Finally, he fell to his knees.
She stopped. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps. Callis whined at her feet.
“Not bad,” Spider said, his mouth dripping blood. “Look behind me. What will you do now, my dear?”
Sophie raised her head.
Monsters were climbing over the brick wall into the garden.
* * *
CHARLOTTE ran down the stairs. She’d lost track of things for a moment, watching Richard win, and when she turned around, both Sophie and Spider were gone.
The hallway ended in an arched entrance, flooded with sunlight. She dashed through it. A large garden spread before her. In the middle of it, Sophie stood in a gown scarlet with blood, holding a small sword. The big dog stood shivering next to her. Sophie’s gaze was fixed on the far wall. Charlotte looked up.
People were climbing over the wall, dropping into the flowers one by one. Some were human, some were a grotesque collection of animal parts grafted onto human bodies. Their magic splashed her like a wave of sewage. The Hand. They must be Spider’s people. Sophie stood alone against two dozen trained killers, and she was holding an oversized knife.
Charlotte ran. The time slowed to a crawl. She saw everything with crystalline clarity—the monsters in the flowers; Sophie’s pale face as she turned to glance at her; the desperation of knowing she was outmatched in the child’s eyes . . .
The magic tore out of Charlotte, the dark currents streaming like black dragons to find their victims. They stung the first agent, biting his muscular body. He snarled, an inhuman sound, and kept coming. The regeneration, Charlotte realized. His enhanced body was healing the damage she inflicted with her diseases as fast as she could hurt him. She would have to give it more power.
She snapped some of her inner chains. The magic shot out of her, its black streams luminescent with red sparks, carrying death. The magic sped toward the Hand’s agent, brushing against the wolfripper in passing. The dog howled, spun, and fled past her to the safety of the castle. The darkness stung the agent again. He went down on his knees. A bloody red lesion split open the skin on his back. Charlotte struggled to keep the wound open, feeling his body fighting her. He healed with unnatural speed. How was this possible?
Sophie dashed through the garden to her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. It just happened. Spider was walking away . . .”
Charlotte thrust herself between the child and the monsters. “Stay near me.”
She gave the magic more of herself and pushed. Her dark current snapped and struck, biting deep into the approaching fighters. They still kept coming. There had to be fifty of them in the gardens. They were circling them, closing in a ring. In moments, the two of them would be surrounded.
This was a death stand. If Charlotte didn’t start feeding on them to fuel her own magic, the Hand would rip her and Sophie apart. But even if she then managed to kill them all, it would destroy who she was and she’d take Sophie’s life without even thinking about it.
Sophie held her knife, her face bloodless and terrified.
She had to save Sophie. Her years of making quick decisions in a crisis paid off. Fear vanished. Her head was suddenly clear. There was only one way out, Charlotte realized. It was impossible for both of them to get out of this alive, but if she bought Sophie enough time to escape . . . It was just possible the child could survive. It was their only chance.
You will turn into the plaguebringer, a tiny voice warned her.
True—once she went down this road, nothing would prevent that—but the Hand were too many, and they healed too fast. They would overwhelm her before she could move on to the castle and cause damage to innocent people. It was suicide, but it was the best possible option.
The first agent Charlotte had downed, rose, shaking off his injuries like they were mere scratches. Charlotte whipped her magic, and the dark currents clenched the revolting hybrid of human and beast. An exhilarating influx of life force flooded into her. She siphoned off his life and turned it into power.
The dark serpents of her magic smashed into the second agent, draining her dry and dumping her desiccated corpse into the flowers. They stung another and another, stealing more life, feeding it back into her.
Charlotte squeezed Sophie’s shoulder. “Run!”
“I won’t leave you!”
“If you stay, I’ll kill you. I’ll clear the way. Run, sweetheart. Keep Richard away from me. Run!”
Sophie ran. She flew along the path back to the castle like she had wings.
Charlotte opened the floodgates. Her power surged forward, biting deep into the monsters in Sophie’s path. She stole their life force and vomited it back as an all-devouring plague. The Hand’s agents shuddered and fell.
Sophie dashed through the gap between the bodies.
Her magic reaped its grisly harvest. The enhanced agents fought to reach her and fell, cut down, and she fed on their lives, reveling in their taste.
Sophie shot up the stairs and through the arched doors.
Enough. She could pull it back now. Charlotte strained, reeling the magic back. The darkness buckled inside her, fighting to stay unleashed. So strong, so overpowering. Her hold on her power slipped a little, then a little more. It was if she were caught in the current of a violent river that pushed her back, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force her way against the flow.
She had become an abomination. The magic streamed out of her like a black storm, and she was powerless to stop it. As if in a dream, bodies were falling around her, slowly and softly, like wilted flowers. The dark river inside her rose, the furious current creeping higher and higher.
Oh, Richard . . . It had all gone wrong. It had gone so, so wrong. She was crying, the tears rolling down her cheeks. I’m so sorry, love. I’m so, so sorry. You were all I wanted. You were all I hoped for. I’m sorry.
She shouldn’t have pushed him away last night. She should’ve invited him in, to love and be loved one last time.
The current inside her swelled, and she drowned.
* * *
RICHARD ran through the hallways, the walls a smudged blur. Ahead, Sophie dashed through the arched entrance, her face wet with tears.
“She’s gone!”
“What?”
“Charlotte’s gone, she’s gone!”
He pulled away from her, but she grabbed onto his clothes, dragging him away from the arch. “No, Richard, no! No, you’ll die. No! Don’t go! She said for you not to go!”
He hugged her to him, kissed her hair, and pushed free.
“Richard,” she screamed.
He burst into the sunlight.
Charlotte stood in the middle of the garden. Her magic raged, striking down the Hand’s agents, the black streams boiling, twisting, like a terrifying storm. The Hand’s freaks tried to run, but the magic bit them again and again. Some crawled, other lay unmoving, little more than desiccated husks, and some were decomposing.
Charlotte turned, and he saw her eyes. They were solid black.
The flowers by her feet withered. The blight ran from her, spreading through the garden. Roses died, rotting at the root. The last of the Hand’s monsters swayed and fell.
She had become what she always feared. She had turned into a living death.
He had to get to her. He had to reach her.
The flowers by the stone steps on which he stood withered. He stepped on to their dried corpses and walked across the garden.
The darkness streamed to him. It cloaked him. He felt its deadly cold sting.
“I love you, Charlotte.”
Ten feet separated him from her.
His body buckled. It felt like he was being turned inside out.
Eight feet. The bones of his legs melted into agony.
“I love you. Don’t leave me.”
Three steps.
His heart was beating too fast, each contraction slicing him as if someone were stabbing shards of glass straight into his aorta.
He dropped his sword—his fingers couldn’t hold it—and closed his arms around her. “My love, my light . . . Don’t leave me.”
* * *
She stood submerged within the black current of the magic river. The red pockets of magical essence washed over her one by one, glowing weakly, and she absorbed them in a cascade of euphoria.
No thoughts. No worries. Just freedom and bliss.
Another wash of red splashed against her. She tasted it and recoiled. It tasted too familiar. She hadn’t taken it. It was freely given, but everything in her rebelled against consuming it. How could this be?
She forced herself to sample the essence, letting it permeate her. It streamed along her, coursing through her, so unbelievably delicious. Wrong. It was wrong. Her magic shrank from it.
She strained, trying to identify it. There had to be a reason.
Richard!
He was Richard.
She heard a voice from a great distance. It cloaked her, separating her for a brief second from the darkness.
My love, my light . . . Don’t leave me.
She was killing him. She was draining his life, drop by precious drop.
No! No, she didn’t want it. Take it back! Take it all back!
She tried to reverse the flow and send life back into him, but the current gripped her, smothering her, trying to banish reason. She felt herself drowning and fought against it with everything she had.
No! I am the Healer. You’re part of me. You are part of me. You will obey me.
Pain flooded her, the current hammering against her body. Hundreds of pinpoint needles pierced her, burning her. The agony overwhelmed her, and she melted into blinding pain.
If she gave up now, Richard would die.
Charlotte ripped through the pain. A golden glow coated her. The current of the dark river shrank from it.
You will obey.
The pain was excruciating. She screamed, although she had no voice. The glow shot from her, igniting the river into a radiant gold. Her magic boiled.
The darkness fell apart. She saw Richard’s prone body in the dead grass and dropped to her knees next to him.
Don’t die. Please, don’t die.
She pushed, but no magic came. There was nothing left of it, neither light nor darkness.
Richard was barely breathing.
She strained, trying to pull on that roiling gold. The magic buckled inside her, threatening to rip her apart, but would not obey. Pain exploded inside her in excruciating bursts of agony. Charlotte tasted blood in her mouth.
Tiny specks of blood formed on her skin, coming out of her pores. Finally her voice obeyed, and she screamed, the pain streaming out of her. It felt like she was dying. She almost wanted to die just to end the agony, but she had to save him.
Obey me. Work. You will work.
Something broke inside her.
Her magic burst out of her, the gold so potent, it lifted him above the ground. Her power bound them into one. Everything she had taken, every life she had stolen, all of it went into Richard. She drenched him in the healing gold, again and again, hoping against hope that he would live.
Come back to me. Come back to me, love.
It felt like her body was melting. She had to hold on. She had to heal him.
“Come back to me. I love you so much.”
He opened his eyes.
She didn’t believe it. It was a trick.
He raised his hand. His fingers touched her lips. “I love you, too.” He pushed from the ground and sat up.
She collapsed on his chest and surrendered to the pain.
* * *
RICHARD sat by the heavy wooden doors. Behind them, the healers of Ganer College worked on Charlotte. He’d thought she had fallen asleep from exhaustion. It took him five precious hours to realize she couldn’t wake up. He’d loaded her into a phaeton and drove at a breakneck speed to Ganer College. He walked through the gates, carrying her, and people came and took her away from him. He followed them through the labyrinth of hallways and stairs to this corridor and this room, where they shut the doors in his face, and he’d been sitting here for hours, not knowing whether she would live or die. A man had brought him a platter of food at some point, but he felt no need to eat. He got up a few times to relieve himself in the bathroom two doors down.
He was so monumentally angry.
The two of them had done so much, they had sacrificed so much, and after all of that, now she would die. He wanted to rage and punch the walls at the unfairness of it, but instead he had to sit still. He tried picturing going home without her and couldn’t.
If she died . . . What was the point?
“There is often no point. Seeking some sort of justification in the flow of life is useless,” a woman said.
He looked up. An elegant, older woman stood before him, tall and very thin, with dark hair and intense penetrating gaze.
“Will she live?”
“Yes. She’s resting now.”
Relief flooded him.
“My name is Lady Augustine al Ran. Walk with me, Richard. There are some things we must discuss.”
He rose and followed her down the hallway. “Are you reading my mind?”
“No, I’m reading your emotions. You’re drowning in bitterness. I’m a sensate, and over the years, I’ve become very good at connecting the dots.”
They reached another set of doors. He held them open for her. She strode through. He went after her and found himself in a long, stone breezeway about fifty feet off the ground. A roof sheltered it from the elements, but the large, arched windows had no glass, and the breeze blew through them. The sun was out, its light bright and golden. When he’d brought Charlotte in, night was falling.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“It’s late morning,” she said. “For you it is tomorrow. You’ve spent the last fourteen hours waiting.”
“Has it been that long?”
“Yes.”
His anger was melting into the wind, carrying off his bitterness. He felt . . . calm.
“What are you doing to me?”
“I need you to have a clear head,” she said, stopping at one of the windows. “You have some decisions to make, and I don’t want your emotions to interfere with them. I know about you, Richard. She wrote to me before leaving for the wedding. She told me all about you. She loves you, which explains why she has done the impossible for your sake. I wasn’t there, but her body and her mind bear the scars. Tell me what happened.”
He told her everything. The slavers, Charlotte, the dark magic, Sophie, all of it.
“I had surmised as much,” she said, looking at the gardens far below. “Charlotte was always very strong.”
“Will there be repercussions?”
She raised her narrow eyebrows. “Officially? No. She is too valuable as a healer, and the idea that a feedback loop can be broken would only give fools the pretext to experiment with it. No, there will be no sanctions, but there are consequences. When Charlotte broke the feedback loop to heal you, she did it at a terrible cost. She experienced discordance. It’s a very rare phenomenon, where the magic user becomes so absorbed in channeling her magic that she loses motor skills. Charlotte must relearn basic things, Richard. She must learn again how to walk, how to hold a spoon or a pencil, how to turn the page of a book.”
His heart sank. “But she can learn?”
“Oh yes. There is nothing physically wrong with her body. We’ve repaired the damage and made her as healthy as she could be. But it will take a lot of patience and practice. She will be bedridden for weeks.”
She was alive. She was healthy, and she had survived. That was all that mattered. “When can I take her home?”
Lady Augustine turned to him. “That may not be a good idea. I don’t think you understand. Charlotte will need to be carried to the bathroom. She will need to be bathed. She will need to be spoon-fed and will be bedridden for weeks until she is able to begin rehabili
tation, which will likely take months. Do you have any children? You will have to take care of her as if she were a child. Think of what it will do to any romantic feelings you may have for her. You will never be able to see her in the same light again. Walk away, Richard. Leave her here with us. This is what we do. We care for the sick, and we’re very good at it.”
“Did she say she wanted me to take her home?”
“She did.”
“Then I’ll take her home.”
The older woman stared at him. “You must know that I won’t consent to your marriage.”
“I don’t care,” Richard told her. “I don’t care about your family, your title, or your bloodline. I’ll be with her in any way she will have me.”
He turned and marched back the way they had come. He pounded his way through the hallway and walked through the doors. Charlotte was awake. She lay in bed, her hair fanning across the pillows like a golden veil, her silver eyes alert and aware. He knelt by the bed.
“I can’t hold you,” she told him.
He kissed her lips gently. “I don’t care.”
“I care. You don’t have to, if it’s too much . . .”
He heard tears in her voice.
“I won’t leave you,” he told her. “I will never leave you. We’ll do this together. Come home with me. Please.”
He hugged her to him. “Say yes, Charlotte.”
“Yes,” she told him.
EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS LATER
THE evening sky had just begun to darken. Strings of colorful, round lanterns hung from the trees, glowing gently with yellow, green, blue, and red. Tiny golden fireflies floated in the air. The September air was warm and pleasant. Charlotte rocked back slightly in her chair. Before her a vast lake spread, calm and shiny like the surface of a coin. If she leaned forward, she would just be able to make out Kaldar and Audrey’s house across the water to the left.
The lake splashed against the wooden pier. Jack lay on his back on the boards, looking at the sky, his hands behind his head. George skipped a small pebble across the pond next to him. Sophie sat on the edge, her feet in the water. Two weeks after the house was built, she asked if she could come and stay with them for a few days. She never left.
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