Chapter 35
The Cursed are ranked from one to ten according to how dangerous they are. At level ten, all that remains is a hungry howl and a twisted carcass too warped to remember ever having been alive.
LEMPICKA
The confectionery groaned, its roots clawing at the rocky earth, struggling to cling to the steep mountainside. Pebbles tumbled into the void, and if it kept on like this, the house would follow.
The air was thick. Metallic. Laced with a rancid stench of rot and cinders, heavy and sticky, seeping down my throat. I clung to the railing of the terrace, leaning over the vast expanse of gray mist, my pulse hammering against my temples.
Somewhere out there, Arawn was waiting.
A flight of black birds tore itself out of nothingness, fleeing into the sky. A massive shadow emerged, surrounded by a swarm of Spirits that circled him like a storm of ravenous darkness. There were too many—far more than in the forest.
My fingers clenched. “Arawn creates Spirits when he loses fragments of his humanity. They’re supposed to obey him. If he’s lost the last spark—”
The words strangled in my throat. Now everything made sense. This wasn’t a rebellion. It was a birth.
“He’s just created an army of Spirits, which means…”
He will soon lose his humanity.
A roar split the silence. The confectionery reared. Its walls cracked, its foundations trembling beneath the wave of that howl.
“Stop!” I screamed.
With a screech of wood and iron, the confectionery obeyed.
Its chimney exhaled one last breath of hissing steam.
Beyond, the Cursed were waiting. None dared step toward Arawn.
Some watched, ready to crawl to a new master.
Others hunched low, as if they knew one step too close would crush them.
Until suddenly, their heads all snapped up, their gazes fixed on one single point.
Me.
The first one lunged. The others followed.
I slammed the window shut and bolted. The stairs flew beneath my feet as I snatched my broom mid-stride.
The front door’s handle rattled violently, the Cursed pounding the wood, claws searching for a gap.
The roots of the confectionery groaned under the strain, holding fast, but they would not last forever.
I prayed Arawn’s magic would hold just long enough.
“This is your plan?” Aignan squeaked, his voice an octave higher, fur bristling, horn lowered. “We’re all going to die! We can’t fight an army of Cursed!”
“You’re not going to fight,” I ordered, gripping the broom tighter. “I want you to protect the confectionery. Stay inside. I’ll fly to Arawn and remind him who he is before it’s too late.”
“Wait. Take this.” Yeun drifted closer, his flame flickering smaller than usual. His breath released a glittering dust that made me sneeze. “Fairy dust brings luck. It’s all I can give you. We are not fighters.”
“Thank you, Yeun. You’ve already done more than enough.”
Outside, the Cursed were still climbing the walls, clinging to the confectionery like living sludge.
I swung astride my broom, tugging the skirt of my dress into place, checking that I had both Arawn’s heart and its antidote.
I had the feeling that the closer I came to him, the more his heart would respond, searching for its host.
“éclair, open the door. I’m forcing my way through.”
éclair straightened, his head brushing the ceiling. With a gravelly groan, he scooped me into his palm, broom and all, wrapping me like a cocoon.
“You want to come with me?” I asked, eyes wide.
Chouquette leaped, ready to follow, but éclair caught her by a tail and set her gently back down, patting her head the way one calms a child.
“Wait,” Aignan said, his eyes darting across the room. “Can I say something before you go?”
We all turned toward him.
“You proved to me that… even being just an animal… or something close… I can matter. You gave me a family. I…” He sighed, then jabbed his horn into a chair. “Whatever! I’m terrible at this stuff. Now go save your human before he forgets himself completely.”
I nodded softly. “We’ll be back. Take care of yourselves.”
The door exploded into splinters. The Cursed who rushed inside were shoved back by éclair. He closed his massive fingers around me, lifted me like a doll, and hurled me into the air.
“Su-gaaaaar!” he roared.
The wind screamed in my ears as I tumbled backward, my broom sliding beneath me just in time. The Cursed swarmed the gaping doorway of the confectionery, but éclair planted himself there like a living wall.
Chouquette, who had never obeyed a single order in her life, sprang onto his shoulder and leaped into the fray. Her jaw unhinged, gaping wider than it should have. She swallowed a cluster of Cursed whole, bones and flesh crushed in one bite.
Those that tried to climb éclair were swept aside by carnivorous flower-stalks sprouting from his arms, while the mushrooms on his skull tore themselves free, bouncing into battle like a ravenous little army.
The sight twisted my stomach. I gripped my broom tighter, knuckles white.
“Please,” I whispered. “Survive. All of you.”
My broom shook beneath its speed, gusts threatening to unseat me. The Cursed burst out of the shadows. Some brandished disjointed jaws snapping at the air. Others crawled, claws scraping stone, hunting my trail.
But I didn’t slow. I pushed closer… until something caught me.
Knotted fingers, like white-hot wire, coiled around my ankle. Agony slashed through my skin. I thrashed, my slippers smashing into a face split in two, but other hands seized me—my wrists, my waist, my legs. My broom lurched, wood cracking beneath the weight of the Cursed.
“No, no, no!” I screamed. “Hold on, please!”
A shard of stone struck the shaft. It splintered. The magic unraveled, thread by thread, and I fell. The wind tore a cry from my lungs before the impact crushed the breath from me. Pain exploded in my leg as it struck the ruins. I rolled across the cold stone, skin torn by jagged fragments.
I had to get up despite the pain because the Cursed were closing in.
A mass bristling with yellow eyes, burning feverishly in their sockets.
My broom lay beside me, utterly shattered.
I grabbed the largest splinter of its shaft and raised it like a sword.
Fine. It might not have been a legendary sword, and I didn’t know how to fight, but I refused to die here.
“Come on, then,” I snarled through clenched teeth. “Try me.”
But the Cursed recoiled, their dozens of yellow eyes darting between me and… something else. My heart leaped. They were retreating from me? Triumph swelled as I tightened my grip on my makeshift weapon.
“Ha! That’s right, run! I’m far more terrifying than—”
The ground shook. A rumble. Deep. Low. I turned my head slowly. Very slowly.
Something—no, a thing—ripped through the ranks of the Cursed, flinging their bodies aside like twigs.
A gale lifted the dust. I narrowed my eyes.
I was sheltered beneath a massive chest. A gigantic black wolf, its fur streaked with golden lines pulsing beneath the skin.
As the beast stepped back, its single horn revealed itself, curved, glowing, jutting from its brow like a blade of light.
“What the…” The words died on my lips.
“Take your filthy paws off my mistress, you idiots!”
“Aignan?”
I had no time to react before the wolf hurled himself at the Cursed.
Fangs tore through flesh like parchment.
Claws ripped. A horn of light shattered creatures into dust. Yeun joined them, astride his ostrich, which unleashed waves of ice.
Chouquette, far too heavy to run, nestled in éclair’s arms, her belly round and taut (stuffed with corpses, no doubt).
They had all come. But Aignan… Aignan was magnificent. Fierce. Radiant with savage power. My admiration curdled into horror. My breath locked, a frozen shiver ran down my spine.
“No. Aignan, you didn’t—”
“I told you I needed some sucre d'or!” He laughed, triumphant and mad. “Who’s the strongest black lamb now, huh, you bunch of idiots?”
He circled me, cutting down the Cursed who dared come close. But tears blurred my sight. I rushed to him, crashing into his chest.
“You used your curse. Aignan, why? I told you to stay… You’re going to—”
He lowered his massive head toward me. “You thought you could hide it from me? I snoop everywhere, remember. I’ll see Nyla soon. Don’t cry for me. I’m your lucky star, remember?”
“You’re not allowed to die,” I sobbed, clinging to his fur as if my arms alone could anchor him to this world. “Come back. Before it’s too late. Don’t leave me! Not you.”
But he was smiling. That damned stubborn smile that meant he had already decided.
He closed his jaws around me with infinite care and lifted me onto his back.
His gallop never faltered. Each stride carved a bloody path through the horde as he charged straight up the mountain.
I clung to him, my tears scattering into the wind of his run.
Each step sent round black shapes rolling beneath us.
They tumbled and smashed against one another.
At first, I thought they were rocks. But no.
The bodies of the Cursed. Or at least… what was left of them.
Those spheres of darkness, those hollow shells, were all that remained of the ones who had perished.
My stomach twisted. I gritted my teeth, clutching tighter to Aignan. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t lose him.
“I’ve never been good at farewells,” Aignan said, his voice strangely light, as if nothing were wrong. “But let me be a hero.”
“You already are,” I whispered, my throat hurting. “My best friend. My brother. My everything.”
I buried my face in his fur. Aignan had always been there. To imagine his basket empty forever… It was unbearable.
A small laugh escaped him. Aignan. Laughing. Now, for the first time. “Don’t be sad. I’ve never felt this good, this alive!”
I blinked, stunned. He should have been furious, raging at the world’s injustice. But he was happy.