“I don’t know,” Murphy said with a slow shake of his head.

“I think I know why,” I whispered thoughtfully.

“Why?” Murphy asked, squinting through his pipe smoke at me.

“I think it has something to do with the water in that lake,” I told him. “You said I was dead, right?”

“Yes, or so I thought,” Murphy said.

“But that’s the difference. Can’t you see that?” I asked. “Jack said something about the waters being filled with the souls of all the people the wolves have murdered. You told me once yourself that’s why the fountain runs upwards, because it’s all the dead souls going back to heaven.”

“This is just getting weirder and weirder,”

Potter grumbled from the corner.

Murphy glared at him, then turned back to me. “So you think those red waters made you well – cured you in some way?”

“The dead waters,” I whispered. Then looking at Murphy, I added, “It’s the only difference between what happened to me and your daughters.”

“Sam called them the Dead Waters,”

Murphy said. “Sam said that the waters will heal us. If we bathe in them, they will stop us from turning to stone.”

“So they do have healing properties,” I breathed.

“And so does Olay Essentials, or so they say,” Potter cut in. “But you don’t see me prancing about wearing it.”

Ignoring him, I looked at Murphy and said, “This could be part of the answer we’ve been looking for.”

I couldn’t help but think of what the Elders had said to me in the graveyard. They had told me that if I didn’t choose between the Vampyrus and the humans, then my friends and I would turn to stone in this pushed world and be trapped here forever like statues. But what if the dead waters stopped us from turning to stone?

Then that would mean there was a flaw in the Elders’ plan. Perhaps there were more flaws that they hadn’t seen or perhaps weren’t telling me about? Perhaps I could go back with my friends if I pushed everything back? And there was someone else. Someone Jack had told me to go and find...someone who knew about the whole push thing...someone who was called...

“What are you thinking about?” Murphy cut in.

“Huh?” I said.

“You looked lost in thought,” he said.

“It was nothing.” I shook my head as if waking from a deep sleep.

Another silence fell over the room as if we were all lost to our own private thoughts. My mind raced with everything I had learnt since coming to this house – to this room. The Elders had been right about one thing. They had said that by choosing to seek out my father in this world, I had started along a path which would lead me to the person who would ultimately make me choose between the humans and the Vampyrus.

My train of thought was disturbed by the sound of a chair scrapping backwards across the rough wooden floorboards. I glanced up to see Murphy standing. He then hunkered down, and lifted his brother’s body into his arms.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I’m going to bury him,” he said. “Do you want to come? He was your father.”

“No,” I said softly. “I buried my father in the world before it got pushed. I don’t think I can do it again.”

“Fair enough,” Murphy said, heading towards the door, carrying his brother. “Get some rest while I’m gone. When I get back, we’ll set off in search of Kayla and Sam, then head for the Dead Waters.”

Then he was gone, the sound of his heavy footfalls disappearing down the stairs.

Chapter Thirty

Kiera

Without having to look up, I knew Potter was staring at me. Murphy might have explained his reason for lying to me and keeping the truth from me all these years, but Potter was still yet to offer up his excuses. To be honest, I didn’t know if I was ready to hear them. However much I tried, I couldn’t get those images of him with that teacher out of my head. To know that he had also lied to me about his relationship with Eloisa also hurt. And although I pretended I didn’t care, I did wonder what he thought of me, now that he knew what I really was and where I had come from.

Would any of that knowledge change his feelings towards me?

With his staring eyes making me feel uncomfortable, I stood up and looked out of the window. The first weak rays of winter sunlight were shining over the horizon. I looked down and could see Murphy slowly making his way through the snow, down the hill towards the graveyard. He looked a solitary figure, and although part of me still felt anger at what he had kept from me, there was another part of me which understood his reasons. All of the decisions he had made - right or wrong – Murphy had been trying to protect the people he loved most: Pen, his brother and my father, his daughters, and I knew in my heart he had been trying to protect me, too.

I felt a hand fall on my shoulder. I knew it was Potter who had crept up behind me. I shrugged his hand away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Yeah, and so am I,” I whispered back.

“I’m sorry I gave you my heart to rip in half.”

We stood quietly and watched Murphy disappear from view, his dead brother draped over his arms. In the distance there was something else, just faint like a charcoal smudge.

“More statues,” Potter said thoughtfully.

“Yes,” I nodded, glancing down at the faint cracks which had started to appear across the back of my hands again.

Another uncomfortable silence, as if neither of us knew what to say.

“Do you think Murphy will ever see Pen – Lilly Blu – or whatever her name is, again?”

Potter suddenly asked me.

“Yes,” I said, looking out of the window.

“How can you be so sure?”

Without looking at him, I said, “Jack, told me I had to find her.”