Page 122 of Mortdale

I missed him more than anything.

I feared leaving this world only because I knew he’d keep my boneless soul bound here. And I didn't want to haunt him. I wanted him to be free of me. He deserved to find his happiness, just like I’d briefly found mine.

My fingers ran up and down my breastbone, feeling my fading pulse still fighting. A chill travelled to the back of my ear as I moved my hand up and up until my fingers rested against my jugular notch. And then something struck me when I lowered them back down in a straight line to my heart.

Only someone without a heart can do this to someone like you.

Someone without a heart.

I picked up Agnes’s wedding photograph from the papers.

The scar on her chest was missing. I’d always thought it had looked like…a median sternotomy.

My finger traced the figure in the corner—Sybil, smiling ear to ear.

Sybil.

Oh no.

Oh Goddess.

Sybil was a surgeon.

But…it couldn’t be.

Everything hit me all at once. The heartbreak infection. The suicides. The scabiosa. They were all telltale signs of—

The newsprint paper shook in my hand. “Sybil, what the Hell have you done?”

A love curse?

Why would…why would Agnes put a love curse on herself—on her own heart?

Oh shit.

My hand covered my parted mouth.

A curse is like mould, spores infecting everyone else around.

This is why there’d never been any trace of magic in the infected. They were only a symptom of a bigger curse.

The room grew quiet, turning to stare in the direction of the windows framing red fireworks blasting in the dark sky.

“What’s that?” I asked, pressing my hand against the chilled glass.

“War,” Christof regretfully said. “Morngate seems to have chosen to advance into Mortdale.” He swallowed hard. “Our duke will be sent to the front to lead it.”

Something dragged against my dress skirts. Thomas sank his long claws into the fabric as he climbed to my shoulder. “Ethel is gone.”

“What? Gone where?”

“She’s left Meridian. She brings no children with her.”

Hot, stinging tears pressed at the back of my eyes as a sob raked through my chest. “Agnes sent her to the Fair Isles?”

“No. She’s here, in Mortdale. And brings no children.”

“What are you talking about?”