I know it will. I can’t pull back. I have to keep going.
From above, more darkened water pours down. And then I can make out shapes. Slender arms and sightless faces and razored claws. The creatures that rose from the lake. Their hands reach out and tear through the branches of the trees. There’s a pained, pitiful cry. Then another and another. They echo around us. The sound of souls turnedgoneas the treesare destroyed; devoured by the Corruption and absorbed to become part of the hunger.
I look back desperately toward the trees where the souls of Rowan’s family sleep. They’re untouched for now, but in no time at all, the darkness will be upon them. There areliveshere, a whole forest of souls. I picture them all, enclosed in sap and bark, as mist trails through the branches. I picture Arien and Clover and Rowan, in the world Above, being overwhelmed by the creatures.
“No!” I feel the burn of my magic across my skin, my palms, my fingertips. “No. They are not yours to have. Come to me.To me.”
I remember what Rowan told me about the Corruption, how it first woke up and how he took the darkness inside himself to make it stop. I need to do the same. I need to let it in.
The dark lines on my skin snare tighter and spread farther, crossing my forearms and curving around my elbows. I cough, drag in a rasping breath. Blood streams from my nose and across my mouth. Even as the darkness covers me, I let the vicious brilliance of my magic burn through it all. The hurt, the fear, the darkness. I will fight this. I willmendthis. I reach for my power. The threads of my magic, with the Lord Under’s magic, are knotted around my hands. I pull on them, drawing them tighter and tighter. Light fills my palms. I let the brutal power gather, then send it up toward the sky.
At my wrist, the sigil hums, and when I close my eyes, I catch the far-off flicker of the world Above. It’s the barest glow—rose and peach and gold—but it’s there. I want to goback. To the shore, to my garden, to my home. But I can’t. Not now.
I hope Rowan knows that I’m sorry. That I chose this,allof this. To fight with him and lie to him. To show him my scars. To make this terrible bargain. To fall in love.
I chose this.
I turn my face up to the wounded, ruinous heart of the Corruption.
“To me.”
I let the darkness come.
The creatures fall—hungry, hungry.Ravenous.They’ve waited so long. They were so desperate, sostarved, and now—and now—
A memory flashes. My hands grasped around the idol. I throw it hard against the floor. Shards burst like a fallen star beneath my feet. I’m on the ground, and there’s glass in my knees. The shards are white hot. They cut me, but I don’t cry out.
Claws rake across me. Sink into me, sink through me. They scrape deep into my arms, my chest, my wrists, my thighs. The Lord Under grips my hands as the creatures tear through my skin. I taste blood, I’ve bitten my tongue. I taste the cold, ashen burn of my magic.
The creatures cut me.
I’m carved up, spread open, ready to be devoured.
They cutdeep.
I think of shards. I think of knives. I think of claws. I think of sharpened teeth.
The Lord Under is still beside me. He holds me close. “Don’t be afraid.”
I call to the darkness.Come to me.The sigil on my wrist beats out a rhythmic pulse. The earth will be mended. The poison will be gone. Arien will be safe. He’ll turn fourteen at year’s end, have a cake shaped like a crescent moon. Clover will give him alchemy lessons. He’ll sit in the library and sketch patterns in his notebooks. He’ll behome.
And Rowan—
And Rowan—and I—
I remember how it felt to lie beside him in his room, in the moonlight. How I pushed aside the uncertainty and the danger and tried to forget everything. For that brief moment, when I was curled against him, I was only Leta. Loved and warm and safe.
The darkness gathers from the sky, from the air, from the trees, from the pieces that have poisoned the Lord Under. The ground beneath my feet turns to softened moss. The frightened voices in the trees turn gentle. I hear them whisper. They tell me the trees are hungry, too. They tell me there’s a hollow inside a new-grown heartwood, an empty space carved out for me.
But I’m not finished. I reach farther,up, beyond the world Below. I call to the poison that’s tainted the lake and the shore. The poison that’s infected Rowan. I call it down through the earth, through the worlds, and let it all in.
The darkness is inside me now. There’s poison in my blood, my heart, my bones. I’m bitten and bled and devoured. Pieceby piece I dissolve. I am consumed by the dark. I let it take me. I let it become me.
At my wrist, the sigil burns.A seal on your heart, a seal on your arm.I feel a wash of colors, of emotions. Fear and elation. Resignation and relief. I picture the world Above mended and protected andsafe. Everyone at Lakesedge—Clover and Florence and Rowan and Arien—safe. Because of me.
The Lord Under catches hold of me and I sink against him. Gently, gently, he lays me down in the water that has collected at the center of the stones.
All I can feel and taste and see is hunger. Darkness above and darkness beneath and darkness within.
