He was relieved, somehow. That, at least, felt right.
“They didn’t have heavy lifting equipment,” Ronan said.
“But they could’ve had ropes and pulleys,” Blue noted. “Or more people. Move over, I can’t get my other hand on it.”
“I’m not sure it’ll make a difference,” Gansey said, but they all pushed closer together. Her body was crushed against his. Ronan was crushed against Adam on the other side of him.
There was silence except for their breathing.
Blue said, “Three, two —” and they lifted as one.
The lid came off, suddenly weightless in comparison. It shifted and slid rapidly away.
“Grab it!” Blue gasped. Then, as Gansey started forward, “No, wait, don’t!”
There was a sick, wrenching sound as the lid scraped diagonally off the opposite side of the coffin and careened to the floor. It came to rest with a smaller but more destructive sound, like a fist hitting bone.
“It’s cracked,” Adam said.
They drew closer. A coarse cloth hid the interior of the coffin from view.
This is not right.
Suddenly, Gansey felt deadly calm. This moment was so opposite to how his vision had portrayed it that his anxiety vanished. In its wake was nothing at all. He whisked the cloth free.
None of them moved.
At first he didn’t understand what he was looking at. The shape of it was alien; he couldn’t put it together.
“He’s facedown?” Blue suggested, but hesitantly.
Because of course that was what it was, now that she’d said it. A figure in a dark surcoat, purple or red, shoulder blades jutted toward them. A mass of dark hair, more than Gansey had expected, darker than he would’ve expected. His hands were bound behind his back.
Bound?
Bound.
Something uneasy spasmed inside Gansey.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Adam flicked the flashlight over the length of the coffin. Glendower’s surcoat was hitched, exposing pale legs. Bound at the knee. Facedown, hands tied, knees tied. This was how they buried witches. Suicides. Criminals. Prisoners. Gansey’s hand hovered, pulled away. It wasn’t that his courage had left him; his certainty had.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
Adam swept the flashlight again.
Blue said, “Ah …” and then changed her mind.
The hair moved.
“Jesus shit Mary f**k,” said Ronan.
“Rats?” Adam suggested, a suggestion so hideous that both Gansey and Blue recoiled. Then the hair moved again, and a terrible sound issued from inside the coffin. A scream?
A laugh.
The shoulders jerked, shifting the body in the coffin so that the head could turn to see them. As Gansey caught a glimpse of the face, his heart sped and then stopped. He was relieved and horrified.
It wasn’t Glendower.
He said, “It’s a woman.”
28
The woman didn’t wait for them to free her.
She wriggled and shimmied as they leapt back, and then she crashed down onto the floor, her hands and legs still bound. She landed right by Ronan’s feet and snapped at his toes with a wild laugh.
He and Chainsaw both flapped back.
Blue exchanged a hectic look with Adam.
And now the woman was singing:
“Queens and kings
Kings and queens
Blue lily, lily blue
Crowns and birds
Swords and things
Blue lily, lily blue”
She broke off with a hysterical laugh that perfectly matched the one that had come out of Chainsaw earlier. Rolling onto her back so that she was looking straight up at Ronan’s disgusted features, she cooed, “Cut me free, raven prince.”
“God,” he said, “what are you?”
She laughed again. “Oh! My rescuer came riding on a milk-white steed and he said fair lady I can bring you what you need —”
Ronan wore an expression nearly identical to the one he’d worn when they picked up Malory. “She’s crazy.”
Gansey said, very calmly, “Don’t touch her.” Before, when they’d thought it was Glendower, he’d seemed badly shaken, but now he had more than recovered. Blue’s heart was still charging from when the coffin lid had fallen and when the woman had slithered out. It wasn’t that she wanted Gansey to be the boss of her, but she was relieved that he was going to at least be the boss of this moment, while she convinced her pulse to slow.
He made his way around the coffin to where the woman lay.
Now that she was faceup, Blue could see that she was young, in her twenties, perhaps. Her hair was enormous, raven black and wild, and her skin was as pale as the dead. Her surcoat was possibly the most incredible thing about her, because it was real. It did not look like a medieval costume. It looked like a real piece of clothing, because it was a real piece of clothing.
Gansey leaned over her and asked, in his polite, powerful way, “Who are you?”
“One wasn’t enough!” she shrieked. “They sent another! How many young men are in my chamber? Please tell me it’s three, the number of the divine. Are you going to untie me? It’s very rude to keep a woman bound for any more than two or three or seven generations.”
Gansey’s voice was even calmer, or perhaps it was unchanged, and only seemed calmer in comparison to her rising cadence. “Was it you who possessed my friend’s raven?”
She smiled at him and sang, “All maidens young and fair, listen to your fathers —”
“That’s what I thought,” Gansey said, and straightened. He glanced to the others. “I don’t think it’s a wise idea to untie her.”
“Ah! Are you afraid?” she jeered. “Did you hear that I’m a witch? I have three br**sts! I have a tail, and horns! I am a giant down below. Oh, I’d be afraid of me, too, young knight. I could get you pregnant! Run! Run!”
“Let’s leave her,” Ronan said.
Gansey replied, “If we abandoned people in caves because they were crazy, you’d still be back in Cabeswater. Give me your knife.”
Ronan said, “I lost it.”
“How did you — never mind.”
“I have one,” Blue said, feeling smug and useful. She produced her pink switchblade as the woman’s gray eyes rolled up to look at her. Blue was rather afraid the woman would sing at her, but she just smiled, wide and knowing.
“I thought these were illegal?” Gansey asked, kneeling beside the woman. He seemed so unperturbed now, as if he were calmly dealing with a wild animal. He sliced the straps around the woman’s knees, but left her hands bound.