Page 120 of Mortdale

Piper stirred, rubbing a fist to her sleepy eyes as she stared between the two of us. Her bottom lip trembled and a fat tear gathered at the corner of her eye. “I don’t want to die, Bear.”

His golden eyes met mine. And as wretched as it was, my heart bled when a tear slid down his cheek and he buried his face against my neck, holding us both close.

“Were you ever planning on telling me?” he shakily asked.

“I’ve never wanted my death to be a tragedy.”

“You’ve had all your life to make peace with it. Yet you give me a few days and expect me to be the same?” He pulled back, his eyes searching deep into mine—for answers, for comfort, for hope. “Why would you do this to me?” His gaze relentlessly paced all over my face, unsteady and troubled when it couldn’t find what he was hoping to find. “Why would you do this to me, Willow?”

“I’ve been mourning myself for twenty-six years. All I’ve known are mourners. I didn’t want you to be just another mourner. I wanted you to look at me and see me, not this curse.”

His brow dropped to mine and he held me there for a while. “I will fix it. I will fix this.”

Sobs shook my chest. “Stop, Logan. Just stop. Please, don’t make this harder for me.”

He pulled back, wrenching himself off of me like a scab on a new wound. “Your theory is wrong. About the Madness, about the suicides.”

“I know I am right, you just have to let me find out how to fix it. You have to let me go back to the Basilica. I need to see what is poisoning the water in the well. You cannot see or sense or smell dark chaos. Only I can.”

“You’re wrong about it,” he insisted, unsteady as he got to his feet and stumbled a few steps. His expression broke, as did his voice. “Because you’re still alive. And for all it matters, I am still somewhat sane.”

With that, he stormed down the stairs and left again.

Burying my face against my knees, I whispered, “I love you, too.”

He’d be safe from the poison because I was already dead. I had died a long time ago. The malediction had killed me and made me a ghost.

Piper wrapped her weak arms around my neck, patting a tiny hand down my back. “Don’t cry, Boo. Bear will fix it.”

And I almost believed it. I wanted to believe it. But hope made me sick. Hope was violent, and I knew that because I’d worn its bruises many times before.

He’d been called to the parliament right after he’d left. I’d been warned he’d be gone for hours, maybe days, until Ulric’s successor was chosen. The clergy, the parliament, and even Ulric himself would argue in favour of their own endorsements.

He’d stuck both of his anxious friends with me. Henry and Arthur both paced across the drawing room, back and forth about a thousand times. Unnecessarily because I had barely any strength to pull myself up and down the stairs, let alone pull any kind of elaborate manoeuvre like they were expecting out of me.

“You should get some sleep,” Henry said, settling in front of a window to glare at the new storm brewing outside. “I doubt they will be done for a while. This is the moment the parliament has been waiting for and Ulric’s been dreading. They will fight tooth and nail for it. It’s no use waiting up.”

“Who’s next in line to inherit the throne?”

Henry’s eyes met Arthur’s before they both ducked their heads. It was the latter who answered. “If Ulric somehow manages to hold onto his claim of the title, it will have to be a pick from his litter of bastards.”

“Logan, too, right?”

Both of their heads shot up, and I shrugged. “A ghost told me.”

Henry sighed. “He won’t do it. Now that Luella’s dead, there’s no way for Ulric to control him. As long as you and Piper are way out of Ulric’s grasp, he won’t be forced to take that throne.”

“So, what will happen now? Won’t it mean he’s opened a path in the clergy’s favour?”

Henry started pacing again, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Logan…he’s endorsing someone, too.”

“Who?”

“Another one of Ulric’s bastards. A guard who he took under wing after Heath was killed by Ulric and he was forced to come back from the Eastern Continent. Her name’s Audrey.”

“Ulric killed Logan’s brother?”

“Both his brothers. His father. And almost every other paternal relative.”