Chapter 26
The second story of the home contained more guards. More people who were slumped against walls and choking on their own blood. Elric didn’t stop to help them, but something in his chest burned with the knowledge that he’d been tricked. This whole house had been a trap.
They never should have come here, and he was the one who had led them inside. When he got his hands on Fortuna, he would make her suffer worse than any of his other victims.
“Jessamine!” he shouted, trying to get his bearings in this massive home.
He could feel that she was still in the building, but he couldn’t sense where she was.
He had to find her. That was all he needed to do.
He needed to get her out of here. Then they would regroup with the rest of the coven and figure out what the fuck had gone so wrong.
As he passed another guard, he had the distinct horror of feeling the man’s soul go in the wrong direction. It was leaving the house, yes, but it wasn’t disappearing into the next realm. Something—or someone—was taking the souls of the people here.
But he’d never heard of a spell that could do that, not even one of his own. And again, all the hairs on his arms stood up as he was brushed by magic that was eerily familiar. He could taste it on his tongue, and… ah, yes, he had it now. He could hear the Crone’s voice in his head.
Oh, Elric. You are the youngest of us. Surely you don’t think you know everything?
It was like she was right here with him.
Like that wrinkly old woman had crawled her way out of a grave just to torment him some more.
She’d always thought she knew more than the rest of them.
And sure, she was one of the oldest of his siblings.
But he had learned a long time ago that age did not equal wisdom, no matter how much she wanted to believe that.
“Get out of my head, you shriveled old bat,” he growled.
Even though he knew she wasn’t really here, some essence of her still remained. A bit of the creature who had terrified him in his youth and then tormented him as he grew older. She was still the Crone, after all, and even a bit of her magic was dangerous.
He could hear her laughter, that grating, awful noise that had always set his teeth grinding until there was a flicker of pain in his jaw. Then it all clicked into place; his mind always had worked faster when she was laughing at him.
“A magical malady,” he muttered, just as he had when he’d first seen the infected.
One of the guards slowly stood, leveraging his body upright and staggering toward Elric. He only had to shove the man aside for it to stumble, for this wasn’t a person anymore. There was nothing inside of that body at all.
“Someone is taking your souls and using them for power,” he said, more to himself than to the man. “But the question is, what are they doing with all that power?”
It was a question that would have bothered him for long moments if he hadn’t smelled something burning. Running down the hallway now, he skidded around a corner and saw the smoke billowing from underneath one of the many closed doors.
“Jessamine?” he shouted, running to the door and throwing it open.
And there she was. Slumped against the wall, staring at the floor with her head lolling to the side.
It was a room full of burning paintings, and he could only just glimpse the portraits screaming in pain.
She had protected herself. She’d cast magic like nothing he’d seen her use before, and all without touching him.
“There you are, nightmare,” he breathed, falling onto his knees beside her. He cupped her shoulders, holding on to her for dear life, just to remind himself that she was alive. “Jessamine, look at me.”
Please don’t let her be gone, he thought. He knew, realistically, it couldn’t. The spell was using up people’s souls and taking them somewhere. And Elric had her soul safely tucked away.
But then she looked up at him, and he knew something was very wrong. Those bloodshot dark eyes were filled with sorrow and fear. And something tinged with anger, although that flashed only briefly.
“Were you going to tell me?” she asked.
He was lost. “I don’t… What are you talking about, Jessamine?”
“Were you going to tell me that you had taken my soul?”
All the air was ripped from his lungs. He didn’t know how to speak, let alone what to say. She wasn’t supposed to find out. She wasn’t supposed to know what he had done.
The choice he had made was entirely selfish, even if it had saved her now.
Keeping her soul wasn’t right. He shouldn’t have taken it from her in the first place, and he certainly should have told her that he’d done so.
He was a monster. He was the terrible creature who had stolen from her without consent, and he knew what that felt like.
But he hadn’t said anything because he had known that once this conversation happened, she would hate him for it.
“No,” he answered truthfully. “I don’t think I would have told you.”
“That’s what I thought.” She braced her hand against the wall, shaking him off when he tried to help her stand. “I suppose I should not have expected more from a god who doesn’t understand what it means to have a soul.”
He didn’t, but the words still stung. “Jessamine, let me help you.”
“I can do it myself.”
She could, but it would make him feel better to know that at least she would accept his help. It would feel better to do something other than stand here with his arms at his sides, watching the woman he loved tremble where she stood.
He couldn’t breathe. Because he loved her.
He’d never really said it to himself, just that he loved parts of her.
Pieces that had always captivated him, and he’d told himself that he loved those parts.
Only now, he had the epiphany that he loved her.
All of her. Every piece, every struggling bit, every dark edge that was sharper than a blade. He loved her.
And she was walking away from him.
He wanted to scream it at her. To shout at any person who would listen that he was not as broken as he feared, because his heart beat for her and no one else. But he had made the mistake of stealing from her, and a soul was precious.
He could fix this. He had to. Because without her, there was no life any longer. It was just gray madness without the taste of her on his tongue and the scent of her in his lungs.
“Nightmare,” he said, and hope bloomed when she turned to look at him. “I did it for you.”
Those haunted eyes seemed empty. “I know you did, Elric.”
“Did I break us?”
“I don’t know.”
She turned away from him and started down the hall. But he had hope now. Hope that he clung to desperately as he followed her toward the stairwell. Because now that he had her, now that he realized how deeply he felt, he couldn’t let her go.
Jessamine staggered through the halls, turning the correct way to go to the main stairwell and then pausing at the top of it. He joined her, and together they looked down at the crowd of infected who milled around where there had been all the rich and famous only moments before.
Her expression was lax and her words far too emotionless when she said, “So they’re all dead, then.”
“I don’t know if we could call them dead, but…” A flashing memory of the woman dying against his shoulder burned through him. “But I think they are gone. Yes.”
“Like me.”
“You aren’t dead, Jessamine.”
“You’ve called me ‘dead girl.’ So many other people have as well.” Those haunted eyes caught his gaze and refused to let go. “I am dead, Elric. My soul left my body for who knows how long as I drowned in that ocean. I am dead, and nothing can change that.”
“I gave you life!” he fiercely replied. “I gave you all that you lost and more. You are no more dead than I am, nightmare.”
She looked him up and down and then whispered words that seared him to his very bone. “Are you sure you aren’t dead, too, Elric?”
The question staggered him. All of his siblings were dead, that much he knew.
His family was dead. Perhaps he had been dead as well.
Maybe this rotting corpse of a form was one he conjured until it was too hard to hold on to it any longer.
There were too many doubts roving through his mind, but he cleared his throat and asked, “What makes a person alive?”
She stared at him blankly.
“Is it the soul in their body?” He took a step closer to her. “Is it the heart that beats in their chest? Or is it the hopes and dreams that draw them through life as they change the lives of others? What is life to you?”
“I don’t know. How can any mortal know the answer to that question?”
“Shall I answer it for you? Shall I tell you what life is?”
Her eyes were wide, and he could see her heartbeat thundering in the vein at her throat.
He caught her hand, placing it carefully against his heart, which beat just as fast as hers.
“This is life, Jessamine. You and I, standing here, fighting for what we believe in. That is life. You cannot doubt it simply because it frightens you to no longer have a soul.”
And yet, he wouldn’t let her go. Even if she wanted to die, he knew he wouldn’t let her soul go to the afterlife. He would keep her here, no matter how much she begged, for he couldn’t imagine his existence without her.
Jessamine didn’t react, just turned her head to watch the infected people move toward the windows.
From up here, he could see one of the neighbor’s servants walking a dog in the street.
She had frozen in place, staring at the house full of infected with his jaw hanging open.
All the infected people were moving toward the life they could see, and the person who would feed them.
“They don’t have souls either,” she whispered. “Why am I not like them?”