Chapter 56
Chapter fifty-six
The ruined frame of Riselda’s portrait had been tossed to the ground, revealing the hidden staircase behind it, but it was the newly painted door Lux went through.
When she reached the top, she found Shaw with his knife drawn and circling Corvin, attempting to pin the collector’s monstrous form against blackened walls.
The Society’s Overlord looked worse than ever before. His skin sagged from his cheekbones, and his lips were a necrotic black. He’d bled from multiple cuts along his head; they’d dried in grotesque streaks.
His rabid eyes roved about the room, searching for an escape without success.
He held onto a narrow spear of glass.
Lux looked down at Aline’s invention and pulled back where she’d been told. She held it away from her body.
“It’s over, Corvin,” she announced from across the room. “Your society is finished. Picked apart by crows and the garden and its own greed.”
Shaw spun to face her, doing a double take at what she held in her hands; he retreated ever so slightly.
“I think you’ve misunderstood your own curse,” she told the rotting collector.
“I can’t feel love anymore, you’re right.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember it.
And if there was anything I would to fight to get back, it’d be that.
I’m sorry you don’t remember.” Her shaking settled as her arms grew accustomed to the weight of the weapon.
She leveled it with both hands at Corvin’s robed chest.
“Nothing will ever make me turn as cold as you. You stole my blood. Now give me yours.”
Corvin edged backward, his front facing her fully and his back to the shattered window. His cheeks deepened to purple; he shouted at her in heavy silence.
“It’s honestly pitiful,” drawled Shaw. “Seeing you hang on like you have any power still. You have none. Do one decent thing before your spirit rots away.”
This, of all things, seemed to give Corvin pause. His features slackened and his head bowed. His hands rose in supplication. Lux did not trust him, and she drew a hesitant breath, waiting for him to spring.
Which he did.
Backwards.
Through the window.
And Lux didn’t fire the weapon after all—but dropped it as she lunged.
As a knife, thrown, sank into Corvin’s thigh. Though that neither stopped him nor stuck.
She didn’t reach him in time—she knew she wouldn’t. Corvin tumbled out of the tower. Down to the raging sea below.
“No!” she cried. “Shaw! Hurry. We have to find his body. I have to revive him, get his blood. I can’t live like—”
Shaw spun her around so quickly, she faltered.
A knife filled her vision, its end glistening crimson and wet. “I hate to say it, Lux,” he said, voice rough with disgust and regret. “But open your mouth.”
Her stomach immediately resisted; her palms slicked with sweat. But Shaw’s hand came up to cradle her head. He gently drew it back. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she murmured, staring up into his ruined eye and feeling nothing at all but sick. “It was mine for being so desperate to fix myself.”
“You’re not broken, remember?”
Lux drew a long breath. I remember.
She opened her mouth and allowed the drops to coat her tongue.
Lux closed her eyes at once, scrunching them tight. Something clattered to the ground, then Shaw’s hand gingerly cradled her bruised and swollen cheek. “Just breathe. You won’t be sick. It worked. It has to.”
And Lux whispered those same words to herself until her stomach settled. Her breaths too. Until—
“Saints above,” she breathed.
“What? Did it reverse?”
Her initial answer was to bury her nose in his chest. To inhale his scent and his warmth and all it brought within her. But eventually, she said, “I used to be scared of my feelings for you becoming irreversible. But I was never more scared when they weren’t.”
His temple lowered to press against hers. “We’ve been irreversible from the start, Lux. I knew I was the one to realize it first.” She huffed and he kissed her. “Will you keep it? Mothlock, I mean.”
“Never. I feel like I see nightmares in every corner.” She pulled back, enough to look out the window. “But I might keep one part.”
“Dangerous? How can I be dangerous?”
Cecily wrung her hands in Mothlock’s kitchen while sitting beside Aline. Aline, who glanced at her discreetly while taking apart the weapon she’d created. Lux hadn’t used its last shot, and the girl had deemed it too dangerous to keep together.
“Corvin enjoyed manipulating,” Lux explained. “I think he wanted your brilliance so he might control others’ feelings. My guess is Kent was worried Corvin would realize his spitefulness and secret wish to usurp him. You’re not actually dangerous. But you were dangerous to him.”
“Well, I think,” said Aline, “that some people don’t want to feel others’ emotions. It’s harder to destroy people’s lives when you understand the pain.”
Lux’s gaze dropped. She’d hidden from others’ emotions for a long time. Even her own.
Not anymore, soothed her heart, and she accepted the comfort.
She’d unburied it all, well and truly and good this time.
“I would never use my brilliance to manipulate people.” Cecily shook her head, a determined set to her mouth.
Lux leaned back, her tea in hand and eyes drifting to the curved stairwell that had once held a nightmare.
That first time she’d ever seen it. She said, “That’s why, no matter what they did, you would have always possessed more power than them.
They were sinking and rotting, being eaten by their brokenness, and they knew it.
It’s pathetic, really, how hard they clung to something nature said was never meant to be. ”
“Nature sure said it loud enough at the end,” said Cecily, giggling at her own conclusion.
Aline blinked at her with wide eyes, then snorted, trying to keep a laugh at bay.
Lux did too, biting her cheek. But both proved useless.
As Aline dropped her head, giggling as high and light as Cecily, and Lux pressed her fingers to her eyes, huffing breaths of laughter through her nose, Lux thought, there was no better way to see justice realized than by all the things the Society of Saints had tortured and overlooked.
“Mothlock is a mess,” said Lux, her humor slowly fading. “I don’t know where to start.”
“I think all of Verity would happily clean it up. They hate what became of this place.”
“Just ask people for help, Lux,” said Aline, rolling her eyes. “It’s what I did.”
Lux scoffed. “I don’t know what you’re implying. I’ve asked for help from you before.”
Aline’s expression soured. “Don’t remind me. I still haven’t forgiven either of you for almost dying.” She pushed her teacup away. “But other than that one time, have you ever?”
“She’s ashamed,” said Cecily, then she squeaked at Lux’s sharp glare, covering her mouth. “I’m sorry! I’m trying to be better about blurting others’ feelings.”
Lux’s glare remained. “I’ve asked Shaw for help. I’ve asked you, Aline. And I agreed for Viktar to take those two carriage drivers to his lumber mill, didn’t I? Just because I take care of myself and don’t want to endanger anyone else, doesn’t mean I’m ashamed.” She scowled harder at Cecily.
“But you are,” said Cecily. “And I think you should stop. Unless you like it. Being alone.” Her expression made it known she knew Lux didn’t, in fact, like it.
“Not all the time. No,” Lux grumbled.
“Good,” replied Cecily brightly. Then she stood from the table. “Come on, Aline. Let me show you where to find a bed that didn’t have a rotten collector on it.”
As they left hand in hand, Lux dropped her head into her own.
She massaged her temples, thinking of all that would need to be fixed.
Every lending library that had hindered rather than helped.
The body of each attendant gone to the Beyond following their soul’s departure.
The repairs Mothlock required, and Alix Alesso’s continued presence.
The mountain of books in Grimrook House.
Grimrook House.
How she already loved its dark rose garden, glass room, and proximity to the sea. How she daydreamed of sitting beside Shaw in front of the fireplace, a cup of tea in her hands.
She thought of it so vividly, she could almost touch it.
Her path.
Her dream.
And Lux did not second-guess it even for a moment. She shoved herself from the table and followed.