It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  “I won’t do it. Not on my life.”

  “That’s right. It’ll be your life,” she says. “If you don’t do it, the next time you and Marius meet in the dark, it’ll be your chest he puts the lance through. Unless he decides to kill a few more of your friends first.”

  My anger flares toward her. “So those are my options? To grovel or to die?”

  “Or to grovel and then die. That might be the end game.” She turns away, straightening a book on the shelf. “You played big and you lost. Now you’re cornered, trapped, no good options. The only thing you can decide, the last thing you can control, is how you go out.”

  “I—” I start to reply, but the words freeze in my throat and no response comes. Because she’s right. No matter how much it enrages me, she’s absolutely right. I’ve lost. The mission’s over. My friends are gone. Every second I spend on this island brings me closer to getting caught or killed or both. My grand plan is done.

  Which means I’m free.

  Oh, Gods.

  I’m free.

  “Thank you, Professor,” I say, rising from my seat. “This has been deeply illuminating.”

  She cocks an eyebrow like that was very much not the reaction she expected, but she doesn’t say anything as I turn and walk out the door. With every step I take away from that office, back to my room, I feel lighter, surer, more clearheaded. For the first time since Fyl died, I feel certain, confident even.

  Calfex was right about what she’d said back there: I played the game and I lost. But there’s a power in losing, a clarity that comes when you’re out of options, when all doors are shut but one. I’m done pretending, done trying to win their game, done fighting the impossible.

  I let myself lose sight of the mission. I became so invested in pretending to be Alayne that I became her, that I started to care about my status in the Wizards’ hierarchy, that I lost sight of what really matters.

  I flew too high and came crashing down to the earth. Fine. I always fought best in the dirt anyway.

  I made friends, grew close, lost them. Fine. I was always better alone.

  I was sent here to destroy the school from within, to plunder its knowledge and do as much damage as I can. I was sent here to burn the place down, not conquer it. It’s time I remembered that. It’s time I let go of Alayne, of the noble girl who rallied the Nethros, of the good friend who cheered Fyl on, of the vulnerable girl who found safety in Talyn’s arms.

  It’s time I became myself. A fighter. A killer. A Revenant.

  The only thing I can control is how I go out. Fine, then.

  I’m going out with one hell of a bang.

  CHAPTER 38

  Then

  I am thirteen when I lose my sister.

  Getting into the Von Clair manor turned out to be the easy part. Whispers and Sera played their parts perfectly, the visiting merchant and her sickly daughter, so convincing that even watching from afar, I forgot who they really were for a moment. Senator Reginald Von Clair welcomed them in with open arms. I don’t know what happened next in the house because I was too busy scaling the mansion’s high wall, too busy hiding in the brush, but an hour later, the servants’ entrance cracks open and there’s Sera, beaming at me with overwhelming pride.

  “I did it!” she says through the doorway, as Whispers looms over her shoulder. “I got us in! Von Clair was so taken by my performance, he offered to let us stay until my illness passed!”

  “Save the celebration for when the mission’s done,” I say, trying to sound serious, but her exuberance is contagious. My little sister’s first mission in the field, her first real test, and she’s passed with flying colors. She’s finally a real Revenant. How can I not be proud?

  I step into the manor, followed by the two other Revenants on the mission: hazel-eyed thief Edison and hulking bruiser Crixus. “What’s the situation in there?” Edison asks.

  “I drugged Von Clair and his bodyguards. They’re unconscious down in the dining hall,” Whispers replies. “The remaining servants should all be in their quarters. We make our way to his study, get into his safe, get the ledger, and get out without making a noise.”

  “Let’s do it.” I grin and take Sera’s hand.

  We creep through the wood-paneled halls, passing oil paintings of stately senators and majestic Wizards, our path lit by recessed candles. This house is so big I don’t understand how you wouldn’t get lost, but Whispers knows the way, rounding one corner, then another, before we come to a pair of thick wooden doors. “Von Clair’s study is through there,” she says. “It should be empty.”

  She pushes open the doors.

  It isn’t empty.

  The study is a wide, rounded room, the walls lined with overflowing bookshelves that reach to the ceiling. An enormous iron safe sits at the room’s far end, barred shut with an intricate lock. A heavyset, balding man sits at a long table in the middle of the room, a half dozen tomes laid out before him. A young girl sits alongside him, quill in hand, as she writes on long sheafs of paper.

  There is a moment of silence.

  Crixus is the first to move. He pushes forward in front of Whispers, whips a massive crossbow off his shoulder and levels it at the two of them. “Hands in the air!” he growls. “You make a noise, and I swear I’ll end you all!”

  The young girl jerks back, terrified. She’s a Humble, a servant, barely older than me. Her dark hair hangs over her face as she slides back on her bench, hands raised, cowering.

  The balding man raises his hands and slowly rises to his feet. The Godsmark on his wrist tells me he’s a Wizard, but he doesn’t have his Loci on him, so he’s powerless. Small blessings. “Listen here,” he says in a crackly, phlegmatic voice, his beady eyes fixed on the point of Crixus’s bolt. “I don’t know who you are, but I assure you, there’s no need for violence. My name is—”

  “I don’t care what your godsdamned name is!” Whispers growls. “Against the wall! Now!”

  The two of them move against a bookshelf, hands still over their heads. The Humble girl is starting to cry, and the older man hushes her. Crixus follows, crossbow still leveled, and Whispers draws a knife.

  “Whispers,” Sera says, her voice low and urgent. “The girl is a Humble! We can’t hurt her!”

  Whispers shoots a glance back at Sera, her eyebrows arched into a hard, annoyed scowl. I don’t know if she genuinely respects Sera’s opinion or if she just wants to avoid a confrontation now. But with a sigh, she sheathes her knife. “Fine,” she says. “Edison, find the safe. Alka, tie these hostages up. And if they try anything, kill them.”

  I grab some rope out of my pack and make my way toward the hostages as Edison paces to the safe. One at a time, I lower their hands and tie their wrists together behind their back. The balding man stammers something about paying me, which I ignore. The girl doesn’t say anything, but she glances at me out of the corners of her eyes as I bind her hands, a look at once judgmental and pleading.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “This isn’t about you. Just play it cool, and you’ll make it out of here just fine.”

  With the hostages secured, I make my way back to the entryway, joining Whispers, Crixus, and Sera. I lock eyes with my sister, and I see the apprehension there, the fear. She’s never been on a mission before. She’s never seen what we… what I… have had to do.

  “Okay!” Edison cackles from the other end of the room. He’s hunkered down by the safe, ear pressed against its lock, a tool set of picks laid out before him. “I think I’ve got it!” He raises a long, narrow pick and presses it against the lock.

  I feel it first, a crackle in the air, a surge of power. The Wizard, the bald man, feels it, too, and swivels his head to Edison. My stomach plunges as the hairs on my neck stand on end, and I reflexively whip out my Loci, but it’s too late. Something’s appearing over the safe, something only Wizards can see. A Glyph on the wall, blazing into existence like the burn marks on a paper when you hold it over a candle, glowing a hot,
terrible red.

  A half dozen intersecting circles, connected like links in a chain, a snake eating its tail.

  I know that Glyph. It’s what I saw on the ceiling of my childhood home.

  “Get down!” I scream, lunging to grab Sera, tackling her to the ground. I don’t see the explosion, but I feel it, a thunderclap roar that shakes the floor, a blast of heat that scorches over us like a blazing wind. I hit the ground, hard, and for a few seconds, everything goes black.

  When I come to, the room is chaos. Thick black smoke shrouds all of us, so I can only see faint silhouettes. Crixus stands over me, coughing hard; beside him, Whispers leans against a wall. My Loci are gone, tumbled out of my hands, lost in the smoke. Sera’s still under me, thank the Gods, and she’s okay, moaning faintly as she blinks awake. “You’re okay,” I choke out. “You’re all right.”

  Then I turn and see the rest of the room.

  The study has been completely blown apart. Bookshelves lie toppled, the table overturned, scraps of papers burning and fluttering all around us like blazing fireflies. Edison is completely gone, nothing left of him but a charred streak on the floor. The wall where the Glyph had been is gone, too, leaving just a gaping hole leading deeper into the mansion. And fire, fire is everywhere. It licks up the bookshelves like a ravenous serpent and streaks across the study’s floor, hungry and hot and terrible. The whole room is burning, and burning fast.

  “Godsdamnit!” Whispers screams, and it’s the most emotional I’ve ever seen her. She slams her fist against the wall, again and again. “No! No!”

  The fire reaches the bookshelf on the side of the study and shoots up it, dozens of books swallowed in its ravenous reach. It’s harder to see into the room now, to squint past the bright, licking flames. A shape lurches in the smoke, heavyset, bald-headed. The Wizard. He coughs, turns to see us, and then bolts the other way, vanishing through the hole. I can’t see what’s out there, but I hear a commotion, shouting voices, thundering footsteps.

  Whispers breathes in sharply, nostrils flaring, and instantly makes the call. “We need to go. Now.”

  Crixus grunts and turns to go, but Sera stops him, grabbing his arm. “Wait!” she pleads. “What about the girl?”

  The Humble. Oh, Gods. I squint through the smoke and now I can see her, a figure on the ground, trapped under a fallen bookshelf. She’s still alive, I think, moving, and when I listen closely, I can hear her crying over the flame’s roar, begging for help. “Please!” she shouts. “Help me! Help!”

  “Leave her,” Whispers says, without a moment’s consideration. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Please!” Sera begs, tearing up, at once afraid and determined. “We can’t just let her die!”

  “We can and we will!” Whispers swivels back to growl. Her hair is wild around her head, scorched black, and her eyes dance red with the flames swallowing the room. She looks terrifying, a demon made flesh. “I am not compromising our entire cause for some Humble!” she practically spits. “Now go!”

  Sera looks at her, at that snarling visage, then she looks back at the room, at the trapped silhouette, writhing futilely as the flames close in around her. Then she looks at me. I shake my head. And I see that she’s made her choice anyway.

  No! I mouth, but it’s too late. She takes off running, even as Whispers howls in fury, as Crixus snarls, as the flames roar higher. My sister, my baby sister, vanishes into the smoke.

  And before I can stop to think, before I can even let myself consider, I take off after her.

  It was hot out in the entryway, but it’s so much hotter in here. The whole room around me blazes, dancing flames that lick up at the ceiling, so bright they hurt my eyes. And the smoke, scorching, miserable, burning my lungs with my every breath, blinding me so I can barely see. “Sera!” I shout, and I instinctively reach for my Loci but of course I lost them when the blast hit.

  “Over here!” she shouts back. I see her now, hunkered down by the toppled bookshelf, straining to lift it. The girl is still alive, if barely, coughing hard as she strains against the shelf that’s pinning her down at the waist, surrounded by flames that are drawing closer and closer. Sera has both arms under the shelf, and she strains hard to lift it, sweat streaking down her face, but it doesn’t budge. “Please,” the girl begs, clutching at Sera’s side. “Help!”

  There’s a pile of burning books in my way so I kick it aside, and thankfully the hard leather of my boot doesn’t catch flame. It’s hot, Gods, so hot, like I’m in the heart of a crucible. The smoke is so thick around me I can’t see out of the room anymore, can’t see the room itself. My eyes sting shut, and my lungs hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt.

  “I’m here!” I tell Sera and slide up alongside her, grabbing the lip of the shelf as I strain with every bit of strength I have to lift it up. The Humble girl is lying next to me, and she pushes, too, jamming both hands under it. Together, with a collective grunt, we shove that bookshelf up, just enough so that she can scramble out. She pulls herself up and stands there, looking at me, eyes sparkling in the firelight. “Thank you,” she says.

  “Alka Chelrazi!” Whispers screams from somewhere out of sight, behind the curtains of black smoke. “Come now!”

  The Humble girl takes off, and Sera grabs my wrist, jerking me forward. “We did it,” she pants, her red hair hanging slick around her face, her breath hard and heavy. “We saved her.”

  She’s awfully happy for someone who’s about to be in huge trouble from Whispers, but I can’t think about that yet. “Now let’s save ourselves.”

  She nods and grabs my hand and tugs me forward, and the two of us rush toward the door. For one second, one last second that will be branded forever into my mind, the smoke parts, and I can see Sera in front of me, red hair billowing, looking back at me with love and fear and pride.

  Then the beam hits her.

  It comes smashing down like a great flaming club, crashing into Sera from above. She lets out a little shriek as it drives her down to the ground, throwing up a cascade of sparks that sting and blind. “Sera!” I scream, diving down beside her, and suddenly I don’t care about the heat, don’t care about the smoke. I don’t care that I can barely keep my eyes open, don’t care how weak my legs feel. I don’t care that if I stay here a second longer, the flames will take me, too. All I care about is my little sister. My little sister who’s trapped. My little sister who’s sobbing. My little sister who’s about to die.

  “Alka…” she cries. The beam lies across her chest, pinning her down. It’s heavy, but worse than that, it’s on fire. I try to grab it and my hands jerk back, skin blistering and burned. I grab Sera’s arm instead and try to pull her out, but the beam is too heavy and I’m too weak. The fire’s spreading faster and faster. The edges of Sera’s hair catches aflame, the bright red blazing terrifyingly. I pull again, as hard as I can, but her wrist slips out of mine and I fall onto my back, and no matter how hard I push, I can’t find the strength to stand back up.

  “Alka,” she pleads again, and the fire is all around her, swallowing her like a storm, enveloping her like a grasping hand. Tears streak down her cheeks, and her voice is weak, wavering. “Run,” she begs. “Please. Run.”

  “No!” I shriek, but my throat is so raw it’s barely human, a desperate agonized croak. I force myself up, force myself forward, drag myself into the flame. I don’t care that I’m in pain, don’t care that I can’t breathe, don’t care that I can feel myself starting to burn. I’d rather die than abandon her. I’d rather die than live without her. I can’t lose her. I can’t.

  Someone grabs me from behind, thick arms wrapped around my waist, a breath that smells of garlic. Crixus. “We have to run!” he bellows and drags me back. “We have to leave her!”

  “No!” I scream as much as I can, biting into his arm, smashing my head against his chin, thrashing like a wild beast. I don’t care that Crixus is my fellow Revenant, because right now, he’s my enemy, the man trying to keep me from
my sister, the body tearing us apart. “Let me go!” The flames rise behind me, and I can’t see Sera at all anymore; she’s lost in the blaze, her screams barely audible over the fire’s roar.

  I slip into the Null. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a reflex, or desperation. Or maybe on some level I know this is the last time I’ll see her, and I want to draw it out, to stretch this final second out as long as I can in that murky, slow-moving time of the Null. Either way, as Crixus drags me to the door, with the last of my strength, I close my eyes and slip into that gray.

  There are moments in life when I feel like I’m out of my body, out of the moment, like I’m looking back on it as an old woman through the haze of time. There are moments that feel like memories, even as they happen. This is one of those moments, a moment that will haunt me for the rest of my life. This is a moment that matters.

  It’s peaceful here. The fire vanishes: the noise, the smoke, the heat, the light, all gone. The Null is cold and still, even in this terrible place, the air gray and heavy. A gentle rain of ash flutters down around me, and the world roars distantly, that haunting underwater howl. In the real world, Crixus is sprinting, but here, every one of his steps takes a minute, long enough that I can make out Sera. She lies prone at the far end of the room, as clearly as I can make out through the fog and the ash. I see her light, her spirit, pulsing, ever so faintly, like she’s made of stars and they’re all going out one by one, a galaxy plunging into endless night. I see her eyes, bright as suns, the last lights in the storm, and I see them vanish into the gray. And I hear her voice, somehow, in a way I’ll never understand, echoing in my mind.

  “Live, Alka,” she says. “Please. Just live.”

  I reach out to her, and the darkness takes me.

  CHAPTER 39

  Now

  As the clock strikes midnight, Blackwater goes to sleep. The lanterns in the quad go out, the doors to the Orders lock, and the students chattering in the common areas head to their rooms. The campus is still and quiet. In that silent darkness, I creep through the night into the main building, up the empty stairwells to the top floor. Then I break into Headmaster Aberdeen’s office.