“We didn’t exactly have another choice.” I try to take his hand, but he moves back so I can’t reach him. “I’ve made the bargain. I can’t unmake it.It’s done.I’ve saved Rowan, and now I can spare you all from this. You don’t need to do the ritual. You don’t need to face that danger again.”
Arien picks up the jar with the lake water and turns it around between his palms. The sediment stirs up in a curl that makes smokelike patterns through the water. “What did you give him, Leta? What did he ask in exchange for this help?”
My throat tightens, and the words stick. I don’t want to lie. But I know if I speak the truth of what I’ve done, the ache within me will hurt a thousand times worse. How can I tell him I gave up our family, in this world and the world Below?
How can I tell Arien I gave uphim?
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He puts down the jar and he looks at me, his anger softening into worry. “What was it, really?”
“Don’t ask this of me, Arien. I can’t tell you.”
“If I’d been stronger… if my magic had worked, you wouldn’t have done this.”
“No.” I reach out to him again. “I chose this. I wanted this. None of it was your fault.”
“Leta, the magic he’s given you, it’s not safe.”
I laugh darkly. “Arien, my love,noneof this is safe. You know that.”
“Whatever happens at the next ritual,” Clover says carefully, “if it’s us or you—”
“There’s noif. It has to be me. On the next full moon, I’ll cast the spell alone, and it will work. I have to do this on my own.”
“No,” Arien says. “You don’t.”
“They’re right.” Florence fixes us all with a long, hard stare. “Honestly. You’ve reached new heights for how much trouble you can get into on a single day.”
She pulls out a chair and sits down beside me, putting her arm around my shoulders. Longing spreads through me at the gesture. It’s like I’ve heard a sound echoed across a far distance. The shape of a caress that was once imprinted on my bones and is now gone. If I’ve ever felt this before—from my mother or father—that’s one of the memories I’ve given up.
My eyes start to sting, and I blink very quickly.
“Listen.” I roll back my sleeve and bare the new,sunburst-shaped sigil. “The whole reason I bargained with the Lord Under is so that no one else need risk themselves.”
Clover rolls her eyes. “You’re even worse than Rowan.”
“An even match, I think.” Florence smiles sadly. She puts her hand over mine, covering the crescent scar. “I’ve watched him tear himself to pieces to protect everyone while he tried to mend this. I knew it was hurting him, but he wouldn’t let me close. He kept it all to himself. I could have pushed him, but I—I didn’t. I kept back. I let him stay alone. And I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell her. “He doesn’t exactly make it easy to help him.”
Arien snorts out a derisive laugh. “Sounds familiar.” He leans his elbows against the table and takes a measured breath. “Leta, just because you can do this alone doesn’t mean you have tobealone when you do it.”
“If you came with me, if anything happened…” I shake my head, remembering Arien caught and pulled beneath the earth at the last ritual. “I can keep you safe now. I’ve paid dearly for it. So please, just let me.”
I get to my feet and go over to the door. It’s closed, when usually we leave it open to let in the air. And the window is shuttered, too.
I go out into the yard, and as I stand on the path with the warmth of heated stone under my feet, I look out over the estate.
It’sruined.
The space beneath the jacaranda tree where we fought andquieted the Corruption is torn through the center. There’s a trench of blackened earth. Thick tendrils of mud snare around the trunk, and the branches are now bare of leaves. They twist against the sky like desperate, grasping hands.
The altar is all dark. The wooden frame is caked with earth. Swaths of black cover the icon, with only a slice of the Lady’s upturned face visible between the darkness. Her single eye looks up at the skeletal branches above.
I take a halting step forward and go over to the charred remnants of the sigil. This isn’t at all like the ink-dark lake or the blackened shore. This is a whole world made silent. Everything is cold and black andstill. There’s no wind. No sound of grass or leaves, no call of birds.
And this wasn’t the only place touched by the Corruption.
