Page 18 of The Ordeals
I’m halfway across when the first wave washes over the paved path around me. It soaks into my boots, filling them then receding back, readying to take another swipe. I quicken my pace, grimacing at the spongy feel of my boots and wonder if I will make it the entire way across. If they don’t let me in, will I be able to return to land? It could reach up to my waist in under an hour. The thought sends fresh shivers down my spine and I pinch my lips together. With the wall and the gate looming bigger as I get closer, I see it is wrought iron and practically impossible to climb. At the top are a set of twisting spikes, and in the centre of each gate panel an ornate letterKpicked out in silver, shaped like a monogram.
This is the moment. I’ve gambled everything that my theory about the bracelet, the contract with the Collector weighing down my wrist, is correct. As I peel back the jumper, exposing the bracelet and my wrist, I gasp in horror at what I find. My whole forearm is mottled black and purple, bruises blooming as if my arm has been repeatedly slammed against stone. The pain, once throbbing, is now excruciating.
That’s when I notice the figure standing on the other side of the gates. A woman, hands clasped before her, hair pulled back in a ruthless bun to reveal the sharp contours of her skull. Her face is moon pale, almost the same shade as the silver-plated monograms on the gates. I hesitate for a heartbeat, a pinch of anxiety and that insistent pain in my wrist making me stumble. She’s standing completely still, her knee-length dark wool skirt the only hint of life as it dances around her legs.
‘You are here for the Ordeals?’ she says in a grim monotone, her voice matching her demeanour. Still, she does not move to open the gates, instead studying me with a hawk-like intensity that rather feels like hunger.
‘I …’ I lick my lips, tasting salt. Somehow, I know I will not getpast this woman with mere excuses. There isn’t a trace of humanity to her, no tell that I can hook onto and exploit. But I have to get through those gates. ‘Yes. I’m a hopeful, but you see—’
‘Name.’
‘Sophia DeWinter.’
‘And you have your invitation, I take it?’
‘I, well … one moment …’ I pretend to rummage through my pockets, releasing a grunt of pain as my wrist screams in agony at the jarring motion, then I search through the garments draped over my arm, buying myself a few seconds.Think, Sophia. Think.I swear my wrist is about to snap. ‘I should be on a list somewhere, surely?’
‘I do not carrylists.I need to see your invitation. We don’t have all day, Miss DeWinter. If you have misplaced it, you will have to return when you havefoundit.’
I turn back to the paved walkway and swallow, the violent pain in my wrist matched only by the churn in my stomach. It is now entirely submerged, the sea gleefully gushing over it. Returning to the seaside town is no longer an option until it is low tide once more. I could chance a swim, but if I misjudge, if there is a current, an undertow clawing at that stretch of sea, I could be swept away. And I have to get in. I have to remove this bracelet, this weight grating on my bones.
The woman knows I can’t turn back, I realise, and as I turn to face her, I find the first trace of a personality inside this rigid, straight-backed woman. A ruthless glint gleams in her eyes, her lips holding the slightest upturn at the corners. Perhaps she has done this before. Left a hopeful stranded on this tiny patch of rock outside the gates of Killmarth as the night darkens and the tide turns, lapping at their feet.
‘Maybe you should return tomorrow, Miss DeWinter. I will inform the professors—’
‘Wait.’ I’ve come too far. Too far to fail, too far to fall. And the bracelet around my wrist, it somehow weighs more here, as though a whole cuff of iron now circles my wrist. I sense that if I leave now, I may never get another chance. Desperation tightens inside me like a knot and I twist my right hand, hiding it from the woman. I picture this woman, and I picture the invitation. I imagine her inspecting it, scrutinising it as I hold it out to her. Then I look up at her, a smile plumping my features. ‘So silly of me, here it is!’
I offer up my train ticket, the half-torn, second-class stub, which got me from the city to the seaside town at my back. And I hold my breath, hoping she is not an illusionist, nor has the ability to be able to discern another’s illusion.
Hoping she won’t realise she’s being tricked.
Her eyes dart over the ticket, as though reading the carefully worded invitation on a piece of creamy card. Tremors form in my fingertips and a dark cloud appears in my vision. If she doesn’t let me through soon, my nose will begin to bleed. She’ll realise the deception, the illusion I’m wielding … and I’ll have lost my only chance at freedom.
‘Miss Sophia DeWinter,’ she says, her voice grating with cold.
‘Yes.’ I nod.
Her gaze snaps up to mine and she leans forward, drawing a large key from her pocket. She inserts it in the lock, and the gate protests with a shriek as it swings inwards. ‘Inside, please.’
I go to move past her and as I brush past the iron bars of the gate, I sense a shift in the air around us. It becomes thick and cloying, like wading through a hungry tide, and I am being dragged backwards. I grit my teeth, the bracelet caging my wrist growing even heavier as I stifle a gasp, the whoosh of air like a distant howl in my ears.
‘What’s the matter, Miss DeWinter? Trouble stepping through the gate?’
My gaze catches on hers, eyes like glittering beads and I narrow my own, shaking my head. I force a step, then another, sensing something almost like a fist, pummelling at my chest, bending my bones, pushing me backwards toward the sea.
‘You know these gates are warded; the whole island is. You cannot enter if there is any influence, any outside magic clinging to you,’ she says softly.
I close my eyes, blocking her out. Blocking it all out, thoughts of the maw of the vault, Dolly’s unseeing eyes, Banks’s grief, the marks on the Collector’s map, drowned in the river. All the hopelessness, the powerlessness, every year of my existence and I know the only way out of it now, is to pass through this gate to what lies beyond. I focus everything within me on moving forward, on the bracelet, on my contract breaking. I take one more faltering step.
Then when it seems as though I will not be able to push through, that the Collector’s influence and magic is stronger even than the wards of this place—
The bracelet shatters.
I release a long exhale, searching for it on the ground. But all I see, all I find is a smattering of ruby-red blood. Wasting no time, I rush through the gate, head and heart pounding as the woman locks it in my wake, the harsh clang of iron echoing around us. She hands back the ticket stub and I pocket it, gulping down breath after breath as the illusion I wielded stutters out. My skin is clammy, my stomach a nauseous tangle but I smile politely at the woman, concealing my shock, my triumph, my disbelief.
Is the contract truly broken?
I’m shaking and suddenly so cold, but when I pull back my sleeve, I find no trace of the bruises. Just my white skin, the paleblue veins tracing up my wrist that is no longer ensnared by a glinting bracelet. I can’t believe it at first, that the moment I’ve longed for, dreamed of and thought would never happen … it’s now. The bracelet is gone. The contract is broken.
