The Last Life of Prince Alastor

by Alexandra Bracken

  MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY

  The truth Alastor had come to learn was this: human misery was fathomless and fed itself, ensuring its survival.

  Just when a mortal believed one source of despair had gone, another sprouted up from his or her life like a weed. Some were small, like stubborn itches. Others festered and grew like the deadliest of diseases. Alastor would always have business in this realm simply because there was no end to human suffering.

  As it was, he’d also discovered another truth over the centuries: once a human made a deal, and had gotten what they wanted from it, it inevitably caused another need to arise, another desire he could tease out. After one success, humans were far more prone to agreeing to another contract.

  This, he told himself, was the reason why he returned time and time again to that forsaken land of snow and called on Honor Redding.

  Every few fortnights, he found himself watching Honor, his wife, Silence, and their newborn whelp through the crackled window of their ever-expanding home. Some part of him relished seeing his magic work, even if it meant that the humans thrived because of it. Honor had even hung a mirror outside in the trees, to avoid Alastor being spotted by anyone he did not wish to be seen by.

  In those instances when Honor noticed him, he would bring out water and victuals and sit with him awhile, speaking of things. Tiresome things, really—one human family moving, the new name for the colony, trade. Sometimes, Honor would seek guidance, and Alastor would catch himself indulging the human without exacting his usual price.

  He supposed he liked the simplicity of this human; Alastor had become so acquainted with the secret scheming of fiends, he found it a relief to share the company of any creature who had no aims of killing him.

  Always, Honor would first inquire about Alastor’s health and relations, a habit Alastor did not understand. Fiends were far more hale than humans, and brought disease, rather than suffered from it. Moreover, their families despised one another as competitors and annoyances.

  Even more mysteriously, Alastor would, occasionally, find himself answering those questions honestly as well.

  Alastor had a particular question of his own, one he waited until the end of every visit to ask: What is it that your heart desires most?

  Each time, Honor gave the same reply. My heart is full, and there is nothing more I could desire.

  Oh, as if that could be true of any human.

  Alastor knew that it would only be a short while before Honor found himself in need of his services once more. And almost a year to the day after his first visit, that moment finally arrived.

  Alastor watched as Honor sat behind a desk he had somehow, with all his dim mortal wits, constructed himself. He pored over what looked to be a letter, turning it toward the light of the candle burning at the edge of the desk. It was late in the evening, nearly the witching hour. His wife and his child—who bore an uncanny resemblance to a mole, in Alastor’s unassailable opinion—slept their dreamless sleep in the new, separate room Honor had built.

  As if sensing his dark presence, Honor glanced up and turned toward the window expectantly.

  Though he looked haggard and thin, a smile spread across his face. He stood, moving to unlatch the window.

  “My friend, it has been months! I feared something might have happened to thee,” he said, stepping back to allow Alastor to jump down to the floor.

  “How many times must I tell thee, I am not thy ‘friend,’ ” Alastor groused.

  Honor laughed. “Thou came to me in my time of gravest need. Thou art the truest of friends.”

  “Aside from fire and poison, few avenues of harm exist for beings such as I,” Alastor said.

  “Thou seems weary. Come, come in close to the fire and warm thyself.”

  Against his instincts, all of which seemed to be indicating he was a fool and ought to return home, Alastor did. He shook off the last traces of snow into Honor’s hideous rug and went to dry his coat in the warm glow of the hearth.

  “ ’Tis nothing but the same grievances as always,” Alastor said. “My brothers torment me, seeking my position as heir, and my father belittles my efforts.”

  Honor lowered himself onto the floor beside him. “Those complaints of the heart are truly bothersome, for they rely upon others mending their ways, something you cannot do on their behalf.”

  The lines on the young man’s face deepened, as if he’d stumbled into a web of his own thoughts.

  “What bedevils thee?” Alastor asked. His coat had dried and returned to its full glory, yet he could not seem to leave the puddle of warmth spilling out from the fire in the hearth.

  “Ah . . . it is merely . . .” Honor trailed off. “Do not concern thyself, Alastor. All things shall pass, including these worries. Tell me of thy travels. It has been an age since any correspondence has reached us. I am in dire need of a well-told tale.”

  Alastor’s suspicions deepened. “No correspondence reaches thee? Do not tell me this is due to the meddling of the other family.”

  Honor had mentioned another family, the Bellegraves, once or twice before. They had made the journey over the sea together and worked first as friends, then as rivals for land and influence. Alastor knew what the next step of this was: enemies.

  The blackguards were clearly after Honor’s landholdings and had once slaughtered all the Redding animals and blamed it on wolves. They themselves were the predators. Alastor recognized their strategy all too well; driving occupants from their rightful homes through manipulation and fear was a common tactic of poltergeists and direweasels.

  After a long stretch of quiet, Honor explained, “It has been some time since we last spoke. Around the turn of November, someone—a Bellegrave—destroyed the food we had gathered and stored to survive the winter. We have struggled to rebuild those stores, but today the first snow fell and our hope of succeeding fades. I fear they will burn the Redding houses next.”

  “Can thou not confront them?” Alastor asked. “Demand they answer for such acts?”

  “The Bellegraves outnumber our Redding men and women—thanks to thee, our children flourish. However, you cannot give a babe a musket.”

  Fiends were taught to fight in the nursery. It truly was remarkable humans had survived this long. “If they destroyed thy stores, what hast thou been eating?”

  “We have received aid from the local tribes, exchanging wares for grains. But we cannot ask for more than they offer. They are wary of us, for good reason, as many Englishmen have broken their vows to them or stolen their land. Mostly, my wife, Silence, prepares leaves from the pumpkins in our gardens in whatever manner she can. They destroyed the vegetables as well.”

  Alastor’s fur bristled. “Then fight back, man! Return their fire with volleys of thine own! Why dost thou allow them to uproot you like common weeds?”

  Honor smiled faintly. His sadness tasted of dust. “It is wrong to seek revenge.”

  Of all the ridiculous, beetle-headed, dizzy-eyed human notions . . . Thankfully, Alastor knew how to address this human failure as well.

  “It is not revenge to force upon them a lesson that thou art not to be trifled with, merely good sense,” Alastor argued. “Thou art the leader of this small slice of earth. Thou hast solved the woes of many, taken care of its poor and helpless. Will thou let them run you off thy land—allow these errant, clay-brained beasts to harm thee, starve thee, kill thy family out of their own greed? They do not have thy sense of right and wrong. They must learn. Thou must teach them.”

  Honor shook his head. “I must turn my cheek. I cannot do them harm in return.”

  It took every ounce of strength Alastor had not to blow out an exasperated breath. Humans! Honestly.

  “If thou cannot,” Alastor said, finally arriving at the opening he’d waited for, “then allow me.”

  Honor turned, horrified. “No. No. That is not why I seek thy company. Thou dost not have to do such things.”

  Thou very much did, if thou intended to
live the life to which thou was accustomed Downstairs. Alastor felt a twinge within him at Honor’s words; an uncomfortable itch of regret, a tremble of uncertainty about all of those things about himself he held certain.

  A small part of the malefactor hated Honor for it—for making him feel such things. Now he could not let this go. He would have to approach it from yet another side.

  “What if no harm came to anyone involved?” he suggested. “What if every time a Bellegrave works against thy family, all those who carry the Redding name will have their fortune increased tenfold? It will reward thy good behavior, which might very well teach them what thou has failed to.”

  Honor did not say no. Instead, he watched the fire, his expression transforming from denial to consideration. Alastor tried not to stare at the man’s worn-out coat. Its missing buttons.

  Despite his apparent hunger, his struggles to survive, Honor still possessed within him a proud bearing. It was no wilting flower that upended his old world to settle in a new one. That took a certain kind of hunger: for freedom, for control, for mastery over the things previously denied to him.

  By the measure of human morality, Honor was innately good. By the scale with which fiends measured themselves, he would have already have been fed to a dragon to avoid the annoyance of having to listen to his beliefs.

  Ambition was the enemy of decency. Alastor wondered which instinct might triumph within Honor Redding.

  “Such a thing is within thy power?”

  “Of course,” Alastor said. “If thou art willing to pay the price. As my payment, perhaps those in thy family, thy dear, dear wife, thy child and any after, they might join thee in temporary service? So that thou might all remain together, of course, for that while.”

  He did not tell him that luck could not be created, only taken from others. As fortunate as the Reddings would be, the Bellegraves would find their own bled dry. That satisfied Alastor’s taste for revenge, and soon Honor would see the benefit of striking back directly rather than cowering like a worm.

  “I . . .” Honor began. “It is surely tempting. . . .”

  “Believing thou dost not deserve such things shall always hold thee back from thy dreams,” Alastor warned. “Accept this gift I offer. Seize it. Or art thou afraid of how far it might take thee? How thou might prosper?”

  Honor’s face hardened like stone. Alastor had dug deep enough to strike at the pride he’d suspected was there. “I fear nothing. I shall do whatever is necessary to protect my family, no matter the cost.”

  Alastor turned his face toward the warmth of the fire, licking his fangs in anticipation.

  Alastor remained quiet as we trudged our way up the hill, cloaks tied tight around our necks, hoods up. For several long minutes of walking, the only sound was the call of the ravens perched along the streetlamps, or the flap of their broad wings as they swooped down to collect a crimson rat scurrying along the street.

  Then, seemingly all at once, the fiends who lived in the Scales emerged from their houses. Some carried trunks and small pieces of furniture on their backs. Others appeared with objects of art, dining platters, statues, and jewelry clutched in their arms.

  Nell and I stepped in closer together. My heart kicked up its pace a little more, until it felt like I was wearing a flashing neon sign that read HUMAN HERE. COME GET YOUR DINNER.

  I forced myself to take in a breath and relax my bunched-up shoulders. I was doing this. We were doing this.

  Get into the house, save the changelings, kidnap Nightlock, and then go get Prue.

  This was the beginning of the end.

  Winding my way up the street toward the Crown, the step where the towers had stood, I felt my confidence building, and my focus sharpening. Prue needed me. My family needed me—

  Something heavy—the edge of a mirror—slammed into my skull, knocking me sideways into Nell.

  One of the corpselike fiends, a ghoul, looked over its gold frame with a sneer and said, “Apologies—I did not see you there, ghastly sir.”

  I clutched at my hood, dragging it down farther over my throbbing head. The ghoul gave an apologetic bow and dusted off my shoulder before continuing on its way.

  Maybe the sneer was just . . . his normal face?

  “Every fiend must remain calm!”

  An ogre in armor stood on one of the many sets of stairs carved into the mountain, ushering fiends to the Crown one by one. He had cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice, but it was mostly lost to the clattering of hooves, stomping of feet, and the creak of metal wagon beds as they were loaded.

  Nell took my arm and dragged me toward the stairs.

  Do not breathe as you pass beside the ogre, Alastor warned.

  There was no time to warn Nell besides gesturing toward my face. I sucked in a deep breath, holding it until my whole chest burned. The ogre never once looked down as we passed under his waving arms, keeping between two lycans.

  By the time we reached the Crown, my breath was ready to explode back out of me.

  Can I release it yet?

  Of course. You never had to hold it in the first place.

  That little . . . I thought I had to avoid doing it so they couldn’t detect I was human!

  I was merely testing how obedient you are.

  Anger burned in me, hot and sharp. Well, woof, woof, Al—if I get caught or eaten, so do you!

  My power would at least cause terrible indigestion. In the end, you’d be nothing more than passed gas, a brief stink in an immortal realm—

  “It’s not a competition!” I snapped.

  Flora turned around sharply, huffing out a “Quiet!”

  Beneath the shadow of the hood, Nell gave me a concerned look. I waved it off, shaking my head. It wasn’t a competition.

  Because no matter what, I was going to win.

  “This street must be evacuated, by order of the queen! Move to the shelter of the old prison—you’ll be safe there, by the queen’s side!” another ogre called out. “She will not let anything happen to you!”

  They’re evacuating to Skullcrush? Alastor asked, suddenly alarmed.

  Crap. It sounded that way.

  This cannot be . . . Surely, the situation is not as bad as this.

  I was focusing on a different, but related problem: if they were evacuating to Skullcrush Prison, it meant every living fiend in the realm was literally standing between me and Prue.

  Escaping back to the human world was about to get significantly more complicated, especially if there was only one mirror in the whole prison we could use to travel.

  I stepped around a hob dragging a trunk twice his height. Tears pooled in his enormous eyes, clinging to the lower lids. “She’ll—she shall save us, Gory, she will. . . . Don’t cry, my fellow, no, no, don’t cry—”

  Gory being, I think, the salamander curled up inside the glass vase the hob had strapped to the top of the metal trunk. It scraped and groaned against the cobblestones, until a lycan bent down and lifted it, salamander and all, onto his shoulder.

  “Come on, then, Webslaw,” the wolf growled softly, stooping again so that the thick-bellied hob could climb up his arms and perch on his other shoulder. “It’s not far to the prison. You’ll be safe there.”

  What is he doing? It’s not a fiend’s way to help another fiend, and yet . . . A pang of some swift-moving emotion punched at my gut, but it hadn’t come from me. Alastor’s astonishment lingered longer. They must know that I will save them from this. I will save them, and my kingdom.

  “You know,” I muttered, feeling the seething knot of the demon throbbing inside my skull. “Maybe the problem isn’t that everyone else has changed. It’s that you haven’t.”

  At that, Alastor’s fury puffed out like a blowfish, sending spikes of his anger through me. I staggered at the pain, nearly losing my balance on the cobblestones.

  You speak of things beyond the capacity of your feeble mind, Alastor said coldly.

  He was only proving my point,
but I decided to leave it at that.

  The three of us walked the rest of the way in uneasy silence, winding our way through the piles of stone left behind from the destroyed towers.

  It wasn’t far, once we broke off from the bulk of the fiends. They flowed in one direction around the mountain to get to the shelter of the prison, and we went the other way.

  Nightlock’s house was nestled between the remains of two towers. The structures, which once must have been massive, now looked like little more than a giant’s broken fangs. Their remains curved slightly up over the house, framing it the way I would in a painting.

  To reach the manor-sized home, we were going to have to climb a narrow, zigzagging path of stairs that seemed to stretch on for miles.

  Even if I survived the climb without passing out, I wasn’t sure where we could even enter. There was one tower that served as the backbone of the house, wide and sturdy. Smaller spiraling towers sprouted from it on all sides like the arms of a cactus. The decorative spikes that jutted out from between the stones only reinforced the comparison.

  At its highest point was a weather vane, the iron shaped to look like a human who had fallen asleep—no. Nope, never mind. It had been made to look like a human skeleton with a sword plunged into its belly. Fun.

  I stepped back, craning my neck up to make sure that it wasn’t an actual human skeleton.

  I know this place. Alastor’s recognition flared in me. This is Grimhold House.

  I turned to tell the girls as much—that we might actually have an advantage for once—but they were already disappearing over the edge of where the pathway met the house’s empty moat.

  My nerves jumped as Nell and Flora dropped into the pit. There was a narrow ledge carved into the wall of the moat, maybe a foot wide. A short distance away, beneath the bridge that served as the start of the house’s impossibly long stairway, was a metal door, left open just wide enough for us to slip through.

  I do not like this, Alastor told me as I slid down from the street. Nell steadied me until my toes found the ledge. I had to flatten myself against the rough wall in order to inch along it. This was Bune’s abode. And he himself taught me that what appears as a blessing is often really an invitation to suffering.