Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Dray
Fly’s shaking like a leaf on a tree in a thunderstorm, his face a mess of tears and snot and blubber. I walk him to the cold fireplace, nudging the old dog gently out of the way before lighting a pile of logs with a flick of my fingers. Then I find an old blanket that I wrap around his shoulders.
“Just sit here a minute, okay?” I tell him. “Get warm. You’re in shock. You’re gonna be okay.”
Fly doesn’t respond. He’s crying too hard. I’m not sure he even hears me.
I walk into the kitchen.
There’s a body laid out on the kitchen table, a blanket pulled right over it. A small body, slim in build. I can’t look at it.
I find the bottle from last night, yank off the stopper, and take a swig for myself. I liked that kid. She was funny. She made me laugh. Even if half the time I couldn’t understand what the hell she was talking about.
I place the bottle back down on the counter and lean into it, letting my head hang. I’ve seen people die before. Fuck, I’ve killed people before. But this, this feels different. Personal.
I can still hear Fly blubbering away in the front room. So I find a glass, pour him an extra-large measure, then hesitate, and pour myself one too.
I notice my own hands are trembling as I walk back into the front room and kneel before the dude on the old hearth rug.
“Drink this, Fly,” I tell him, holding it out to him.
His gaze meets mine. Watery. Fragile.
“Come on,” I tell him sternly. “Drink it up.”
Fly reaches out to take the glass from me, but his hands are shaking even harder than mine, and it’s clear he’s going to spill the lot over himself. So I take it back from him, hold it to his mouth, pour it between his lips. He gulps it down, and I keep pouring until the lot’s gone.
“All right?” I say.
“Not really,” he murmurs back.
“Yeah,” I say, rocking onto my backside and taking another swig of my own drink. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“She died in my arms, Dray,” he says, “while I was holding her. I felt… so hopeless. So useless. There was nothing I could do.”
“There was nothing any of us could do. You’re not hopeless. You’re not useless. You were a good friend to her. I could see that,” I tell him. “I’m not sure that kid had many friends, but you made her feel special. You and Briony. She liked you a lot.”
“Oh stars,” he says, dragging his hand down his face. “Her parents. Her boyfriend.”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” I say. “Here, do you want some more?” I offer him up my own glass.
He slumps back on the sofa.
“Right now, all I want to do is get completely wasted and off my face, but I’m not sure it’s the best thing.”
“It’s the only thing to do in situations like this,” I tell him, knocking back more of the alcohol.
The front door opens and Beaufort and Thorne step inside, guiding Little Kitten between them.
She looks no better than her friend. They lead her over to the sofa and push her down into its embrace.
The dog pads over to her and licks at her hand.
It starts Fly crying all over again, which sets Little Kitten off too.
Fuck. It even has me sniffling into my drink.
I hand her my glass, with only a few drops left in it, and tell her to drink. Then Beaufort’s beckoning toward me, and we walk back into the kitchen.
Both Thorne and Beaufort stop when they see the body on the table. We’re all silent, staring at it.
Then Beaufort shakes his head and snaps his gaze back to us.
“We can’t stay here,” he says. “We’ve got to leave.”
“That’s easier said than done,” I point out, “given the state those two are in, given the state we’re all in.” Thorne looks sick to the stomach, and even Beaufort looks far more shaken than I’ve ever seen him.
“It’s just about conceivable,” he continues, “that the Empress won’t have heard about our arrival in Slate Quarter.
There’s no way she won’t have heard about this demon attack, and even if she doesn’t know that it was us that stopped it, they’re still going to send forces out here.
It’s inevitable. We can’t hang around. We’ve got to leave. ”
I glance back toward the body. The old blanket covers her up. It’s a quilt stitched together with care and attention but worn and patched up in places. It doesn’t feel quite right. The girl deserves more than that. A lot more.
She was a good friend to Kitten. She saw how special she was. She was there for her. In a way, she’s been there for all of us.
“You’re right,” Thorne says. “We have to go.”
I glance back toward the front room. Fly and Little Kitten aren’t sobbing anymore. They’re holding each other, whispering to one another, Little Kitten’s old dog peering up at them anxiously as if he can sense something is wrong.
We walk back into the front room and they stop, looking up at us instead, expectant.
“You’re going to say we have to leave, aren’t you?” Little Kitten says.
“Yes, we do,” Beaufort tells her. “It’s too dangerous to stay. We need to go now, because the Empress’s elite guards, maybe the Empress herself, are coming.”
“Then why don’t we fight them here?” I ask. “You heard the mayor. They’re willing to fight with us.”
“These people just sustained a horrific attack by demons. They’re in no fit state to fight, and besides which, they don’t have powers.”
“They might,” I say. “Hidden powers like Briony’s.”
“They need time to regroup and heal,” Beaufort says. “We can’t ask them to fight now.”
“Then where are we going to go?” Little Kitten asks, her cheeks tear-stained.
“Back to the academy,” Beaufort says. “It’s safe there, and there are people willing to fight alongside us.”
“Fight?” Her eyes are big and sad and it feels like a knife has been plunged straight into my heart. “I can’t fight. I can’t do this anymore.”
“What do you mean, Little Kitten?”
Her breath is ragged and strained and her shoulders shake with each inhale.
“This is all my fault. All of it. Clare is dead because of me and I don’t want anyone else to die. I don’t want to lose any of you and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Brion–”
“No, Beaufort.” She jumps to her feet, shaking her head. “I can’t. Don’t ask me to. I can’t watch anyone else die.”
“Then we won’t, Nini,” Thorne says. “We’ll head back out to the demon realm. You saw the way she obliterated those demons out there,” he says to the rest of us, “We’ll find a way to cross the wastelands and reach whatever lies beyond. And we’ll leave all this behind.”
“Is that what you want?” Beaufort asks her.
“I’ve lost too many people, Beaufort.” The tears cascade down her face and roll off her chin. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have anything more to give and I won’t sacrifice the people that I love.”
“Okay, then,” he says, “if that’s what you want.”
“It is!”
He looks around the rest of us. It sounds like a freaking crazy plan to me but probably no more crazy than remaining in the realm and waiting for the Empress to kill us. And I’m willing to do anything this girl asks of me. I nod my agreement and Thorne and Fox do the same.
“Then we’re leaving for the border,” Beaufort instructs.
“No!” a voice says from the doorway and when we turn around we find Mrs. Tudor lurking there, listening in to our conversation.
Her arms are folded across her body, her clothes dirty with blood and her face coated in grit.
“You can’t go,” she says, staring directly at Little Kitten.
“You have to stay and finish what you started.”
“I… I can’t,” Briony mutters, her gaze falling to the floor.
“You don’t have a choice. Fate has chosen you, has given you a gift, not only of my son and these three powerful shadow weavers, but of a magic not seen for hundreds of years.
You can’t waste that gift. You can’t stand out there in the square and raise people’s hopes like that and then walk away, Briony Storm. ”
“I’m walking away so that no one else gets hurt,” Briony says hoarsely, “so that no one else I love dies.”
“We all get hurt. If you stay or if you go, that won’t change.
You know what it’s like living here in Slate Quarter.
You’ve spent most of your life here. You know the people are hurting all the time, even if they put on a brave face and pretend otherwise.
And we all die, sooner or later. We all lose the people we love.
That’s a fact of life. It shouldn’t stop you from doing what’s right. ”
“But why me?” Briony hisses suddenly, her gaze snapping back to Fox’s mother. “Why does it have to be me? Haven’t I suffered enough? Haven’t I gone through so much already? All this pain and this grief and this abuse – I just can’t do it anymore.”
She shakes her head, tears flying from her face.
“That’s why you have to keep going,” Mrs. Tudor says, raising her voice to match Briony’s tone. “You’re brave and you’re strong, and you can’t allow yourself to fall apart now.”
“But what if I can’t do it? What if I fail? What if I fail the people that I love?” She gestures at Fly, at me, at Beaufort, Thorne, and Fox.
“It’s a risk you have to take. Every time we fall in love, it’s a risk.
There’s always a chance that person will hurt us, leave us, or pass away from us.
Every time we fall in love with someone, we risk our hearts being broken.
But it’s a risk worth taking. Just like this moment – this chance – is a risk worth taking too.
You can change things for us, Briony. You can show the realm the truth and give us a different future.
One without demons and Quarters and trials.
Without having to watch our most precious gifts – our children – carted off to that academy, knowing we may never see them again. ”
She sniffs, her gaze swinging to her son. He meets her eyes and nods in agreement.
“She’s right, Briony. We made our choice. There’s no turning back now.”
“I can’t,” Little Kitten cries, burying her face in her hands, her whole body shaking as she sobs.
Beside her, Fly is crying too, his body trembling.
“It’s hard, Little Kitten,” I say softly.
“But sometimes you just have to pick yourself up from the wreckage, dust yourself off, and keep going. You’ve done it before.
We’ve all done it before.” I think of everything we’ve endured over the years – different trauma, different pain.
All of us. Every single one. “We’re here with you, by your side, always.
And we’re going to help you. And no one else is going to die. ”
“You don’t know that,” Briony snaps. “We lost Clare.”
“And that just makes me more determined,” I tell her, “that we won’t lose anyone else.”
“You have to do it for your friend,” Mrs. Tudor says. “You can’t let her death be for nothing, Briony. You have to make it mean something. You have to give it purpose. Otherwise, she’s just another child in the realm who died for nothing. Is that what you want?”
“No,” Briony whispers. “What I want is for her to be here. With us.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Mrs. Tudor says firmly. “She’s gone. So come on now. Dry those eyes. Chin up. We have to go on.”
For a moment, I don’t think Briony hears her. Then she wipes at her face with her fingers, sniffing as she does, and manages a wobbly nod.
“Okay, but I have to say goodbye to her first.”