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It might make sneaking away tonight harder, but Lore didn’t care. She’d wondered if she should tell Jean-Paul about the plan, about how she’d be gone in the morning. But she didn’t want to make him lie if he was questioned. The less Jean-Paul knew, the safer he would be.

She half thought about asking him to come tonight, taking him to the Ferryman with her and Dani. But Lore still didn’t trust the other woman, and part of her half expected this Ferryman situation to be an elaborate revenge scheme. If it was, he’d be safer here.

“I’ll stay outside,” Jean-Paul said, making a face at a large stain on his pallet. “Small spaces make me nervous.”

So by the time Lore was staring at the dark ceiling of the cave, listening to the soft snores of the other people around her who also called it home, Jean-Paul was on the sand outside, curled up against the rock.

Help him be safe , she thought. Help him see Henri and Etienne again.

Are you talking to Me? Nyxara asked.

I guess. Lore hadn’t meant to be talking to anyone, just wishing into the dark.

I’m afraid I’m not in the position to be answering prayers , Nyxara said wryly. Not that I ever was, really.

Lore didn’t reply. She knew nothing was listening when she prayed. She just hoped the wish itself was enough, fed into the world, becoming tangible with her will.

All this, and she still hoped the universe had the capacity for kindness.

Dani hadn’t given her an exact time for their escape, just said to meet her on the dunes when she could get away after nightfall. Lore waited until the breath of everyone else in the cave was long and even, then slowly sat up and slipped into her flimsy boots.

“Where are you going?”

The thinnest whisper from across the cave. Lore froze.

A rustle, and someone sat up. Rosie, hair tousled, eyes wide in the dark. The woman she’d defended from Jilly, given back her stolen cup.

Rosie kept her voice down, barely enough to hear. “Are you going to the Ferryman?”

Briefly, Lore considered lying. But before she could come up with one, Rosie nodded, as if answering her own question. “Of course you are. You don’t belong here.”

Lore didn’t know what to say. She could threaten the other woman, or beg, or offer for her to come, too. Though if Rosie already knew about the Ferryman, surely she’d had an opportunity to meet him before now?

“Be careful,” Rosie said. “He knows how to navigate well enough, but it’s still a dangerous journey. Easy to get off course.”

“I’ll be careful.” Empty words for empty sentiment. Lore had never been careful.

Rosie nodded. “If the guards ask where you went, I’ll tell them you walked into the ocean.”

Jarring, to hear it said so plainly. But Lore nodded. “Thank you, Rosie.”

Lore headed for the cave entrance. Right before she stepped out into the night, Rosie spoke again. “What was it like, being Queen?” Wistful and almost embarrassed, like she’d long wondered, finally asking now because she wouldn’t get another chance.

The stone was cold beneath Lore’s fingertips as her hands tensed. “The Queen part was awful,” she said quietly. “But him… he was kind. None of this is his fault.”

She didn’t look behind her as she left the cave, not wanting to see the skepticism on Rosie’s face.

Outside, Lore stepped gingerly around Jean-Paul. After deciding it wasn’t safe to bring him, she’d considered leaving a note, but that would necessitate finding paper and pen, and she didn’t have time.

Lore gave Jean-Paul one last look and hurried into the fog.

The dunes were between the barracks and the lighthouse, a stretch of empty beach populated by nothing but the sand mites. In the dark and perpetual ash, it was hard to see more than a few feet in front of you.

Which was why she didn’t see the Mort until she was right on them.

A fist in her stomach, first, clipping the bottom of her ribs and doubling her over.

The rest of the monk melted out of the fog like a ghost, shoving her sideways.

Lore skidded on the sand, tried to get up, but another Mort was behind her now and planted a boot on her shoulder, pressing down until the cartilage bent dangerously.

The first one who’d punched her crouched, level with her eyes.

Lore was prepared for some villain monologue—gods knew she’d endured enough of those in the past few months—but he just shook his head.

A long scar snaked down the side of his face, disappeared into the collar of his shirt.

She recognized him from the other night, one of the ones who’d run when she killed their leader.

“We can’t let you escape,” he said, and to his credit, he sounded almost regretful. “The world demands your death.”

She was so, so tired of hearing about how she had to die.

Lore tried to roll out from under the Mort’s boot, but she only managed to dig herself farther into the sand. Another Mort wound his hand into her hair and pushed her head forward, driving it down in the grit. Some of it got in her mouth; Lore gagged.

The threads of Spiritum were slippery, try as she might to grasp them. The same as on the night with their leader, magic tugged from beneath her like a rug. She couldn’t concentrate, and every time she dropped into channeling-space, the golden strands slithered away, blinking in and out.

Apollius pulling it back, away from her. Surely, He couldn’t know just how badly she needed it right now; the god had put her through every hell, but He didn’t want her dead.

Lore snarled into the sand.

The snatches of moonlight that fought through the ash gleamed along a knife blade, clutched in the first Presque Mort’s fist. He knelt, almost reverently, and brought it close to Lore’s neck. “We kill you and the world is saved.”

A crack. The Mort’s head, struck by a rock. His eyes rolled back as he fell over on top of Lore, a vague shape behind him raising the rock again.

Jean-Paul. He must have seen her leaving, followed her.

Fulbert had gotten off easy earlier; the old poison runner hadn’t forgotten how to fight.

He twisted sideways, lashing out with the rock again, but now he’d lost the element of surprise.

Another of the Presque Mort grabbed the knife from their fallen leader and spun to Jean-Paul, scoring him across the shoulder.

“Hey!” An inane thing to scream, but it was all that came to Lore’s tongue.

She pushed up, lashing out at the nearest Mort, punching him in the knee in a move that hurt her as much as it did him.

The knee went sideways, bringing the Mort to the ground, but he didn’t stay there long, limping up again to go after Jean-Paul.

Jean-Paul, who was fading fast, another bleeding mark opened across his stomach.

“Lore!” His shout was thin. He lunged with the rock again, but the Presque Mort dodged him easily. “Lore, run!”

They were going to kill him. He’d come after her out of some remaining dreg of affection for the girl she’d been, and now he was going to die for it. Henri and Etienne would be left alone, across the sea in Ratharc, always wondering.

Lore reached for her power again. Spiritum, flickering gold. It tried to slip away, water dragged toward a drain, but she didn’t let it, not this time.

“Fuck you, Apollius,” she growled, and grabbed the threads in tight fists, not letting them slither from her grasp.

She dropped into channeling-space with teeth-clenching effort, the world going black and white except for the bright stars of Spiritum at the center of every living thing.

The cosmos of the Presque Mort glowed, Jean-Paul a constellation.

The smaller sparks of sand mites, the tiny flecks of plankton in the ocean beyond them.

There wasn’t time for finesse, but Lore didn’t need it, not anymore. She could make this power do whatever she wanted, and now, she wanted desolation. She wanted apocalypse.

Her fingers curled. And Lore pulled.

This was different from the night she’d killed the other Mort.

Her will was different, and thus the magic reacted to it—she didn’t just want to use Spiritum, to force it into allowing an escape.

She wanted it to be hers , wanted to grab it all and undeniably stake her claim.

Lore was afraid, and her fear made her reckless, made her willing to do whatever she had to.

Spiritum responded. It slid into her, curling up like a golden serpent. It set fire to everything else, shone in all the dark places. Lore felt like a star, wreathed in bright light. She felt like the sun.

Every shadow washed out of her, every darkness, the moon scoured away by the daytime, death defeated by unfettered, wild life . All of it, hers, because she claimed it, because this power could belong to nothing else in her vicinity.

A ponderous shift, the world readjusting its axis. Something taking notice. A decision being made, somewhere out there, a path rewritten.

Lore didn’t realize just what it was she’d done until every last drop of that light was gone from the space around her, contained inside instead.

Gasping, Lore fell to her knees. And so did the bodies, before slumping forward onto the sand.

She threw her head back, staring at the sky, pulling in great lungfuls of ash-tinged air through her teeth and smiling a wide, sharp-edged smile.

Myriad hells, Mortem had never felt like this. So much power , crowding her out of herself. Making her empty and invincible.

With a short laugh, Lore looked down at the dead Presque Mort fallen around her. Their bodies were dry and desiccated, every bit of life wrung from them like wet rags on a laundry line. Three bodies, one for each of the Mort—

Wait. Four bodies.

Jean-Paul.

Her mind wouldn’t string the information together, not at first. It shied away.

Lore had killed people before, and probably some of them hadn’t deserved it.

But Jean-Paul certainly didn’t. Jean-Paul whom she was trying to save, with his husband and his son in Ratharc, with his life still stretched ahead of him—

She’d killed other things, too, grasped the lives of everything close enough for her to reach, but this was the only one she cared about. The mites were dead in the dirt, the fish were dead in the waves, but Lore couldn’t bring herself to give a single shit.

She walked slowly past the bodies of the Mort, approached Jean-Paul limp on the ground. Lore lowered herself down, slowly, careful not to touch any part of him.

There were no tears. She’d spent all of hers earlier. She settled, pulled her knees into her chest.

Lore was still sitting there when Dani appeared.

The other woman didn’t speak. She slowed her hurried gait as she approached Lore on the dunes, her eyes widening as she took in the bodies. “Run into trouble?”

“Presque Mort.” Lore’s voice sounded like she’d swallowed sand. “And my friend.”

Dani didn’t make her explain. The bodies were explanation enough. “When this friend asked to come, did you tell him it wasn’t a rescue operation?”

“No,” Lore said listlessly. “He didn’t ask. He was just here. Trying to help.”

“Ah.” Dani stood at a distance from Lore, as if afraid she wasn’t done tugging Spiritum out of anything living that might wander close. She offered no comfort.

Lore was grateful for that.

Sometime later—enough time that her legs were numb, that the air had grown frosted with deeper night—Lore stood and moved away from Jean-Paul’s body, a little farther down the beach. She dug a shallow hole with her hands. Dani didn’t offer to help.

Such a brief glimpse of the life she’d had before, an abrupt reminder of who she’d been, and now he was gone.

It seemed fitting, almost. Killing Jean-Paul was like killing the last part of herself that existed before becoming Nyxara’s avatar.

She’d chosen to live, but she couldn’t do that as the person she was before the Citadel, before the eclipse ritual that was her twisted Consecration. The prices were too high.

It didn’t take much to roll Jean-Paul into the grave she’d made. No vault for him, no aboveground burial for the faithful—there was no need, now, and there was nothing to be faithful to.

When Lore was done, she straightened, brushing sand off on her knees. She wouldn’t waste time burying the Presque Mort. They hated buried things. “Let’s go.”

Dani nodded. “He should be at the repair docks by now. Head down toward the shore. The tide will wash out our footprints.”

Lore followed her, steady and blank as a sleepwalker. Dead fish littered the tide line. She stepped over them.