Chapter 12 · The Seventh Lock

Silas has a knife to my throat before I can get back up the stairs.

I freeze. The blade's cold. Not sharp-cold. Cold like metal that's been sitting in a freezer, the kind that sticks to your tongue if you're stupid enough to lick it. He's standing three steps above me, blocking the only way out of this basement that doesn't involve the door that just whispered in my dead sister's voice.