Chapter 55
It took a day and a half to reach the farmland around Fallowmoor, the journey slowed by the pain radiating through August’s body. The heavy ache in his veins blended with the fading burn of Marlow’s magic under his skin, and he had to stop often to rest.
They were close now. He could tell by the sudden eagerness in the others’ steps.
August kept his eyes on the ground, misty rain clinging to his hair as dread twisted knots in his stomach. He didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to face the destruction he’d caused. He could feel it already, the awful pull of the Hollow Dark.
As they crested a hill, Felix and Marlow’s steps slowed.
“Arunas, help us,” Marlow said on a breath.
Lottie appeared beside August, and her presence was enough to help him gather the nerve to force his gaze up.
He regretted it immediately.
Fallowmoor was straight ahead, with its weathered grey stone walls, surrounded by a patchwork of farms across green rolling hills. The city was still there. Still standing. Only now, a shifting black void rose from its heart, looming high above the walls, swallowing the fading afternoon light.
He was going to be sick.
How could he have created something so massive, so destructive? He wasn’t powerful.
He couldn’t do this. Sure, he wanted to close the tear and stop it from devouring everything. But this was too much. This was impossible.
What if he couldn’t close it?
What if it killed him to try?
August thought he’d be brave enough to face this, but he wasn’t brave. He was a coward.
Run.
He could find a new place to hide. Push the whole colossal problem aside, pretend it didn’t exist. He was well-versed in ignoring issues, and until he met Felix, it had worked perfectly fine.
Run!
He flexed his fingers, calling on his powers. They came roaring forward, stronger than he’d expected.
Lottie’s voice drew him back from the edge. “It feels strange here.” She wrapped her arms around herself, eyes still on the city ahead. “It makes me feel strange.”
“Then let’s leave.” August glanced back to where Felix and Marlow stood a few feet off, observing the Watch at the distant gates and talking.
Lottie hesitated, then shook her head. “I never thought I’d say this, but Felix is right. You have to fix this.”
A weight dropped in his chest. She was supposed to want to protect him.
“What if I can’t?” he whispered.
She turned to face him, the smile tight and forced. “I know you can.” It was an infuriating lie. “Closing this tear could save you.”
He pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to stop the throbbing in his head.
“Or it could kill me.”
Her face sobered. “If you don’t, it will kill everyone.”
I’m scared, he didn’t say. His magic reacted to the thought, writhing inside him like a feral creature.
Lottie’s form seemed to sharpen, every detail of her face snapping into perfect focus. She lifted her hand, and as she touched his cheek—actually touched it—August wrenched back, shocked.
Anchored couldn’t touch things. They couldn’t.
But he’d felt that.
He met Lottie’s wide, startled eyes.
“How . . . ” was all he could manage.
She looked down at her open hands, then back at August. In a breath, she had her arms around him, squeezing tight. She was cold, like the ring and the locket, but somehow, she was solid. Real.
He didn’t realize he was crying until Lottie pulled back and wiped her thumb over his cheek.
The writhing of his magic calmed, and the pressure in his chest eased, just a little.
“I don’t understand,” August said.
“Could it be the tear?” she asked, glancing up at the darkness again.
He frowned and shook his head. It couldn’t be the tear itself. The woman in the castle had touched him, and there was no opening in the veil. There was only him. Only the prickling in his fingers and the magic coursing through him.
A violent wave of whispers crashed over August. He stumbled back, heart hammering.
“No,” he pleaded, but they bore down on him, unrelenting. His knees buckled, and he dropped onto the hard-packed dirt road, his hands clasped over his ears.
“Stop!”
Memories tore through his mind in a vicious flash, none of them his own. The world was coming down on top of him.
Panic. Fear. Pain.
Their screams rang inside his head. The agony of a dozen deaths all at once. White hot fire ripped through his chest. Blinding agony cracked through his skull. Pressure closed around his throat.
He died again and again and again.
Felix’s voice pressed through the chaos, but he couldn’t grasp the words.
“Please,” August sobbed through the pain. “Leave me alone!”
He wished one of the deaths would finally stick, that his heart would just stop.
Hands dragged him upright, and when the world finally swam back into focus, he was flanked by Felix and Marlow, his arms over their shoulders. They led him toward a small barn on the outskirts of the city walls.
When they poured in through the large door, August shoved away from them, stumbling and collapsing to his knees.
“Auggie,” Felix started, a heaviness in his voice.
“Don’t,” August snapped. He folded forward, hands flat on the dirty barn floor.
Felix was only helping him because he needed his power. August didn’t want his sympathy.
He rolled onto his side, curling in on himself.
Lottie was on her side next to him a moment later. “It’s not real, Auggie,” she said. “Those are their deaths, not yours.”
But it felt real. It felt so real. And it was worse than any of the times it had happened before.
“You’re stronger than the anchored. You can make them stop.”
He pulled in a trembling breath and shook his head as the agony and the whispers continued. She was wrong. He wasn’t stronger.
“Try,” she urged. “Find a way to lock them out.”
He closed his eyes and imagined a wall around himself, tall like the ones around Fallowmoor.
Stop, he commanded silently. The buzzing of his magic faded, and then, so did the anchored in his head.
When he looked at Lottie again, her edges were soft. Translucent. And when she tried to brush the hair out of his face, her hand went straight through. She gave him a sad smile, then sat up.
“What just happened?” Felix asked. He hovered in the barn’s massive doorway, silhouetted by the fading daylight.
August didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
Marlow settled onto the ground near the entrance, and a moment later, Felix joined her, back pressed to the wall.
August closed his eyes. It took an eternity for his pulse to settle. He could feel the others watching, waiting for an answer.
“The anchored,” he said at last. He opened his eyes and met Felix’s gaze. “They push into my head. Make me feel their deaths.”
Something dark flashed in Felix’s expression. “Have they always been able to do that?”
August shook his head against the rough ground. “Only since—” he couldn’t get himself to finish the sentence.
Since he tore open the veil and murdered thousands of people.
Since he ran away, leaving it to spread like a plague through his home.
It had to be the tear. It didn’t explain the woman in the castle, but the anchored at the cottage, Lottie, the whispers and the imaginary deaths.
The anchored must be drawing power from the tear.
Oh gods. What would happen when he entered the city?
You can make them stop.
August had to fix the veil. It was the only way they’d lose their hold over him. Then he’d never open another tear again. It would go back to the way it was. He could return to ignoring them. Pretending he was normal.
“How long before you’re good to move?” Felix asked, back to his usual indifference.
August scoffed. “Next year sometime.” He desperately needed to sleep.
“I’m wrecked, too,” Marlow interjected. She gave August a look that lacked her usual bitterness.
With a frustrated sigh, Felix said, “Fine. We’ll rest here until nightfall. Easier to get past the Watch in the dark, anyway.” He lay flat, facing the high ceiling, his arm folded beneath his head, trouser leg rolled up to his knee.
Quiet settled over them. Sheep bleated in the distance, and a few talkative crows cawed and clicked somewhere inside the tall barn. If August focused, he just could pick out the sounds of the city. His city.
Felix idly summoned Silas in a puff of smoke, startling the crows, who loudly voiced their complaints. The raven floated across the barn and landed beside August.
A flicker of warmth at the familiar sight.
It made him think of The Raven’s Perch, of sitting at the bar with Felix after the rest of the patrons had gone. He’d done the same thing back then, using his magic whenever he could, like he was making up for all the time spent having to hide it.
He shouldn’t have had to hide it.
“Oh,” Felix said suddenly. Silas dissipated, and he pulled something from his pocket, holding it up between his fingers. He gave August a tilted glance. “What is this?”
August recognized the round piece of metal instantly.
“I dug it out of Benjamin’s arm after I killed him.”
Felix and Marlow’s eyes both went round.
“Sorry, after you what?” Marlow snarled. And just like that, the hatred in her eyes was back.
“To be fair,” August said, “he tried to kill me first.”
Felix sat up. “Alright, I’m going to need a lot more on all of that.”