Page 47

For the briefest moment, Hugo looks achingly sad.

A bruise-eyed boy, too young for any of this, who has been so hurt by the world that his only thought is to hurt it back.

Then his expression hardens, his mouth twists into a sneer.

“Who says I want to banish him? No. I’m going to keep him.

” He takes out my obsidian mirror, cradling it against his chest as he looks down at Alastair.

“I’ll seal Therion inside of him permanently, and they will both be mine .

The Salt Priests only care about one thing: power.

When I am done here, they’ll be forced to listen to me.

There will be no more need for sacrifices after I’ve returned to them with my own captive god. ”

I stare at him in horror, so overwrought that I can barely get my words out. “Hugo, please—Alastair has no hand in what the Salt Priests did. He trusted you, he cared about you, he wanted to help you escape them. And if you ever cared for him—you can’t—don’t hurt him this way.”

“She’s right,” Camille says through gritted teeth. “Do this, and you’re no better than the ones who drowned your sister.”

Hugo clutches the obsidian mirror so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

He gazes down at Alastair with vicious yearning, like someone starved who is before a laden table.

Like he wants to eat both boy and god down to the bones before licking the plate clean.

“I can’t let him go. I’ve come too far and lost too much.

If being as cruel as the Salt Priests is what it takes to undo their hold on me, then so be it. ”

With an indrawn breath, he begins to chant a strand of hard-edged Tharnish. The words are unfamiliar, not the incantation from earlier, intended to banish, but something newer, more insidious.

“No!” I cry, reaching toward him, but Hugo brandishes the razor at Alastair’s throat, pressing it close enough to draw a thin line of blood.

As Hugo continues to chant, Alastair’s features begin to blur and flicker.

His eyes open, staring into nothingness, and they’re brilliant, glowing amber.

He’s shifting, changing, the planes of his face turned sharper, his hair strewn with feathers.

Like a peeled-back shadow, the form of Therion begins to lift from Alastair.

Hugo leans close, rapt as he observes the transition.

This is all my fault. It was my idea for Therion to come into our world like this. Alastair made himself weak to protect me, and now I’m going to lose them both, watch them taken apart and remade into a tool of Hugo’s wretched vengeance.

Alastair convulses, his bare feet kicking at the floor, his fingers curved to claws against the boards.

He lets out a wet, choking cough; a bubble of indigo liquor spills out from his mouth.

Hugo leans closer, focused entirely on Alastair’s face as he continues to chant.

Camille looks at me and gives a subtle nod. I squeeze her hand.

We move in a rush; Camille grabs for Hugo, catching hold of his wrist. She digs her nails into his skin, twisting his arm fiercely until the mirror drops to the floor.

The obsidian surface cracks into a spiderwebbed shatter as it lands.

He swipes at her with the razor, but he misses, and she shoves him away with all her strength—he stumbles back, striking his head on the edge of the windowsill. Bonelessly, he slumps to the floor.

I dart forward and hook my arms beneath Alastair’s shoulders.

Camille crowds in beside me, and together, we lift him.

He gets to his knees, his head lolling back against my chest. Then, we have him on his feet.

His head hangs forward, his face hidden by his sweat-damp hair.

A splotch of liquor drips from his mouth, spattering bluely on the boards.

We move toward the stairs, Camille ahead and I behind with Alastair propped between us.

We get him to the landing, set him down on the floor. He falls back against the wall, his head slumped, his eyes closed. Camille crouches beside him, her hand on his cheek, trying to stir him. “Alastair,” she whispers, urgent, desperate.

I leave them and hurry back up to the attic door, slamming it closed.

I take out the keys from my pocket. They’re tangled; I can’t find the right one.

The first I try is wrong, and then, from behind the door, comes the sound of dragging, unsteady motion.

I lean hard against the door, holding it shut as I continue to search through the keys.

The handle rattles and the door jars. Hugo hammers furiously against the wood, snarling my name. “Lacrimosa! Let me out!”

My fingers are slippery with sweat. I fumble, almost dropping the key ring. Then the key snicks home; I turn it and the door is locked.

Back on the landing, Camille is still trying to awaken Alastair. I fall to my knees beside him. My fingers press his throat, seeking a pulse. It throbs weakly beneath my touch. Leaning closer, I turn my cheek to his lips and feel the motion of his breath against my skin.

His lashes flutter; he opens his eyes and gazes at me with irises bright as amber. Swan eyes, Therion’s eyes.

In Therion’s voice, he says, “Lacrimosa.”

Hugo is still calling out from the attic—my name, then Alastair’s, then a string of furious curses. I can hear the echoing thud as he throws himself against the door, trying to break it open. I lay my hand against Alastair’s forehead, feeling the fever-hot burn of his skin.

“Tell me,” I whisper, my heartbeat frantic. “Tell me how to help you.”

It is Therion who looks at me now, pained and poison-sick. “I am—we are both—wounded. What that boy did, trying to banish me, and now—the drugs, the new ritual—I am too weak, Lacrimosa. I need to go back to the mine. To my altar. It’s the closest place to my own world; only there can I heal.”

“Yes, of course.” I’m lost to the numb shock of terror; everything feels so far away. “Can you walk, if we help you?”

“I will try. If you can help me to the sea cave, my boat will carry us the rest of the way.”

His head falls to his chest, his strength spent.

Falteringly, Camille and I help him to his feet and make our way slowly down the stairs.

Alastair is heavy between us, one arm slung around each of our shoulders, his head slumped forward, his footsteps unsteady.

It feels impossible that we can do this, yet somehow, we make it through the kitchen door, out of the house.

The ground is strewn with fallen wisteria blossoms; the heady perfume clouds around us, choking the air. We clamber across the breakwater, half dragging Alastair over the low wall of rocks and down onto the beach. Stumbling over the sand, we cross the narrow shore, headed for the caves.

Outside the grotto, the swan boat is tied in the same place it was on the night of my betrothal. It rocks fiercely on the rising waves. We wade through the water and over the slippery rocks until we reach the boat. Camille helps Alastair on board as I untie the rope.

They sit together, Alastair with his head against Camille’s shoulder, while I free the sails.

The wind catches them, and I tilt the rudder; the swan begins to drift out onto the wider sea.

The boat lies low with the weight of our three bodies, water slopping over the sides as the rough sea jolts us over the rising swells.

The wind is at our backs, swift and fierce, and soon we’re past the curve of the cliffs.

I think of how the sea was covered in petals on my betrothal night, how my brothers stood on the beach and cast the flowers onto the waves.

Now the waves are bare and dark, crashing angrily against the boat.

More water comes over the sides, pooling at our feet.

“It won’t flood before we reach the mine,” I say, unsure if I’m trying to convince the others or myself. Camille doesn’t reply.

Her eyes are downcast, her attention fixed on Alastair, the bare expanse of his chest revealed by his open shirt.

In the moonlight, the worst of his scars are clear and terrible.

With shaking hands, she touches him—the burns above his heart, the healed incisions on his arm.

Her fingers move from scar to scar, mapping the evidence of all he’s suffered.

When she looks up, her eyes are filled with tears. “Father did this to him, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” I say softly.

Her brows draw together, and she makes a pained, angry noise. “I always suspected—but Alastair told me, so many times—that he’d never—” She cuts off, choked, and presses her fist to her mouth. “I thought he trusted me.”

“He does trust you, Camille.”

“Then why did he hide this? I could have helped him. I could—” Camille scrubs at her face, swiping away the tears. She clasps Alastair’s hand between her own. “If—when—we’re through this, I don’t want any more secrets.”

I lay my hand over Camille’s, over Alastair’s.

I’m thinking of my brothers, the terrible secrets woven beneath our lives like the roots of an ancient tree.

Henry and Oberon, hiding the truth to give me a normal life.

It’s so much easier to be protected from hurts, but there’s a strength in knowing, even if that knowledge brings pain.

“No more secrets,” I murmur.

Camille draws me closer. My head dips to hers.

I shut my eyes as the ocean swells beneath us, rocking the swan boat as we make our way alongside the cliffs.

And I know that no matter what happens after tonight, this trust will last unconditionally.

We’ll stand together at the eye of the storm; our bond will be forged in fire.

There are no walls between us—only truth and promises.

We reach the pier on the crest of an enormous wave.

The boat slams into the side. Splinters of wood scatter out, caught up by the ocean.

I scramble for the rope, doing my best to tie the straining craft to the pier post. As the waves froth around my feet, I look to the entrance of the mine, glinting with the overflow of new salt.

The crystals shimmer blackly in the moonlight.

A shiver passes over me as I think of the shadowed corridors, sloping downward, the press of earth above our heads. But I am the daughter of this mine. I’ve swum beneath chthonic oceans and crossed the border between worlds. I’m not afraid of the dark.

I’m not afraid—until I hear a sound from the clifftop. Overhead, lined by moonlight, Hugo gazes down at us. He has escaped the attic. He sees us at the pier, at the rear entrance to the mine. Everything is as still as a painted mural. The fury on his face is obvious, even from here.

Then he is all in motion, hurrying along the clifftop on the path toward the main entrance of the mine. With his pale shirt and golden hair, he slips in and out from the fringe of the clifftop woods like a luminous deer in one of Caedmon’s forests. He knows. He knows where we are going.

I nudge at Camille, pointing to the cliffs above. “We have to hurry.”

Her mouth thins, her expression hardens.

Together, we help Alastair from the boat.

I see the blurred lines of Therion in his face, his body.

I loop his arm around my shoulders again.

Swiftly, we cross the beach, toward the cliffside, where the entrance—an opened arch—reveals nothing but darkness.

The way down into the farthest depths of the mine.