Katie opened her mouth to say something, she wasn’t sure what—possibly that Cain and all of his descendants had been cursed forever for that one irredeemable act—but before she could speak, she felt the hairs stir on the back of her neck. She whirled and saw Gavin behind her, his raised fist coming at her. The blow drove her sideways, slamming her head into the wall. And then she didn’t care about any of them . . . not William Tear, not Mum, not Jonathan, no one.
When Katie woke, she was freezing. She seemed to be in a room of vast darkness, one that admitted neither light nor anything else. Her nostrils stung, and after a moment, she realized that she could smell mold: decay and damp earth, all around her. She reached out and found warm flesh beside her.
“Katie.”
“Jonathan,” she breathed, and for a moment she was so overwhelmed with relief that imprisonment seemed a very small thing. Jonathan was not one for embracing, but Katie didn’t care; she pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around him in the dark. Mum was dead, she remembered now, and Virginia. They were all dead: Tear, Lily, Aunt Maddy. She and Jonathan were the only two left.
“Are you injured?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
The answer chilled her, but Katie did not pursue it. She released him and began to feel around her. Stone floors, stone walls, all of it covered with a thin layer of slimy damp that felt like moss. Some sort of basement. Everyone had a basement, but the Town’s houses were made of wood, not stone. Above her head, far in the distance, Katie heard something that she at first took for a high wind, but a moment later she realized that it was too musical for that.
“Singing,” she murmured, and then, a moment later: “We’re under the church.”
“Yes.”
She cocked her head, listening again. The music had the thick sound of a choir, but it was distant, so distant. They were deep underground, too deep for anyone to hear them, even if they screamed in unison, and this realization, too, made gooseflesh prickle on her arms. Row had built this room, he must have. But for what?
“There must be a door.”
“Don’t bother,” said Jonathan. “It’s padlocked.”
“I can pick a padlock.”
“Not this one.” Jonathan sighed, and Katie heard grim humor in his voice. “Your friend is quite the locksmith.”
“He’s not my friend,” Katie snarled, moving down the wall. Her hand finally encountered wood, the doorframe, and then a door, so thick that even when she pounded on it, hurting her fist, she was rewarded only with a heavy, dead thuck.
She retreated, stepping over Jonathan, and dropped to sit against the wall again.
“Are they dead?” Jonathan asked. “Virginia and your mother?”
“Yes,” Katie replied. Tears were in her throat but she fought them, biting her lip until she drew blood. If she started crying in this dark place, she would never stop.
“Gavin,” Jonathan replied, wonderingly. “Row I knew about, but Gavin . . . I just never thought—”
Why not? Katie wanted to scream at him. Why didn’t you know? You know about every other goddamned thing, so why didn’t you know about this?
She took a deep breath, trying to settle herself. No percentage in panic, William Tear had always told them, and even an imaginary Tear was a calming presence. Gavin was a traitor, and Katie could only assume that the rest of the guard had turned as well. No one was coming for the two of them. If there was a way out, they would have to find it inside this room. Above their heads, the singing spiraled upward, reaching a crescendo on a high note and then dying away.
“What does Row want with us?” she asked.
“He wants my father’s sapphire.”
“Well, why doesn’t he just take it?”
“He can’t,” Jonathan replied. He paused, and Katie sensed that he was framing his response very carefully. Her temper cycled into life again—did he have to keep secrets even now?—but the spurt was short-lived. The Tears were what they were. She had known what she was signing on for, ever since that day in the clearing when Jonathan had grabbed her hand and spoken nonsense. She had no right to complain now about where they’d ended up.
“I don’t understand everything about my sapphire,” Jonathan continued. “Neither did my father, though he certainly knew more about it than I did. Row’s always wanted it for himself, but it can’t be taken. I have to give it away, and he knows that too.”
“What happens if he tries to take it?”
“Punishment.”
“What does that mean?”
“Give me your hand.”
Katie reached out and Jonathan took her hand, then wrapped it around something cold. She had not held Tear’s sapphire for many years, but she still remembered the feel of it perfectly: cold, yes, but alive, almost breathing beneath her fingers.