Page 90 of As Many Souls as Stars
Esther crossed her arms, raised her head imperiously. A wound on her neck appeared, a weeping line of blood, and she ignored it as it began to swell around the pearls and then drip down onto her dress. ‘Wewillbreak her—we can be sure of that.’
Cybil said, ‘The more we delay, the more our resolve wavers. We are weaker than we believed.’
Rosamund replied, ‘One day. Surely, we can withstand one day.’
‘We must,’ Cybil agreed.
‘Circle of salt,’ Esther said.
‘Our soul is hers,’ Cybil said.
‘The pact complete,’ Rosamund said, as the dream fell apart.
The aftermath of tiki night, Rosamund observed, was much like the aftermath of a battle: red leis were strewn across tables like streaks of gore; the tang of pineapple and rum hung on the air, as pervasive as the scent of blood; and the dining area had that off-putting silence of a place suddenly emptied, abrupt absence clear in the tipped-over chairs and the creak of half-fallen lighting fixtures.
As she walked through the restaurant, the mess was being cleaned up and replaced with festive garlands and silver tinsel: it was Christmas Eve, after all. Rosamund had been born around six in the evening—they would dock at seven, only an hour after the twenty-third anniversary of Rosamund’s birth. She had little time to prepare.
Walt had tried to eat with her that morning, arranging a birthday breakfast in a private room. She’d had to reject the offer, feigning sickness. Rosamund had other things to do. She had the grimoire in her purse, as well as a precautionary tin of iodised cooking salt, a letter opener, and a tiny bottle of henbane oil that she’d prepared herself the previous spring. It’d have to do. She had selected, for the ritual, a place she knew would be abandoned, and which offered a good vantage point over the rest of the ship: the observation lounge, a plush mahogany-and-emerald room filled with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. One wall was dedicated to large windows overlooking the Atlantic; the other, a mural depicting the journey of theMonumentalin stylisedwaves and ribbons of coastline, England on one side, America on the other. A hand-size mechanical boat had been placed on a rail in front of the mural. It was bobbing gently left to right, from one painted country to another.
It would take only a matter of moments. Rosamund and the shadows were old bedfellows. They were so accustomed to feeding from her that even in this moment of stillness, they began to swarm at her feet in expectation of a meal. Usually, Rosamund gave them only motes of her soul—just enough to achieve what she needed. This time, the deal she made would have a far greater cost.
It was a calculated risk, as calculated as it could be, given the circumstances. Rosamund needed to give the darkness enough of herself that she could surpass Miriam entirely; Miriam, who had collected souls for centuries, who threw them to her fellow shadows like feedingbreadcrumbstoducks. It was extraordinary, the flippancy with which she wielded such power. But that had always been Miriam’s greatest strength, and her greatest weakness: her ruthless vanity. She believed she was unsurpassable. Rosamund would take advantage of that.
Rosamund shut her eyes, felt heat prickle along her hands. The shadows around her whispered questioningly.
I have lived three lives, she told them.I have lived three lives, and in all three, someone thought I was a monster. Sometimes, I have thought I was a monster. So, then, make me that way. Whatever it costs—make me everything that all those men feared.
She saw Peter Oswyn in her mind’s eye, his horror as she set Harding House ablaze; the fear and fury in Henry Martingale’s face as he brought the spade down on her throat; the wrenching sobs of Thomas Harding as the casket on the bed crumbled into dust, his muffled screams as he burnt to ashes.Every thought they had, everything every Harding patriarch had ever feared, as they laid their First Daughters down in the forest—make me that. Their belief my reality. That is all magic is. Make me a monster. Make memorethan Miriam—make me darker than shadows.
A searing heat began at the base of her feet and began to unfurl slowly, burning, relentless, until the pain was intense enough that herthroat was closing and tears were building behind her closed lids. Still, she didn’t open her eyes.Darker, she repeated,darker, darker, and in that repetition, her voice in her mind began to ring like a bell: a chime that, with each tone, made the heat hotter, her skin seeming to welt and smoulder. She could smell burning flesh, could feel the flames licking her palms. She stood on a pyre she had built herself, begging for absolution, even as she began to consume herself whole.
Darker, came a voice—many voices, speaking in tandem—and Rosamund began to shudder as she felt a thousand blades slice openings in her flesh, up and down her arms, peeling skin away to sip from her soul. She allowed it, tamping her teeth down on her tongue to prevent herself from screaming, tasting the iron of blood—
The door to the room rattled. Her eyes opened. She’d blocked the door with a chair, but it held only for a moment. The chair was sent flying as Rosamund banished the shadows, tucking the grimoire into the inner pocket of her jacket. The dozens of tiny, glowing fissures on her skin faded and disappeared as quickly as they had come, knitting together like stitched wounds.
Miriam walked inside. She looked at Rosamund, who was still trembling from the lingering pain of the ritual.
‘Making deals, my dear?’ she asked.
Rosamund’s heart pounded. Miriam’s eyes were half lidded, her lips twitching—she had seen that expression before. She had seen it as Esther, moments before the knife had met her throat.
Behind them, the waves of the Atlantic roiled.
Miriam walked slowly toward Rosamund, trailing a hand across the back of one of the chairs. ‘Iknewyou hadn’t given up,’ she said. ‘It isn’t in your nature, darling, to surrender willingly.’
‘Much good it has done me,’ Rosamund replied, affecting bitterness.
‘It didn’t work? The darkness didn’t take pity on you?’ She cocked her head. ‘Your soul seems—different. Fainter.’
‘I gave it all I could. It wasn’t enough.’
It was almost true. In the aftermath of the ritual, Rosamund feltemptier, somehow, as if the world had lost some of its colour. Perhaps, if Miriam hadn’t interrupted, the darkness might have destroyed her before it could give her the power she craved.
Miriam swooped forward, taking Rosamund’s chin between her fingers. She examined her face with narrowed eyes—searching for some hint of a lie.
Rosamund glared at her, defiant. Some of the tears that had welled during the pain of the ritual spilled over and dripped down her cheeks. There couldn’t have been a better moment for it; the suspicion fell from Miriam’s face. Instead, she now looked as if she wanted to sip those tears like fine wine. The way she brushed them away from Rosamund’s cheeks was worshipful, and the way she kissed her even more so—it was as gentle a kiss as they had ever shared.
‘You are beautiful, in your desperation,’ Miriam murmured. ‘Like a dying star.’
