Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Nova
As alive as she might have been, the girl still could not seem to speak. Nor could she walk—or even stand for very long. Her legs kept wobbling and buckling, threatening to fold up under her, again bringing to mind a baby deer.
“She’s in shock, I think,” Aleksander muttered. For a moment, he looked as though he was considering leaving her to her fate. A hunter allowing nature to take its course.
Then he sighed and lifted her shivering body into his arms, ribbons of light flowing from his fingertips and wrapping around her as he did. Soothing her. He didn’t protest, either, when she huddled closer to him and buried her face in the folds of his shirt.
It was such a gentle, unexpected moment from him that I couldn’t help but stare.
But despite his magic and other efforts, the girl still looked entirely too pale, too weak—mere moments away from returning to a ghostly shade.
“The blanket you had earlier,” Aleksander said, pointing me in the direction of my piled belongings.
I quickly gathered it, along with my clean clothing. I yanked on my trousers and boots, but left Aleksander’s coat on so I could donate my shirt to the girl, along with the blanket, wrapping both of these things tightly around her tiny, emaciated frame. I took care not to touch her too long, afraid of more visions popping into my head; I was still reeling from the last one. From that woman I’d seen, and the courtyard they’d been laughing and dancing in…
I finished securing the girl and hurriedly stepped away from her and Aleksander, focusing instead on our surroundings.
One inexplicable thing at a time.
The area all around us continued to thrive. Perfectly green grass, clear air, clear water…it looked like the living world, not the dead one.
“What have we done here?” I wondered aloud, my voice hushed as I bent to pick a flower with pale blue petals.
Aleksander studied it all for a minute before commenting: “Nothing is glowing.”
“And nothing is out of control.”
“Or dying.”
“It just… is .”
He frowned, pacing the area and inspecting parts of it closer before he said, “It’s balanced. It looks like the living world.”
I shook my head, even though I agreed. It felt balanced. Like it had always been here, and always would be. “But it’s wrong, isn’t it?” I asked, crushing the flower in my palm. “This world is not supposed to be alive . And…” I looked to the girl in his arms, my words catching painfully in my throat.
And neither is she .
I continued to explore, searching every tuft of grass and velvety flower petal for some sign that this was a mirage—one that would dissipate as soon as we came to our senses.
The girl seemed to have fallen asleep, but her breathing was peaceful and even, her cheeks a rosy shade of pink. Aleksander continued to hold her, his eyes scanning for threats in every direction.
After a minute, he said, “I think I hear someone coming.”
“The rest of our group must have heard something, or seen our magic working…” I grimaced. “And I wonder how much attention we’ve drawn from the guards along the walls of Erebos?”
“Too much, knowing our luck.”
Phantom bounded into sight first, racing toward me only to abruptly stop as he caught a more interesting scent; his nose lifted in Aleksander’s direction, sniffing fervently, and then he cautiously trotted over to the king and poked his nose against the bundle in his arms.
( Another living being has joined you, ) he said, matter-of-factly. ( She smells like apples . And dirt. )
She should smell like nothing , I started to reply. A ghost shouldn’t have a scent.
But, as before, my words caught in my throat. Hearing Phantom acknowledge her made it all seem much more real, somehow; I stopped trying to shake off the mirage and instead tried to think of what the hell I was going to do about it all.
Zayn arrived a moment later, flanked by Rowen and Farren, and Thalia emerged from the trees soon after. Zayn stopped as abruptly as Phantom had at the sight of Aleksander and the girl, tilting his head with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment dancing in his eyes.
“Of all the trouble I expected you two to be getting into,” he said, “this was definitely not on the list.” He looked closer at the girl and the king, studying the spectacle from several different angles before he said, “But congratulations on your adoption, I guess?”
Aleksander scowled, moving toward his cousin as if to drop the child into Zayn’s arms…an attempt that proved futile, as the girl woke up with the sudden movement and only clung tighter to his neck. It might have been entertaining—adorable, even—under different circumstances.
Thalia circled Aleksander cautiously, as if he held a snarling wolf rather than a feeble child. “A living girl? Where on earth did she come from?”
Aleksander and I exchanged an uncertain glance.
Thalia’s gaze was insistent and borderline threatening as it fell on me; the truth once again seemed like the safest option.
“...She wasn’t living just a few minutes ago,” I said.
Thalia’s face went through several different emotions—confusion, alarm, disbelief, fear—before finally settling into her usual hard, stoic expression.
I started to explain myself further, but the sound of loud voices and approaching footsteps reached us first.
Thalia immediately brought her finger to her lips, cutting me off. “Say nothing of what you did for this girl.” Her eyes were a touch wild. “ Nothing . Understood?”
“I…yes—of course.”
Her gaze swept over our flourishing surroundings. “This scene you’ve created is going to cause us enough trouble.”
Before I could ask what kind of trouble she meant, a small host of heavily-armed men and women emerged from the darkness.
We were surrounded in seconds.
I counted them quickly—fourteen in all. Their faces were mostly covered by an assortment of scarves and masks, but what I could see of their complexions appeared unnaturally pale; not quite as gaunt as the shades, but close. They moved with a slightly inhuman twitchiness, too, and though their bodies looked more solid than the shades, their skin still took on a papery, translucent quality whenever the dim light pressed against it at certain angles. They all wore identical bandoliers, and looped onto each belt was a small, circular container rimmed in gold. Blue flames somehow burned without ceasing within these containers, similar to the fires that danced atop the walls around Erebos.
As the group closed in around us, a man strode into the middle of their circle, parting the others as he came.
He was the only one not wearing a covering on his face. A dark beard covered part of that face, split by a sharp, appraising smile that formed as his eyes passed over me and Thalia. Those eyes appeared black, two dots of shining ink against golden brown skin, and his body looked alive and perfectly solid—as solid as the pair of short scythes he had strapped against his back.
Unlike the others, he carried no flame that I could see.
Rather than acknowledging us, he whipped one of his curved blades free and swung it through a clump of tall, freshly-grown flowers, watching the severed pieces carefully as they fluttered to the ground.
I drew closer to Thalia. We both stepped in front of Aleksander, blocking the girl from view—though I didn’t expect it would make much difference, should this man take an interest in her, given how outnumbered we were.
“Thalia Blackwood,” the scythe-wielding man said, swiveling his head lazily in her direction. “I heard you were darkening my city’s doorstep.” Replacing the scythe against his back, he pressed the toe of his boot onto a pile of the severed, fallen flowers, crushing them. His gaze lingered on the mutilated petals for a long moment before he glanced up at Thalia from underneath his long lashes. “But I didn’t realize you were traveling with such… strange company.”
Thalia stood up straighter. “You know I like to keep things interesting.”
“I do.” He dragged his boot through the grass, his movements swift with disgust, as if he was trying to scrape something far more foul than flowers from his sole.
“And we wouldn’t have been darkening your doorstep for very long,” Thalia informed him. “A mere pass-through was requested, and I willingly offered the rate of a much longer stay. You would have made out handsomely on the deal.”
“Is that so?”
“Atros could use a few more lessons in conducting proper business on your behalf, I believe,” she said. “The fool is losing you money.”
“Well, it’s hard to find good help these days,” said the man, tapping the last bits of colorful, crushed petals from his boots before sauntering closer.
Thalia held her ground, even as he came within an arm’s reach. I mirrored her movements, drawing myself up to my full height while Phantom stalked to my side, his teeth flashing and his ears flat against his skull.
The man gave us a cursory glance before asking Thalia, “And besides, we have less and less use for money as the years go by, don’t we?”
“All the same, you should be more selective about the ones you conduct your business with.”
He chuckled at this—a low, dark sound that sent a shiver of warning down my spine. “Advice I could also offer to you.” His gaze slithered over me once more, lingering this time, before darting to the rest of my company as well. “Which brings us to this little scene I’ve stumbled upon, doesn’t it?”
Thalia remained stoic. “Does it?”
He folded his arms across his chest, stroking his beard thoughtfully as he glanced around at the scene in question. “These interesting folks you’re clearly in business with…are they responsible for this display?”
She didn’t answer right away. She seemed to be sizing up the ones accompanying him, calculating our chances of winning, should it come to a fight.
My muscles tensed at the thought. I wasn’t usually one to back down from a challenge, but I had also learned, long ago, how to pick my battles, and that winning didn’t always require swinging a sword.
I sized up our opponent as well—but based on his words, rather than his weapons. He might have pretended to see us as an afterthought, but he had immediately spoken in the language of the living world. He’d come to greet our party, too, when he could have just as easily left us to rot outside the walls of his city.
He clearly had an interest in us.
Which meant I had leverage.
“We aren’t responsible for this scene ourselves,” I lied, “but we saw the ones who were responsible for it.”
I doubted he would believe my lie, but it didn’t matter. He seemed smart enough to realize that he wouldn’t get any true information out of us unless he first went along with my ruse.
“Grant us passage through your city,” I demanded, “and we’ll be happy to share what we know.”
He let the full weight of his gaze fall upon me—a heavy glare of calculated precision, made all the more imposing by the way his eyes seemed to darken as the seconds passed, becoming an unsettling abyss.
“Nothing would delight me more than the chance to escort you through my city,” he finally said. “Provided you do me the honor of spending the night as my guests before you carry on to wherever the next part of your journey leads you.”
Thalia stiffened at my side, but she said nothing. She understood my tactics and reasoning—that we might not have another opportunity to enter the city.
We would have to take what we could get.
I lifted my chin and refused to let my fear show. “We accept.”