“The townspeople have given me their tokens of submission,” said Rob. “I have had my equinox sacrifice, delivered willingly into my hands. The moon of the new year is coming, and soon I will have enough power to encompass the whole town in my mind, as Elinor and Anne Lynburn once did. I will hold it in the palm of my hand, and then I will crush it. The death of a whole town, the end of an old way of life, will give me enough power to live on for a golden age.”

“I see,” said Lillian. “And I am supposed to believe this is all for our good, and has nothing to do with the fact that you hated my parents for stopping your parents from killing? I am expected to pretend this has nothing to do with revenge?”

“Do not talk as if it was something noble. Your parents killed my parents, turned against their own kind, stole my life and told me that they had shown me mercy,” Rob murmured. “Yes, I hate this town for being more important to your parents than their own blood. I hated your family, and I want the shining legacy of the Lynburns they held so dear to end. This has everything to do with revenge.”

It was so simple, and they hadn’t seen it. They had known Rob’s story, of how his parents and he had killed for power, how Lillian’s parents had come down from Aurimere and battled their own cousins but spared the child. Rob had told them nobody had any idea of what his end game was. They had almost guessed it, speculating about Rob’s motives and his ultimate plan, his hatred of Sorry-in-the-Vale, but Kami supposed they had always had a picture of an evil overlord in their head, bent on ruling. But the power to rule meant the power to destroy—that was the darkness at the heart of ruling. It meant you had the power of life and death over people, and because you had the power, you thought that meant you had the right.

Lillian had said nothing in response to Rob’s passionate speech of hatred and vengeance. Rob spoke again, his voice low and eager, coaxing now. Kami realized he was the type who found a woman’s silence encouraging.

“Do you see how I love you now, my darling? I hate as lesser men could never dream of hating, with fire that will burn when the sun is ashes in the sky. My enemies are dust, and as dust I despise them still. Every one of their dreams will be dust, or my vengeance will not be complete. There is no force in the world as strong as my hate, except my love. I could have had my vengeance and put you in the ground with your family and the rest of their precious town, but I cannot do other than want you by my side. My love spared your life. My love will lift you up in glory, because glory is my destiny and I will have you share it. Glory is not complete to me without you. No woman is real to me but you.”

“Rosalind was real to me!” Lillian snapped. “Why do you think I would be interested in your point of view, when you are so blatantly uninterested in mine? Your love, your grievances—why do only yours matter?”

The situation was obviously desperate: Lillian Lynburn was actually arguing for someone to feel more empathy.

“I think I have made clear why my claims are preeminent,” Rob said coldly. “I have made clear that I am preeminent. The time of me catering to your whims is over. All I have done, I have done for your good. The time has come for you to accept it, and accept me as your master. The time has come for you to submit.”

“And I shall,” Lillian said unexpectedly.

Even Rob seemed to find that surprising. He did not speak.

Lillian continued, “What choice do I have? I said I know who I love. I love my sons. You said that I care for power, and you were right. I’m not a fool. I can see that you have all the power. I can see that there is nothing I can do to stop you, and all I can hope from you is that you will spare my life and the lives of those I love.”

Rob whispered, “I will give you more than that. We will live forever with our sons. I will crown you with power. I will make you a goddess among women.”

“I’m curious,” said Lillian slowly.

Kami heard the clear, sharp sound of her boot heels hitting stone. She heard Rob’s indrawn breath.

“Suppose I said this to you: ‘I never loved you. I never will love you. That I trusted you enough to think you were worthy of a place at my side, that you could be left alone with my sister or my sons, is my greatest regret. I will never forgive you for the deaths you have already caused, and I will hate you until the seas are deserts if you destroy my town. I will never willingly touch you, and I will hate every moment when you touch me. But I will stay with you, and keep faith with you, because my sons are hostages for my good behavior.’ What would you say to me? Would you let me go, as I wish? Or would you keep me close?”

“I would have you with me,” said Rob. “Always.”

Kami heard the soft sound of a kiss. She felt Jared at her shoulder, turning violently away as if he could somehow make it stop by not listening to it. She felt Ash’s helpless misery thrumming through her, and she reached out and caught Ash’s hand.

“And so,” Lillian whispered. “I see there is not one drop of mercy in all your love.”

There was a crack then, a sound as if the whole faraway room had been made of china and abruptly dropped. Kami realized that Lillian had crushed the shell in her pocket before they could hear any more.

They knew Rob’s plan. They had heard enough.

They knew that they had to do whatever they could to stop him.

Chapter Twenty-One

Girl Reporter

The last day before the spring equinox, they hid in the Prescott farmhouse like rabbits in a burrow. Even the boys were quiet, either from fear or with hushed solicitude for Angela.

Of them all, Jon was the one who was most active, the most obviously worried, pacing the floor with restless helplessness. Kami wished she could make him feel better. She knew that being the last adult, he thought he should be able to fix everything. She knew he blamed himself for her mother’s fate and for Rusty’s. She knew he would solve it all for her if he could.

Her dad had always been a young dad, a fun dad. She’d never looked to him with the perfect faith that the boys had. She understood now better than ever that you could want to do the right thing, try as hard as you possibly could, and fail. She looked at him pacing, looked at his tired face with lines on it that had not been there before this winter, and loved him better than she ever had before.

The bells in the river were ringing again, marking the hours, the sounds flooding to them over the fields. The bells tolled for the town, and Kami’s head felt filled with the din, hammered with despair. There was no other sound in the night until there was a knock on the door, and Dad seized Tomo and pulled him close.

The door of the sitting room was open. They could see all the way down the long hall. The front door swung wide. Lillian Lynburn stood framed in the doorway.

“I came as soon as he was asleep,” she said.

Jared and Ash were suddenly on their feet and running toward her. Ash grabbed her at once, the first of them to reach her. Jared hung back, hesitating. Lillian had to reach out to him. She put one arm around each of them, drew their heads down to her shoulders.

“I went with Rob so that I could learn his plans and spare all your lives,” Lillian explained. “But I had to come back. I feared you would not hear the communication I sent you, and think I had turned to his side.”

“We didn’t think that,” Jon said. “It might have escaped your attention, Lavinia, but you are not a terribly subtle person.”

“And we heard,” Kami added. “Thank you. It was good to know.”

“It was good to know that creature is planning to destroy our town?” asked Lillian.

Kami was mildly surprised—she would have expected Lillian to say “my town.”

“Yes,” said Kami. “If he’s planning to do it, better to know. I always think that it’s better to know.”

Even if what you knew meant that you had to stop someone, or die trying.

It was why she had first wanted to be a journalist, be like the splendid figures of the past who had found power through words. She’d wanted to be like Nellie Bly, who had pretended to be mad and exposed the truth of what went on inside asylums more than a hundred years ago, or Gloria Steinem or Nancy Wake. She had looked up to such women, been so happy when she found a picture of a woman called Komako Kimura marching for women’s suffrage and read about how she started a magazine called New Real Woman. She had loved the idea of spreading truth like a fire, like touching a lit candle to another candle and watching its flame come to life, until the whole world was bright and you saw everything clear.

Do you know how you want to spend tonight? Ash asked, and their link meant that Kami saw both the question he had meant to ask and the question that lay beneath it: Do you know how you want to spend your last night?

Kami looked from Ash, to Angela, to Jared, to Lillian, to her family.

“Yes,” she said aloud, even though none of them knew what Ash had asked. “I think I do.”

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF AURIMERE

by Kami Glass

I know the story of Sorry-in-the-Vale now.

Everybody knows that the Lynburns came to this place and created this town because it was a perfect place for magic. They called the other sorcerers to them, and the other sorcerers and their families served them. More people came, those without magic, drawn to the Lynburns’ power and the prosperity of the town. They wanted to live in peace and happiness, on the wealth of the land. They believed that one sacrifice chosen from among the townspeople was a fair exchange for the protection and the plenty that the Lynburns offered. Even when the Lynburns left, we spoke of “when the Lynburns return” as though life without them was impossible, as if they and their power over us were as inevitable as the seasons.

From that day to this, the Lynburns have ruled us all. I worked so hard to find out the truth hidden at the heart of the town, and this is what I found. Magic and masters. What I want to ask you now is this: Do you believe their story? Do you believe that your town was a creation of the Lynburns, that you are the Lynburns’ creature, that you and your home were never anything more than that?

Nicola Prendergast died first, and Rusty Montgomery died last. Chris Fairchild, the Hope brothers, Ms. Dollard, Ingrid Thompson. So many have died for the Lynburns. They used to write in their books that our sacrifices would not be forgotten, but every sacrifice has been forgotten, was taken for granted, was taken as their due.

Our lives are worth more than that.

Rob Lynburn murdered Rusty Montgomery the day before the spring equinox, and he has more power now than any Lynburn has had for a century. He is going to use his power to destroy this town, because he believes that your lives were always due to him.

The whole town knew Rusty. He died to defend children. He taught women to defend themselves. Was he worth nothing because he had no magic, because his family was new to this town? Remember him.

Remember something else. Perhaps you stood by, when blood was spilled, when battles were fought. Perhaps you were scared for a moment and felt you had missed your chance. Perhaps you feel as if you are committed to a course of weakness, perhaps you blame yourself for blood already spilled.

Do not remember you were afraid before. Remember something else about yourself. Remember the best and brightest thing about yourself: the memory in your life that makes you the happiest, the action you took that makes you the most proud. If you lost someone, the day before yesterday or twenty years ago, remember what you loved about them and what they loved about you.

You do not have to believe in me. You do not have to believe in the Lynburns either. I am asking you to believe in the best part of yourself. Believe nobody else has any right to that, or ever did.

This is the real secret at the heart of Sorry-in-the-Vale: the stories whispered behind closed doors are lies. The Lynburns are not protecting us by terrorizing us and demanding our loyalty. If someone has the power and desire to protect you, they should do it and not ask for any exchange. You owe them nothing. Anyone who ever told you that it was the Lynburns’ right to rule was spreading a lie the Lynburns made up. They made up an excuse to take what they want, a lie because they did not want to give up power over you. They had to lie. They could not afford for you to know the truth. You were not born in their power. You lost nothing when they left. You lived without them, and you can live without them again.