“What’s his name?” I ask gently.
“Njar,” Larsht answers, his harsh voice finally softening. “His name is Njar.”
I stare at the crippled, emaciated form before me. “Njar,” I repeat, the syllable feeling awkward on my tongue.
Healer’s hands, I remind myself as I place my palms on his chest. Don’t fail me now.
Some of the soldiers shift forward again, grunting their displeasure, but Izbella holds them back, and I keep my attention focused in one place only.
There’s a pulse beneath my fingers, faint and quick as a bird’s, but it’s there. This guy wants to fight.
Like Wisty during the Blood Plague, when she almost didn’t make it….
“This isn’t your time, Njar,” I whisper softly, like I did to my sister that day.
His skin is damp with sweat and chilled to the bone, but as the M starts to move through my fingertips, the warm surge of it leaves red spots on his chest, and I know my own brand of medicine is working through him.
I close my eyes, keeping my hands steady on his chest, and concentrate on reaching in and seeking out. I feel myself, my power rushing through the veins, toward his lungs, like a healing serum doing its work.
I seek out the blackness and the death, and root out the pain. I consume it all.
“Come back to us, Njar,” I whisper, feeling my hands lift strangely as his body warms and strengthens. “Come back to all these people who love you.”
I shudder as I feel the fever leaving him, snaking away in retreat.
When I open my eyes, Njar is floating above the table, as high as my shoulder blades. He starts to tremble from his ankles all the way up to his neck, and as the movement spreads, he’s… changing.
His muscles start to fill out. His breathing starts to steady. And color floods his cheeks.
There’s something else, too. It’s this light that seems to be emanating from his pores, making the whole room glow with healing energy.
I finally let out a breath. He’s saved.
Family members blink up at the boy suspended before them, and when they remove their hospital masks, I see that tears are flowing freely down their cheeks.
A few of Njar’s relatives lay their cloaks over the block of ice, and I grip his shoulders and slowly lower him back to the table.
Njar opens his eyes and smiles like he’s just awoken from a sweet dream.
“You came back,” his mother says, weeping.
Njar looks at her, his lucid eyes shining. “I came back for the people I love,” he says with gratitude, and turns to me. “Like you said.”
Color is returning to his face and he’s shed the smell of death like an old robe. Everyone is hugging—Njar, and his relatives, and even Larsht.
“You’ve saved my nephew and the King’s grandson,” the feathered woman announces. “You’ve rid us of this terrible illness and scoured death from this Kingdom. We are greatly in your debt.”
I don’t even have a moment to relish the triumph before the chamber’s huge wooden doors fly open on their hinges, and soldiers flood the room.
Chapter 49
Wisty
“HEY,” I CALL UP from the sidewalk.
Heath grins as he opens his front door. “Hey,” he shouts down to me. “I’d invite you up to the porch, but…” He looks around at the piles of ash and burnt cinders where the porch used to be, and we both laugh.
“I guess we ran a little hotheaded on that one, huh?” I ask, blushing, and Heath nods.
“I just wanted to say—” We blurt it out at the same time, in the same awkward, rushed tone. This triggers another fit of laughter, of course. But laughing’s okay. Laughing is good.
Better than crying, for example. Or fleeing.
Heath motions in my direction. “After you.”
I clear my throat. “I just came to say that I’m sorry about running off the other night.”
He starts to wave it off, but I’ve been rolling this over in my head ever since, and I need to get it out.
“Ever since The One—well, was destroyed,” I begin, stumbling over that whole concept of Whit and me killing him, “I haven’t had to use my powers like I did during the New Order. And I’m realizing it’s… kind of scary that I don’t really understand them anymore, don’t really know what I’m capable of. And you…” I swallow. “You��re pushing me to places I didn’t know I could go.”
Heath looks sympathetic, but I’m not done yet. My throat has gone dry. “The One did that to me, too, you know.” This time I gulp. “Not that I’m comparing you to him or anything…”
Heath’s face clouds over. “I would never treat you the way he did, Wisty!” he says passionately. He hops down from the doorway.
“I know, I know….” He comes over to me and lets me bury my face in his chest.
“The truth is, Wisty…” His dark hair falls forward. “You’re pushing me to places I didn’t know I could go, either. Ever since we first merged our power… do you ever still sense that connection when we’re apart? Like you can feel…”
A ghost of the other’s power. A whisper of a thought. An emotion. A surge.
I nod. “All the time.”
“So it’s my fault for pushing you too fast, really. I just… started to want that feeling all the time. I crave it. Like I crave you.”
His gaze is burning into me, as intense as ever, and I remember all those dizzy moments after I left him. Yeah, I guess I crave him, too.
“But I can slow down,” he adds. “We can cool off.”
“We don’t have to cool off,” I say quickly. Heath flashes that wicked grin. “I mean, we still have so much work to do in the City. Why don’t we keep exploring our magic in ways we’ve already tried so far, so we can get it more under control? Like…”
“There still are lots of kids to save,” Heath suggests.
“And plenty of ways to use that crazy tunnel vision to dig up information,” I point out.
“And ways to stay fired up about the cause in the meantime.” Heath cocks a mischievous eyebrow, and I grin, shaking my head again at the blackened porch kindling.
“Definitely.”
The network of magicians was right. The City is falling apart too fast and I can’t do this on my own. I’m just not quite ready to go running for my big brother yet, either.
The City needs a witch and a wizard, they said, and that’s true. So here we are. I think again of our window reflection as we merged—the girl with the nest of red hair; the boy in black.
A witch. A wizard.
I’m not trying to replace Whit forever, but he’s gone now. He left.
So for the moment, I need to make do. And this feels right.
Heath lifts up my chin, and the sky is reflected in those clear blue eyes, vast and true. When we kiss this time, it’s more like a cloud kiss—soft and light and dreamy, a promise of things to come.
Chapter 50
Whit
IT’S LIKE A POLICE RAID.
Armed men storm into the chamber where I healed the boy. Everyone is screaming, and terror and chaos seem to blot out everything else.
The moment the old man enters the room, however, it falls eerily silent, and I swear, the temperature drops another twenty degrees.
“Having a celebration?” he purrs, stalking around the chamber.
This man wears no crown, and is draped in rough, dirty animal furs, but the instant he speaks, I know that this is the infamous Wizard King. The Mountain Man. The Snow Leopard.
This, without a doubt, is the man who does not negotiate, who I have to try to reason with.
The King’s fury is palpable—it almost hums off him, sucking out all the air. Every soul in the room is silent and cowering, and the shadow people seem to slip back into their invisible corners.
I shield Njar’s mother and aunt, but Larsht seems to need more protection than anyone. He’s trembling all over.
“Why is the Allgood boy here?” The King nods in my
direction.
I can barely find my voice in the face of this terror, but I have to do what I came here to do. I step forward.
“I—I’m here to negotiate,” I blurt out.
The Wizard King doesn’t even glance at me, though, as he steps slowly toward Larsht. “WHY IS THE ALLGOOD BOY HERE?” the King repeats at top volume, right into Larsht’s face, and I flinch. “You were always such a feebleminded boy, Larsht,” the King says. “I thought taking your left eye might help you see the right way to do things, but I see now I was too soft on you.”
“Please,” Larsht whimpers like a child, cowering under the ancient old man. “Father…”
As much as I wasn’t a fan of Larsht, this is almost painful to witness.
Izbella, who has been watching the Wizard King’s every motion with hawk-like attentiveness, finally stands. “He was here to heal Njar, my King.”
Why is she not afraid of him?
The King looks at Izbella with disgust, and then truly fixes his strange, colorless eyes on me for the first time. “Healed him, did you?” he asks almost playfully. A sharp cold darts through me in one gasping instant—like swallowing an icicle whole—and then it’s gone.
Then he flicks his gaze at Njar. “His legs still look pretty twisted to me.”
“Grandfather,” Njar protests helplessly, “please.”
“The infection’s gone,” the feathered woman says quickly, stepping forward. “Whit Allgood saved your grandson’s life.”
But the King is already narrowing his milky eyes and sending an evil gaze straight to his grandson, and Njar starts to convulse and shake, his head snapping from side to side.
“No!” I shout, but the King’s powerful magic holds me in place to watch what I can’t believe I’m seeing.
His magic is starting to kill the boy I just saved. This man would murder his own family to prove a point.
Njar’s mother sobs and pushes, but Larsht’s face is a wreck of defeat, and this time, he doesn’t budge from the King’s side, even for his son.
Then the King blinks, the faintest smile passing over his lips, and Njar’s body falls still as the fit subsides. His breathing is labored again, but he’s alive.
“I am a wizard.” The Wizard King steps closer to me now, and his face comes into sharp focus. His skin is like ancient leather, his beard dirty yellow. “You are an insect, a roach that needs to be squashed.” The amusement in his colorless eyes is nothing short of terrifying. “Yet you dare to practice magic in this village, in my house?” His voice thunders louder, and the heat of his sour breath hits me full in the face. “You may be a healer, boy, but you’d best remember that I am the king of destruction.”
I’m trembling, but I don’t dare open my mouth.
“Now tell me,” he asks in a falsely pleasant tone. “What did you want to negotiate?”
Remember what you came here to do. I step forward, trying to find my voice again.
“We want to restore the water agreement,” I finally answer. “And we request immediate release of the City’s kidnapped children, or the penalty is war.”
“Yes, it is,” the King says ominously. “It always is. Now, what do I want?” The King drags a long, thick fingernail slowly down my face, from forehead to chin. I try not to flinch.
“Well, I want you dead, to start with,” he says simply. “You and your sister both. I have you already… so tell me, boy, where is the little witch?”
The Wizard King doesn’t negotiate, Celia had insisted. She knew everything, all along. Why didn’t I listen?
I set my jaw. I won’t go out like that. Not where Wisty is concerned.
“Where. Is. Your. Sister?” he repeats in a low, threatening voice.
I look this sick old man square in his creepy eyes and clench my jaw.
“We just got word the kid’s on his way up the Mountain with his sweetheart,” Larsht interrupts. “He’ll deliver the firebrand to us.”
Wisty, I think desperately. And then: Heath.
“Wonderful,” the King says. When he looks at me again, his expression is rife with nastiness. “Put them in the Vault with the leopards, then. My kitties haven’t eaten in two days—they deserve a little treat for their morning feed.”
Chapter 51
Whit
WHEN THEY SHOVE me inside the Vault, my whole body feels paralyzed in alarm. I flatten myself against the iron door, my eyes bugging out at the scene across the room.
The Wizard King wasn’t bluffing: Our cell really is inside the leopards’ den.
The enormous cats run pink tongues lazily over their jowls and squint sleepily at one another. I see those fangs peeking out, though, and their tails swishing back and forth.
They could attack at any moment.
“Aren’t they gorgeous?”
It’s Janine’s voice. I hadn’t even noticed her in the room, along with Ross, sitting cross-legged on the floor. For a second I’m overjoyed to see them, and then I’m crushed again.
They shouldn’t be in the death chamber here with me.
Janine pulls on my leg and I slide down beside her. “Don’t worry—there’s glass between them and us.”
Not for long, I think with queasy dread as I remember the King’s final words: a treat for their morning feed.
A slot on the door clicks open, and a pair of eyes scans the room.
I leap to my feet and crowd the opening. I know those eyes.
“Pearl?” I ask, and the irises jump inside the metal slot.
Those are Pearl Neederman’s eyes, all right—silvery gray and old beyond her years.
“Pearl!” I exclaim.
“Shut up, Wizard,” she says, narrowing her eyes. They’re harder somehow, I realize. Cold, like they weren’t before. “I don’t talk to the Failures.”
“You… you don’t know me?”
“Of course I know you,” she spits. Relief floods through me, but it’s only for a moment. “You’re the one playing at magic from the City of Scum.”
“It’s me, Pearl Marie. It’s Whit.” We had a connection from my magic. I felt your pain when you were taken. Please, remember me.
“My name is Rat,” she says. “Because a rat can always be cleaner.” She says it like she’s said it a hundred times before, and my world begins to crumble.
Her deft fingers move over the bolts and pulleys. “Pearl,” I say, with a glimmer of hope, “do you know how to open the door?”
She scrunches up her face like I’m the stupidest person she’s ever met—it’s a very familiar face from the old Pearl, and it gives me hope. “Of course I know how to open the door!” She rolls her eyes. “Since I’m the fastest runner in the whole camp, I catch the rabbits for the kitties.”
“Pearl, if you could just open the door, or give us the keys…” I say gently. “We could get you out of here.”
“My name’s Rat,” she says firmly. “And why would I want to leave?” Her bottom lip starts to quiver. “You’re not gonna take me away, are you?”
“Stop it, Whit, it’s no use—she’s been brainwashed.” Ross sighs.
The King takes them, Celia said when she was so upset and trying to make me understand. He wipes them clean.
“No.” I shake my head in disbelief. “No, Pearl, not you.”
Maybe she’s just pretending, though. Maybe someone is listening….
She slides her hand through the slot in the door to set in the meal tray, and I spot the burns. I grab her wrist and pull it back through.
I gasp at the bubbled, burned flesh snaking across her tiny palm. “Pearl!” I exclaim in horror. “Oh, no. What have they done to you?”
She’s trembling all over. “Please let go,” she whispers pitifully, all the bravado gone from her voice. She just sounds like a little kid—a little kid who’s been tortured. “Wizard, please let go.”
“Whit, she’s terrified. Let go of her!” Janine yells. I release Pearl’s burned hand, and she yanks it back through the window.
&nbs
p; “But the burns—” I start.
“Can’t you see she hates being touched?” Janine hisses at me.
My heart lurches at the thought of the torture she must have suffered.
The slot is opening again, and this time, an aimed crossbow slides in through the crack.
“Whoa! What are you doing?” I shout, leaping away from the front of the door. The tip of the arrow follows me around the small Vault.
“Strip!” she yells in her tiny drill sergeant’s voice, leveling the crossbow at my head.
“What?!”
“The kitties need to be able to smell you,” she says matter-of-factly. “For the morning feed, when we pull up the glass door.”
“Why are you doing this?” Ross asks, his voice shaking as we reluctantly strip down to our shorts, socks, and undershirts.
Pearl/Rat shakes her head, her dark fringe falling into her eyes. “I didn’t do it to you; you did it to yourselves. The King likes winners, and you lost.” She cocks her head. “How does it feel to be a Failure, Wizard?”
Chapter 52
Wisty
I’M HAPPY. No, more than happy. I’m in a fog of romantic bliss.
Heath and I have spent every second together all week, merging our power and saving more kids and—well, yeah, kissing whenever we have a spare moment. And talking. And kissing. And laughing. And kissing.
Everything finally feels like it’s coming together….
“Everything’s falling apart!”
I swear, if there’s a bubble you ever need bursting, Byron Swain will be there in record time, guaranteed. He’d been pounding obnoxiously on the front door buzzer of Heath’s building, so I came down to see what he had to say. And that was it: “Everything’s falling apart!”
“I admit, it could use a coat of paint,” I say, sticking my head out to examine the charred remains of Heath’s porch. “And here I thought you were just being melodramatic.”
“I have to show you something, Wisty. You have to come with me,” Byron urges. “It’s just across town—”
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