Chapter 44
Chapter forty-four
Her Hallowed Banquet gown was blood-red with silver stitching.
Lux finished securing the hooks of the corset while staring at the silken creation lying atop her mattress. She’d been gifted a note at midday, set amongst her luncheon tray, explaining the society’s designs upon her for the evening.
Please allow me the honor of being your escort this evening.
-C
No mention of revival. Of curses. Not a single person had come to check on her, only an attendant with the delivery of her gown. No one mentioned the fire in the tower.
The silk slipped over her head and cascaded to the floor.
Lux felt out of her skin. Shaw could not know her at the banquet.
He was an investor and must be treated with all the dignity that allotted.
And she…she must be aloof, acknowledged but otherwise ignored.
Achievable, she thought. She’d plenty of practice.
If Corvin would let her go.
Rain tapped against the balcony door; a dreary sky met a fierce sea. Lux shifted away from it and caught her reflection in the mirror.
Purple crescents framed her eyes.
Her hair curled about her face.
Decaying arms wrapped around her middle.
Lux froze. She didn’t move or shriek. But in her head, she screamed. She watched them move along her bodice, feeling nothing but seeing it all, and when those fingers arched into a clawing grip, she jolted when they disappeared inside her.
The apparition rested its chin on her shoulder.
“Look at us: A proper monster. Who will we destroy next? The girl who feels too much? Do not fret, she is already dead.”
Lux stared furiously into the mirror. “You’re not real. You’re made by someone evil. And all you say is lies.”
“Do we?”
All at once, her veins felt coated in ice. Lux shivered, as the nightmare did not seem taunting, for once, but resolute. Her fingers reached into her corset—toward a key on a silver ribbon.
Corvin will be here at any moment, her head scolded.
Cecily is dead, her heart knew.
Death had come. Had looked over the slew of evil men and had taken a child, instead.
“It is our fault,” the nightmare claimed, and it vanished with a grin when the mirror swung in.
Lux anticipated the plunge and slipped down the hidden slope, faster now in silk. Her pack beat against the wall, and her hair fell from its pins. She held a lamp ahead of her.
The Risen made the bag heavy. She’d thought of hiding it somewhere in the room, but then she didn’t know if she would return. She had no plan now other than seeing Cecily revived. After that, she would determine a new course.
The underground room’s hidden latch was much easier to find in the light.
Lux flung herself along the length of the revealed passageway, stopping only for a breath at its end.
Nothing shifted, and so she barreled down the remainder until she stood before the mammoth archway, starved for air beneath looming statues.
Lux curved her shoulders inward to be away from them and braced herself against the wall.
With a smidgeon of strength regained, she straightened. Adjusted the bag containing all she needed for a revival. And went through.
The torches flickered and lit.
Atop the grave of ice rested a body.
Same as the one before, it was clad in only undergarments, but Lux stared at the red braid. It hung limp. More so than the pale hand beside it.
Cecily lay dead before her.
Lux rushed forward and then around—away from the archway’s opening. Grabbing hold of Cecily’s rigid arm, she dragged the girl off the bed of ice. She did not waste time in searching for slit eyes—she delved straight for the gentle lull of lifeblood.
Lux huffed a breath in relief.
It was there, pooled within her, and under Lux’s quick assessment, the body seemed to be around ten hours post mortem.
She knelt beside the girl. Flinging open her pack, she dug inside.
Howler canines, she had. Marsh snapper eyes, she’d pilfered from Silas’s collection in Verity.
She spread out all the rest beside her and worked as quickly as she could.
All the while, she listened.
For footsteps.
For her nightmare.
So far, she remained alone.
Lux painted Cecily and did not wait. Her first words of the incantation cast her onto the road to the Beyond.
Lux had been here—on this shadowy path—so many times, she hardly registered it anymore.
It was a plain road with plain earth beneath her feet, and once she reached the Veil, she reached out for the soul to cross.
“May your eyes become mine—”
Lux would lead Cecily home.
And there was no evil darkness to be found in it.
A human soul was light. Filled with energy. It seeped into Lux so she might carry it—the dead could not go back, only ahead, on their own. The girl’s energy bloomed within her. It shot to her fingers, her feet. It pricked in her nose and behind her eyes.
Lux was nearly there. The enchantment nearly done. She could feel her: Cecily. But for the first time, she noticed something else lingering too. Another brilliance. A harnessing of emotions. Had such awareness during revivals always been a possibility? Had her own brilliance truly stretched?
Her consciousness flickered.
Contain it! her head shouted.
She…would. She did—
And slumped forward.
“Wake up! Oh, please, wake up.”
Lux blinked dazedly upward. “Cecily?”
The girl was bent over her, braid tickling her jaw, and Lux didn’t realize, until Cecily fell crying upon her, she was splayed out upon the cold flagstones.
Her body hummed.
Cecily’s weight upon her was uncomfortable.
She gently shoved her off. “I’m fine,” Lux mumbled, grinding her teeth over the lie.
She’d tried. She’d paid attention. She’d felt Cecily’s soul overwhelming—overtaking—her, and she’d demanded her body to contain it.
Souls had never fought her this way. They’d always been a welcomed warmth in her chest when her own had lacked that light.
But now it seemed as though both her and another couldn’t coexist. That it was too much for her to bear.
Maybe she wasn’t broken—but she was certainly cracked. And she hated it.
Lux pushed to her feet and then hauled the girl up too. She bent to gather her things. “You died, Cecily. What do you remember?”
She glanced upward to see the girl shivering in her scant clothes, her eyes wide and alarmed, absorbing the eeriness of the sanctum. Lux had nothing to give her, but she glanced at the alcoves.
Moving to the nearest, she wrestled a black robe from its skeleton. Bones rattled, disturbed dust rising to meet her nose until she sneezed, but when it was free, Lux adjusted the pendant belonging to the dead.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said.
Shaking the garment of anything that might yet cling, she presented the robe to Cecily. The girl took it with pinched fingers and pursed lips.
“I cannot wear this.”
“I have nothing else to offer but a feather and loose parchment.”
Cecily pressed her eyes closed. She noticeably swallowed. Then she donned the robe.
It puddled about her bare feet.
“You’ll be their smallest collector,” Lux said. “Make sure you raise the hood once we leave.” She slung her pack over her shoulder.
“I remember dying.”
Lux’s fingers paused in their adjustment. She waited, terribly impatient, for what else Cecily would say.
“It was peaceful—once the pain faded.”
Lux raised an eyebrow.
“The garden. The stems with teeth. He took me to them. I couldn’t do much of anything after I drank the elixir for the salt-sick, and I still had the shackles.”
“Devil below.” He had her blood drained. Sentenced her to death in that graveyard garden. Lux’s insides were abuzz now with more than the revival’s energy. She ground her teeth. “Corvin.”
The name came to her tongue sure and resolute—but Cecily shook her head. “No. The large one. Kent.”
“Kent?” Lux frowned. “Why would he?”
Cecily sniffed, her nose pink and running. She scowled immediately afterward. Lux knew the robe did not smell fresh. “After they struck, he told me I’m not worth the trouble I’ll cause. That empaths are better off gone.”
Lux could make no sense of it. “They wanted you badly back in the courtyard. They even mended you when you were hurt. Why would they turn around and sacrifice you hours later… How did he feel?”
“He was…” Cecily trailed off, her brow scrunched. “Not excited, exactly. Bitter and angrier than that. He felt like…retribution.”
Retribution? Involving a girl who only wants to go home?
Lux shook herself free of trying to rationalize it; time was slipping, and they’d yet to plan any means of escape. She reached into her pack and removed every goldquin she could find. Then she shoved them within the pocket of Cecily’s robe. “Let’s get you to the gate.”