Tears started coming harder. Big, thick ones. Balthazar shuffled closer and wrapped an arm around me, patting me gently. Sharkey nuzzled his snout against my arm. Sitting in the dark forest, I still felt lost, but now there was a light to move slowly toward.
As I squinted, I realized the light wasn’t just in my head. It moved through the trees, far off, but silently. My body went rigid as I turned to Balthazar.
“Someone’s coming,” I whispered.
I pictured Elizabeth’s ghost walking through these bogs, just as she had when I’d nearly drowned with that sheep. How I wished she were here now to guide me, as she had then.
Sharkey barked as the light grew closer. I made out Montgomery’s guilt-ridden face reflected in the light as he followed the sound of our voices. He stopped.
“Juliet, thank God. I’m sorry.”
I wiped the last of the moisture from my eyes. Sharkey nudged himself closer, and I scratched his head as hard as he liked, hoping it would calm me, too.
“You should have told me the truth,” I said quietly. I stood, holding Sharkey tightly in my arms. “I’m not that same little girl you used to shelter from the bad things in the world, Montgomery. I’m grown, and I might make mistakes, but I’m capable of taking care of myself—and Ballentyne.” I took a deep breath full of the highland mist and looked in the direction of the lights of the house, hoping that was true.
“We’ll figure something out,” Montgomery said. “Radcliffe won’t take Ballentyne.”
I squinted toward the house, feeling the cold mist spread over me, listening to the sound of the dripping bogs. “I might have an idea how,” I said hesitantly, letting the idea grow, and reached down to cup a handful of water from the closest puddle. “It has to do with Jack Serra flooding the moors.”
Montgomery tensed. “You mean to drown Radcliffe and his men?”
I knew he wouldn’t like the idea of more bloodshed. Violence wasn’t in his nature, but he’d slaughtered the beast-men when he’d been given no choice. We had no choice now, either. I would try to reason with Radcliffe, but if that didn’t work, there was no way I was letting him harm a single one of those girls.
I shook my head. “We’re going to electrocute them.”
THIRTY-SIX
ON THE WALK BACK to Ballentyne I explained my idea.
“Jack Serra—Ajax—flooded the road when he broke the levees to slow down Radcliffe. It flooded the manor’s courtyard as well. There must be three inches of water soaking the gravel, deeper in places. The entire manor’s wired with electricity. If we can trap Radcliffe and his men in the flooded courtyard and introduce an electric current, it would electrocute anyone touching the water.”
For a few moments, Montgomery said nothing. I couldn’t tell if he was considering my plan, or if his silence came from disapproval. “That’s true,” he said at last. “But I think we owe it to Lucy to reason with him first. If we try to negotiate and he is still bent on bringing us harm, then I suppose we haven’t many other choices. The problem is that someone would have to connect a metal line to carry the current. There isn’t enough rubber in the house to insulate someone’s entire body against a current that strong. That person would be electrocuted, too. It’s suicide.”
I hesitated. “For a normal person, yes. Not for someone who can’t die.”
Ballentyne blazed in the distance, reflecting in Montgomery’s eyes. “You mean Edward.”
“Exactly. Elizabeth said the reanimated can’t be killed unless their bodies are destroyed beyond repair, which is how Hensley burned to death. A simple electric shock wouldn’t hurt Edward any more than the tree branch harmed Hensley. He might need a few small repairs, but he wouldn’t die.” I paused. “At least, I don’t think he would.”
“Is this why you brought him back? Because he’s useful to you?”
I stopped in the road, and Montgomery stopped as well, as Balthazar and Sharkey continued toward the flooded courtyard. I lowered my voice.
“You make me sound as ruthless as Henri Moreau. I didn’t bring Edward back to serve some purpose. He’s a person. A friend. I brought him back because he had been wronged, and I had the power to help him. If you died, I’d bring you back as well. Not because I wanted to use you, but because I love you.”
His face softened in the light of his lamp. Montgomery had destroyed the truth about my past. About my very identity, even. And yet as I looked into his eyes in the lamplight, I remembered how Henri Moreau had manipulated and abused Montgomery as a child, making him adore Father like a god, only to treat him like a slave. And Montgomery had gone along with it all those years, just for the chance of having a father.
“We’re married now,” I said. “No more secrets between us. Agreed?”
He held my hand in his, our gold rings glinting beneath the stars. “No more secrets.”
BY THE TIME WE returned to the library, McKenna had put the little girls to bed and was waiting with Carlyle and Jack, and Lucy and Edward, discussing how best to strengthen the front doors against attack.