Page 58 of When Ashes Fall

“According to the sprites, they’re the reason Betsy turned into a rose.”

Henrietta’s voice broke through the confusion. The sprites must have discussed the curse at least once when they came here, so these apparitions knew what happened to their loved ones.

“I’d like to kill her,” another declared.

This was getting ugly fast as a chorus of agreement ran through the cemetery until the furthest voices were shouting their desire to tear me apart. I had to figure out this necromancy thing soon because, if I accidentally raised these dead, I’d be one of them.

“She’s probably poisoning Betsy!” a woman screeched.

“Get away from my daughter!” Henrietta screamed in my ear.

It was so loud, I instinctively winced away from it. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath to steady my jangled nerves, but it was too late… Henrietta had noticed my reaction to her.

“I think she heard me!” Henrietta shrieked.

“That’s not possible, Hetty. You’re a phantom, but you’re not daft.”

“Fuck you, Marshall. I know what I saw. She flinched away from me!” The cold against my neck increased as ice crept up to my earlobe. “You heard me, didn’t you?”

I was fairly certain Henrietta was screaming directly in my ear as ice encased it and my eardrum vibrated, but this time I managed to restrain myself from reacting. Instead, I stoppered the bottle, stood, and turned to Knox.

“I’m going to search for the Camdens’ graves,” I told him.

His head tilted to the side as he frowned at me. “Why are you shouting?”

I stopped myself from gulping as a stone settled in my stomach. I hadn’t realized I’d shouted over the phantoms he couldn’t hear.

“The wind,” I lied, and not well. “I wasn’t sure you’d hear me.”

Thankfully, the wind had picked up. Knox didn’t look convinced by my words, but what other reason was there for me to shout at him?

“You come back here,” Henrietta commanded as I strolled through the tombstones.

I examined the names as I moved and diligently ignored the icy patches of air that I strode through. Am I walking through phantoms?

The idea of it unnerved me, but I couldn’t think of any other explanation for those spots of freezing air.

The voices buzzed around me as Henrietta occasionally let out banshee screams in my ear. I somehow managed to keep myself together every time she tried to startle me by destroying my eardrum, but she refused to give up.

If I could raise the dead, I might bring Henrietta back so I could punch her in the face… if she still had a face.

I didn’t know how that would work. Would they rise as bones? Would they crawl out of their graves as their former selves? Or would they emerge somewhere in between both and come out as rotting corpses with their flesh falling off?

All those things sounded ghastly, but that last option was the worst. The idea of zombies wandering around the kingdom unnerved me. I hugged myself to ward off the goose bumps covering my arms; it was useless.

I wasn’t an eighth of the way through the cemetery when the wind shifted. Knox, who had paralleled me through the headstones, stopped a few feet away and tipped his head back. His nostrils flared as he scented the air.

“There’s a storm coming,” he said. “We have to return to the castle.”

The sky had been darkening all day, but now, over the tops of the trees, night was replacing the day as rolling black clouds hovered in the distance. I’d hoped to find Archie’s parents, but I was eager to leave this place that had started to feel more like January instead of late April. I was ready to be warm again.

I studied the graveyard as I tried to remember my exact location so I didn’t search the same headstones the next time I came. I’d stopped near an old oak tree with a crack racing up its trunk. I could find it again.

Excited to flee the cemetery, I turned and walked back toward Magnazius. Before I made it more than a few steps, Knox shouted something, but the howling wind tore his words away.

I was turning back to him when something hit me in the side with the impact of a runaway horse. When I hit the ground, I grunted as the air burst from my lungs. The unyielding soil pressed against my chest as its earthy aroma filled my nose.

Knox had locked his arms around me, and his solid weight bore down on my back. I had no idea why he’d tackled me and didn’t have a chance to ask before he pushed himself off me and leapt to his feet.