"You murdered her," hesaid once he caught his breath, tears still blurring his vision, hanging on hisbottom lashes.
"Jesus,"Theodore hissed. "She really is here…"
Elysium didn't grab at himagain, but he squatted down to get at eye level. It wasn't unlike the way hehad squatted beside him as a boy, when Benedict would fall down or find himself in a fit of terror—there had been much to befrightened of in this house as a kid. Elysium would always be the calming voiceof reason, laying things out for him just as they are but with the addedpromise that he would be okay. And Benedict had always believed him, even inthe thick of their worst fights, he had believed Elysium.
"How did you get downhere? You weren't here before, and there's only one door," he nudged hishead in the direction of an old wooden staircase. "Benny, you weren'there, and then you suddenly were."
Benedict laughed, startlinghimself with the sound. "You're disturbed because you don't know how I didit? That's what your takeaway is?"
"Benny—" Elysiumtried again, voice ever firm.
"The house movedme," Benedict interrupted him, staring hard to see the traces of fearswirling deep in those eyes—eyes like his own. "I saw it. I saw what youdid. I know why you're going to die here tonight—why we're all going to die."
Hazel hissed between herteeth. "Fuck that," she snapped. "I am not going to be killed bysome nobody ghost."
Benedict sat back, palmspressed into the dirty floor to prop himself up. He tossed his head to the sideto look around his brother at his cousins hovering over the table. Theodore looked appropriately terrified, but Hazel stillclung to her anger. It had become her buoy in the cold, dark ocean of comingdeath. "Nobody?" Benedict repeated. "Your victim, Hazel. Yourvictim—or maybe Gloria Lyon herself."
Hazel snorted angrily andflipped through the pages of the notebook. By the furious way she slapped thepages down, one after the other, it seemed it wasn't the first time she hadgone through the journal. No spells to undo a murder? No way to take back whatthey had done?
"Why?" Benedictasked, throat drying around the question and tear-swollen eyes shifting back toElysium.
His brother still crouchedbeside him, but his gaze focused on nothing, the way it did when he tried tothink his way out of a corner. "What?" he asked distantly beforeblinking back to the present, brow pinching when he stared at Benedict. "Why, what?"
"Why did you kill her?Why her?"
Elysiumsighed, the way a man does when a piece of his soul leaves his body. "Youreally see her?"
"Everyday."
Elysium nodded slowly,shoulders sagging as much as a person with good posture ever could. "Isshe here now?"
"Not in this room."Benedict didn't have to look around to know. He always knew when she was withhim. He felt her even when she wasn't, like a line connected them. Was thatwhat they had done? Connected them?
"I'm so sorry,"Elysium whispered. "We only meant to give you the sight—hersight."
His face burned, the musclesin his jaw jumping when he clamped his teeth together. "You killed her forthat? So that I would see ghosts like you?"
"Like all Lyons,Benedict. All of us see them. Uncle Vernon and Mother said that if you couldn'tsee them—if you didn't develop any gifts—that you would have to be removed fromthe family line. It's an old tradition, Benny. I tried to talk them out of it,but they said we were all bound by the laws of the Lyon family."
"So what?" hesnapped, sitting upright. "So, I would have been kicked out? I leftanyway!"
He was halfway to his feetwhen Elysium said in a quiet voice, "Not kicked out. Removed."
Benedict froze just as hislegs straightened. Elysium rose to his feet. He was taller than Benedict, justa little bit, but forever now that they were far from the age of growing."They were going to kill me?"
Elysium nodded slowly."It was this or lose you."
All of his air gushed out ofhim, pushing him a step back. "You're all insane."
"We thought we'd put herto rest, Benny, I swear," Elysium continued. "We thought the spellwould leave you with the sight of spirits… We didn't realize it would leave herbound to you for that sight." He spoke carefully, slowly, as thoughexamining something truly baffling.
Benedict burst, body thrustingforward. The heels of his palms slammed into his brother's chest, shovingElysium back three steps. His ass hit the heavy slab of a table where they hadkilled Emmeline.
"That's not the point,you shitbag!" Benedict roared. "How can youstill not see that what happened, how it went wrong, isn't the point?You murdered a girl!"
Theodore stared at him, too,now, eyes big as saucers and body still as a statue. "She wasnobody," he whispered. "She would have had a tragic life. We weresaving her…" he trailed the same sentiment as Lucy but with even less conviction.It was like the way a child held up a blanket, believing it would hold back allthe monsters of the night.
Benedict twisted his face,glaring at his cousin before swinging his attention back to Elysium. "Whatis that about? Why do they keep saying that?"
"Because that's what wetold them," Elysium said quietly. His tone was strange now, gentle, andmissing something that had always been there. "Do you remember how sickyou were? Your fever?"
Benedict's brow was pinched sotight that his head hurt. "Yeah, sure."
"You were eighteen. Theyhad started poisoning you."
Hazel slammed the old journalshut and shrieked another curse before storming across the room and up thestairs.
Theodore remained, breathingin tight gasps.
"I had to find someonefast," Elysium continued, voice still off—hushedand a little hollow. He had lost his certainty, his firm authority. He wasconfessing. "Mother would grant you more time if I could find someone forthe binding spell—time to see if it worked. So, I found her, and I told themshe had no one in her life, a drug addict spiraling toward a fast and tragicend."
Benedict's throat burned withall the screams he swallowed down. "But the truth?"
Elysium lifted his gaze from aspot on the floor, tears swimming in his eyes, but he fought to hold them back."She wasn't well off. She wasn't going anywhere in life."
"But?"
"She had afamily—parents and siblings and friends. She was happy,
