by May Peterson
He grabbed me with greater force this time. And instead of leaning on me, he squeezed me to his chest. “No.” His voice trembled. “I’m not fucking disappointed in anything. Except that I went straight to the worst conclusion. When I could have actually helped you. You’re everything to me.”
I clamped down my jaw on instinct, restrained rising emotion. Never had he said that quite so clearly, so boldly. I let his arms surround me and believed, for the tail end of a second, that this was like old times. I was safe and loved and at home.
Rhodry was smiling tenderly through his fingers. Her Ladyship’s face peered through his silhouette. She had always seemed so resolute and ironclad, so to see her now—hands pressed to her throat, lips tight as if she was holding back frozen tears. It was as shocking and raw as it was a blessing.
None of us were safe.
“I guess it explains some things.” Tibario stepped back, wiping his face again. It was not a particularly human motion. “I kept trying to introduce you to girls when you were fifteen, and instead of you going out, it always ended with sheet music and piano duets.” His laughter was rough, warm. But it waned after a few moments, and he looked at his hands. “I almost said ‘good old days.’ But...”
I knew what he meant. Those had also been the days when I’d been learning to strip people of their wills for the sake of the family. When Tibario had probably finally gotten used to the fact that he had to kill to protect our secrets. Had there ever been good days, really? Or even simpler ones?
“You can’t go back.” Rhodry broke the exchange, a tide of his whiskey-scented darkness. But the energy that passed between him and Tibario was kind. “No one really can. Not after death, not after anything. But you have a second chance. You can still reclaim some things. You and Mio both. And if you let me, I can help make sure you do it.”
The uncertainty shifting over my brother’s face was almost melodic. His eyes went to my throat. Where the incubus had marked me, no doubt. His own throat moved as if in sympathy. “So this curse. Is it...going to kill you?”
A memory of the incubus occluded my mind. If it had wanted me dead...very little could have shielded me now.
Rhodry stepped forward. “No. It’s not going to get the fucking chance. Not this time.”
Now Tibario acknowledged him. We all did. A roguish passion had lit up Rhodry’s features. He abruptly came close enough to rest his arm around my shoulders. It felt like an act of desperation.
“For years, we’ve thought of the real problem as being the incubus,” he went on. “But it’s easy to forget—the incubus isn’t a separate creature that came in from the outside. It’s just the soul of the curse. The real enemy, all along, has been Piero. The incubus can’t kill anyone without him. I think we got it backward. The killer isn’t serving the incubus. The incubus is serving Piero.”
The elegance of that explanation was almost staggering. But why, then, had the incubus been so desperate to hear my voice? Had it known what I might be able to do once I surrendered to the possibilities of witchcraft—and if so, why would it care?
Eirlys hovered over the furniture and seized Rhodry’s attention. If Piero really is the murderer. Jury’s still out on that one.
Rhodry blinked, then frowned helplessly down at me. Right. I interpreted quickly.
Cecilio perked up. “Oh, here. That’s true. You made a convincing case, my lord, but one thing still doesn’t make sense. Why would the man kill himself?”
Rhodry’s calm was pointed. “We had no trouble believing Eirlys was the killer when we thought she’d killed herself.”
Cecilio flinched and covered his face. Shared embarrassment made me cringe. But Eirlys chewed her lip in thought, as if she’d considered this, too.
“Fuck.” Rhodry puffed air between his lips. “I’m sorry. That’s not how I meant it. Only that we’ve already considered these reasons. Maybe he hadn’t meant to at first. Maybe it was all some way to—” his eyes shifted “—have me to himself. But one thing we know for sure. Ghosthood has been good to him.”
Clarity seemed to gather between Rosemary’s brows. “Yes. Because the incubus is his curse, first and foremost.”
“That sets him apart from all the other ghosts. All of you are bound by a larger curse, but any fetters you would have developed on your own would likely not have trapped you here. But the incubus is Piero’s natural fetter, because we made it.” Rhodry began pacing. “It’s a chain, but it’s also a weapon. I doubt he actually controls the incubus, but it came from him. It probably doesn’t know any other way to exist than what Piero tells it. Every murder since he died, he’s been able to carry out unseen. And since I died, every soul that’s been slain has been dragged into the Deep.”
A ghastly image congealed of Piero’s intentions, of his inner world. “Because he wasn’t planning on you to come back.” I gulped. “He had to change plans when you didn’t stay dead. And it’s his connection to the incubus that lets him command the souls.”
“Exactly.” Rhodry’s smile was weak, sad, but it seemed to thank me. As if I’d understood him in the way he needed, at last.
“Then.” Tibario raised his hand meekly. “It sounds to me like there’s no way to stop him. I hope you weren’t expecting me to be able to break your curse. I don’t even know how to break a curse.”
I looked to Rhodry, my heart gaining speed, almost willing him to say Tibario could do it. But Rhodry just chuckled wryly.
“No. I mean, the thought had reared its head sometime during the night. Two moon-souls are better than one, right? But purifying a curse isn’t like exorcising a young ghost that already wants out.” He lifted eyebrows in the ghosts’ direction. “Ah. No offense.”
Cecilio’s lips quirked. “You think I’m young?”
Rhodry smirked. “Anyway. I’ve been combating this curse for over ten years. A bear-soul, on his own territory, should have been just the thing to purify a curse like this. And yet here we are. Either something went very wrong, or the strength of virtue needed to cleanse this incubus is rare enough that we shouldn’t expect it. But there’s another way.”
All the light in the room seemed to coalesce around me, making me dizzy with hope. “So...you can defeat it?” You can be free?
“There’s a way. But something has to come first. Something very important.” The smirk transformed into a thing more fragile. “I need to get you out of here.”
My hope hardened, became ice. He wanted me gone?
He seemed to catch a breath, thoughts aborting before he spoke. Maybe he saw the panic on my face. “Of course the trouble is, how to do that? Mamma Red Eye hasn’t exactly proven herself to be an ally, here. Much as she no doubt wants you back. Ginger snap. Is there some kind of...fuck, I don’t know, thief sanctuary you can take him to? Some kind of mafia neutral ground?”
Tibario’s eyes were slightly wide, as if he had never expected Rhodry to actually trust him. “There’s no such thing as ‘mafia neutral ground.’ But it doesn’t really make any difference.” He bit his lip, exposing a new baby fang. His eyes locked with mine. “Mamma will take you back. Of that I am absolutely certain. She’s desperate for you to return. No matter what else she does, she seems to think this is all some battle to regain your favor. If you come to her now, when she probably thinks I’m dead?” His shrug compacted a web of emotion, our whole story with Mamma, into one motion. “I don’t know, Mio. I never expected her to do what she did. But maybe she can change.”
How many years had I rattled that same rotation of hopes off to myself? How many nights had I lain awake, thinking she just had a thorn in her foot. She needed an answer. Then the mother I loved would come back to me.
Without transition, I noticed my hands curled under my chin, protectively. It meant nothing now if she agreed to some guilt-lit list of terms. Because Rhodry would still be here. Burning up.
Rhodry release
d a breath heavy with audible relief. “Maybe that’s enough. She can’t control you. Maybe—” He swept a hand in an arc, as if to say, maybe all of this. Maybe one of these antidotes will actually work. “It has to be safer than this. If Piero was holding back because the incubus couldn’t curse you, that blessing is well and truly spent. But distance might be able to save you.”
I unclenched my fists. Forced them to behave and sign. “And if I choose not to go back?”
Eirlys was scowling at my feet, exuding a pale cloud of mist. Rosemary and Cecilio were hunched together as if exchanging whispers. And Rhodry mulled over my words, tongue flashing over his teeth. “I know it must feel like I’m abandoning you. I brought you to here to keep you away from Serafina. And here I am handing you right back. But there could be another way. Tibario could even take you to the queen of cats. That’s not protection from sorcery, but even a strong witch would have to think twice about a street fight with an established clowder.”
I held his gaze. “I don’t care about that. I’m talking about abandoning you.”
His shoulders slumped. I still made myself face him. But everything in his expression radiated misery. “Then...” His voice was so quiet. “You won’t accept this from me?”
What he meant was plain. You won’t let me save you, in the way I couldn’t save anyone else?
“I don’t understand.” I stepped forward; if we’d been alone, I might have had the gumption to run to him, put my arms around him. “If you have a way to fight Piero, then isn’t the danger passing?”
A tense, embarrassed-sounding chuckle escaped his lips. “If my plan works, I’d rather you not be here to see it.”
My pulse threatened to pound through my skin. But Eirlys interrupted me before I could ask anything further. You need to tell me your plan. Now, Rhodry.
This time, he apparently understood her by context without translation. “I can explain. This is something I keep asking myself why I didn’t think of before. But that’s just it—I did think of it. All the way back at the beginning.”
“My lord.” Rosemary coughed. “The suspense.”
“Right. Well, think. When I thought you were the killer—” he inclined his head toward Eirlys “—I wanted to satisfy the curse. Assumed you wanted vengeance on me. Why not cut to the chase so we could both win?”
Eirlys closed the distance between them. One could almost see frost spreading on his eyebrows. Did you really find it so easy to think I would kill everyone you ever loved, trap you in this hell, because you slept with a man? Because you wanted out of an arranged marriage? If you still believe that’s what this is about, then you are a fool, Rhodry Bedefyr.
Rhodry’s eyes shrank to the size of ink spots, spots that tilted anxiously at me. I signed quickly; I wanted to hear his answer as much as she must.
When comprehension hit him, his lower lip began to tremble. “No. It wasn’t easy. But I sure as hell believed I had it coming. And... I couldn’t think of anything else to give you.”
The anger slid from her face. Their mingled feelings seemed to echo like soundwaves. It was suddenly like being in the cellar as they tried to find each other again through my signs. Had the years not been so dense with wreckage, they might have gone to one another. The way I wanted to go to him.
“It’s simple.” Rhodry took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to be a hero. But I think something did go terribly wrong along the way. A curse like this probably should not have gained the strength it has. The spirit picked the wrong person to resurrect. That person probably should have been you, Eirlys. We might have had a chance then. Both because you wouldn’t have shared in the curse. And if I had become a ghost? Piero would never have been able to get away with this. Because the incubus would have been exactly as fettered to me as it is to him.”
It was like he was lifting a sword, readying it to cut straight through me.
“So that’s what has to happen. I’ve been fighting him on the wrong battlefield all along. I tried to win against him as a moon-soul, when my best bet is to try and win as a ghost. The new plan is the old plan. I have to die. And this time, for keeps.”
He didn’t look at me as he said it. So he must not have seen. The way that sword shot across the room, puncturing my chest. He must not have seen the crack spreading across me.
Cecilio began to talk over him in fragments; Eirlys whispered in tremors that I didn’t catch. Their words were lapping water, hardening me, and I slipped down under them.
Everything was flammable, down to the pain in my heart, the image of him in my memory. There was no mercy stored up for the wounded, and I could not understand a universe where this was the punishment for being alive.
If they kept talking, I didn’t hear it. Eirlys rumbled my name, and it occurred to me that I was already moving, opening the door. I had to keep moving. If I halted for a moment, I’d find pieces of myself on the floor.
“Mio?” Rhodry sounded so gentle. “Listen, I’m sorry, I know this is hard, but—Mio. Wait, please.”
I broke into a run down the hall, escaping the place where we sat by the fire and planned his ritual suicide. I ran like the floor was burning under me, peeling into stripes of smoke and soot, joining in the cloud of loss. It rose up forever with nowhere to go, every fragile, knowable thing losing shape in the heat. Tears turned my vision into haze.
No matter what she’d done, I wished with all my might that my mother were here now.
* * *
The place I escaped to embarrassed me.
My room. It was the only place that felt like I could hide there. But it was where the incubus had first found me.
I hadn’t been here since that night, and it looked the same. Ash lying in the hearth. The bed rumpled. The joy Rhodry’s gift had given me was all evaporating.
I staggered into the center of the room and fell on my knees. I imagined covering Rhodry with those indigo curtains, shielding him as I had shielded myself, so he would not have to die.
It was so childish and hopeless that for a moment I could do nothing but stare.
Footsteps gained volume as they approached. Rhodry’s steps were so familiar now. There was a strange sense of time reversing, being back here with Rhodry appearing before me. And it being the real him this time. And what he brought being just as terrible.
“Mio.” He panted. “Please. Wait.”
I only held my stare at the indigo cloth.
He padded into the room. His breathing became close, as if he were kneeling down. “I know. That was a fucking terrible way for me to break it to you. I’m so sorry.”
A spasm took place in my throat, like a sob, but I forced it into a frustrated laugh. Break it to me. As if his delivery were what hurt.
“Mio.” The surface of his palm touched my shoulder. “Please. Talk to me.”
Something jolted in me. I flinched away, spun and shot up on my heels. “Were you even hoping you’d make it back? When you jumped into the Verge?”
He rose, slowly, hands at his sides.
My signs carved wide circles in the air. “Did you even want to survive?”
No answer. Just faintly parted lips, a wounded look that hovered between relief and anguish. And that was the answer. No. He had never planned to survive. Not from the beginning.
My fingers trembled. “Are you unhappy that I called you back?”
If he’d been silent just then, it might have killed me. But his head shook with vigor. “God, Mio. No. You don’t know how grateful I am to you. You didn’t save just me. And what I did—it wouldn’t have helped anything. Not then, not as things are. I just...” He sighed. “I’m tired. Tired of fighting this.”
Fighting this. He didn’t just mean the incubus. Or Piero.
A ragged smile came into view. “I think you should leave with Tibario in the evening. I’d prefer sooner, but this way he has time to get ba
ck on his feet, and you and he can plan. It’s safer. You can go back and try to bring your mother around, or maybe come up with something else. But Mio, either way, you are stronger now than ever before. Even the incubus is afraid of you, and it’s a much worse foe than Mamma Red Eye.”
The simplicity of that shocked me. So it was already decided. I would just pack up my regrets and be off. And never see him again. “It sounds like you’re waiting for me to be gone. So you can come back and...eat some silver bullet.”
It was cruel of me to say it like that. But he just responded, numbly, “It will involve much more than that, I’m afraid.”
That broke me. Punctured the armor of my mind, poisoned it with thoughts of Rhodry, alone in his cellar, hurling himself against one form of violence after another until he found one strong enough to shatter him. It was too much. The tears overcame me.
Rhodry’s arms materialized around me, dragging me into him. I let him. I pressed my face into his chest and cried.
“I don’t want you to have to see any of it,” he whispered into my hair.
After a few shaky breaths, I found the strength to steady myself and sign. “And if you’re wrong?”
When I looked up, he was frowning. “About Piero?”
I paused, tried to calm myself further. I needed composure to drive this through. “I don’t think the incubus wants me dead.”
The frown rippled, metamorphosed into something graver. “Mio. Trust me, trying to outthink the incubus is a losing game. It doesn’t have a heart. It can’t be understood in human terms.”
“Maybe not. But when it came back after I’d expelled it, what it said? ‘Why won’t you sing for me?’”
His eyes narrowed to slivers.
“What if it wasn’t trying to get me to speak so it could penetrate the silence? What if it wanted...” I wasn’t able to complete the thought. What could a creature like it possibly desire that would be within my power?
Rhodry’s voice was as dark as his glower. “The incubus wants a body. I think that’s all it’s capable of understanding. That, and whatever worldview Piero has taught it. This doesn’t make sense.”
