“But do your friends know about your extraordinary gift?” she asked, leaning in confidentially.
His eyes widened, and he suddenly sank and vanished into his sheets. A thud and a yelp of pain came from below, and I found him on the floor underneath the bed, wincing and holding his leg. Some of the boys around us noticed the commotion as Miss Grey and I scrambled to lift him back up to his bed. Fortunately, the nurses were too busy to notice.
“Here, this will help,” I said, relenting and grasping the knee of his injured leg. “Just don’t slip away again.”
“I can’t help it,” he said. “Sometimes I lose my hold and fall through walls or floors.”
“Is that how you got these injuries?” Miss Grey asked.
He nodded. “It was the stairs that time. But no one believes me. When I try and prove it, it don’t work. How did you two know about me?” He lowered his voice and raised his head closer. “Can you do it, too?”
Miss Grey shook her head. “We have our own gifts. When I sleep, I can dream of anyone else with a special gift—that is how we found you. And Miss Wyndham here can heal others. With her hand on your leg, in a few minutes, it’ll be as if you never got hurt.”
He looked at my hand in disbelief, then back up to me. “Will you visit me every time I get hurt?”
My lips twitched against my will, and in a room with a healer, a dreamer, and a ghost, this moment of happiness felt like the strangest thing there. I tried to stifle it back, waging a silent war within myself between the manageable numbness and the overwhelming pain, thinking the choice was obvious. But I watched as Miss Grey told Oliver all about the powers, teaching him with the same comforting authority I remembered as a girl. I watched as Oliver gasped in wonder and excitement, the world finally making a little more sense. And I watched as Oliver’s broken arm and leg were restored to full health, a miracle I could never imagine feeling commonplace. There were countless others out there who needed the same help, but strangely, now it didn’t feel quite so daunting and futile. It felt almost comforting, the fact that there would always be more. For the first time in a while, I had that excited rush of a new idea, a new plan unfurling in my head.
“Instead of a visit every time you are hurt, how would you like to accompany us and rescue some new friends?” I asked.
Oliver’s eyes danced with excitement. “Really?”
I nodded. “Miss Grey, where did you say that asylum was?”
Her head snapped up at that, though I could not tell if it was in excitement, trepidation, or both. “B-Belgium. In the south.”
Well, I had always wanted to see the Continent. I turned to Miss Grey and Oliver. The muscles of my mouth contorted to a smile for the first time in a month.
“All right. I have no other plans. Let’s go save a life.”
FIRST AND FOREMOST: to the Swoon Reads team, thank you. This process has been a dream, and we are still pinching ourselves to make sure it’s . . . not a dream, actually. Jean, thank you for believing in us. Lauren, thank you for all your cheerleading, late hours, and answers to our silliest questions. Emily, you’re such a delight and we know this book wouldn’t be what it is without you. Rich and KB, thank you for our cover. It’s better than we could have ever imagined. And finally, Holly: What would we do without you? Thank you so much for picking up These Vicious Masks and for the handholding and hours of editing since. We are a little in awe of you, and eternally grateful. To the rest of the stunning Swoon Reads team, thank you so much for all your efforts on our behalf. We appreciate it more than we can say here.
But before our manuscript ever reached the Swoon Reads site, we had many wonderful readers and cheerleaders. First, Laura Gillis who spent hours championing us and helping us rewrite. Thank you, Laura, for all your time and support. Kyra Nelson, thank you for your notes and advice and for being Mr. Braddock’s earliest fan. Elliot Handler, thank you for answering our endless medical questions and for being the first person to read that messy first draft, making us believe it really could someday be a book. To our other friends and family who read this book at various stages and gave us hope, ideas, and enthusiasm when we were lagging: Beth Latz, Peter Richman, Alex Ricciardi, Zelda Knapp, Eric Messinger, Calaine Schafer, Frederika and Isabella Reinhardt, Vanessa Santos, Erin Keskeny, the Floe family, Dayle Towarnicky, Cayla O’Connell, Katie Owen and, surely more. We love you guys a lot.
To the creative, hungry, funny, and kind people we have met on Swoon Reads, we are so thankful for your feedback and comments and ratings. It’s been an absolute pleasure to be a part of this community and 100 percent impossible to do this without you. Thank you.