“Nothing,” said Zoe.
“You are lying,” said Ripper. The ocean hissed on the rocks a hundred yards away. A lighthouse beam swept the black water. “I must know everything.”
Zoe had said the same thing to X about her father.
“I don’t know very much,” she told Ripper. “Belinda was committed in 1835.”
“She was a child!” said Ripper. “What did they claim as her demons?”
“Grief,” said Zoe. Of course Belinda was grieving, she thought—she lost her mom, then her brother burned to death right in front of her. “Grief, hysteria, and something called ‘Gathering in the head.’ ”
She prayed Ripper wouldn’t ask anything else.
“And how long was my daughter a prisoner of this place? Dammit, must I drag every detail out of you!”
Zoe just said it: “Twenty-five years. She froze to death in her bed. She was thirty-five.”
Ripper stalked off in the direction of the water, then whirled back.
“And when my Belinda died,” she asked, “they threw her body down this chimney—whereupon it landed atop the corpses of other blameless sons and daughters? Is that correct? And then they consigned the mass of them to flames. Is that correct?”
Zoe wanted to say something comforting, but what could it possibly be?
“Yes,” she said. “I think that’s right.”
“If our positions were reversed,” said Ripper, “what would you do about this hateful monument lurking behind me?”
“If I had your powers?” said Zoe.
“Yes, if you had my powers,” said Ripper. “Of course if you had my powers.”
“I’d tear the thing down.”
Ripper charged at the tower so suddenly that Zoe didn’t have a chance to step back. She saw a blur of gold—Ripper’s jet trail in the darkness—and heard the boom of impact. The chimney shook. The mortar between the bricks split open and sent out puffs of dust, but the tower didn’t fall.
Ripper trotted back to Zoe for a second run. She was sweating and glowing with purpose now. The shoulder of her dress was torn.
“The tower and I are having a disagreement,” she said. “The tower believes I am incapable of knocking it down. Yet we beg to differ, don’t we?”
“Yeah we do,” said Zoe.
She watched Ripper’s second assault. Again, there was a golden blur, a concussive boom, a rush of dirt and wind. Again, the tower refused to fall.
“Bloody ignorant tower,” said Ripper, readying for her third attempt. “It seems not to know who I am.”
Zoe laughed.
“You remind me of Val sometimes,” she said.
“I am happy to hear it,” said Ripper, checking the damage to her dress. “Val has a fiery spirit and tremendous hair.”
The blur. The boom. The rush.
This time, the tower hesitated—then toppled into the grass.
Ripper emerged from the rubble, coughing and waving away dust. She gave Zoe such a pleased grin that Zoe nearly cried.
Ripper adjusted her gown, and twisted her wild, raven hair back into a knot. The ritual smoothing-of-the-dress had become one of Zoe’s favorite things about Ripper. The things that ball gown had survived! It was like the flag in “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Thank you for locating that tower—and making me face it,” said Ripper. She picked a brick off the ground, then said the following as if it were an afterthought: “Now, if you can survive my absence a moment, I must go dismember the bounty hunters who have been stalking us these past thirty minutes.”
“Bounty hunters plural?” said Zoe.
“I counted three as we passed through the woods,” Ripper said.
“You said you didn’t see anything!” said Zoe.
“I didn’t see them,” said Ripper. “I heard them.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Zoe. “One of them might be X.”
“Or all three could be deranged samurai,” said Ripper. “You are not coming. You are to stay rooted here.”
“I’m not good at doing what I’m told,” said Zoe.
“The same’s been said of me,” said Ripper. “But I forbid you to follow. X would not stalk us from a distance. He would bound into your arms. He is not among them.” Seeing Zoe’s expression, Ripper softened. “I promised you X and you shall have X, even if it is only for a moment. The lords must be in a fury because of my antics, for Dervish is not the only one obsessed with the secrecy of the Lowlands. I will disfigure these hunters. If the lords have not sent X for me by the time I’m through, I will wreak havoc all night. That lighthouse in the bay? It will not live to see the morning.”
Ripper tilted her head up at the blue-black sky and shouted to the lords, “Do you doubt me?”
“I think the lords are down there,” said Zoe, pointing to the ground.
“Ah, yes,” said Ripper. She knelt and screamed at the grass this time: “DO YOU DOUBT ME?!”
“I don’t doubt you,” said Zoe.
“No one ever has and survived,” said Ripper.
She shot back toward the woods.
And then: Silence. Darkness. Even the spotlight made a sudden popping noise and went out. Zoe stared at the woods a while longer, desperate for some sign or sound—for proof that Ripper was safe or that X was coming. She’d slept for hours in the meadow, but she was still so tired. She felt it in every part of her now. The day had unglued her. When it was over, she was going to snuggle with Jonah in a pillow fort. Her mom and Rufus could come and go around her. They could vacuum around her. She was going to sleep for a week.
The minutes passed slowly. Zoe imagined the heavy, iron hands of an enormous clock. She felt like she had to push them forward herself.
She turned to face the ocean. The lighthouse cast its faint circle onto the waves. Otherwise, the water was so dark it was just a vast, soft noise, an inhaling and exhaling, a presence.
The lighthouse sprouted three more beams. Zoe walked toward it, just because it was pretty and comforting. She’d never seen one in real life before. It was like it wore a crown of light.
One of the beams began to crackle, as if it were short-circuiting.
A spark drifted down toward the water.
Rather than extinguishing in the waves, the spark turned the whole ocean gold—just for a second, like a light flicked on and off.
It was a signal from X. She knew it was.
He had come.
Zoe felt the ground rushing beneath her.
She looked down and saw that she was running.
part two
Captive
five
“I like it when you beseech me,” she told X, as she pulled him down by his shirt. “Beseech me some more.”
X grinned. Zoe was so lovely … He couldn’t think of anything she wasn’t lovelier than.
He’d shoved the orange rowboat away from the dock, and it was slicing through the harbor. After 200 feet, the craft finally slowed, turned in a lazy arc in the water, and came to rest in the dark. There were a few blurry clouds in the night sky. To X, it looked like someone had tried to erase the stars.
He kissed Zoe, and felt their bodies breathe into each other. She began pulling up his shirt.
“Wait,” he said. “I want to see you.”
He pressed his palms to the sides of the boat. A pale light materialized.
“You and your tricks,” said Zoe.
She scanned the water to make sure no one was close.
“Only the heavens know what we do,” X said.
Zoe laughed.
He was afraid he’d said something foolish, but she pulled off her shirt, and her skin shone pink in the moonlight—and she dove at him.
Later, they lay entangled at the bottom of the boat, her legs wound around him, their clothes flung everywhere.