I try to draw back the power. But instead it floods all around me. The thread between us winds tighter, tighter, until itaches. The sigil burns. My skin burns.
The world turns white.
I close my eyes and I let go.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wake in the parlor, alone. My boots are gone, but I’m still in my mud-streaked bonfire dress. Someone has laid me on the chaise, tucked a blanket over me. The air smells of bitter herbs and honey salve. The curtains are drawn back, the walls turned amber by evening light. The altar looms over me from the opposite side of the room: the Lady all golden, the Lord Under darkly shadowed. The fruit I cut is still there, now dark and charred. The floor is still stained by my blood.
I get to my feet, the world tilting in a dizzying rush. I stagger out into the kitchen. Clover and Arien are at the table, while Florence stands beside the stove, feeding wood into the fire. Arien stays seated, his gaze fixed on the tabletop, but Clover stands up quickly and comes over to me. She takes my hands and peers into my face.
“You’re awake.” She brushes her fingers over the cut on my hand. “How do you feel?”
“Like I just fought off a monster.” I scrub my wrist across my face, then look around the room. “Where’s Rowan? Is he—? It didn’t—when I stopped him, was he hurt?”
“He’s in his room,” Florence says. “He went upstairs after he helped you back inside.”
I turn away from them and run up the stairs, stumbling slightly. The door to Rowan’s room is half-open. I tiptoe inside. He’s passed out on the bed, the quilts kicked into a pile beneath his muddied boots. I cross the room slowly, sadness rising in my chest. I kneel down on the floor beside the chaise, and put my hand against his cheek. His fawn skin is pale, and his brows knit into a frown when I touch him.
I close my eyes as, in a rush, it all comes back. I’ve done it. I’ve really done it. I bargained. I’m marked. I’m promised.
It’s what I wanted, and I’m not sorry for what I’ve done. But the hollowed place left behind from where I gave up my memories is a constant ache. It feels painful andwrongto have this vacant, blank space where my family once was. To know that I’ll never see them again, that when my soul passes to the world Below, I’ll be alone, without even Arien there beside me.
I know I made the right choice. Still—it hurts.
I take Rowan’s hand. The sigil on his wrist is a cluster of angled lines, like a sunburst. The identical mark on my own wrist pulses, as though there is still magic left inside it. For a breath I see flashes of color and catch a thread of emotionsthat don’t seem quite mine. The same uneasy mix of relief and despair I felt earlier, interwoven with some darker thing. Anger. Guilt.
I let go of his hand, and the images fade.
Florence comes quietly into the room. She has a tray set with tea, and a vial of sedative. “Oh.” She looks at him, smiling sadly. “He’s gotten mud all over the sheets.”
“Should we take off his boots?”
“No, let’s not wake him.” She sets down the tray and puts her hand against his forehead for a moment. “Come on, we’ll leave him to rest.”
We go back into the kitchen, where Clover sets a cup of tea onto the table for me beside a jar of honey. I sit down heavily. My whole body feels bruised. When I swallow the tea, I can still feel the grittiness in my mouth, like the mud is inside me. I scoop out a spoonful of honey and stir it into my cup. But even with the honey, the bitterness of the herbs stays on my tongue.
I look down at the tabletop strewn with notebooks. Each page filled with scrawled-out, rewritten, and half-drawn sigils. At the center of the mess is a cluster of jars, arranged in a circle. They’re all full of ink-dark water, with a heavy paste of muddy sediment at the bottom.
I turn to Clover. “What is this? What are you doing?”
“We’re—” She pulls at the end of her braid. “It’s for the next ritual.”
Arien folds the notebook closed and holds it to his chest protectively. “Clover and I are still trying to find another spell to use.”
“Arien, you don’t need it.”
His mouth draws into a tight frown before I can finish.
“Arien. Yousawme today. You saw what I can do now.”
“Yes. We saw. You really summoned him, didn’t you?” Clover looks toward the parlor with a shiver. “That icon is…” She waves a hand, unable to find words. Her eyes gleam with a mix of fear and fascination. “We were told in the Maylands that most estates have them, but I’ve never seen one before.”
“You promised me, Leta,” Arien says quietly.
“Do you think Iwantedto do this?”
“Yes. I think you did.” Beneath the hurt in his eyes is another emotion. Guilt. “We were going to work this through, together.”
