Page 98 of Grave Flowers
Aglint of silver on the floor winked in the corner of my eye.
The dagger Inessa had cast aside after stabbing Father. It pointed to me like an arrow, its bloodstained blade only inches away.
With every bit of my strength, I strained against the grave flowers and grasped with my hand. It bound the cord tighter. Inessa saw what I reached for and jerked hard on the cord, trying to yank me back. My head buzzed, and blackness passed over my eyes. I tried to scream, but only strangled sounds came from my throat. In one last surge of effort, I stretched just far enough to drag my hand against the blade. Father kept his daggers sharp, and this one was no exception. It glided through my skin, catching on the immortalities growing from my scar. More blackness fell over my vision, thicker this time. With a shriek of rage, Inessa jerked the cord again, but it was too late. The blade bit deep. It sliced off my scar and tore the immortalities’ roots out. Blood poured from the fresh wound.
Immediately, the grave flowers binding my wrists and ankles loosened. They swirled, the buds with the eyeballs looming close to inspect my hand and then slinking to Inessa. Back and forth they went, chittering and whispering and muttering.
But there was no denying it.
We were no longer identical. I was not her portrait, nor was she mine. No longer could we switch.
Still, Inessa didn’t loosen the cord. She drew it tighter. She was going to strangle me, simply to kill me. A figure appeared to the side of me. I thought I was hallucinating. I saw narrowed, angry eyes. Tattooed tears danced beneath them. It was Yorick. His brow was furrowed as he stepped forward. Inessa looked up and released the cord to lift her hands in defense. It was too late. He gripped her neck and, in one swift motion, snapped it. Inessa’s body collapsed to the ground, a tumble of limp limbs and twisting red dress.
Immediately, her ghost sprang up. Decay subsumed her once again. Her nose was gone. Bones and muscles poked through the crests of her cheeks and her shoulders as though her skin were a garment she wore. With a cry of rage, she lunged at me. I ducked, and she fell forward, crossing into the gray fog. Her hand closed around my wrist, and she dragged me with her toward the abyss, trying to pull me into the beyond. I spun away. It stopped her momentum but wasn’t enough to free me from her grip. I was on one side of the fog, and she was on the other, trapping us in a dance, one no training could free me from.
“Inessa!” I screamed. “Let me go.”
She held me tight, the mad despair of the world in her eyes. Her scar rubbed against the wound where mine had once been.
“I could’ve been different,” she screamed. “I could’ve been born you and you me. You are quiet and scared and soft and weak. But you’ve become the best of us, bypassing fate to gain a kingdom and a crownof your own. Father thought Mother’s death broke you, but here you stand, alive, while death comes for me.”
“Please, Inessa,” I said. “Release me.”
A final tortured, wordless scream ripped from her mouth. Her head bowed, and she looked over her shoulder into the gray fog. She met my gaze once again. Her lips quivered, and despite the decay masking her face, I saw her simply as Inessa. No matter what, I always would.
“I can’t,” she said brokenly. “I hear … music. It’s pulling on me. If I go, I won’t go back to Bide. I’ll go to the light I saw before, and Mads—Mads—I’m scared.”
I told her what she’d told me as a child, when thunderstorms scared me and she’d held me close. “Don’t be scared, Inessa. I’m here.” I dared to put my other hand over hers. “I know you, all of you, and I love you. Wherever you go, you will rise.”
Surrender flooded through her. She didn’t release me, but her grip eased, her fingers growing slack. Then a slow cunning smile passed over her lips. A spark lit her face. She took one long breath and then several short ones, in the way one does when girding oneself for battle. Her hand tightened on mine once again. But this time it wasn’t to drag me with her. It was to simply hold hands.
For a few moments, we were that way.
Holding hands, just as we had within Mother.
Only, this time it was because we wished it.
She didn’t say goodbye. She didn’t say she was sorry. She didn’t say anything at all.
She simply let go, and the moment that she did, she was gone.
“Inessa!” I screamed. My voice echoed through the gray fog, but I knew she wasn’t there any longer. She was headed somewhere else, somewhere with music and, I hoped, Mother.
At her disappearance, the grave flowers slithered and swam back into the fog, clustering around it as its edges blurred and dwindled. Therectangle sucked them in, slurping them down. A figure appeared by my side. It was Yorick. He cocked an eyebrow at me, his face angled so I saw only the inverted teardrop.
“So, wherever our sister is, there is music. Do you think there are books as well?”
“I don’t know,” I said, sinking to the floor. I stared hopelessly at him. “I don’t know anything, Yorick. But thank you for saving me.”
Slowly, Yorick worked off one of his leather gloves. He took my hand with the lightest touch and bent to kiss the back of it. He straightened and meticulously replaced the glove and straightened its lace.
“It’s what friends do,” he said.
“Will you stay? Please don’t leave me.”
“I can’t, Princess.” Despite his response, he knelt next to me, and we sat with my head on his shoulder, watching as the fog and its mouthful of grave flowers grew smaller. Before it was gone altogether, he gently pulled away from me. He stood. I thought he would step through the dwindling door, but he turned, putting his back to the fog. “Here I go. Remember me? Every now and then?”
“Every now and then? No, always. How could I not?”
