I felt a sudden surge of hope. I didn’t understand this new Astraia—no, I had never understood who my sister was all along. But surely she had to see the logic of my argument. Surely she had to accept it.
Her forehead creased thoughtfully. “The chief servant of the Kindly Ones can’t always control his demons? Why would they leave him so little power?”
I shrugged. “They thought it amusing, I suppose.”
“Or he thought it amusing to lie to you.”
“He wouldn’t—” I started, then caught myself as her face started to twist in scornful disbelief. “Do you want to risk it?” I asked instead.
“No,” said Astraia. She seemed to consider it a moment. “Then before we kill him, we must find a way to end the Sundering and banish the demons.”
She spoke so confidently and matter-of-factly that it took me a moment to find my voice. “No, we need to find his name.”
“And if it’s possible to find his name, and if it’s true that it would free him, do you have any reason to believe that it would end the Sundering and free us from the demons?”
I didn’t, I realized with a cold, sinking horror. He’d only said that I would be free and he wouldn’t have masters anymore. Everything else was just my own foolish hopes.
“But we can’t kill him,” I protested. “I told you—”
“You have told me good reasons to be careful,” she said. “You have told me that so long as he lives, demons will ravage our people. You have told me that so long as he lives, he will still lure people into twisted bargains.” She stepped closer, until our faces were only a breath away. “You have told me that you want him alive, though it means our mother will lie unavenged, and his bargains will punish both guilty and innocent, and demons will crawl out of the shadows and torment people until they die screaming every day.”
There was no anger in her voice now, only perfect, unbending conviction. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away from her relentless gaze.
“Is that not so, sister?”
I wanted to shout, You don’t understand!—but every word she had said was true. People were dying every day, and I hadn’t minded if they kept on dying, so long as the one person I wanted stayed alive. Even though he was the one person who least deserved it.
In the end, all I could do was stare at her and whisper, “Yes.”
“You know he’s a monster,” she said gently. “However much you think you love him, you still know. Maybe he is enslaved, but if he really hated what he was doing, he could have killed himself any time.”
I shook my head, remembering how he had healed from the darkness. “I’m not sure they would let him die—”
“Am I telling the truth?”
“Yes,” I said helplessly.
She laid a hand on my cheek. “I’ve heard the stories about him. I don’t blame you for being beguiled. But if you do not help me, I will never forgive you.” Her lips curved in a sunny, vicious smile. “And I know that Mother will never forgive you either.”
My nails bit into my palms. She had every right to fling my own words back in my face, and she was probably telling the truth, as I had not.
“He trusts me,” I said. “You know how the gods judge traitors.”
“You must betray one of us. I suppose which one you pick depends on whom you love the most.”
I looked at her. She wanted me to break my promise with Ignifex, to betray him after he had given me absolute trust, to kill the only person who had ever loved me and asked nothing in return.
She was my only sister, the living image of my mother, and the person I had hurt the most when of all the people in the world she deserved it least. She wanted me to avenge ten thousand murdered souls and save all Arcadia from the terror of demons.
I remembered the screams echoing from Father’s study. I remembered huddling next to Astraia when she couldn’t sleep for fear the shadows would look at her. I remembered silently swearing, I will end this.
That oath, too, surely must be kept.
“Nyx.” Astraia cradled my face in her hands. “Please.”
I should have known, I thought dully. Why did I think that I would ever get to keep what I loved?
Why should I think that my love was more important than all Arcadia?
I gripped her hands and whispered, “Yes.”
Our fingers wove together. I felt like there was ice jammed into my chest.
“Swear to me,” she said, “by the love you bear me and our mother, by the gods above and the river Styx below, that you will destroy the Gentle Lord, rescue the last prince, and save us all.”
My heart thumped. I tried to speak, but my throat tightened. Memories of Ignifex flooded over me: His lips against mine. His hands as he slid the ring onto my finger. His voice in the darkness as he said, Please.
But he didn’t matter any more than I mattered. We were both wicked people, and we were both the ones who had to be sacrificed.
“I swear.” The words came out in a whisper. Then I swallowed and ground them out. “I swear by my love for you and our mother, by the gods above and the river Styx below, that I will destroy the Gentle Lord, rescue the last prince, and save us all.”
“And?” Astraia promptly gently.
“And . . . and by the creek in back of the house.”
She flung her arms around me. “Thank you.”
I pressed my face into her shoulder. My eyes stung with tears, and I expected that any moment the cold hate for her would wash over me. But all I felt was emptiness, until I realized that I had finally gotten my wish: I had learnt to love my sister without bitterness. All it had cost me was everything.
It occurred to me that Ignifex would find this fate both amusing and appropriate. Then I cried, my whole body shaking with sobs, and Astraia held me and stroked my back until I quieted.
It didn’t take Father and Aunt Telomache long to find us, but we bolted the door and refused to come out. Father pounded on the door and commanded Astraia—he must have known I was a lost cause—to open it.
“We’re plotting the death of the Gentle Lord!” Astraia called back. “Go away!”
I laughed weakly. “You grew a sharp tongue rather quickly.”
“Twins are always alike, don’t you know?” Her voice sounded almost affectionate, and I laughed again; then her next words caught me like a blow across the face. “Why did you go to the graveyard?”
I remembered my cheek leaned against Ignifex’s shoulder, his arm around my waist, and his lips as he kissed me, fiercely tender. It felt like worms crawling over my skin to remember that Astraia had watched it all, hating both of us.
But I owed her an answer.
“Because I was always a terrible daughter. And . . . in that house, I became a worse one.”
Astraia glanced at me sharply, and I could see the words Because he made you in her eyes, but she was mercifully silent.
I went on, “I wanted, just once in my life, to do something right for her.”
Astraia puckered her lips. “Why did he go with you?” she asked, apparently missing—or accepting—the implication that I had never, in all my life, loved our mother properly.
“I asked him.”
Her nostrils flared. “So he could laugh at her tomb?”
My hands clenched. “He drank the funeral libation with me,” I growled, then couldn’t help adding, “You must have seen; you were spying long enough.”
Astraia stood. “He could pour out all his blood in libation and it wouldn’t pay what he owes us.”
“I didn’t say it did.” I stared at the floor, remembering his dead brides lying in the darkness and the dead sorrow on Astraia’s face when I left her. Neither of us could pay for our sins.
“I suppose by now he trusts you?” She looked down and I felt compelled to meet her eyes.
You can trust me, I had said, and he had whispered, I do.
I nodded wordlessly.
“That’s a good thing. Because after everything, he
deserves to know what it feels like to be betrayed.” Her smile was like broken glass. “Someday you’ll be free of him, and then you will agree.”
The next instant I was on my feet, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Of course he’s evil and unforgivable.” My voice felt like it was coming from the far end of a long tunnel. “But he is the only reason I ever honored Mother with a clean heart. And if I hadn’t learnt to be kind with him, I would never have come back to beg your forgiveness and pick you over him. So gloat all you want—you deserve to watch us both suffer—but don’t you dare say I will ever be free of him. Every kindness I ever show you, all the rest of your life, that’s because of him. And no matter how many times I betray him, I will love him still.”
I clamped my mouth shut. My skin crawled with shame at having revealed what I dared to want. But as I stared at Astraia, hands trembling, the cold wave of hatred still did not find me, did not turn me into a monster who would say or do anything.
Astraia’s face was unreadable. She reached out slowly; I tensed, but she only stroked my hair, and I closed my eyes. Without my hate, I felt bereft.
“He’s going to die,” she said in my ear. “So I’m not discontent.”
“Then can we get on with the planning?” My voice wavered only a little.
“Of course. Tell me what you learnt. Besides kindness.”
So I told her my story. Some of it.
I told her how the darkness tried to eat Ignifex alive, how he needed rows of candles or at least my arms to survive the night. But I didn’t tell her how I had left him helpless in the hallway or how he had said, “Please,” because I knew she would smile at the thought of his suffering and I couldn’t bear that. I told her how I found all the hearts—including the Heart of Air—but though I blushed enough for her to guess, I didn’t tell her what we’d done there.
Most of all, I was careful not to tell her how long I had dallied between finding the Heart of Air and coming to see her. She knew I loved the enemy of our house, but she didn’t need to know how much I had wanted to forget her. Or how easy it had been.
After I had finished, Astraia sat quietly for a while. Then she said, “You have to free Shade. He’s the prince, isn’t he?”
He killed five women, I thought, but Ignifex had killed more, and in the end neither of them mattered at all. Avenging my mother and saving Arcadia from the demons were the only things that I should care about.
“Yes,” I said.
“During my research, I found a variant of the Rhyme—only recorded in two manuscripts—but it adds another couplet:
“A pure heart and a pure kiss,
Will free the prince and give him bliss.”
I snorted. “Even if it’s true, I think that’s as impossible now as the virgin hands.” She opened her mouth. “For you as well. There’s far too much poison in your heart now.” I frowned. “Besides, I’d have to find Shade first. Ignifex wouldn’t say where . . .” My voice trailed off as I realized there was only one place that Ignifex would be satisfied to imprison Shade.
“He’s behind the door,” I whispered. “With the Children of Typhon.” I felt a twist of horror that Ignifex would do that to anyone, but I knew it had to be true.
“Well, that’s easy then, isn’t it?” said Astraia. “You have the ring.”
“So?”
She rolled her eyes. “He can command the demons. The ring lets you stand in his place. I’d wager anything you can command them as well.”
“Would you bet your life?” I muttered, but I looked down at the ring. How much of his nature had the ring given me? It let me share his powers; what if it let me share his weakness as well? I noticed the deepening shadows in the library, and my skin prickled.
“Yes, and more,” said Astraia, grim again.
“I wasn’t wavering,” I said. “I was thinking. Remember how I told you that darkness burns him? I think it might do the same to me since the ring lets me share his power. Shade said that monsters are afraid of the dark because it reminds them of what they are. Ignifex said that he hears a voice in the darkness and he only survives because he forgets.” I met her eyes. “I want to know what truth it is that tries to eat him alive every night.”
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21
We needed a room where we could light candles—in case the darkness started actually killing me—and that meant not the library.
Which meant I had to see Father again. I dithered my way through checking the books in the library for a bit longer than I needed, because I was trying to gather up my courage. I didn’t want to scream hatred at him again, and I didn’t want him to look at me with loathing as Astraia did, and I didn’t want either of us to pretend anything was all right. Most of all I wanted him to kiss my feet, beg forgiveness, and reveal he had loved me all along, but I knew that was the most impossible thing in all possible worlds.
It turned out he was waiting for us right outside the door. My skin crawled again as I considered what he might have overheard, but I met his gaze with my shoulders squared and my chin up.
“Nyx, I—” he began.
“Father,” I broke in. I meant to say something short and dignified that would establish I was beyond caring about him, but instead the words clattered out on top of one another. “We have almost found a way to destroy the Gentle Lord. It will require some experimenting tonight, so I hope you will lend us a box of candles. Tomorrow I will be on my way and if all goes well I should have accomplished my task by evening. Of course, it is likely that I will not return, so I hope you understand that I am proud to die for my family and I regret the words I said hastily before.”
Then I managed to stop. Every word had been pronounced with cheerful precision, but in my ears every one had screamed, Please love me just once, and I wanted to writhe.
Father closed his mouth, his gaze flickering from me to Astraia and back again. “I meant to ask if you’d come down to dinner,” he said finally. “But of course you can have all the candles you wish.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot.
“Will you come?” he asked.
My eyes prickled with tears, and I felt like a greater idiot still. “Of course,” I muttered between my teeth.
It was an excruciating meal. The dining room portrait of Mother stared at me over Father’s head. The roasted lamb and figs were like ashes in my mouth. The servants were terrified of me, tiptoeing in and out of the room with wide eyes. Aunt Telomache was not there. “She is feeling unwell,” said Father, with a sidelong glance at me. We did our best to make conversation, but we were all under silent agreement not to mention the Gentle Lord and my doom, and there was little else to be said. As the silences pooled and spread, I realized how many of our dinners had consisted of Aunt Telomache expounding upon some improving subject and Astraia babbling about her day.
For the second course they brought apples; I remembered the silly apple tower Ignifex had tried to build, doomed always to fall, and I couldn’t speak. Suddenly that unguarded moment seemed like a greater act of trust than giving me the ring, and one thought keened through my mind: He trusts me, and I am going to betray him.
Astraia laid her hand over mine. She gave me a wan, wide-eyed smile that was comfort or threat, I couldn’t tell.
Father reached into the fruit bowl and picked up an apple. “The symmetry of an apple is a curious thing,” he said. “Have I told you about the monograph that was published just last week?”
No, I was too busy kissing the man who killed your wife, I thought, but there were still some things I refused to say, so I raised my chin and said, “No. Do tell.”
For the rest of the meal, Father kept up the conversation. He did not apologize. Did not beg me to stay, did not say that he loved me, or even ask if I thought I could bear my fate. He talked of the latest Hermetic research and r
elated anecdotes of his colleagues, all without ever alluding to the central mission of the Resurgandi. They might have been a harmless society of researchers with no secret goal beyond pure knowledge.
When we finished, the sun was gone, only a simple glow left on the horizon; my skin prickled every time I looked at a shadow, but for all I knew it was simple fear.
And then it was time to go upstairs to the attic where we would perform our experiment, about which we’d told Father nothing except that we needed candles. One of the maids had already been dispatched with a great box of beeswax tapers; as Astraia started up the stairs, a lantern glowing in her hands, I hesitated at the bottom. I didn’t want to leave but I also didn’t want to stay here with the awkward silences and unacknowledged, unbearable truths.
“Good night, Father,” I said, turning away.
“Nyx,” he said softly, and I turned back without thinking. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
My heart thudded. For an instant I felt like I was floating, because this was more than he had ever said to me—then the silence crushed me down again, because he had said nothing more and I knew with bone-deep certainty that he never would.
“It doesn’t matter.” The words dropped out of me like a stone. Then I forced myself to smile and speak more softly. “It doesn’t matter what any of us wish. The Gentle Lord must be stopped, and I’m the one who has to do it.”
It was not exactly forgiveness, but he had not exactly made an apology.
He nodded, his mouth tightening; then he laid a hand on my forehead and whispered, “Go with the blessings of Hermes, lord of going and return.”
It was a standard blessing, such as might be used by anyone in authority: a father, a teacher, a governor.
I forced myself to smile. “Ave atque vale,” I said, the traditional farewell of the Resurgandi before undertaking a dangerous Hermetic experiment.
Then I turned and ran up the stairs after Astraia. I didn’t think he was really sorry for what he’d done, but I couldn’t entirely blame him. I loved the Gentle Lord, and I wasn’t really sorry for that, either.