Page 86 of The Forsaken

Her blackmailer went to the cottage first.

Eventually, he would reach the stables.

Unfortunately for him, Andromena was a McQuoid. She had sneaked around more times than she had curtsied.

And drawing on that same lifetime of stealth, as well as her knowledge of the property and house, Andromena waited for the right moment before slipping outside. She kept to the shadows as she made her way toward the northern portion of the kitchens, where the walls were overgrown with ivy and vines.

Back when Aunt Beatrix was alive, she insisted all the Scots needed a safe place to hide their possessions from the English, as well as a quick path out should marauders come calling. So, she’d had a little door built into the kitchen wall and then hidden it beneath meticulously trimmed ivy and vine.

With time’s passage and a lack of love, nature had reclaimed the stucco and wood.

But the same way fog wasn’t a magical mist that would protect her, neither was it actually a secret passageway to freedom. It was only a tiny cellar.

Andromena slipped through the concealed door and eased it shut. She strained to hear voices. The house was so quiet she thought he had left. Part of her—cowardly—wished he had. But the part of her that was tired of his cat-and-mouse game wanted it over even more.

Second-floor floorboards moaned. Shaking fingers fought through the branches as Andromena bit her lip, found the handle, and shoved. The swollen wood held fast. No. She threw her weight against it again and again until the door gave way. Slipping inside, she was instantly swallowed by the smell of moisture and mildew, but there, permeating it all, was a faint sweetness that pulled her back to the past, to a time when Aunt Beatrix’s once-fragrant spirits had hung on the air.

Her past tangled with her present; the echo of her long-ago giggles as she hid from Oleander. Aunt Beatrix’s thick brogue returned, too, while she taught Andromena about the different liquors and answered the little girl’s question about why she lived in a cottage so far from Scotland. Answers that involved fairies and legends, and not any actual answers…

Andromena blinked against the dark, pulled back into the present where she decided her future.

For weeks, she imagined this. She had dreamed of punishing him, of killing the man who threatened her family and Edgar. Tonight, it all ended—not with her enemy dead by her hands, but felled and bound.

For the first time since her nightmare began, she, not her tormentor, held the upper hand. While he searched her childhood sanctuary and defiled the memories here, she grew more powerful over him. The advantage of surprise belonged to her…but the desire to kill had vanished. This man had stolen her happiness and ruined her life, but she was not him, and that eased the hammer of her pulse and the darkness that had filled her. A darkness that only abated when Edgar had been near.

After this night, she would be free. She would not kill. Her soul would remain uncorrupted.

She had the power to end him, and in choosing not to, she—

The door burst open.

Andromena screamed. Her finger twitched on the trigger.

Her assailant jerked away.

A deep rolling boom thundered, and the world went up in a cloud of smoke. Her head was full, her ears ringing, and she slapped her hands over them. She felt like she was underwater in Bishop’s Pond; everything was muffled. The acrid bite of smoke filled her nose. Her stinging eyes could not make out anything beyond a dense cloud of white.

With the heavy cloud ebbing, and the smoke rolled back, she found him, prone; silent, unmoving.

She had killed a man.

The still hot gun trembled in her hand. With her other, Andromena caught the oak doorjamb notched with her and Oleander’s height of years ago; charting their aging, to now.

On unsteady feet, she walked to greet her felled blackmailer. She stood over him. Her legs swayed, and she closed her eyes. There wasn’t any triumph. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at what she had done. But she deserved to see what she had done.

Andromena opened her eyes.

She had killed him, after…

“No,” she whispered.

Struck dumb, she fell back on her heels and stared vacantly at the tall, towering figure in black sprawled.

The humming in her ears grew louder.

A blast, but three seconds long, damaged her mind, and the damage was immeasurable and devastating.

Andromena cocked her head. “Edgar?” she whispered.