Chapter 16
The boat hit the shore with a soft sound.
Waves lapped against the wooden planks, and all she could think about were the bodies littering the beach.
So many of them. Each had once been a person with a family, a job, a life.
Now, they were all lying there, waiting for someone to pick them up and put them somewhere safe.
Or at the very least, waiting for someone to save them.
She closed her eyes. Just for a moment. Just so she could stare at the blackness behind her lids and disappear for two seconds before she had to be the queen everyone expected her to be.
This was her choice.
Her decision.
Everything that she was going to see on the walk to the castle was her own doing.
She could endure it. Jessamine would bear it for all the witches behind her who were likely to see loved ones lying on the ground, boils and pustules festering on their skin, with no sign of recognition or who they once were.
When she opened her eyes, she was the queen the coven expected.
She channeled her mother’s energy as she placed her hand on the edge of the boat and nimbly jumped out of it.
Even though her ribs screamed in pain and a headache burned behind her eyes, she stood tall and strong as she surveyed the beach.
“Come on,” she said. “We’re going to the castle. That is where we belong.”
There was a time when she wouldn’t have believed those words.
But now she did. She knew that there was nowhere in this kingdom that the witches deserved to be more than the castle.
She intended to start at the Water District, where everything had begun, and ignore the docks where there were countless bodies of men who had once been sailors.
But then the guilt gnawed at her. There were so many infected. So many people needed their help, and if they weren’t careful… She stopped on the sands, tilted her head back to the sun, and sighed.
Then she looked.
She really looked.
A young man lay on the ground right in front of her.
His hands were stretched toward another, a woman who was about his same age.
She couldn’t stop staring at his hands. Fingers so raw they were all bloodied.
The woman didn’t even have fingernails. Then Jessamine saw their faces.
The drool and the black pustules that covered the man’s face, and the woman’s features, which were so bruised it was hard to tell what she might have once looked like.
And yet somehow, they were still reaching for each other. As though they knew they were once important in the other’s life, even after their souls had been taken from them.
Their bodies remembered, which had to mean that they still felt some hint of what their souls felt. There was still emotion there. Still feeling.
Jessamine had done this to them. Perhaps not directly, but they were still her people, and she should have protected them from this. It was the worst-case scenario, and now she had to look at it.
The footsteps approaching her could only be Elric, and the sound of his voice soothed some aching nerves inside of her. “Nightmare? What’s going through your head?”
“We can’t leave them out here.”
“Excuse me?” The tone of his voice betrayed his frustration. “What do you mean, we can’t leave them out here? I did what you asked. They are all asleep. We cast a spell over them, and that spell needs to remain as it is for us to be safe.”
“If we leave them out in the sun like this, they’ll die before we can save them.”
He circled around her, a frown already on his face.
“Jessamine, I can tell what you’re thinking.
We need all the energy that we have to get them to remain asleep.
That is a considerable amount of sacrifice.
If we start plucking at them, moving them, then the spell might not be able to hold on to them.
You’re asking me to pick at threads and expect the entire quilt to stay together. They remain where they are.”
“Then we risk the spell unraveling.”
“You just asked me to cast it!” he shouted.
Everyone on the beach froze and stared at the two of them.
She knew they were making a scene, and that likely the other witches would think she was insane to ask this as well.
If it would undo the spell they had just woven, then they should leave it as it was and figure out another way to save the people of this kingdom.
They could put blankets on them, she supposed. But then they were only safe from the sun, not from the elements. What if it rained? What if they overheated? A person couldn’t just lie down on the streets or the sands and expect to stay alive for an infinite amount of time.
“They are still my people, Elric. The stasis spell you wove—will it keep them safe from the elements or only from starvation and thirst?”
“It will keep them alive.”
“Will it? Or does it just put them in a frozen state where they don’t need to eat or drink? I won’t have them awakening only to die.”
She tried to make him see how she was feeling, but she knew that was also a losing battle. He didn’t look at people the way she did. He was a god. They were all ants on a hill to him. Easily killed and replaceable.
He shook his head in disbelief. “This is ridiculous. No, Jessamine.”
When she didn’t budge, he let out a snarl that was befitting a god like him.
He turned from her, muttering under his breath, and stalked over to Sybil’s side.
Jessamine heard very little of their conversation, just a lot of “Talk some sense into her!” and then more mutterings until Elric let out a heaving sigh and threw his hands up in the air.
“Fine,” he announced. “Save your people. Put them all in houses and lock the doors, I suppose. Lying there in the sun is no different from not eating for days or weeks on end, but what do I know? I’m just immortal.”
Elric stalked down the beach, perhaps seeking some time to clear his head. Or perhaps merely just in denial that he would help them make such a foolish decision. Whatever his opinions on the matter, however, she didn’t care. Elric was wrong in his choice to not help these people.
Sybil crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “Such a dramatic god. Come on, ladies. He all but confirmed they shouldn’t wake up. We have people to save.”
One of the newer witches scoffed. Her dark hair was matted over her head, and likely she’d been feeling the effects of their travel. Dark rings underneath her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept in a long time. “Do you think these people would have helped us if we were in the same situation?”
Sybil turned with a glare. “Does that matter? You think so little of them, and yet you want us to be just like them. Should we not feel guilty for doing the same thing we would condemn them for?”
The other woman’s eyes widened.
“Mm-hmm,” Sybil muttered, before turning toward Jessamine. “How do you want to do this?”
All eyes were on her again. Jessamine was getting used to being the person who made all the decisions, but also… it was terrifying. She knew there would be judgment for what she had chosen to do. She’d just required them to sacrifice all their magic, only to muck it up once again.
Perhaps she should leave them. They would likely be fine, and the risk to the spell could make it impossible for them to live in this place.
But her mother had always said that a queen’s choice was right. Even when it was hard.
Jessamine cleared her throat and nodded.
“We do the right thing. We keep them safe, as they would not have kept us safe. There are plenty of homes. Use what little power you have left. We have skills that others do not. Work together to get as many people inside as possible, and then we will reconvene tonight at the castle.”
She had thought some of them would argue.
Or perhaps that they would be annoyed with her choices.
But none of the women reacted like that at all.
There were nods. Relieved expressions. Hopeful words that were passed between each other as some of them requested they head to other districts.
It would take time, but their families were there.
They wanted to make sure everyone was safe.
As the witches planned the spells they would use, Agnes stopped her with a hand on her arm, drawing Jessamine away from the others.
“I would like to go home,” Agnes murmured. “My boy…”
Hugo. Alexander. They both had remained in the Pleasure District, and Jessamine knew what that meant.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” she replied.
“It’s my duty. I should be the one to find them and handle it if…” Agnes swallowed. “When we find out the state they’re in.”
“Keep them safe.” Jessamine made sure to hold Agnes’s gaze, certain the older woman needed to hear her say it. “We’re going to get them back.”
“As you wish, gravesinger.”
Jessamine sent them all out into her kingdom. It was a larger project than even she had considered. There were thousands of people to put in safe homes, and if she was lucky, they would find all of them and make sure they were all okay.
“Just be careful!” she warned as the last few witches headed off.
“Elric said the more we move everyone, the worse the spell is going to unravel. Move people intentionally, from the far corners of the district, and head in. That way, as it unravels, everyone who you previously moved will be safely inside.”
She had no way of knowing how long this would take.
But she had never guessed it would be the better part of two weeks to fix what had been broken in her kingdom.
There were so many people who had been outside.
So many people who had been previously infected.
They had to seal doors, make sure windows were boarded over; it took a lot of time, even aided by magic.