Chapter 37 Wendy’s Misfits
Wendy’s Misfits
Lucian
D
esdemona drops to the ground as a groan escapes my mouth. There’s a little blood on her temple, and Wendy stands behind her, holding a rock.
“Did you have to hit her?” I ask, kneeling before Desdemona’s unconscious body. I pull her into my lap, dabbing the blood away.
“We had a plan.”
“I know, Wendy.” I move Desdemona’s hair so I can behold her face. She’s frozen, lifeless. That’s what I should want—what a part of me does want. To see this Arcane, and every other, dead.
“We have to go,” Wendy whispers. “Now. People are coming. The academy is a mess.”
“I know—”
“No, Lucian. The building is coming down again.”
I look back at Desdemona’s unconscious face. The academy is collapsing—after she killed a room full of people—just as it had after she fought Fleur in a hallucination.
I ease Desdemona’s body into my arms and stand. “Then let’s go.”
Wendy furrows her eyebrows, rain dripping from them. “Lucian—”
“I’m not leaving her.”
“If we bring her and she wakes up…”
I take a step forward. “It’ll be fine.”
“This can’t go wrong—”
“It won’t,” I interrupt.
Without another word, we walk. The ground shifts beneath us, occasionally giving low groans, as though the academy is still collapsing behind us. However, the shifts and sounds have decreased dramatically by the time we approach Azaire’s tree.
The gray flowers on the branches wave in the wind, the color of Azaire’s eyes.
This is really him. This tree.
I place Desdemona carefully on the wet ground, and Wendy settles on her knees, holding her palms flat. Her fingers move like she’s pulling the strings of a marionette.
“Can you feel him?” I whisper.
Her answer comes a few moments later, fingers straining. “Yes.”
“Can you get him?”
She clenches her jaw. “Yes.”
Ahead, in the center of the ground, grass, roots, and dirt fold inward, sinking into nothing.
Unlike the crater Wendy made behind us, this is slower, as if something is swallowing it whole, threatening to pull everything into darkness.
The surface continues to collapse, and when it finishes, a deep hole gapes where solid ground once was.
Wendy doubles over, bracing her hands on the dirt just inches from the hole. I race to her, grabbing her arms and pulling her back. She catches her breath, wiping sweat from her forehead.
I glance at the pit. “This is…?”
Wendy nods. “Look.”
I scoot closer, careful not to fall. No amount of caution can keep me from stumbling when I see Azaire, wrapped in roots. His arms are splayed over his chest the way only the dead do.
He’s here, preserved in roots. I can hear his voice, see his eyes, feel his presence. We’re getting Azaire back. I clutch the roots as I lower myself into the grave.
“Don’t cut the roots!” Wendy shouts. A reminder—his preservation is connected to the tree. If I do anything to jeopardize the tree’s health, I endanger Azaire’s as well.
My feet land on damp, porous soil, Azaire before me.
He’s been in this grave for months, and his skin has managed to hold its dark complexion. It doesn’t yet smell of rot. Rather, the deep scent of the dirt fills my nostrils.
Carefully, I pull apart the roots that trap him. They’re damp from the rain, his skin cold beneath. It’s hard to imagine he will soon be as full of life as Wendy is. Which is to say, slightly, if at all.
But at least he’ll be here.
When Azaire is untangled, Wendy throws something down to me.
The red dagger glints in the moonlight, made of the Soul Ruby.
Wendy’s been holding onto it for me. With it in my hands once more, my strength grows tenfold.
It feels almost physical—muscle added to my biceps, blood to my veins.
Shadows abound around me, and I summon them with ease, wrapping Azaire in a casket of darkness.
The shadows rise with him, defying gravity. The weight of him crushes my chest. Each breath trembles, tight in my lungs. He’s close to escaping this grave when the roots around me stir, coming alive. They slash like sentient whips, searching for me.
When they find me, the roots tear into my skin, ripping the fabric of my suit. Blood streaks across my body, filling the air with a metallic scent and staining the roots red.
As I call the other shadows, Azaire’s body trembles in the air, threatening to fall. All my attention returns to him. Thousands of circuits wrap around me—wrists, ankles, knees—pricking deep into my skin.
It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me—it’s about Azaire.
The pressure squeezes my heart, harder than the roots around my torso, yet the shadows raise him the last few inches out of the pit.
The blade of the Soul Ruby is clutched in my hand.
I could slash the roots before they suffocate me. I tighten my hold on the hilt.
“Don’t!” Wendy shouts, her breath trembling.
I gasp, hardly able to breathe. “They’ll— kill me.”
Wendy can’t do this without me—she knows that. The Soul Ruby did nothing in her hands.
“Bring him back,” I wheeze. “And then—”
The roots tighten, cutting off circulation in my arms. Wendy nods. Once more, she plays with death as if it were a child’s toy, her fingers weaving through the air like she’s knitting a blanket, not raising the dead.
Darkness spreads from the corners of my vision. There’s a small twitch of Azaire’s finger. I blink, but it must have been more, because Azaire shudders, jerking unnaturally.
He’s coming back to life.
I try to reach the Soul Ruby, but the roots are tied too tight.
A faint voice calls my name. I try to grasp the sound. It remains distant, somewhere between slumber and consciousness.
I fall forward, my chest and face hitting the packed dirt.
“Lucian!” the distant voice calls. “We’re running out of time!”
Azaire.
I rise to my feet, my body and head spinning. I fall against the sides of the grave, with Wendy holding me up. Her eyes are wide and full of tears, her eyebrows knitted like a cardigan. Another streak of her hair is a dull gray.
She’s in front of me, grasping my shoulders and shaking. “You need to climb.”
I gulp and nod. Stepping forward, I grasp the roots; she’s sheared them. Perhaps he is no longer connected.
I lift my body, finding purchase along the dirt and rock. When I reach land, Azaire’s chest heaves in a strained, laborious motion, as if dragging a breath from the abyss itself.
I run to him. His neck arches, veins sticking out like cords, but his eyes do not open.
Before him, I drop to my knees, holding the Soul Ruby above his body. I do what Amun must have done thousands of years before: I imbue him with life, immortality, the power of the Soul Stone. Heat touches my back like a fire. Again, for just a moment, the veins at my wrist shine red.
Agonizingly, Azaire’s eyes flutter open, wide and hollow, staring into nothingness. They look unnatural—more like Edward’s unseeing eyes than Wendy’s. But that’s what the Soul Ruby is for: the power of immortality fills his eyes, seeping into the cracks of his lips.
I smile, heart pounding. He’s going to come back. Any minute—
“Aibek?” It’s Desdemona’s voice that trembles; I nearly freeze at her tone. “Aibek, don’t do this.”
Her voice cuts through the storm, through the magic—through me.
Unable to stop myself, I turn to her, as if she is compulsion incarnate. The Soul Ruby’s power does not cease as my attention shifts. It lights up in my hands, staining my bloodstream.
Desdemona raises her hand to a tree, clutching the bark to stay upright. She doesn’t have the strength to stop me.
It’s now or never.
I turn back to Azaire. Falling stars the color of blood cascade from the Soul Ruby into his chest. His body convulses, chest expanding, eyes rolling back. He twitches, skin glowing beneath the surface as the red pulses beneath his ribs, moving to his heart.
Then the knife is ripped from my hands.
Desdemona pushes me to the ground, clutching my hands over my head. She holds them tight, my wrists sinking into the mud.
“It’s a life for a life!” she screams, though she must see what is happening. She notices as Azaire’s chest moves, as he coughs, sputters, breathes.
From my left, Wendy pushes Desdemona off me. Desdemona lands beside me, mud splattered across the black and red gown I picked for her—dried blood from her head injury smeared across her neck.
Wendy presses herself on top of Desdemona, who doesn’t resist, as I move toward Azaire, the last of the Soul Ruby’s magic still in his body.
Desdemona’s voice is weak, tinged with defeat as she says, “If you bring him back, you die, Aibek.”
My chest tightens.
Then, so silent I strain to hear, Azaire says, “Why am I here?”
I drop to my knees before him. Wendy follows beside me, the bruises Desdemona left on her skin already fading. She doesn’t have the life to hold them.
Desdemona watches from afar, shaking her head.
Azaire slowly sits up, his head moving back and forth, his neck stiff.
“My gods,” Wendy breathes.
Azaire looks between Wendy and me like we’re strangers. Slowly, recognition creeps into his eyes. He looks at me, blinking furiously. “You,” is all he says, shaking his head and scratching his dry eyes.
The snakes on his head remain dead.
It doesn’t matter. I smile at Azaire. “Me.”
“Lucian,” he says. His voice is faint, distant. My name sounds nothing like it ever has on his tongue. It’s probably an adjustment, I’m sure. Coming back to life can’t be easy.
“Yeah.” I smile wider. “Yeah, Lucian.”
“First you get me killed.” Azaire’s face contorts into an expression I’ve never seen before. His lips twist into a sneer, eyebrows knotted tightly, like the roots that held him. “Then you force this body back.”
“Azaire, Azaire,” Wendy whispers, reaching for his hand. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
“You were good, Wendy.” Azaire looks down at her hand, holding his. “But you made a mistake.”
Then, Azaire rises to his feet and runs into the woods. I try to follow, but dizziness overwhelms me as I stand. Wendy follows instead, her entire head of hair now silver, glistening in the moonlight.
As I finally make it to my feet, something seizes my shoulders and hurls me back, my spine cracking against bark.