"It doesn't matter," he says at last, his voice stiff and ragged. It’s only then that I remember he had more than one reason to infiltrate the castle, and she’s no longer among us. "All of that already happened. The noctis used her to bait you. You were captured. Now you’re here. And now we need to think about what comes next."
"Your knight here is right,” she says.
Before I can lash out at her again, footsteps sound up the stairs and Fox retreats to greet the people walking up them. Two small figures appear first—children, by the looks of it—and then another figure.
They lunge forward, arms wrapping around my neck.
“Oh Charlotte! You’re alive!”
“Mira?" I gasp, squeezing her tight, only dimly aware that it is only one of a handful of embraces I've shared in the past decade. "What are you doing here? I told you to run."
"I did run," she admits. "But then I ran into her, and when I told her about Harland, she insisted we come back here.”
“That piece of—” Fox stops herself, likely realizing her children are listening— “thatbruteneeded to die.”
At least that’s one thing we can agree on.
In the darkness, I hear someone striking tinder, and then a flame sparks. A dull light seeps into the room and I release Mira to watch Fox close the lantern on the small fire she’s just created inside.
Part of me wants to hate her for what she did to me, what she did to countless others. But seeing her, now, here with her two sons, it sparks a forlorn longing in me that I have never been able to shake whenever I see mothers with their children.
They're lucky. Truly.
Not everyone is so fortunate to be reunited.
I look upon the two children, the smaller nestled into the folds of her prisoner garb, but his features recognizable every time he sneaks a peek out. Even in the dimness, he could easily be mistaken as her double, if not for being two decades or more younger. The other one, a young boy on the cusp of the awkward stage between boyhood and manhood, has sharper features, the shadows under his eyes darker. He reminds me of myself for some reason, and I have to look away.
"Thank you for saving us," I say.
"We should get going,” Rowland says, and then nods at Harland’s body in the center of the room. “Before he awakens."
As I twist around, heading for the stairs, I notice Dunce has staggered up the stairs too. I flash him a grateful smile and wonder how Lewis is fairing too. The blow to his head seemed bad, but with my blood inside him, maybe it was survivable…
Mira catches my wrist gently before I can go further.
"What is it?" I ask, but it’s Fox who answers.
"He won't be awakening. Not anymore." She flips a wooden stake in her hand, the precision impressive and unimpeded by her missing fingers. "Stake through the heart should do it."
Tossing Sable over my shoulder, I take the offered piece of wood. I feel the grain on my fingers, run my thumb over the sharp tip.
"This thing is supposed to kill him? Like…for good?”
“If they’re invigorated withyourblood? Yes. Decapitation works too. Or setting them on fire. But I don’t think any of us feel like sawing through his spine or burning down this place. So, stake it is."
“Hang on,” I say, realizing she isn’t at all thrown off by us suggesting that the bloodied, unbreathing noctis isn’t dead. “You know about…”
I trail off, unsure of what to say.
“Of course I do,” she says. But then her brow furrows. “But it seems like this is new information to you. What do you know then?"
Suddenly, I'm aware of everyone's gaze upon me, Rowland's heaviest of all. He's known me my entire life, and to learn this thing about me, it must feel like a betrayal of trust.
For that reason, I look to him when I answer her.
"I don't know much at all. The noctis you just killed bit me a couple of hours ago, but the bite healed itself. Within seconds. Then another noctis bit me and it was the same thing. No mark was left behind and I…I didn’t turn.”
“And when we killed the noctis,” Rowland adds. “Once they had Charlotte’s blood in them, they came back to life.”
