My Marionette Lover novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Ledge

"Put that down, Arlen," Augusta said.

She didn't raise her voice.

She lifted two fingers from her lap, and the black thread went rigid.

The ledger fell out of Arlen's arm and hit the tiles with a crack.

"You've been in my cabinet," Augusta said. "You've read my book. How very thorough."

"Let him go," I said.

"Of course I will. When he's twenty-three."

She rose from the chair, small and straight, and walked to the window.

She opened it.

Cold air came in, smelling of leaves.

Outside there was a stone ledge about a foot wide, running along the face of Redfern Hall four floors above the lawn.

"Arlen, dear," Augusta said. "Come and look at the view."

He walked to the window.

I saw it in his face: he couldn't stop his feet.

"No," Arlen said. "No, I'm not..."

"You're going to stand on the ledge," she told him, quite calmly, "so your friend understands how this works."

He climbed onto the sill.

I grabbed the jester and flung my silver thread across the room, and it caught him at the hip.

I pulled with everything I had.

Arlen stopped with one foot on the ledge and the other inside.

His whole body was shaking between two forces, and he made a high thin sound.

"Hazel," Augusta said. "You'll tear him in half."

"Let go!"

"After you."

I pulled harder.

She pulled harder.

I had never felt anything like it.

Her thread was the weight of a river, deep and dark and perfectly sure of itself.

Mine was a hair.

But I wouldn't let go.

If I did, he would step out onto the ledge and she would lean back and watch.

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