Paris was still Paris.
And Romeo might be able to fight him for someone else’s sake, to stop him from killing another innocent like Emera—but slicing him open to save his own life?
Forgive me, Juliet, he thought.
But she would have been angrier if he died at her hands. And she could vanquish Makari without him. He believed that. He had to.
Just as he had to believe that there was still something left of his friend.
And as he thought that, he threw the sword away, arcing into the darkness between buildings.
“Paris,” he called out. “You’re my friend. I won’t fight you, even if I die for it. But please, can’t you remember me?”
Kill him if he tries to escape.
The order thrummed in his head, and Paris wanted nothing more than to obey. There was nothing else in all the world for him to want.
But as he looked at Romeo—as he stepped toward him—the sword felt strangely heavy in his hands.
Romeo’s eyes were very wide. “Paris,” he said. “I know you remember me. You told me about zoura. You told me I was an idiot. You saved me at the Catresou sepulcher.”
“No,” said Paris.
The word was faint, barely more than a breath, but it made Romeo break out into a desperate smile.
“You wanted to protect your people,” he said. “You did protect them. We did. Together. We stopped Lord Catresou from opening the gates of death. Don’t you remember?”
His head ached. He did not remember those things. If he did remember them, it didn’t matter. He still belonged to his master, walked and breathed and felt his dead heart beat because of him.
But he realized that he had stopped moving.
His body felt infinitely heavy, like in the first moments after he had been raised back to life. He could hear his heart pounding, quick and desperate, like it wanted to escape.
“Please,” said Romeo. “You’re my friend, and I need you.”
“I belong to him,” said Paris.
But with a feeling of cold nausea, he realized that he wanted to spare the boy in front of him. He wanted to disobey his master.
He was dead. He wasn’t supposed to want anything.
But he did, he wanted, and that horror would have made him weep if he had any tears. He had failed his master so completely.
Then he realized his hands were raising the sword.
“I have to obey,” he said.
Something was terribly wrong with him, but his hands could still serve his master, and there was peace in that.
“I agree that his poetry is terrible, but you don’t have to kill him for it.”
Paris whirled around, and saw somebody new on the roof: the girl he had fought just hours before, in the apothecary’s house.
She grinned at him now and his mind buzzed with confusion, because he had to kill Romeo now, he had orders, but she was the enemy of his master and she had to die for it—
“I’m going to kill your master and then I’m going to set his twitching corpse on fire,” she said. “Ready to attack me now?”
And the world became simple and made perfect sense as Paris lunged for her.
The moment Runajo heard the noise of swords on the rooftop, she knew what Vai was going to do. It was the logical strategy.
She still couldn’t believe it when she saw the two figures silhouetted against the evening sky, and saw Vai land a solid kick on Paris that sent him falling over the edge of the roof. She flinched when Paris crashed onto the cobblestones, barely a pace away from where she stood.
He didn’t move. And for one sick moment, Runajo thought, Vai killed him after all.
But then Vai yelled down, “Get him while you can!” and Runajo remembered that Vai, of all people, would know how much the living dead could survive. So she lunged to Paris’s side and dropped to her knees.
Paris was still for now, black blood oozing from his forehead, but she knew it wouldn’t last for long. Her hands shook as she tried to uncork the ink pot. Maybe she should have written the mark on her hand already, but she wasn’t sure how fresh it had to be.
She got the jar open and jammed the brush inside. Then she dropped the ink pot, not caring about the black splash on the ground, and traced the symbol on her left palm, twin to the swirling symbol on her right: the sacred Catresou word for trust.
She grabbed Paris’s slack hand, raised it to hers, and pressed their hands together.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened, and Runajo’s heart thudded in icy horror as she realized she had been wrong, in a moment Paris would wake and kill her, then probably kill Juliet and Romeo and Vai and it was all her fault—
Then she felt heat between their palms.
For one moment it was simple warmth, like the outside of a cup filled with hot tea. Then it flared hotter and hotter until it seared her skin with a heat so intense it felt like being stabbed with ice. A choked-off scream shuddered in her lungs, and tears started in her eyes.
And then it was done. As suddenly as it had begun, the pain was over. Runajo was doubled over, panting for breath, still clutching Paris’s hand—
Paris’s eyes blinked open.
In a moment she was on her feet, saying breathlessly, “I command you to be free of the Master Necromancer.”
If he hadn’t already overwritten his loyalty, then an order probably wouldn’t make a difference. But she couldn’t help herself.
Was there a bond?
Runajo couldn’t feel any emotions from him, any sense of another mind touching hers. But he wasn’t making any move to attack her; as she watched, he sat up slowly, gingerly, still staring at her.
“Tell me if you’re free of him,” she said.
“Yes,” Paris said instantly, in the same dazed, obedient voice that Juliet had first used when Runajo asked her questions.
She could never hear that voice again without sickness, and yet relief rolled through Runajo in a dizzying wave. Because they had done it. She had done it, had finally made something better, and for a moment her eyes stung.
Juliet, she called silently. Juliet, it worked. He’s free.
There was no answer. Juliet had walled off her mind again as soon as she had arrived at Makari’s house and didn’t have any more directions to give them. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to be distracted; maybe she had wanted to face her death alone, without the girl who had wronged her.
Runajo couldn’t blame her. But even after such a brief conversation, the inside of her mind felt strangely empty.
Paris said, softly, roughly, “What did you do?”
Runajo remembered that while Juliet had consented to this plan, he had not. She drew a breath and knelt down, making herself meet his eyes.
“I put a bond on you. To make me your Guardian. I’m sorry, I know it’s blasphemy, but Juliet gave me permission.”
“Juliet,” he echoed.
“Yes,” said Runajo.
His eyes were very wide. “You—you should have—” He rubbed a hand over his face, finishing the thought silently: You should have killed me.
And then she did feel his mind: a horrifying cascade of guilt and memories, screams and blood and driving a blade between someone’s ribs. The scrape of a blade against bone. The sound of a final breath choking out, and the sick smell of blood dribbling out on the ground.
Runajo cringed, choking on the memories.
“Stop,” she whispered, and then added immediately, “that’s not an order.”
The wave of memories ceased, but she could still feel his guilt and misery bubbling on the other side of the wall between their minds.
He stared at her, and he asked, “Why did you save me?”
Runajo stared at the Catresou boy who was nothing to her—who had been forced to kill the same way that she had forced Juliet—and felt unutterably weary.
“Because,” she said, “I love a girl who loves a boy who loves you. And this is all I can do for her.”
He s
tared at her, and she walled off her mind as best she could, but she didn’t need any bond to tell that he was utterly confused.
She didn’t really understand it either.
“Paris!” she heard Romeo shout from behind her—he and Vai must have finally gotten down from the rooftop—and a moment later he rushed forward to pull Paris into an embrace.
And then she heard Juliet’s voice call, Runajo?
21
“YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL,” SAID Makari. “You might say that I’m doing this for you.” He flashed a bared-teeth smile over his shoulder.
Juliet looked at the ballroom: the high vaults painted red and gold, the polished floor, the cages of weakly hissing revenants.
“You might,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”
Along one wall, servants stood to attention; from the blank, obedient look in their eyes, she guessed they were living dead.
At the center of the ballroom, with an air of infinite loneliness, sat a Catresou girl—Juliet’s own age—with eyes just as blue as hers, but golden curls. Juliet recognized her because once Lord Ineo had taken Juliet to look upon her, that she might understand the depth of her people’s evil. It was the living dead girl who had been locked inside Juliet’s father’s laboratory. She sat now in a wooden chair, free of any visible bonds.
She met Juliet’s eyes. There was intent in that gaze, without any hope.
“But you haven’t met my lady yet,” said Makari.
Juliet looked at him. She recognized his mocking smile from Runajo’s memories and Romeo’s words. Runajo hadn’t cared about him and Romeo had thought the sun rose and set on him and they had both been terribly, terribly wrong.
“Does she have a name?” she asked.
“No,” said Makari. “That’s why I hate your people.” They stood before the dead girl now; Makari grasped her hand, raised her to her feet, and kissed her slowly, passionately. The girl returned the kiss just as hungrily, her fingers grasping at his sleeves, but when he loosed her—she swayed, and said nothing.
“She was the Juliet once,” said Makari, turning to her. “She feared to die, because your people taught her that there was no hope for her.”
Juliet crossed her arms. “If she was ever the Juliet, she would hate you for destroying her people. But that doesn’t matter to you, does it, when you’ve made her living dead and a slave.”
Her voice was calm, measured, but her heart was beating very fast. She wanted to attack now, to snap Makari’s neck in one clean motion the same way she had her father’s. But Runajo and Vai had probably just reached the house. They must be looking for Romeo and Paris right now. She wasn’t sure what power Makari might call on when attacked—if, seeing he was going to lose, he might silently order Paris to kill himself or Romeo—so she had to wait as long as possible. She had to buy them time.
It was lucky that Makari was so in love with talking about himself.
“Oh, she is nothing like the puppets I raise,” said Makari.
“And yet she is silent,” said Juliet, and looked into the other Juliet’s dazed blue eyes. “Is this what you dreamed of, when you were a child suffering the pain of new seals? Is this the price you wanted to pay for loving him?”
The girl looked at Juliet. Then she said, softly but distinctly, “I want to die.”
And for a moment, Juliet felt her heart shudder within her. Because she knew the sound and the shape and the taste of those soft, dead words; they had been all her own heart said, when she woke in the Cloister and believed Romeo dead for nothing.
“Those are all the words she has left,” said Makari. “And I will grant her wish.”
He snapped his fingers. Another door to the ballroom opened, and two more of the living dead dragged in another prisoner: Justiran. His face was bruised, and his right sleeve was soaked with blood, but his eyes were alert as they brought him to Makari and shoved him to his knees.
“I’ve got one demand,” said Makari.
Justiran looked at Juliet, and then at his daughter.
“I am so sorry,” he said quietly.
“Listen to me.” Makari’s voice was cold and clipped now. “Your daughter wasn’t newborn when you handed her over to the magi. You must have given her a name.”
“Zaran—”
Makari’s hand cracked against Justiran’s face. “I told you not to call me that.”
“Then you can’t need to know her name that badly,” said Justiran, his voice soft and tired.
There was rage in the set of Makari’s shoulders, in the white knuckles of his fingers as he gripped Justiran’s hair and tilted his head back, and Juliet felt a thrill of hope. Because Makari was definitely distracted now.
“Listen to me, old man,” said Makari, “I am giving you a chance to make one minuscule reparation to your daughter. Because once, long ago, she told me that she wished she knew.”
There were no weapons nearby except Makari’s sword. It would be a fitting way for him to die. Juliet shifted her weight a fraction, readying herself to spring.
“I would have told you,” said Justiran, “if you had asked before you broke another Juliet.”
Two thoughts flashed through Juliet’s mind, swift as lightning: I am not broken, and Now Makari’s going to look at me.
She thought, and she didn’t even decide, she simply acted: pivoted and slammed the side of her foot into the side of Makari’s knee. He staggered, pulling Justiran off-balance, and then the two of them went down together.
Juliet was on him the next instant—her hands found the hilt of his sword—
And Makari’s fingers closed around her wrist and the world went white.
There was no pain. There was only a cold hum that severed her mind from her body. She was kneeling on the floor—she realized this after few moments—and she could feel the cold tiles against her knees, and the breath moving in and out of her body, but she couldn’t control the slightest movement.
“Brave of you,” said Makari. “But stupid. It seems to be a Catresou trait.”
Juliet tried to speak, to tell him that another Catresou trait was destroying those who defied zoura, but all she could do was puff air between numb, half-open lips.
“Paris was like that, when he was alive,” said Makari. “Trying to save me, like I could be some sort of present for Romeo. I admired that ambition, I must admit, but I had to crush it.”
He stroked the top of Juliet’s head once, twice. She wanted to shudder, but she still didn’t have enough control over her body.
Justiran sat up. “Makari,” he said, his voice raw. “You deserve your revenge. But take it on me. Why do you need to hurt this girl?”
“Honestly,” said Makari, “haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said? She’s a tool just as much as my lady was, and I’m going to wield her to give my lady freedom.”
Juliet flexed her mouth. She wanted to howl, Have you asked her if she wants to pay this price? But all she could force past her lips was a soft moan.
She thought, I will die speechless, and the idea set her stomach shaking with fear in a way that revenants and reapers hadn’t.
She didn’t fear death, but she feared dying without a fight, and speaking was fighting: Romeo had taught her that.
“Tell me, love,” Makari called out, “do you want your father to live?”
Juliet was able to lift her head, just a little. So she saw the girl’s face. She saw the girl tilt her head, and look at Justiran, and then look at Makari.
And say nothing.
He is your father, she wanted to cry. Even if he were evil as mine was evil, you would mourn his death.
But she could speak no words, only harsh gasps.
Makari leaned down and said to Justiran, “You see how it is. You see what she wants.”
Justiran ignored him. He looked past Makari, straight to his daughter, and he said with a terrible serenity, “I love you. And I’m so sorry.”
Makari drew a knife and plunged it into Justiran’s
throat.
He drew the blade out again swiftly, and though it hadn’t been a wide slice, blood still gushed from the hole. Justiran choked and convulsed; Makari knelt, and dipped his hand in the pool of blood.
Then he stepped to Juliet, and with a bloody finger, traced a symbol on her forehead. Faintly, under his breath, she heard him whispering words that she couldn’t quite make out, but that made her skin buzz with trembling wrongness.
The world seemed to shiver around her. Juliet’s vision blurred for a moment; she felt like she was falling or perhaps shooting up in the air very quickly.
Darkness fell, and Juliet recognized this: the same unearthly darkness that had surrounded her and Romeo when they tried to create the bond and everything went wrong.
She heard the song of death: a rippling murmur like a thousand voices whispering to themselves. Light clung about her—and Makari, and Justiran, and Justiran’s daughter—but otherwise they seemed to stand on an infinite, empty plain filled with darkness.
She knew what would happen next: she would be drawn all the way into the land of the dead, and Makari would go with her, and use her to wrench its gates open and make all the living world dead. She would have failed everyone she had ever tried to protect.
No, she thought.
“It’s time,” said Makari. He held out a hand, beckoning to his lady. “Come, darling.”
She stepped toward him, her golden curls strangely bright in the darkness. She took his hand and leaned into his chest.
No, thought Juliet, no, no, no—
“No,” she whispered aloud, her voice barely more than a breath.
Once more, the world shivered.
Makari started. “What’s that?” he demanded, turning on Juliet.
She wasn’t sure. But she knew that she had felt the power of his magic running through her body, across her skin.
She knew that it had changed when she said no.
“No,” she said again, and her voice was stronger now. The world itself seemed to change her; she felt warmth curling at the bottom of her stomach, felt her fingers start to stiffen and clench with her own anger, and she said, “Stop.”