“Why did you come find me?”
Vai shrugged. “Paris was my friend. I don’t know if he’d be proud of or horrified by you right now, but he’d want me to protect you.”
If Paris had been alive to see what happened to the Catresou, he’d probably want Romeo dead.
As he thought that, somebody screamed.
Romeo jolted into readiness, whirling toward the entrance of the alleyway and bringing his sword up, before he’d even realized where the scream had come from.
It was inside the house where the Catresou girl had gone.
Now there were more screams. Muffled thuds and crashes. Romeo bolted around the corner of the building. There were no windows facing the street, only the door. He rattled the handle: locked.
Another scream, suddenly choked off. Romeo slammed his shoulder against the door. The blow rattled his teeth and sent a spike of pain through his shoulders, but the door didn’t give way.
“Get back,” said Vai, and the next moment her foot slammed into the door, rattling it in its hinges. She kicked again, and then on the third kick, the door gave way.
They were too late.
The room was in shambles. The table had been knocked over, cups shattered. And blood was spattered across the floor and walls.
One body lay by the door: a man, his short hair tinged with gray. Romeo’s stomach pitched with nausea, but he still made himself kneel and check.
The man was dead, his throat deeply cut. A few paces back was a young boy, also dead, blood pooling underneath him.
Footsteps echoed from above, and Vai charged up the stairs.
Romeo would have followed, but at the same moment, he heard a gasp from the corner of the room.
It was the girl. She was huddled against the wall, blood pooling at her feet.
The next moment he was at her side, hands trembling, hoping against hope.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Don’t move. It’s all right.”
But in a moment he could see it was too late. She’d been stabbed six or seven times; her face was already deathly pale.
She looked at him. She started to lift her hand, and he caught it. Wrapped his fingers around hers.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
He could hear thumps from upstairs, knew that Vai was probably fighting the murderer, but the girl was still looking at him and he couldn’t leave her now.
“You’re . . . here,” she said.
There was no anger in her voice, but Romeo still cringed. “Yes,” he said.
“Don’t let them burn me,” she whispered.
“What?” said Romeo.
The girl coughed and shuddered in pain, her fingers clenching around Romeo’s. It was several moments before she quieted, and when she did, her eyelids were drooping.
Then she managed to look up at him. “Don’t let them burn me,” she said, and Romeo finally understood.
The Catresou believed that there was no peace in the afterlife for those whose bodies were destroyed. For a hundred years they had clung to the special permission that allowed them to embalm their dead and lay them to rest in chained coffins. Now they were outlaws and fugitives; their sepulcher had not yet been destroyed, but surely no more of them would be laid to rest in it.
All his life, Romeo had heard how the Catresou were superstitious fools for believing that a pickled corpse with its organs extracted and stacked in jars could preserve the soul after death. Now he could only think how this was one more harm he had done to Juliet’s people.
“I promise,” he said. “You will have a grave. I swear it.”
The girl let out a long sigh.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
But she didn’t answer. She didn’t answer because she was dead, and the smell of blood was clawing at Romeo’s throat and making him shudder.
As if from a great distance, he heard Vai walk back into the room.
“Did you catch him?” asked Romeo.
“No,” said Paris.
Once, that voice had been a part of Romeo’s own thoughts. In such a short time, he’d become so used to it, that even now it took him a moment to realize that Paris had spoken out loud.
That Paris was here.
Then he knew, like lightning traveling up his spine, and he was on his feet and turning.
Paris stood in the doorway. Alive.
For one moment, Romeo couldn’t feel anything except a desperate, burning joy. He’d seen Makari come back to life, but he hadn’t dared hope or fear that Paris would suffer the same fate, come back to him the same way.
Then he realized that—unlike Makari—there was a strange coldness in Paris’s face, and unfamiliar arrogance in the set of his shoulders.
There was blood spattered across his clothes, and he held a bloody rapier.
“You,” Romeo said numbly. “You did this?”
Paris smiled. It was a hard, disdainful smile, utterly unlike the earnest boy that Romeo remembered. Then he moved, and the next moment he had Romeo slammed against the wall, blade to his throat.
“Don’t move,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to decide if I should kill you.” He raised his voice. “If you step into this room, I’ll definitely kill him.”
“You do and I’ll kill you,” said Vai from the doorway.
Romeo could feel his heart pounding, but he didn’t feel afraid. There was no room to feel anything, not when Paris was right here, and Romeo had one chance to reach him.
“I know you didn’t want to do this,” he said.
Everything was horribly clear. Paris had truly died, and then he’d been raised again by the Master Necromancer. And the living dead were the slaves of those who had raised them. Romeo had seen it with Tybalt.
But Makari had broken that binding. Surely Paris could too.
“I know you don’t want to serve the Master Necromancer,” he said. “Can’t you remember me?”
Paris smiled. “Did you think you ever knew me?” he said.
Romeo had known him, Romeo did know him, and he knew this was a lie—but the words still sent an icy curl of fear into his stomach, because he remembered how Tybalt had been, when he returned as one of the living dead. He remembered the flat, lifeless intonation of Tybalt’s voice, and Paris sounded nothing like him.
Paris sounded nothing like himself, either.
“I do know you,” said Romeo. “And I know the Master Necromancer has made you a slave, and I can help you.”
“You know a lie,” said Paris. “I served him of my own free will, even before I died. Like every good Catresou. Like every one of my kin.”
It couldn’t be true. But the words—the pitiless glee in Paris’s eyes—still felt like knives between his ribs.
“No,” he said. “That’s not possible. I heard your thoughts. I saw your heart.”
Paris pressed the blade closer—just a tiny fraction of pressure on Romeo’s throat, but he still choked.
“That was Catresou magic binding us together,” he said. “You think I wouldn’t know how to use it against you?”
“Are you done talking?” Vai demanded. “Because I personally think it’s time we got back to killing each other.”
“Not yet,” said Paris. The next moment he had seized Romeo by the arm and was throwing him away with terrible force. Romeo stumbled and lost his balance—Vai caught him—
And Paris vanished out the front door.
Vai snarled under her breath and bolted after him. Romeo knew he should follow, but now that there was no longer a sword at his throat—now he was shaking, and finding it hard to breathe.
Paris. One of the living dead.
He had believed in the ways of his people so desperately. He had wanted so much to be a proper Catresou, laid to rest in their sepulcher with all their traditional spells and prayers. Instead he had been raised again to be a slave and murder his kin.
Had Makari known?
Let me decide how I’ll avenge my own wrongs,
he had said, and Romeo knew that Makari had been trying to protect him, but he still felt betrayed.
“Still there?” Vai called through the doorway.
Romeo turned to look at her. “He got away?”
“It’s not very fair, how fast the dead can run,” said Vai, and her voice was light, but Romeo could see her fist clenching in frustration.
Romeo didn’t have any comfort to offer, not when he was surrounded by the blood of his own failures.
“I should have died instead,” he muttered, and instantly felt ashamed. He’d been saying that since the day he killed Tybalt, but what had he ever done to fix things? He had already thought, Why didn’t Makari tell me about Paris—but if Makari had, would Romeo really have changed anything?
Vai snorted. “I can’t deny I would rather have Paris alive, but then he’d want to die for you, and then you’d want to die again, and it would just be a pointless dance, really.” She laid a hand on Romeo’s shoulder. “We should leave. I’ll cut the heads off the bodies if you don’t have the stomach for it.”
Romeo looked at the dead girl. He thought about all the promises he had made and broken. How little he had done, and how much he still owed.
Maybe it was time to make his own choices.
“No,” he said. “They’re Catresou. They deserve a Catresou burial.”
“And how are you going to do that for them?”
Romeo squared his shoulders. “I’m waiting here. I know the other Catresou come to check on them, and I’m done hiding. I’ll tell them what happened, help them carry the bodies back, and then . . . I’ll beg to join them.”
Vai stared at him. “There are quicker ways to kill yourself, you know.”
“I won’t tell them who I am,” said Romeo. “I’ll keep the mask on. They know me as their masked warrior now, so maybe—maybe they’ll trust me.”
“That is a stupid idea and I doubt your intentions of survival.”
Romeo shook his head. “No. I’m not trying to die. I’m keeping a promise.”
Several promises. He had told the dead girl he would make sure she was buried. He owed her as well.
“The Catresou are being hunted because of what I did,” he said. “They deserve to have my obedience, not just my protection at my own convenience. And . . . Paris said they were still working for the Master Necromancer. He might have been lying, but if some of their leaders are still conspiring—I have to know. I have to stop them.”
Vai looked thoughtful. “I won’t tell you not to do it, because it’s not my business if you get yourself killed. But be careful. And tell me as soon as you learn anything.”
“Right.” Romeo nodded.
“Because if you learn something and die right after, that’s pointless and annoying.”
“To save Juliet’s people, I would fight my way out of the land of the dead,” said Romeo.
“But you wouldn’t,” said Vai, and for once there was nothing but quiet sadness in her voice. “You’d be back in your body in minutes, a slave to the necromancers.”
Like Paris. Romeo closed his eyes against the sudden sting of tears.
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
Vai left, and he was alone with a dead girl.
He knelt down again beside her. His people were not like hers; they did not believe that elaborate ceremonies and spells could guarantee them a happy afterlife. They did not believe that anything awaited them after death at all. This girl, whose dead, blank eyes still stared at him, was already less than dust.
But the Mahyanai did honor their dead: all night, before the bodies were burned, they sat vigil.
He couldn’t honor this girl like a Catresou should, but he could do this much for her, anyway.
So Romeo knelt beside the dead girl and waited.
4
HIS MASTER WAS PLEASED TO see him return.
“Did you do as I commanded?”
“Yes,” said Paris, kneeling with his hands pressed against the floor.
The next question came silently.
Did you pity the ones you killed? his master asked, and the words crawled through his mind like cold fingers, feeling out the truth.
“No,” said Paris.
He remembered the screams of the family very clearly. Their blood was still dried underneath his fingernails. But he had felt nothing except the dead, ashy certainty that he was following his orders.
And Romeo? Did you pity him?
“No,” said Paris.
The grasp on his mind withdrew.
“Excellent,” said his master.
And Paris was suddenly unsure. He hadn’t felt any pity, because pitying the enemies of his masters was unthinkable. But he had felt . . . something like curiosity.
Everything he saw, when his master sent him into the streets on errands, was like a meaningless glyph in a dead language. Faces, voices. Blood and shattered bone. None of it meant anything, so none of it mattered.
Romeo hadn’t meant anything, either.
But Paris felt like he could almost remember him meaning something.
“Did you do as I said?” his master asked.
Paris shuddered, revolted by how close he’d come to imagining something his master wouldn’t want.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I said everything that you told me to.”
“Repeat what you said and Romeo said exactly.”
And Paris did, and the treacherous half thoughts slid out of his mind, completely forgotten.
5
THEY CAME WHEN DAWN WAS barely starting to glimmer in the sky. They all recognized his mask. Some hated him, some admired him. None fully trusted him.
But when he offered up his sword, they agreed to take him to the new Lord Catresou.
Romeo had often wondered where the main body of the Catresou were hiding. He hadn’t expected them to be in the worst slums of the Lower City—he guessed that most, like the family he’d failed to protect, had the money or connections to get themselves hidden in discreet houses—but he was surprised when they took him to one of the richest neighborhoods, where the streets were clean and the houses were brightly painted, and there were even lamps hung with orbs of white, glowing stone—the same kind that lit all the immaculate streets of the Upper City.
The house they brought him to was magnificent, painted in gold and red. Its hallways had floors of polished, multicolored stone that echoed under their boots.
They halted outside a door. The leader of the guards—a tall, angular man with pale hair and a scar that slanted across his nose, narrowly missing an eye—told them to wait, and went inside. Romeo heard the murmur of voices, but couldn’t make out any words.
Then the door opened again. The guard hauled Romeo in by the shoulder and pressed him to his knees.
The room had once been a study, though it now seemed to be a meeting room of sorts—it was ringed with chairs, at which sat Catresou men, most of them with graying hair, all richly dressed. At the center was a desk.
Seated at the desk, leaning forward on his elbows, was Meros Mavarinn Catresou.
Romeo had never seen him before in his life. But he instantly recognized the wavy brown hair and the proud nose. Because this was Paris’s older brother, who loved drinking and gambling and prostitutes, who had mocked Paris for his devotion to the Juliet and (much worse) mocked the Juliet herself—
Romeo took a deep breath, fighting against the rush of memories that weren’t his.
But the worst memory was his own: Vai telling him what had happened at the Night Game while he was a drugged prisoner.
Meros had been there. He had helped Lord Catresou capture Paris. He might very well be the reason that the Catresou served the Master Necromancer still.
And now he sat at the center of them all—
“You’re the Lord Catresou?” said Romeo.
“Take off your mask,” said Meros, his voice low and angry.
The Catresou covered their faces before those they considered inferior, and too
k off their masks when they faced their betters. For Romeo to keep his on before the leader of the Catresou was a pointed insult.
But just as the Catresou didn’t dare wear their masks now, Romeo didn’t dare take his off.
“No,” he said.
Meros waved a hand. “Gavarin, tear off his mask.”
The leader of the guards wrenched the mask off.
Romeo could hear the gasps. He could see faces growing angry.
He knew he was about to die, and he wouldn’t keep any of his promises.
“So,” said Meros, his voice cold and venomous, “our hero is a Mahyanai.”
Juliet, I’m sorry, Romeo thought, and waited for the killing blow.
But it didn’t come.
“Tell me,” said Meros, “why are you wearing a Catresou mask?”
“Because those who hate you,” said Romeo, “should fear you.”
“You think you deserve to protect us?” Gavarin demanded, fury in his voice.
But nobody had struck Romeo dead yet. He felt a sudden, terrible ray of hope. Perhaps he could persuade them. Perhaps he could still save them.
Perhaps he could, at least, speak the truth bravely before he died. The same way that Juliet would.
“Because I am Mahyanai Romeo,” he said, looking around the room. “I loved the Juliet and I married her, and it’s my fault that she is a slave to your enemies now. So I swore that for the rest of my life, I would serve and protect you in any way I could. If all you desire of me is my death, then for her sake, I will gladly die nameless and accursed. But if you have any use at all for a slave, then take me. Let me serve you.”
There was a short pause. Even with Paris’s memories to help him, Romeo couldn’t read the cold expression on Meros’s face.
“Where’d you find him again?” asked Meros.
“The Jularios household,” said Gavarin. “They’re all dead.”
“I tried to save them,” said Romeo. “But I wasn’t fast enough. Their daughter—I don’t know her name—she begged me to make sure she was properly buried. I promised her.”
Someone in the room laughed—a harsh, skeptical noise.
“She was one of you, wasn’t she?” Romeo snapped. “She deserves that. And—” He realized suddenly that they were actually listening to him, no matter if they planned to kill him. He still might be able to save them.