turned away from her, struggling to hold himself together. “No great loss there.”
Diana spun him around to face her. “Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare give up.”
He blinked, startled by the intensity in her voice. When he opened his mouth to counter, she stopped him before he could speak.
“She will have a choice, you know that as well as I do, but no matter what happens, she will not become that, I promise you.” Diana gestured toward the body. “She will be young, but she will not be foolish.”
It took Henry a moment to think of something to counter her, and when he did, he knew he clung to false hope. “The council would never allow it.”
“I’ve already asked. As it falls within the time limit, they have given me permission.”
He clenched his jaw. “You asked without consulting me first?”
“Because I knew what you would say,” she said. “I can’t lose you. We can’t lose you. We’re all we have, and without you—please, Henry. Let me try.”
Henry closed his eyes, knowing that he couldn’t fight this now, not if the council agreed. He tried to picture what the girl might look like, but each time he tried to form an image, the memory of another face got in the way.
“I couldn’t love her.”
“You wouldn’t have to.” Diana pressed a kiss to his cheek. “But I think you will.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I know you,” she said, “and I know the mistakes I made before. I won’t repeat them again.”
He sighed, his resolve crumbling as she stared at him, silently pleading. It was only twenty years; he could make it until then if it meant not hurting her more than he already had. And this time, he thought, glancing at the body on the bed once more, he wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes, either.
“I’ll miss you while you’re gone,” he said, and her shoulders slumped with relief. “But this is the last one. If she fails, I’m done.”
“Okay,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Thank you, Henry.”
He nodded, and she let go. As she walked to the door, she too looked at the bed, and he swore to himself that this would never happen again. No matter what it took, pass or fail, this one would live.
“This isn’t your fault,” he said, the words tumbling out before he could stop himself. “What happened—I allowed it. You aren’t to blame.”
She paused, framed in the doorway, and gave him a sad smile.
“Yes, I am.”
Before he could say another word, she was gone.
Kate
Katherine Winters was born on a sunny September morning mere weeks before the autumnal equinox. And as soon as he received news of her birth, Henry retreated to the Underworld for the next several years, hiding himself away from the knowledge that her death would inevitably be on his hands, as well.
While Diana had taken on a mortal life to raise her daughter, the council was never far, watch
ing over Kate as if she were their salvation. Though they never spoke about her directly to Henry at his request, he caught snippets of conversation about her progress. About how her birth had gone; her first day of school; about how Diana was living amongst the mortals, blending in as if she’d always been one of them. And despite his distance, even he could tell how happy they were together. Diana finally had the life she deserved, and he could not have been more thrilled for her.
But as pleased as he was that she had finally moved on from her anguish over Persephone, he could not ignore the fact that one day soon, he would take that happiness from her, as well. And the closer they drew, the more he thought about it, and the more he thought about it, the harder he begged Diana to let him go. To give her daughter a life she deserved, one where she could choose her fate. But no matter how he protested, Diana insisted again and again that Kate would have a choice; that she would be the one to choose to be with him, and if she did not want to try, then she would be free to live her own life.
Henry knew better, though. Even if Kate said no when she came of age, the council would find a way to manipulate her into it, and the very thought of her following in her sister’s footsteps made him sick. But the die had been cast, and her fate was sealed. She would be number twelve.
“You should go see her,” said James one evening, as Henry sat in his office with Cerberus slumbering at his feet.
Henry raised an eyebrow and peered at him. “And you should not be here.”
James shrugged. “Gonna be my realm soon anyway, so I don’t see why it matters.”
“Is that so?” said Henry.
“Well, yeah. Unless you think this will work.”
Henry was quiet. He hoped it would work, but deep within his mind, in a place he rarely allowed himself to visit, he knew it wouldn’t. They had done everything they could do to protect Bethany; he couldn’t possibly see what would be different about Kate. “Why are you here, James?”