Page 94 of As Many Souls as Stars
Miriam kissed her throat. Rosamund let her do it.
‘What did you do, Miriam?’ she asked. ‘I heard you call to me, just a few minutes ago—you said that you’d give me something new to avenge.’
Miriam spun Rosamund in her arms, so they were face-to-face. ‘Do you remember the song you used to sing?’ she said, pressing her fingers into Rosamund’s cheek. ‘When you were Cybil?’
It was clear she wouldn’t give an answer to the question, clear that she was furious—Rosamund could see that in the coldness of her smile, feel it in the tightness of her grip. Miriam was capable of killing her, she’d done it once before, and Rosamund knew they were only moments away from the same thing happening again. But she was too unravelled, too confused to take hold of her power and escape the illusion.
Rosamund, trying to hide the tremble in her voice, replied, ‘“Greensleeves”.’
‘Yes, that was it. A song of love lost, and love returning.’
‘I’ve never been a good singer.’
Miriam laughed indulgently. ‘Not particularly. But I heard you singing, you know, even before we met that night in the clearing. I heard how fiercely you longed for freedom. You needed me then, my dear. You needed me as Esther, too; and still, you need me now.’
Rosamund couldn’t reply. She closed her eyes, unable to look at her.
‘Alas, my love, you do me wrong,’ Miriam sang softly, ‘to cast me off discourteously.’
The sound of the rain fell away. It was replaced with the soft hum of dozens of distant voices. String instruments picked up the melody as Miriam’s voice faded. Rosamund opened her eyes to find that they were standing on the balcony of Carroway House. The night sky stretched above them, the sounds of the Ton drifting through the building’s closed doors. Despite the absence of rain, there wasno change in the temperature of the air; it was like being on a movie screen, noises and shapes without presence.
‘Trite,’ Rosamund said. ‘They weren’t playing “Greensleeves” at the ball.’
‘Forgive me my inaccuracies, darling. I find myself distracted.’
Rosamund glanced at the house and shuddered. ‘We should’ve stayed at Harding Hall.’
‘Why?’
‘This is the moment I hated you the most,’ she said. ‘When I knew I could never forgive you.’
Miriam released her, stepping back. Something glinted in her hand: the oyster knife.
Rosamund’s eyes widened, her pulse speeding. ‘Don’t.’
Smiling, Miriam raised the knife, holding the blade between thumb and forefinger. It glinted in the light of the false stars above them. ‘We have both killed with this,’ she said. ‘We are alike, you and I.’
‘We are nothing alike.’
‘We both know that isn’t true.’
‘And that isyour fault!’ Rosamund cried. ‘It’sallyour fault, Miriam. I was human, once. And now you’ve made me—made me into this creature, this monster, thinking only of you, your destruction, your love.’
‘It was Christopher Harding who made you, darling. Him, your mother, your cousin, yourself—all those who believed in the curse, who taught you to believe in it, who moulded your darkness in their image.’
‘That doesn’t matter. It was you who forced me to live three lives, to drown in my loneliness three times over. Youkilledme.’
‘And you brought me to life!’ Miriam shrieked back, voice rending the air with her fury. ‘Before you, Rosamund Harding, I had never known love, and I had never known regret. Now you have wounded me with these things, you have made me fallible. I will never forgive you for that, just as you will never forgive me.’
Rosamund closed her eyes once more, balling her fists. She felt the presence of the shadows all around her, dancing themselves into the shape of Carroway House, into the unearthly glow of thestars above them, all at Miriam’s command. Rosamund needed to command them instead.
Enough, she told them, offering a piece of her soul, small and bright and burning.Enough.
A sharp pain pierced through her core, as savage as any deal she had made so far. The music of the fake ball stuttered, then stopped.
Rosamund opened her eyes. Around them, the horizon and the sky and Carroway House were beginning to drip downwards, like paint beneath turpentine.
Miriam looked alarmed. ‘What are you doing?’
