I found my way to where Magnus was staying, in one of the smaller, darker rooms that looked out onto the snowy yard. He sat on the sill, gazing at the world beyond. In his arms, he held a bundle I quickly identified as Valens’s baby, Georgiana.
There was only one reason that Magnus, not Valens, would be holding her right now.
“Valens is gone” was all I could think to say. Magnus looked down to the swaddled child as she raised a chubby fist.
“Leticia collapsed. She needs rest, and since I’m the godfather…” He looked up at me, dazed. “Richard made me godfather. Stupid idea. I can barely look after my own boots.”
“No. He made a wise choice,” I whispered. Magnus grunted in what could pass for laughter and held the child closer. He looked into her face with a wondering expression.
“They’re so small.” He blinked. “Not the most profound thought I’ve ever had.” He held out one finger to the baby, and she took it, wrapping it in her tiny fist. Then, “I failed her.”
“Eliza made her own choice. She brought Dee and the others home.”
“Howel, I can’t do this.” He sounded so young and afraid. I sat beside him as he budged over to make room. The baby had fallen asleep, secure in the crook of Magnus’s arm.
Infants were wonderful. They could sleep through the fall of civilization, dream during the death of thousands. So long as they were warm and loved, nothing else mattered.
Loved.
You…slut.
Stifling a sob, I leaned against the window.
“It’s all right. I know,” Magnus whispered. Except that he did not know, and I couldn’t tell him.
“What are we going to do about Maria?” I asked, my voice lifeless. I couldn’t allow Blackwood to drag me down. If nothing else, Maria needed me more than ever.
“I don’t believe she did it on purpose.” Magnus sounded resolute. I could have kissed him. In the back of my mind, I’d worried that I was desperate to believe anything but the truth: that Maria was a murderer. But if Magnus believed, then I was not alone, and not mad.
“Could it have been a trick? Perhaps there’s an enemy within our ranks.” It might even be one of the people we’d let into the grounds, working for R’hlem. My stomach knotted at the idea. “Did anyone come with you whom you thought odd?”
“No.” He followed my meaning at once. “I’d put my life in the hands of every single man, woman, and child I brought with me. Well.” He calculated. “Perhaps not child. Babies make rather bad protectors.” As if to illustrate, Georgiana began to cry. Magnus hefted her up onto his shoulder. Then, as rapidly as it had appeared, his smile vanished. “Howel, what am I going to do?”
I laid a hand on his. He looked down at it in surprise.
“Lead them. You’re incredible at it.”
Magnus gave a huff of disbelief. “I used to be incredible at playing cards and parading about like some kind of stuffed peacock.” He paused. “I mean, I was quite good at it. Best around, in fact. Do stuffed creatures parade? Or does that all end once you’re stuffed and mounted?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I dissolved into a quick, hiccupping fit of laughter. Magnus squeezed my fingers, and squeezed tighter when I began to cry as well. “I think I’m going mad tonight.”
“Too much for any one person to handle.” Magnus leaned close. “But you’re strong, Howel. Stronger than the lot of us combined. You’ll see it through.”
I didn’t believe him, but I was so grateful that he’d said it. For that one, small moment I was so glad to be seated in this room, a baby gurgling up at us. It felt human, but it couldn’t last. Good things never did.
“I need to see Maria.” I smoothed my hands down the still-bloodied front of my gown. “Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone.”
Magnus nodded. “If anyone asks, you went to your room.”
I left Magnus and the child and went into the Faerie side of the house.
The stately marble pillars and tiled floors gave way to those uneven flagstones beneath my feet. Silk-papered walls and family portraits became narrowed hallways and growths of ivy and moss. It smelled of earth here. Bright flashes of light appeared and vanished, probably faerie lights meant to lead me onto a wrong path. Soon I came to a spiraling set of steps and went down.
The dungeon had no bars or cells. It was one circular room of stone, thirty feet wide. They’d left Maria in the center of the floor, chained by her neck. There were two entrances into the dungeon, and I took the one from the west. As I crept down the steps, I listened to Maria’s echoing cries. I perched in the doorway, hidden by shadow, and watched her. She was on her knees, sobbing fit to break her own heart.
“Why?” she keened. “I didn’t want to hurt her. Why?”
Her left hand formed a fist, relaxed, and formed a fist again in a pulsing beat. When she sat up, the look in her eyes was vacant. She traced her tongue along her lips.
“That’s better,” she said, but it was not her voice. I’d heard that voice many times, though. The voice of Maria’s “imaginary” friend, the one she’d created as a child. Willie. But the look on Maria’s face now was alien. It didn’t belong to her.
It was as if she’d become another person entirely.
I had heard stories of spirits that entered the body of an unsuspecting person, tales told on dark winter nights around the fire at Brimthorn. This was like that, and yet…
“Willie” stood, wobbling unsteadily before finding her feet. She stretched her arms overhead and cracked her back. “Hush your crying, ungrateful child. You think it’s been pleasant, riding in your simpering head?”
Willie made a coughing noise and then struck herself in the face with her own left hand. I clenched my teeth; it was still Maria’s body, even if it was taken over by an outsider.
“Shut up! I don’t want to listen to your cringing any longer. You little ginger filth,” the voice barked. I stepped into the light, and Maria—or the thing pretending to be Maria—stopped.
“Who are you?” I asked. “Willie” chuckled, crouched on her heels.
“Should’ve known you’d be down, with your simpering and sanctimony.” She chattered her teeth idly. “Never knew William Howel, but I’ve heard you’ve the look of him. If only I’d stayed home when that prig Lord Blackwood asked for my help. Aye. ’Twould have been an easier thing for all of us.”
For a second, I thought she meant George. But then a creeping realization came over me.
“Charles Blackwood?”
“Oh, it begins to understand,” she cooed. “Willie” tugged at her hair, and her eyes watered. “Abusing this piglet’s going to come at a price now. I can feel what she feels.”
“Who the bloody hell are you?” Was Maria still in there? It was her face, but the monster behind her eyes was not Maria. “Why did you kill Lady Eliza?”
“Lord, she’ll have all my secrets before the night is through,” the creature wheedled. She lay back, legs crossed at the knee before her. “I admit, killing that Blackwood bitch was a pleasure fit to rival the most luxurious—”
Like a mask falling away, the real Maria showed herself. She shrieked in terror before falling back.
It was like a shutter flung open in my mind. Charles Blackwood, Howard Mickelmas, and…Mary Willoughby. The sorcerer, magician, and witch who brought the Ancients down upon England.
“Mary,” I said softly. “What have you done?”
She sat upright and grinned. “Took you long enough, you lanky thing. Of course, you’re not much of a brain, are you?” She spit at my feet. I resisted the urge to strike her. She was inside Maria, after all.
“How?” I rested one hand on the top of Porridge. She stared at the stave and made a face.
“I recall being taken up to a hilltop as the sun crested the horizon. They tied me to a stake and carted screaming wome
n to stand alongside me. In the crowd of onlookers, I saw a girl no more than five years old, howling for her mam.” Willoughby licked her lips again, a serpent-like movement. “She needed a warm, caring woman in her life.” Willoughby snorted. “The sorcerers thought I was swearin’ while they lit the pyres. But there was quite a lot of death to go around that day. They paid no mind to my incantations.” She knocked her left hand onto Maria’s head.
“So you became Maria,” I whispered.
She shook her head. “The magic was enough to bond me with the child. But greater, darker magic was needed to give me control. Blood and death magic: the two talents witches dislike immensely. Blood magic’s bad enough; you can stop a person’s heart with enough willpower. Death magic, though, the taking of an innocent human life?” Willoughby gave a whistle. “That’s the only force strong enough to separate a human soul from its body. I knew that, and figured once I had Maria loose in the saddle, I could take over permanently. But Maria?” Willoughby sneered. “She was too good. Anytime I’d plant the suggestion in her mind, she’d bat it away. So I had to stay vigilant. And when the house was all a-rushin’, and she was makin’ up that quick potion, I used my influence. I made her take the wrong bottle. And there.” She clapped her hands. “One dead girl, and a Blackwood to boot. Could not have been more perfectly planned.”
I pictured this woman waiting in the corners of Maria’s mind like a fat gray spider. My fists clenched.
“Let her go.”
Willoughby spit and wiped her mouth. “Does that ever work, poppet? Askin’ a person to give up on their plots and schemes? Soon I’ll have a body again, much bonnier than before. Even with the ginger hair.” She looked me in the eye. “And I know your secrets, girl. Your da wants to tear this world asunder. Well.” She winked one dark eye. “He’s welcome to it. Perhaps I’ll aid ’im.”
“Maria,” I whispered. “Fight.”
For a moment, it seemed my words had no effect. Then, like a snake shedding its skin, Maria emerged from the witch’s grip. She sobbed, shying away as I approached.
“I can feel her.” Maria cradled her head. “If they burn me, it’ll be a blessing.”
“No. You’re the bloody chosen one.” I forced her to look at me. “I won’t let them harm you. I swore that before, and I hold to it.”
“But I’m a m-murderer.” She could barely get the word out.
“Willoughby is, not you.” It didn’t matter what Maria had been involved in, or what kind of monster currently claimed her soul. She was the one foretold. She was the one to save us, and if it meant battling Blackwood or his men, I would do it. Because she was our savior.
And more than that, she was my friend.
I had just returned to the main house, still trying to figure out how to help Maria, when a messenger ran to meet me. This was one of the young boys we’d rescued, scarecrow-thin and dark-eyed.
“M’lady.” He pressed paper into my hand and scampered off. I didn’t correct him and say that he shouldn’t call me a lady. After what Blackwood had said, I didn’t believe I would ever be a lady. Not his, at any rate.
My stomach dropped as I thought Blackwood might have sent the note. But instead, a looping, dreamy handwriting spoke one word: chapel.
It was Lambe.
Wolff awaited me at the chapel door, snow eddying about his feet.
“Howel.” His voice sounded thick with tears. I squeezed his shoulder as he ground the heel of his hand into his eye.
He didn’t have to say more. We entered the chapel and passed the sleeping Speakers, discovering Lambe in his customary place before the altar. His shirt was stuck to his emaciated frame in thin, transparent patches. I could pick out his ribs underneath the cloth. He scratched his arms, leaving long, red marks.
“Damn them all,” Wolff muttered.
Lambe extended his hand. “Valens. Lady Eliza.” Was he asking me if their deaths were true?
“I’m so sorry. They—”
“The lady has spilled blood. There’s no going back now. You’ve got to get them all out of here.” He raked up his sleeves even higher, revealing scabs that began to bleed afresh. I grabbed his hands to still them. “The lady will start the fire in the wood. Save as many as you can.”
More of his prophecies.
“When did you last eat?” I whispered. Lambe looked out at the rows of immobile Speakers, the drug perfume hanging in the air like a canopy.
“It’s all useless!” he cried, before sliding to the floor. Wolff picked him up like a sack of flour.
“What’s this about a lady?” he whispered to me.
“He’s been mentioning her for months now.” Whenever Lambe declared something was going to happen, it would. Eliza dead, Blackwood against me, and now this? How could the entire world fall apart in one night?
“You know whatever he predicts will happen.” Wolff looked as weary of this as I felt. “Maybe not in the way you’d expect, but it will. Do you suppose Blackwood will let us all go?”
“He won’t let any of us out of Sorrow-Fell after tonight, least of all the queen.” My thoughts went to her at once. If she were to be lost, or harmed, the war would truly be at an end. “You couldn’t blame him, really. Who would want to move sick people and small children when they’re already safe?” But Willoughby’s plot had kicked Lambe’s hypothetical outcome into reality. Because of her, Sorrow-Fell was now the least safe place in the kingdom. “I could try to persuade Blackwood, but…” I stopped there, because I could not finish aloud the thought that Blackwood now despised me.
Wolff kissed Lambe’s cheek. Love enveloped them. The world was tearing itself to pieces around them, but at least they’d found this contentment.
I left hoping for their happiness, and a happy day for all of us.
I doubted it would come.
* * *
—
THE HOUSE FELT LIKE A TOMB. Only a few lamps had been lit, both to save oil and out of respect for Eliza. As I stepped along the carpeted hall, I kept an eye on my shadow. It remained small and normal. I prayed it continued that way. I could sense that Eliza’s death had spurred the darkness inside me to emerge.
How was I to get everyone out of Sorrow-Fell? How could I get Blackwood to listen to reason?
A strangled cry halted me. Muffled sobbing sounded from behind Lady Blackwood’s door, the most human noise I had heard so far tonight. My heart sank as I listened, and I cracked open her door. The crying stopped.
“Hello?” I felt like an idiot, but Lady Blackwood answered.
“Come here, girl.” Too late to turn back now.
I slipped inside to close the door behind me. The room was nearly pitch black, so I nurtured a small flame in my hand by which to see. I discovered Lady Blackwood out of bed, standing with her back to me, weeping over a dark shape laid out upon a table.
She was standing over Eliza’s body.
They had dressed her in a delicate white-lace gown. The blood had been washed away, and her hands lay folded over her chest. Blue snow-sorrows were braided in her dark hair, and a single bloom had been placed beneath her hands. The same flowers used for a wedding would now be for a funeral. She was so perfect with her thick lashes fanned over her cheeks that I half expected her to open her eyes and make comments about how dark the room was.
She would never speak again, and that thought pierced me. Impulsively, I kissed her forehead. It was cold as clay.
“She was so perfect.” Lady Blackwood’s voice was lifeless. “All that made this empty life bearable.”
“My lady? I’m so very sorry,” I whispered, brushing my tears away. She did not turn her face. “How may I help you?”
“Leave this place,” she croaked.
“I cannot. I have a duty.”
“Duty? Was it your duty to bring us the witch who killed my daughter?” Now h
er voice warmed, and she turned to me. “Bring your fire closer,” she whispered. “I want you to see.”
It was the last thing on earth I wanted, but how could I refuse her? Lady Blackwood leaned toward me as I summoned more fire to my hand. I choked on a scream.
I had seen the faces of cadavers lying in coffins. The woman before me looked as though she had rotted aboveground for some time. She’d no nose, merely a socket where that nose should have been. Patches of raw, exposed flesh dotted her gaunt cheeks and blistered lips. When she spoke, I glimpsed a mouth with only a few teeth remaining—they were yellow and rotted. Saliva dribbled out the side of her mouth.
“Before he died in battle, my husband delivered one parting gift to me.” Lady Blackwood made a rumbling noise in her chest and began to give a hacking cough. “He was such an adventurer, you know. When he wasn’t trying magic, he was trying women. One of them gifted him a disease that he passed to me. Had the Skinless Man not killed him, this would have.” She coughed again.
I couldn’t take my eyes from her. Her hair was white and brittle, with bald spots decorating her scalp. She picked at the collar of her rotted nightgown.
“Charles had a quick death. Far quicker than he deserved.” Though I didn’t consider being flayed alive a merciful end, I stayed silent. “I told you to run away, but you stayed with your prince. You thought him so good and strong? Well. George is a Blackwood.” The lady blinked at me. One eye was milky white with blindness. “He never had a scrap of tenderness in his entire being. Not like his sister.” At the mention of her daughter, the lady’s harshness melted. “Eliza was the joy of this family. George?” She gave a hacking laugh. “I know what wickedness you pair have done. I’m sure he’ll shun you now, like the coward he is. He can’t help it. His soul is defective.”
My feelings warred inside me. I felt pity for this woman, sorrow for her loss, and anger for her attitude toward her son. Even after what had happened between us, I knew the pain he had suffered. Now I’d a better idea of whom to blame for it. Blackwood’s need for control, in love and in all things, had its roots here. Lady Blackwood deserved sympathy for what her husband had done to her. She deserved none for what she’d done to her son.
A Sorrow Fierce and Falling (Kingdom on Fire, Book Three) Page 10
