Page 80 of Mortal Things

I throw my arms around her and bury my head in her shoulder. There, I cling to her and sob. I cry for all the times I’ve missed her, all the lies I’ve been told, for the realization that all the love I thought we shared for each other—every laugh, every hug, every secret—wasn’t real.

Laine says nothing. She just buries her face in my shoulder and hugs me back. Is that real? She is warm, human, mortal, alive.

“Hey, Rosie,” she says, and it is the voice I’ve always known.

For a long time, I’m unable to speak. I’m unable to rationalize what is happening. I should be furious with her, but in this instant I don’t care. All I know is that my friend—the girl I’d met on that rainy afternoon, who had pulled me out of months of darkness, the girl for whom I’d sold my soul to the gods—is here.

She is here, when I thought I’d never see her again.

“There’s no time,” she whispers at last. Her voice changes, turns urgent and scared. “We have to get you out.”

Her words break me out of my stupor at last. I blink, wipe a hand across my tears, and pull back from her. For the first time, I take a good look at her face.

It’s her. It’s her—except she is strange, too, a version of herself that I’ve never seen before. Her sleeves are pulled back, and for the first time in my life, I see her bare arms—and Harbinger tattoo.

No wonder she never wore T-shirts or tank tops, even on the hottest days.

When I look more closely at her, I see that her expression is different, too. The cheery side of herself, the version full of life and animation, is still there, but there is a veil over it now. Something wary and distant. Haunted.

Haunted, because of me.

“You,” I say, and my fury comes back to me in a rush. I push her away. “You always knew.”

The urgency in her expression wavers, turns wary. Her lips tighten, but she says nothing.

“You lied to me, all this time,” I whisper. Tears prickle in my eyes again, this time in anger. “Aren’t you going to answer me? Were you always Raven’s Harbinger?”

“I was,” she says.

It is surreal to hear the confession from her own lips, to know that the person I thought I knew better than anyone in the world had also been a Harbinger of Death.

I back away from her and into a crouch. “Did you know why you were assigned to me? Did he tell you the reason for doing this?”

She’s silent again, its own confirmation. A fresh wave of grief and fury washes through me. Everything Étienne had told me was true.

At last, she seizes one of my wrists. She turns the shackle around until she finds the lock, then shoves what looks like a skeleton key into it. I wince as something inside the mechanism clicks into place, and suddenly, the chains are clanking to the floor. She does the same to my other wrist, then to my ankles.

The instant I’m free, I lunge at her.

She’s knocked onto her back by the force of me, and we both tumble to the floor. Instantly, she rolls back onto her feet with a nimbleness that she’d never demonstrated to me before, then crouches, bracing herself, her eyes fixed on me.

The pain in my chest is too great now. I can’t hold myself back. Again, I lash out at her—she sidesteps, but not before I clamp down on her arm and pin her against the wall.

“How could you?” I whisper harshly. “All those hangouts, all our chats and walks and good times? How could you?”

“You think I had a choice?” she snaps back. Her eyes narrow. “You think I didn’t hurt for you, even on the first day we met?”

I laugh bitterly. “Hurt for me?” I clench my fists. “You hurt for me, so you went ahead anyway?”

“I had a job to do,” she answers.

A job. My heart twists again. “You found me at my lowest, and used it against me!”

“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I asked myself every day why I couldn’t step away?” She looks away from me in disgust and glances around the room, as if trying to find the right words.

Tears prickle in my eyes again—frustrated with myself, I force them back down. “I thought you were my friend.”

“And we don’t have time for this.” She strikes me in the ribs, making me flinch. My grip on her loosens—and then she’s slipping free. I hit back, aiming for her side. My first swing misses, but I catch her on my second. She grunts as my fist connects, one knee crumpling, and even now, I find myself wanting to reach out to help her up, unable to bear seeing her hurt.