Chapter 25
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The steady drop of water plopping into a puddle on the floor is a torment I could do without. That consistent sound is the flap of Michael’s wings, or the beating of a healthy heart.
With my chin resting against my collarbone, my lolling head feels no less fuzzy than when I first blacked out.
There’s an ache in both my arms, which appear to be hanging above my head, and when I move them, something threatens to slice into my wrists.
If I was more lucid, this might be cause for panic.
Opening my eyes is a struggle, but when I finally force them to obey, I raise my head to find I’m in a small wine cellar, and the dripping water isn’t water at all, but wine leaking from one of the barrels stacked to the ceiling. Crimson pools over the floor.
This is far from ideal, but better than a cell in the basement.
A faint, dull stab of alarm jabs at me. The basement. The captives. Damian told me once Eira was dead, he’d help them, give them the money they need for a fresh start, but I have no idea if he’ll honour that promise, or whether he said it to get me to the temple.
Another stab. This one a lot more painful. I can’t think about the temple. Or about how I’ve lost everything – the cure, the chance of the reward, of speaking to Eira about a way to save Astin. Which means he’s –
A choked gasp escapes my mouth.The binds on my wrists may as well be wrapping around my chest, because I can’t think, can’t breathe, as I finally admit this might be the one time everything is not fine. The weight of loss is a boulder compressing me until all I want to do is curl up in a ball.
What is the point in escaping when there’s nothing to escape for?
I force myself to inhale. Wallowing will get me nowhere. If nothing else, there’s still a chance I can help the captives. I can’t let Damian cast them into the world, hexed and alone. So what if I strangled him a little? I delivered what he wanted. He owes me a favour.
Scratch that, he owes me two.
I want those captives happy, healthy and free, with everything they need to recover from what Eira did to them.
And I want my reward. I want my inn.
I tug my arms again. My wrists are bound by something sharp, yet twisted – what used to be a rope, I think, now covered in emerald, tied to the ceiling.
It digs into my skin as I yank in every direction to no avail.
I huff. Tying me up was needlessly dramatic.
How long did he plan to leave me for? Until Eira was dead, purely out of spite, so I couldn’t have the conversation I requested, or forever?
I yank the crystalline rope harder, barely feeling the way a jagged piece of emerald slices into me. Nothing matters but escaping this cellar.
And not just to help the captives. Flashes of our argument come back to me in fragments. The whole of Rerta is at risk, if what he said was true. I have no idea how he thinks Eira’s death is suddenly going to win their hearts, but when he realises it hasn’t . . .
I don’t know what he’ll do.
Forget dramatic. He’s unstable. Worse than a Souleater, because at least the majority of us have accepted our persecution, rather than plotting revenge on anybody who’s ever wronged us. Maybe my kind have more goodness inside them than I possibly imagined.
Which makes it all the more obvious there’s none in him.
My magic reawakens, all that anger I channelled from Damian, stirring to the surface.
Power surges and my bindings shatter, exploding in a spray of miniscule green shards that clatter to the floor like shimmering raindrops. Proof he isn’t as unbreakable as he thinks.
My arms fall to my sides, and my muscles sigh in relief.
I examine my wrists to find the skin is red and raw, bleeding in places, but I don’t care.
I’m free. Most of the emeralds have crumbled to nothing but dust, but two are large enough that they might come in useful, so I scoop them up and into my pocket.
My legs shake as I teeter to the exit, a small hatch situated at the top of three stone steps.
I poke my head through and survey what appears to be the garden at the back of Eira’s house.
Weeds grow through the gaps between uneven stone slabs.
The house itself is quiet, the windows dark. I have no idea how long I’ve been unconscious. If Eira’s already dead, Damian may well have abandoned this place and the memories it contains.
I can’t leave without checking the basement first.
I approach as silently as I’m able, heading to the side door I escaped through after my previous visit, standing in the frame and listening for signs Damian might be there. There’s nothing.
And when I enter the basement, there’s nothing there either.
The cell is wide open. This should be a cause for celebration – I don’t know yet if Damian helped them in any way other than unlocking the door, but at least this means they’re free – except there’s a lingering scent in the air, nothing but citrus and rot and stale vomit, that makes me uneasy.
I creep upstairs, following the smell. Dirty footprints mark the steps in places.
A bloody handprint is smeared across the wall.
The scent dissipates once I’m in the wider space of the hallway, but there’s a nagging feeling in my gut that tells me however they vacated their cell, it wasn’t without pain.
They also left in a hurry, because Damian hasn’t secured his study.
I suppose there’s no need for him to hide his research now he’s got the cure in his hands.
Eira won’t be alive to find it. I nudge the door and peer inside.
The room is a mess, with books scattered over every surface and a brown liquid dripping down one wall, shattered glass on the floor, as though Damian threw a bottle in rage.
The red book Damian indicated earlier, the one he said gave him the information about the temple, still lies on the desk.
With trembling fingers, I pick it up. If whoever wrote this knew about the temple, they might also know how to channel emotion like the witches – and how to keep their magic uncorrupted.
Maybe then I’d have the power I need to fix this. To bring Astin back. To stop Damian before he hurts anybody else, without succumbing to darkness myself.
There’s an extra piece of parchment wedged between the thick pages of the book, but before I can pull it free, metal clangs outside.
I go utterly, utterly still. Outwardly, at least. Inwardly, my belly is a mess of panic, while my heart is a warning bell ramming itself against my chest.
It could be nothing. It could be the gate swinging in the wind.
But I can’t risk staying here. I pad out of the room, the journal clutched tightly to my chest, and give the library a wistful glance.
I have no idea if this one book has the answers I need – if any book will – and there’s a part of me itching to steal more on my way out, but another clang of metal has me jogging to the side door, whipping it open and poking my head outside.
Once I’ve deemed the area clear of Damian, Souleaters, or anybody else who might want to murder me today, I leave the grounds. I need to find somewhere secure to plan my next steps and read what I’ve found, but I’ve no idea where to go.
As I walk aimlessly through the streets of Rerta, I feel like I’ve failed before I’ve started.
Grief is a constant throb, a stone in my shoe I can’t shake, one that gets more painful with every step.
Around me, people are whispering about a final Laevothe celebration tomorrow night, an invitation that’s been placed through letterboxes asking them to attend a party to end all parties out in the ruins.
I know exactly who the host will be. My grip tightens around the book.
For some of them, it might be the final party they attend.
I have to find a way to stop this. But I need magic, I need help, I need Astin. I look around as though I expect the answer to materialise – hexes, I’d take a Nuri sighting at this point. Anything so I’m not standing alone on a street corner holding a journal that may offer me no aid whatsoever.
Ahead, an inn sign swings in the light breeze, and my resolve slips.
I don’t want to be plotting how to ruin a party.
I want to go home, to my inn. I want someone to bump their hip against mine when we’re vying for space in the kitchen, to mutter that nobody in their right mind would shape their pastries like hearts.
I walk inside. An elderly man with a ruddy face and a moustache obscuring most of his mouth slumps behind the counter, drumming his fingers on the desk. He straightens at the sight of me. Alarm sparks in his eyes.
‘Miss, your hands . . .’
I lift one from the book and realise I’m still covered in Astin’s blood. The red has faded now, but it lingers underneath my nails, in the lines of my palm, my whole being saturated by his memory.
‘I’ve had a bad day,’ I tell him, in the understatement of the year. Decade. Century.
His brow furrows. Summoning one last bit of energy, I try to recall how to plaster a smile on my face, aiming for something reassuring that says I am not an axe murderer.
‘Cut my finger,’ I tell him, waving my hands around. ‘Shocking how much blood one tiny scratch can produce.’
Oh no. My voice wavered. And – hexes, is that a tear? I thought I was done with those. My tear ducts must be a barren well by now, and yet, like magic, here they go again, filling my eyes with wet and stinging my mouth with salt.
‘I’m sorry.’ I hiccup. ‘It hurts.’
I pull out the emeralds I managed to salvage from my broken bindings.
‘I don’t have any coin, but I have these.
They’re real, I promise. If I can have a room, everything will be –’ For once, I can’t bring myself to lie.
He could give me the nicest room in the building, and things would still be terrible.
The man holds the emeralds to the light. They must pass inspection, because he says, ‘All right. Room three’s available.’
I snatch the key the moment it hits the counter and rush away, nearly colliding with the front door as someone tries to shove it open from the other side. The last thing I hear as I dart up the stairs is the man saying, ‘Not another one. Been in a fight, have you?’
A brief prickle of conscience tells me I should investigate what that means, in case it’s one of the basement captives seeking refuge, but I’m already shoving the key into the lock of room three, desperate to be alone.
Until I open the door to find one large bed waiting.
My face crumples. The door slams shut.
I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be alone at all.
I drop to the floor, realising this is my life now. One bed to myself until the end of my days. My stomach is hollow, not out of hunger – although, thinking about it, I have no idea when I last ate – but as though the absence of Astin has carved through me.
A blanket is draped over an armchair sitting next to the hearth.
With no energy to consider lighting a fire, I crawl towards the blanket, tugging it free, shaking uncontrollably as I wrap it around my shoulders.
It offers no comfort. I place the book on the floor at my side; all desire to peek at its contents vanished.
I don’t know how Astin survived it, losing his sister. I don’t know how he put up with me either, because if some smiling, happy person told me to see the positive in things, I might smack them in the face.
A knock jolts my focus. I ignore it. It sounds again.
‘I didn’t order any food,’ I call out. Maybe the innkeeper noticed I needed some. Or maybe he didn’t believe my finger-cutting story and has sent a warden here to interrogate me.
The doorknob twists.
I’m half on my feet when the door swings open, no solid plan in mind other than they can’t take me away, today of all days. But when I register who’s standing on the other side, I freeze. The blanket falls to the floor. I’m tempted to fall with it.
Because it’s not the innkeeper with a steaming bowl of soup in hand, nor a warden come to investigate my bloody hands.
It’s Astin.