Chapter 55
Chapter fifty-five
The second gargoyle held her much gentler than the first.
Lux could hardly breathe, her heart raced so fast. She stared at the stone beast’s body scattered on the cliff’s edge and barely knew what to make of what had happened. She’d been dropped by one—only to be rescued by another?
This gargoyle flew less succinctly than the one before. It lurched and sped, then stuttered and slowed, but eventually the lampposts returned, the courtyard visible once again. More chaotic than she’d left it.
For one, with the gate destroyed, there were more bodies than before—including two who ran along the garden path, following her flight.
She couldn’t make out their faces until she was nearly upon them. Immediate relief pinged in her chest at seeing Shaw. Along with immediate irritation at seeing Lars.
She cried out when her feet connected with the gravel courtyard, her momentum propelling her forward and into the former’s arms.
“Devil below,” Shaw breathed into her hair and swept her up against him.
“What…” she croaked. “How…”
“That ancient mason is dead. The brambles took him shortly after the gargoyle took you. I made it to the gate but forgot it was locked. Saw you drop.”
“Bet you didn’t know I have a rare brilliance too, did you?”
Lux turned her head toward Lars, watching him fold his hands into his pockets with a self-satisfied smirk.
“You did that?”
“Course I did.” A moment later, his smile fell away. “They did something awful to my father here, didn’t they?”
Shaw placed her back on her feet, and they both turned to whom Lars stared. Manphry, sitting on the steps, his head resting against Magda’s chest and his eyes blinking but seemingly fixed.
“They took his soul,” she said. “Once those who stole it are all gone, he’ll go to the Beyond.”
I hope.
Suddenly, a girl was at her elbow, grabbing hold of it and dragging her around. “Lux!” exclaimed Cecily. “Lord Kent is still alive. He wants to talk to you.”
“Of course he would,” Lux said, sickly sweet, and she allowed Cecily to take her to him.
The remaining trio of collectors stood back to back to back. And they were surrounded. By pitchforks, torches, and redwren feathers.
Kent.
Artemis.
Silas.
Lux feared none of them. Not anymore. She strode up to Kent, ignoring Silas’s growl but deigning to curl her lip at Artemis.
Artemis, who had told her she was mad when really they were—and all by their own doing.
“I hear you had something to say, you moldering troll. What is it?”
The crows circled overhead, appearing satisfied for the moment. They did not bother her or anyone else, opting only to watch.
Kent’s colorless lips pursed. “You’ve made a mistake, Necromancer, doing what you’ve done. Collectors have minded Mothlock for centuries. We’ve shaped the country. You must revive them; everything will collapse if you don’t.”
“I cannot,” said Lux, and she pouted. “I’ve a dark brilliance. Prone to breakage, I’m told.”
Kent’s eyes narrowed while Artemis’s widened. Lux glared at them both.
“This is your last chance, Ms. Thorn.” Artemis’s stare turned sour. “All the strength of Malgorm will come down on you if you don’t do as you’re told.”
Lux smiled wide. “Let them come meet me by the sea. I’m more than happy to wait.”
“You’ll stay here?” snorted Silas. “Where I know to find you?”
“Find me? I’m going to keep you here with me.
Locked in a room with manacles on your ankles.
I’ve a feeling with the number of souls you’ve taken, Mania Malus will see you rotted away by next Hallowed Day.
” She looked at Kent. “What about this”—she gestured widely at the gathering—“gave you the impression you would be free to go?”
“If we will not be free then you’ll not be either,” warned Artemis.
Of all things, this struck fear within her. Her attention snapped back to the healer with a snarl—in time to see his nod at something beyond her head.
Lux whirled back. To the doorway, empty. To the tower…
A bloodied, rotting boy—holding a burning torch aloft.
Corvin—
His opposite hand tipped into the flame, and Lux could make no effort in understanding it before she went entirely numb.
Lux didn’t move; she stood there, perplexed, as Corvin sneered from his lofty height. And only once Shaw’s hand met her elbow, his mouth at her ear, did she realize she couldn’t feel him. Not like before.
She turned to stare upon his face.
Nothing.
She felt nothing.
“And now you cannot love! What does it feel like, Ms. Thorn?” Artemis ran a grey tongue over matching gums in satisfaction. “I think we should have done it from the start. Let’s see where your ambitions take you, now that you’ve no anchors holding you still.”
Lux stumbled forward with the sudden loss of Shaw’s support. She heard his fast footfalls in the gravel, but nothing else.
They’d cursed her.
Kent’s laugh rumbled. “All that effort to save a dangerous little empath when the whole brilliance is better snuffed, and now you’re gone and numb. Poetry. Pure and simple.” His shoulder knocked Artemis’s. “I’d thought Alesso outlived his usefulness, but it seems he can still surprise me.”
“Do not speak of our overlord in that way.”
Kent snorted. Silas laughed harshly.
And then they each began to choke.
Lux stared at each decaying face purpling before her eyes. Then at the deep-green vines extending from the bottoms of their robes. She tracked one between her feet—back to Mothlock.
“I’m sorry,” said an old voice. “But maybe the young lady is right, and some things are better off gone.”
Lux raised onto her toes and discovered Edgar among the gathered group. How he’d managed to come down from the mountain cabin and all the way to the sea with his arthritic joints, she’d no idea.
“Such a shame about your parts,” he continued. “I would have loved to keep them, but I’ve no use for diseased things. Those are better off burned.”
Artemis went to his knees first, followed by Silas. Kent kept her gaze ensnared with his own. He tried to speak, but a croaking noise was all he managed. Though that, too, was cut when he collapsed to the gravel.
The Collectors of Mothlock passed to the Beyond, and Lux knew for certain no saint-like existence awaited them.
She turned away from the scene. She spied Alix first, hovering in his coat that hardly covered anything important.
Then Cecily on the stoop offering him comfort.
She spotted the bandits, Sven and Viktar, their mirrored horrified expressions, before her glance slid to Aline having come up beside her.
All these people arrived to help, and she felt—
Numb.
She was back in Ghadra, consumed by that dark space inside her, caring for nothing and no one.
And that, she could not stand to suffer again.
“Give me that contraption,” Lux demanded, holding out her hand.
Aline relinquished it to Lux’s palm without preamble. “Pull back on this here. Don’t squeeze that until you’re sure.”
“Simple enough. Will you help the families you brought? Someone will need to round up the staff before I free the last pieces of their souls. I don’t want to keep finding their bodies after—” She let the sentence hang.
“We’ll get started.”
“Thank you. Take Cecily; she’s surprisingly fine in a crisis. Leave Alix with Sven.”
Aline nodded, and Lux settled the weight of the weapon against her hip. She ran up the steps and into Mothlock.