THE PRICE OF VENGEANCE

st, and Zale slid sideways across the leather with t

and said, "Keep it wound. A man who knows the time is never late for what matters." Zale hadn't understood that. He was twelve. What he understood was the wei

mirror, eleven of them, and none had landed on him. They went past him to the road behind

ted at the gatehouse," the driver sa

're inside.

d to a stop at the foot of the front s

d out, dragging his school bag by one strap. The door was still hanging open when the engine growled and the tires thre

o waiting to

still and list

ht of his life, stood spread wide. And the floodlights were off. All eight of them, mounted on their stone posts around the grounds, burning from dusk to da

built it to be remembered, and every window looked down on the drive like a lidless eye. Not one was lit. Not the kitchen, where Mrs. Pell left a lam

ase open and shut. Click

id, and the wo

was four, until Dorian told him only babies counted stairs, and he'd gone on counting silently e

n. Oak banded in iron, twice his father's height, and a thin black line ran down the seam where it should have been seal

shed. The hinges let out a long groan that ro

d of a cellar, a house that had stopped trying to hold anything in. His breath fogged in front of his face. He

the s

er was gone. Something heavier sat in its place, thick enough to coat the back of his tongue. Metallic. Sweet underneath, and wrong. Once, on a dare from Dorian, he had

gh his mouth. That was w

portraits of the dead Aldens lined the wall, their eyes catching a little gray from the high windows. He did not look at them. Beneath everything the grandfather clock by the stairs wen

hard it hurt. He pressed his free hand

om

lock. His own

ria

e doors of the living room. Not electric. A dull, flickering or

sound kept echoing after he'd stopped. After that he walked on the outer edg

open a foot. He pushe

is mother loved, and windows ran floor to ceiling along the south wall, black glass with the garden somewh

e a man who had decided to rest for a minute. His good charcoal suit. One loafer had come off and lay on its s

n leather, a little scuffed at

ow the dark was spreading through its pattern, seeping out from beneath his father in a slow, glossy edge. It found the

m flung toward the bench, his varsity jacket dragged halfway off one shoulder. His eyes were open. They

in dark ropes. She still wore the pearls. Her left hand rested beside the edge of the rug, palm up, fingers slightly curled, and it was perfectly, absolutely still. H

and under his father's cedar it mixed with

s Vance shaking hands beneath a banner. EXPANSION, the headline said. Three days old. Next to

dges of the room tilted and ran together, the fire smearing into one long orange streak. He looked down at his hands and could not feel them. They hung at

o

e noise he would have sworn was waiting inside him. His eyes stayed wide open and dry

, the clock

ee buckled and caught

so

ike a hiccup, like a brea

ung. Then it came again, so faint he almost los

yr

of him, hardl

ugh the dark beneath the cushions and found dust and a dead pen. The drapes. He tore them aside and found the window seat empty

it's

om the east windows, un

square of oak that sounded hollow when you knocked, and Lyra had hidden in it so well

the far side, and ran his fingers along the seam in the wood. Rough grain. A spl

plastered to one cheek. Her eyes were wide open and fixed on nothing, her mouth a little open, and her whole body shook so

reached in.

'd held. He sat down hard with his back against the window seat, dragged her into his lap, and wrapped both arms around her. He pressed her face int

whispered. "I've go

his sweater and held. S

gh

and fixed itself on the tall black windows. Headlights. Two sets, then a third, laying long bars ac

veral pairs, not hurrying. A car door shut with a careful, quiet

ole body

locked against his neck and stumbled, bent low, across the room, past the fire, to the alcove where his father's d

le in the eye. If something ever happens and I can't, he'd said, and then stopped, and said nothing else

plastic flap. He thumbed it and the screen flared green, far too bright, and he crushe

r

Fourteen of them. He counted

ang

nails dug into the

licked ope

please. They're in the house. They killed everybody, Lyra

rte

shrieking off its hinges, and the w