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Chapter Seventy-Five

CARMINE

“Rebuild my bridge, starting with your living body.”

Charles of the Bourbons threatened me with the eternal torture he’s delivered to the countless kindred he used to make that bridge.

A life underwater, unable to move, or see, or speak.

A human can die in a moment. A wrong decision.

A clumsy slip. A miscommunication between body and sense.

A vampire can live through a thousand years of death.

I keep my eyes on Charles, but I am aware of Luna’s every breath. His threat cannot land as long as she’s in danger. There’s no point in saving myself if she’s hurt. I will live as a stone at the bottom of the liminal reservoir knowing I did everything I could to make sure she got away from him.

He’d bleed her for the rest of her life. He’d feed her to keep her alive. He’d fuck her and loan her to any other vampire to curry favor, or deliver power, or just for his amusement.

When I throw her across, there’s still enough boat above water to hold me while I flip into a bird, over to the Manifest, and let the momentum take me to shore.

I think I’ve won. But my attention is too long on making sure Ario catches her.

By the time I turn back around, there’s a floorboard hurtling toward my face, and I’m on my back with Charles of the Bourbons on top of me.

“You know it’s not really her I need. It’s you.” He pushes the plank of wood on my head, blinding me and holding me still, exposing my throat to his teeth.

“Boat is sinking,” I spit. He doesn’t seem to care that he’ll be stuck here too.

He bites me, but before he breaks skin, I give one last push to get him off. Charles rolls onto the other side of the tiny patch of deck that’s left and jumps. He turns into a bat halfway to shore. He won’t make it.

But he isn’t just a bat. He flips back into the Manifest, then back here as a black hawk, buying a few more wingbeats—enough to flutter unevenly to a splashing spot in the glassy lake—and lands on Laro’s back.

My son will not carry me in any form, and I only have one form to get there.

The boat is dragged down. I hold on to the edge and scan the shore.

I wasn’t supposed to sink this boat. I thought I could be off it while there was still a boat to fly over, but I can’t change now.

And there’s no bridge. Viaro’s been dismantling it, and now he stands in the middle of it, arms slack, watching what he cannot stop.

Luna, though, is on the other side, waving her arms, crying, “Fly, fly, Carmine! Please!”

She shouldn’t have to see what happens, but I can’t disappoint her. My last free act will be obedience to her.

With only a patch of boat above the surface, I turn into a raven and head for the sky. As soon as my wings are over the water, I am sucked down into it.

In a panic, I change to a man again, but it’s too late to change the outcome. I will sink in any form. I am a stone, immortal and dense with death, that will never move from the earthly or liminal plane.