“Ah, at last,” Jupiter says, a self-satisfied grin curling the corners of his mouth. “Kassia has completed her task. She’s over-inspired enough Mundanes for my army, as you call it, Miss Harper. Three thousand of them, to be exact—certainly more than enough to overwhelm the Board and take the academy. So while I admire your bravado, I rather think we’re finished, don’t you? All that remains is for us to find a good seat from which to watch the show.”
Jupiter Raventhorne holds out his hand again and, turning his wrist, inspires our captors to begin dragging us forward, taking us down the path behind the last of Kash’s zombies.
But we don’t get far. We barely go a step before Kash hauls herself to her feet again. Her sheer skirt, tights, and ballet shoes are soiled, and a mixture of sweat and ash is smeared across her face, but her eyes are her own. Clear and lively. She’s no longer under Jupiter’s control.
Now, she dances for herself.
Chapter Fourteen
“What is she doing?” Jupiter seethes immediately. “Stop her! Stop her at once!”
The ravens are already gone, off to watch over the army swarming down on Brightling this very moment. All Jupiter has to rely on are his two lackeys. Abandoning Sebastian and me, they start forward, heading toward Kash. They walk a few paces, then stop abruptly, as if an invisible fence has risen between us and her.
Jupiter’s composed demeanor shatters. “Why are you waiting?” he screams at them. “I said to stop her!”
No matter how vigorously he waves his hands or twists and turns his wrists, though, they don’t obey his commands. They’re inspired by Kash now. The marionette turned puppet master.
I reach for Sebastian, winding my arm around his. “What do you think she’s up to?” I whisper as we watch.
“We’ll have to see.”
We don’t have long to wait. Kash picks up speed, twirling and leaping to some fast-tempoed tune in her head. I’ve never seen her dance with such precision and life. And as she moves, the evening breeze begins to rise around her. It blows and howls until it mixes with the ash on the ground. Then it intensifies, picking up pieces of the statues. A mess of soot and artificial limbs swirl around her.
“She’s making this happen—she’s doing this!” I gasp.
The windstorm grows and rises, its circle expanding. It tosses my hair and makes my skirt billow. Sebastian wraps his arms around me, holding me tight—as though I might blow away—while it engulfs us.
“Don’t let go,” he shouts over the roar of the wind.
I close my eyes and brace myself, clinging to his Brightling blazer, waiting to be coated in grime and battered by the whirling pieces of statues. The wind rages, taking us—along with Jupiter and his servants—inside Kash’s circle. But the beating never comes. Instead, the wind seems to be sheltering us, guarding us, a fence between us and the destruction outside its boundaries.
I open my eyes tentatively. First, my left … then my right. What I see amazes me. The statues turn in the wind, the pieces gravitating toward one another. They meet and mend, knitting together on their own to restore the likenesses of the ancient Muses they represent. Calliope. Urania. Erato. They reshape so fast that I barely have time to recognize one before another appears.
Then, as quickly as the statues repaired themselves, they burst again—this time in a swirl of color and fog. In each statue’s stead appears an ethereal being. A form made not of blood and bone but of light and mist. Each one is a woman—one bearing a lyre or a compass, a crown of laurel or a veil.
“It’s them,” I breathe, taking them all in. “They’re here—the Muses, resurrected.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jupiter hisses bitterly.
For a moment, the Nine rotate in the wind around us, then one of them separates herself from the mythic cyclone. The Muse is an impossibly beautiful woman with long, wavy hair—so much like mine—and a scroll in her hand. She moves to the center of the circle, her white tunic billowing around her, but her stare stays on me the entire time.
“Clio?” I ask her.
The woman nods. “My Lost Scroll has been found, its prophecy nearly fulfilled.”
“You’re here, though,” I tell her, freeing myself from Sebastian’s grasp and stepping closer. “There must be something you can do to stop it.”
Clio shakes her head sadly. “There is one who has the power to stop this tragedy from passing, but it is not me.”
“Who is it? Where can I find them? I’ll look for them—I’ll get them here,” I tell her, talking quickly, desperately. “Just give me time—please.”
“I’m afraid the person with the power to end this cycle has no set name or dwelling, Bianca,” she says softly.
I frown, and tears fill my eyes as I drop slowly to my knees, weak and defeated. This is useless—another riddle, a tease. “How can such a person exist?” I murmur. “Everyone has a name and a place where they belong.”
“The one I speak of must be a very singular Muse, one with pure intentions and a strong will,” Clio continues. “She must be able to carry on even after the brightness in the halls of her eyes has gone dim. She must be willing to make a sacrifice.”
“What kind of sacrifice?” I squeak.
“The sacrifice of her gift—of that which makes her what she is: a Muse. In so doing, her powers will replenish the Well from which all the others drink, and with the source of our ancient magic restored, the prophecy will be reversed.”
Clio reaches out to me, brushing her hand against my cheek. I cannot feel the warmth of her flesh—she has none. Instead, I feel a gentle dusting, like the tip of a feather, where she touches me.
“Could you be such a Muse, Bianca?” she asks me softly.
Her words leave me trembling. I draw my arms around myself. “You mean … I could be the one to stop the prophecy, but I’d have to … give up being a Muse?”
She nods slowly, sadly.
Behind me, Sebastian steps forward, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Bianca, no! You can’t give up your gift—there must be another way.” He looks up at Clio himself. “You don’t understand—Bianca’s from a long line of Muses, and she’s one of your descendants. She’ll let her family down if she gives up her power.”
“I understand who Bianca is, and I am afraid it is because of her lineage that this burden rests with her,” Clio tells him. “I, too, wish it did not need to be so, but it has been ordained by the stars since the beginning of time. The Well of Imagination is not infinite. It must be tended to, nurtured—or, much like any other well, it can go dry.”
Sebastian lowers himself to the ground beside me. As the winds continue to turn around us, he looks into my face. “I’m so sorry, Bee,” he whispers, reaching for my hands. “If I could give up my powers instead, I would.”
Tears stream down my cheeks. He’s right. All this time, I’ve been studying, working, trying to make my family proud—to carry out our legacy. It’s all I’ve thought about for years. Giving up my gift will break my family’s hearts. And mine. The last of the Harpers won’t just be a Brightling Academy dropout—I won’t even be a Muse at all. The ultimate failure.
But if I don’t do this, the consequences will be worse. The prophecy will come true. Art will disappear from the world. Mundanes will turn from beauty and goodness, and disorder and selfishness will reign. Already, I’ve seen what the world will look like—the gloom, the ugliness, the cruelty. Sebastian’s right: once the prophecy is fulfilled, it will get even worse. Jupiter isn’t wrong to think the Mundanes will destroy themselves before long.
And I can’t let that happen.
I glance around me. Ashes or not, this is Brambleton. This is where my grandmother took me as a child, where she told me about Muses and explained our family’s heritage. It’s where she assured me that I’d do great things—that I’d be a strong enough Muse someday to inspire not just dancers or painters, not just poets or actors. I’d be strong enough to inspire them all.
The task alw
ays seemed enormous to me, something too big to handle. It made me doubt myself and my abilities. I could never live up to those expectations, I thought. But maybe my grandma was right. Maybe, like Clio, she has a bit of a Seer inside herself, too. Maybe giving up my gift and replenishing the Well of Imagination is my path—my way of inspiring them all. Maybe this is what I’m meant to do.
Drying my tears, I glance up at Clio. “I’ll do it.”
“Bee?” Sebastian says my name questioningly, as if testing me, trying to make certain I mean what I’ve just said.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. I give his hands a reassuring squeeze. “I want to do this. I’m sure. I don’t want to live in a world without beauty.”
Before he can say anything to convince me otherwise, I stand and face Clio. “I’m ready for whatever you must do.”
“You have made the ancients—and me—very proud, Bianca,” she says, smiling kindly. “This will not hurt, my dear, and when it is finished, your name will be revered among the pantheon of our kind.”
Clio raises her misty hands to my face, a feather’s kiss on either cheek, and as she does, the ghostlike ring of Muses swirls faster and faster, circling around us in a blur of light and color. The wind whips at my hair and tousles my skirt, so forcefully that it almost seems to make a humming sound. I close my eyes and listen carefully. I can almost hear my name murmured in the breeze.
“Biiiiiaaaaannnnncaaaaa …”
It’s as though the ancients are singing just for me. A lovely, single-noted lullaby.
And then I hear something hideous.
“No! I will not allow this to transpire!”
Even before I jerk my eyes open again, I know who has spoken. Jupiter Raventhorne. He charges closer to the spot where Clio and I stand, fury unravelling the refined effect of his well-tailored clothes and good manners.
“It’s time we stop sharing our gifts with the Mundane,” he hisses. “They are unworthy, just as your father was unworthy of your mother, Sebastian. His abandonment of you both only made my belief in this truth much stronger. We deserve to keep our powers to ourselves, to use them for our own benefit. Let the Mundane destroy themselves. We will inherit the earth in their stead, and we will use it to create a grand civilization—a pure, pristine world like the ancients enjoyed!”
As he speaks, Jupiter raises his arms to his sides, extending his hands and exposing his wrists with a single turn. “Butler and Butler, take her!” he screeches.
Beyond Clio, Kash still dances, keeping the circle of ancients spinning around us, but her power isn’t strong enough to maintain the immortals, keep both Butlers under her spell, and fend off Jupiter. The Butlers stumble forward, torn from her inspiration to stay still, and lunge toward me. In a heartbeat, they tug on my arms, trying to drag me away from Clio’s grasp. They yank and pull, ripping the seams of my Brightling blazer. I can barely hear the fabric tearing over the hum of the wind, but I feel it shredding, a cool breeze taking its place.
“Help me!” I scream.
Sebastian is already on his feet, joining in the fray. He throws a punch to one Butler’s face before wrestling him into a headlock. The Butler twists free and retaliates with a series of slugs and shoves.
“Sebastian!” I whimper his name as I watch him fall to the ground.
One Butler may be gone, distracted by Sebastian, but the second remains, still stubbornly pulling against my arm. So hard that I’m afraid it might break.
“Please,” I beg Clio. “Help us.”
Jupiter Raventhorne’s powers of inspiration may be strong—and his pair of Mundanes may be made of this earth, with skin and muscle—but Clio is still stronger. She keeps her palms pressed to my face and simply smiles serenely, anchoring me to her mist. No matter how hard Butler tries to drag me away, I don’t budge.
“You shall not take her,” Clio tells Jupiter. “Beauty is meant to be shared. It is nothing without eyes to behold it, to take pleasure in it and declare its worth. She understands this, while your dark soul does not.”
As she says this, the wind intensifies further.
“Sisters, now!” Clio roars.
Immediately, the swirl shifts and bends, assuming the shape of a dart instead of a circle. Like an arrow in an archer’s bow, it draws back behind Clio, taking aim on Jupiter. On the periphery, I watch him continue to stand stubbornly, his eyes skyward and arms still extended, trying to keep control over Butler and Butler.
But his resistance is no use.
The dart-wind springs forward, a blazing spear formed by the vague figures of eight of the original Nine. It soars, lightning-fast, toward Jupiter.
“You can’t!” he cries out in a garbled shriek of disbelief, despair, and defiance. They’re his final words before the arrow strikes him, piercing him through the chest.
The impact nearly blinds me with its brightness and almost deafens me with its volume. It steals the air from my lungs, and I gasp, struggling to breathe. I feel weak and lightheaded, about to faint. As the world goes hazy around me, though, Clio smiles again.
“Sleep now, Bianca,” she whispers. “And don’t forget to dream.”
Her misty lips brushing against my forehead is the last thing I feel before my eyes close and there’s nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
In my dreams, I see many things. Faint images. Flickers. All of them foggy around the edges.
My grandmother holding my hand as we walk through the courtyard at Brambleton.
The tutor my parents hired when I was small, reading to me about the ancients from an enormous book borrowed from my father’s library.
Kash unpacking her suitcase with too many dance shoes our first day at Brightling.
Sebastian reaching for me as I descended the steps in the foyer, my gown for Poise and Charm rustling against my ankles.
And I see other things. I see the academy under siege. Jupiter’s army scaling the gates and pounding at the door. They tear the shutters from the windows and shatter the glass beyond it.
I see the Board of Nine standing in the turrets, eyes closed in concentration as they use their powers to inspire. They repel the ravens first, then start in on the Mundanes themselves.
Next—last—is the future. Events yet to be. Citizens scrubbing away graffiti from the sides of buildings. City workers hauling off the fences around Brambleton and rebuilding it. And another little girl, one who looks a bit like me at that age, holding the hand of her grandmother as they wander among the new fountains and kiosks. They pause, admiring a chalk artist at work on the walkway, and when the grandmother stoops to whisper in the little girl’s ear, I already know what she’ll whisper.
“Someday, you will be a great enough Muse to inspire all this—and more.”
The girl smiles, eyes glistening, already eager to fulfill the mission passed down to her by the ancients.
“Bee, can you hear me?”
I sit up quickly, heart racing, flailing against my blankets, when Sebastian’s voice finally reaches me. The crisp scent of antiseptic floods my nostrils as I open my eyes to see him sitting on the edge of the hospital bed next to me in Brightling’s modest infirmary. His clothes are torn and smeared with ash. Above his left brow, a small row of stitches has already been sewn, and he holds an ice pack to his bottom lip, which is red and raw—gifts from the first Butler, I assume.
“What happened? The academy—is it safe?” I ask him.
Sebastian abandons his ice pack and slides off his hospital bed, crossing toward mine. “Woah, calm down,” he says, sitting beside me. “You’re okay. Everything’s okay. The building’s a little smashed up, but the Board of Nine saved it from the worst of the damage—and you saved the rest of us. You replenished the Well of Imagination. It’s full again. Already, things are getting better. We passed about five Mundanes washing graffiti off the walls outside when we carried you here.”
“The Well …” As I mutter the words, the memory comes back quickly, a flash flood in my mind. Jupiter Rave
nthorne, Brambleton, Clio, and Kash. I sigh and stare down at my hands in my lap. Then I give one of my wrists a halfhearted turn, hoping that maybe—somehow—Clio was wrong, and I’ll feel the familiar tingle of warmth across my skin. But I don’t. “It’s true. I’m not a Muse anymore …”
Sebastian shakes his head. “No, you’re not,” he says quietly.
A tear leaks from my eye. I don’t regret what I did at Brambleton—I would do it again and again, a thousand times over—but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel sad about it. It shouldn’t have happened to begin with. Beauty shouldn’t have needed saving, and Jupiter Raventhorne shouldn’t have needed stopping.
Understanding this, Sebastian reaches over to brush the tear away. He leaves a small kiss behind on my cheek instead. “I know you think you’re a disappointment to your family now, but for what it’s worth, you could never be one to me.”
I look at him warily, an eyebrow raised. “Really?”
Sebastian takes a deep breath, like he’s a merman preparing for his next deep dive. “Look, I know I insulted you that day we met in Poise and Charm class, but I didn’t mean to. I was just nervous … It was my first day at a new school—one filled with girls—and I was trying so hard to act like I belonged. I didn’t want to go back to my uncle’s. And then you walked in, and you were different.”
I roll my eyes. “I know, I was late and tripped into my chaise.”
That bold half-grin of his lights up his face. “No … I mean, yes—yes, that’s all true. But that’s not everything. You have this spirit, Bianca. A brightness. You inspire me—and I don’t mean with the arts and good ideas. You inspire me as a person. You make me want to be better. When I’m around you, it feels like anything is possible. With or without your powers, you’ll always be my muse.”
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