“But no pressure,” Nathan replies. The irony is lost on Helmi. Then again, the citadel probably sucks the humor out of everyone who is forced to remain here.
The snow was warmer by far than the air above it. Amy, who had abandoned the warmth of an idling, large car, was exhaling what looked like steam. Eric and Chase had led them to within a hundred yards of the road nearest the cottage; given that they paused at even intervals to do something to mark the path—and to check it for Necromantic traps—it took longer than the combination of distance and snow dictated. No one was warm. No one was particularly happy, except possibly Petal.
Eric handed off the backpack he wore to Michael. Chase continued to shoulder his. They had packed all of the food that was easily portable, with can openers and the type of throw-away dishes taken on camping trips. If they managed to make it to the city, they wouldn’t be dining with the Queen; Longland had implied that food could quickly become the biggest problem they faced if they survived. That, and water.
There was one permanent portal to the citadel, but it wasn’t in Canada. They’d be able to access it from the citadel-side, but not easily, and the trip down might be one way. They would not have permission to be in another country, and they wouldn’t have passports should that permission somehow be required. They would, on the other hand, speak the language.
Michael had asked how they would get home.
Ernest, however, declared that a non-problem. If they survived—if they somehow succeeded—he could arrange it with relatively little fuss. Emma wasn’t certain she believed him. Michael needed details. Details were provided on the walk because the walk gave them time; Ernest would otherwise never have surrendered. He didn’t like the plan, but he was confident that he could build the careful paperwork lies that would allow whoever survived to come back.
Whoever survived.
Petal was now Emma’s biggest worry. It wasn’t displacement worry, either; no one was safe. No one was guaranteed to survive. But every other living person present understood the rough, shaky plan that Eric had outlined. Some had greater belief in it than others. Petal, incapable of comprehension, was neutral.
He was not a poorly trained dog—Brendan Hall would never have allowed that, especially not for a rottweiler—but his hearing was not what it had once been, and his first tendency when going someplace new was to explore. Chase wanted to leave the dog, as he called Petal, behind.
Abandoning him here was almost certainly abandoning him to starvation and death. Emma’s first suggestion—that Michael remain behind with Petal—was met with solid, logical resistance. Michael had not been affected by Longland’s magic. Everyone else had. That resistance might—just might—save their lives if they somehow managed to arrive, as planned, at the citadel. Since the resistance had come from Michael, Emma swallowed and let it go. Allison would not remain behind either.
That left Amy.
Which meant Petal was either coming or being abandoned near a winter roadside.
“You understand what you’re meant to do here?” Eric asked.
Chase nodded.
“Then Longland and I are heading back to the cottage. Wait. You’ll know when it’s safe. Helmi?”
“I don’t have to leave yet. I’ll come when you’re closer.” She glanced at Emma and at Emma’s hands, now heavily mittened against the winter cold.
• • •
“Eric’s plan will work,” Helmi said, when time had passed. How much, Emma couldn’t say. She didn’t wear a watch, and the phone she used as a replacement was entrenched in a pocket she couldn’t reach without removing her mittens.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Emma replied. Amy frowned but did not insist on being part of the conversation, which was good—Emma’s hands still hadn’t recovered from the previous one. “First of all, they knew we were here.”
“They knew you were here,” Helmi countered.
“Why wouldn’t they hunt for me, then?”
“They can’t afford to hunt and keep the portal open.”
“That didn’t stop them in Toronto.”
“No. But in Toronto, you didn’t have me. I have to go back to the citadel. I need to tell the Queen that Longland has Eric. The reason they’ve set up in the road is to catch you if some of you manage to leave by car. If she knows that Longland has Eric, she’ll forget everything else—at least for a little while. She might tell her Necromancers to remain here to hunt the rest of you down. If she does, they’ll be searching, but they’ll start at the cottage, not the road.
“Even if they discover your trail here, it will end at the road. They’re not going to guess that you went to the citadel.
“The portal itself will close. You could prevent that if you knew what you were doing; you probably can’t on your own. Margaret will help you, so listen to her, and listen carefully. If you could bind me, I could do it.”
“The Queen would know.”
“No, she wouldn’t. She doesn’t own me.” Helmi rolled her eyes before she continued what was, in essence, a lecture. “Let the portal collapse naturally—and step through before it vanishes. Don’t worry about the portal after that. Worry about leaving the area you arrive in.”
“What will happen to Eric?”
“Who knows? The most important thing you need to understand is that Eric’s safety is guaranteed. No one else’s is. That’s why we’re doing it this way.” She frowned at Emma’s companions. “I think you should leave them behind.”
“I know.”
“But Margaret told me how they’ve helped, and maybe, in the end, you can’t do this on your own. Just—don’t fall apart if they die, okay? I have to leave. I’ll come back again when it’s safe for you to move.”
• • •
Chase was not happy. No one was, but Chase was one of the few people present who could actually do something in the worst case scenario. He had an arm around Allison’s shoulder because Allison was shivering. Allison had an arm around Michael’s shoulder because Michael was doing the same; only Michael leaned into the offered support. Allison was too stiff.
She bit her lip; she bit her lip when she was nervous. Had she been inside, she would have cleaned her glasses, because she did that a lot as well. Chase wanted to send her somewhere else.
“Don’t even think it,” she whispered, her words visible as clouds of mist.
“I’m not. I’m thinking about what we do when we land. Or how we do it. Longland bothers me.”
Allison said nothing.
“Just because he’s dead, we’re trusting that he’s changed sides.”
“He has,” Emma said. “By default. He’s dead.”
“He—”
“And the only sides he now sees are the dead and the living. We’re all eventually going to be on the side he’s on now.”
“Or we’ll be fuel for the side we’re not on now.”
“Or that. I wouldn’t trust him with my personal happiness; I think he still resents any happiness that isn’t his own—and frankly, he’s a person who believes ‘smug’ is the definition of happiness. Normally, I’d find it a bit sad. Right now I don’t care. He won’t turn us in, and he won’t have us killed because dead, we’re no use to him. We’d be just as helpless as he is.”
• • •
Chase could see Emma in the light that reflected off the snow; she was straight, narrow; her profile implied an edge that he had never seen in her. He didn’t threaten her; he didn’t disagree with her. No point.
Instead, he leaned in toward Allison and whispered, “I suppose kissing you is out of the question?” Her outrage was warming. He was fairly certain she wouldn’t slap him while she was holding on to Michael.
“It is absolutely out of the question,” Amy replied.
Allison stuck her tongue out—at Chase; Amy snorted. Michael pointed out that public displays of
affection made people uncomfortable. Chase considered asking him why but decided against it because he wasn’t up to the convoluted logic that would likely follow; he was sure he would find it amusing, but given Amy’s expression, it wouldn’t be amusing enough.
“Chase,” Emma said. Wrong tone of voice. He let his arm fall from Allison’s shoulder, surprised at how the cold rushed in. “Helmi says there’s trouble.”
“Necromancer?”
“Just one. The portal’s not activated yet, but Helmi says he’s by the road.”
“Does she think he’s remaining to hunt the rest of us down?”
“She missed a small part of the conversation, but—yes.”
He smiled. “Did she recognize him?”
“Her. Yes. I think she knows all of the Necromancers at court. She says the woman is young.” There was a brief pause, which ended with Emma saying, “That is not our definition of young, Helmi. Sorry. She thinks she might be part of Margaret’s cohort.”
“Is Margaret here?”
“She is now,” Margaret replied. “Before you ask, no, I am not going to be a useful source of information; I’ll be seen. Helmi occupies a unique role at court; the same courtesy is not extended to anyone else. If I’m seen and Helmi is correct, I’m likely to be recognized. Who,” she said, turning to face nothing, “is it?”
Chase didn’t hear the answer. Margaret, apparently, did. She turned to Chase. “She was in the citadel when I arrived.”
“Is she powerful?”
“Yes. She is not powerful enough to be a concern if she is unprepared. I think,” she added, “that’s unlikely.”
“No kidding.”
Allison caught his arm. “She might leave—”
“She might, yes. But if she leaves, she’ll be on the other side of the portal when we arrive. We don’t want to face her there if we can avoid it. And we can.” He glanced at Ernest.
Ernest nodded.
Allison’s sudden stiffness had nothing to do with the cold. They were facing possible—probable—death. It made no sense to worry about her anxiety and her fear. But he did. “I’m not going to alert them to our presence; I won’t take her down before Eric and Longland are gone. How many Necromancers in total?”
“Three,” Margaret said. She blanched. “One of them is older than Longland. The Queen has lost many of her powerful knights in recent weeks; Longland was a significant loss. The man he killed to save Allison was similarly costly. In my youth, she would not have risked the man who is here. Be careful, Chase. He is canny and sensitive, and he’s clashed with hunters before.”
And clearly, if he was standing here, the hunters were the ones who’d died.
• • •
Silence. Silence broken by Petal, by breathing, by movement across the icy surface of old snow. Silence broken, more definitively, by the sound of a car. Helmi appeared in front of Emma, a foot above the snow, her eyes almost level with Emma’s. “They’re all in the car,” she said.
“Eric—”
“Is safe. They won’t kill him. They won’t dare. Alraed might consider taking Eric as hostage—but it’s risky.”
“Should we—”
Helmi shook her head, the edge of a smile adorning her lips. It was the type of smile that could almost draw blood; she looked, momentarily, like a vengeful demon. Whoever Alraed was, she didn’t like him. “I told him the Queen knows he has Eric.”
“If he bound you,” Emma replied, “would that change things?”
“She’d kill him,” Helmi said. “She’d kill him slowly and terribly. Binding the dead isn’t trivial. And it’s not instantaneous. He won’t have the time. She wants to see Eric. She’ll be waiting to meet him. If it takes too long for Eric to arrive, she’ll come in person.”
Silence. Fear. This plan seemed so slight, so fragile a strong breeze might break it, shattering all hope. Emma inhaled and exhaled, her breath a mist between their faces. “Does she have any friends?”
“The Queen?”
“Your sister, yes.”
“Would you be friends with her?”
Emma thought of Nathan. Of Allison and Michael. And, yes, of Amy, the most terrifying of her friends. She had no answer to give, because everything in her screamed No. But she had hated Mark’s mother until she had finally met her, too.
“She blames herself for my death,” Helmi said.
“Do you?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
Emma shook her head. “Usually Michael does. But he can’t see you right now.”
“I do blame her for my death. But not completely.” Helmi shook her head. Her hair moved as if it were real. “Our mother would have been so angry at her. Our mother is angry. She wanted to leave the village; there had been no rain. People were afraid.
“My sister wanted to stay. They argued. They argued for two days. In the end, my mother agreed. But she didn’t know—we didn’t know—why my sister thought it would be safe. My sister had already gathered the power of the dead she found. She had kept them bound to her instead of walking them to the door. She kept them hidden.”
“Why?”
“Because she wanted to make it rain,” Helmi replied. “I knew. I watched her practice with small patches of land, in secret. She thought if she could make it rain in the middle of the drought, the villagers would love her. They would be happy to have her there. She thought they would accept her, and if they did, we would be safe. And loved. And welcomed.
“That’s why she had power when they came. She had more power than the magar. She used it—but not for rain.” Helmi lifted her face, gazing to the left of Emma’s shoulder—to the left, and up. “She told me she killed the villagers before they could kill her. Those deaths were messy, but they were fast.
“I wasn’t there,” Helmi added. “I didn’t see it. I went where the dead go. But I couldn’t leave. No one could leave. No one has been able to leave since the day Eric died.”
REYNA SCREAMS.
Reyna screams and screams and screams. There are no words embedded in the sounds because the screams are so visceral, so complete, she has no thought left to form them. She sees men, she sees clubs and torches and pitchforks and—yes—long knives. She sees the elderly, the aged who are not yet infirm, the men who, broad-shouldered and grim, have seen war and bandits and other deaths but have lived to father children of their own.
She sees the young men, men Eric’s age. One is green-faced and shaking, but she doesn’t remember his name; she doesn’t remember the name of the father who stands, grim and proud, by his side.
She shouldn’t see anything about them at all, because they’re alive.
Her mother is not. Her mother was the first to die. Her uncle followed quickly, his raised arms meant to indicate that he meant no harm, that he was not a threat. Of course he wasn’t. He wasn’t armed. He had no power. He could not stand against the dozens assembled here. And Helmi is bleeding. Helmi, who might have survived had she stayed hidden. It is too much. It is too much.
Those deaths would make her weep. They would freeze her heart, her voice, her lungs.
But they are not real, not yet. Eric’s death is real. Eric’s blood is bright and dark and endless. Eric’s eyes are fluttering, his chest is rising and falling far too quickly, far too shallowly; his skin is torn, his ribs broken; his lip is swollen because of his father’s backhand. Eric is—Eric is—
Reyna screams in utter terror.
Eric is the only thing in Reyna’s life that was about life and living. For Eric, she would have saved this village. For Eric, she had begged her mother. Defied her mother. Because her mother had wanted to leave. Her mother had wanted to leave a month ago, and Reyna had refused. Had refused to believe that her bitter, angry mother was right. Eric loves her. Eric’s love was supposed to be the shield against the world. Eric’s love w
as the promise of life—and his own people have destroyed it.
He will leave. He is leaving, even now, as she screams. All promise, all dream, all hope is a lie—a lie written now in blood, in a language too messy to read.
The end. The end. The end.
Rain falls, then. Lightning flashes. Thunder rumbles. The storm is her storm; it says—and does—what she cannot. If they want death, they’ll have it. That is why they’ve come. To bring death. To end life. To end Reyna’s life.
Let death take them instead. She doesn’t need them here. She doesn’t want them.
She looks up, and up again; rain washes blood from her hands, from her lap; she takes Eric’s body into her arms, and bends, and kisses his open mouth. There is no response. She screams his name. Eric! Eric! Two beats, over and over. He has always answered her before.
He does not answer her now.
He is gone.
“How could you kill your own son?” she demands of the blacksmith. But the blacksmith, like Eric, will never answer that question; he lies face down in dirt that is rapidly becoming mud.
No, no, no. Eric. Eric. She gestures and the rain stops. The lightning stops. Silence falls instead, a blanket, a shroud. She will not gift the village and its fields with rain. Not now. Not ever.
He is still here. He is still here, somewhere. He has not left, might not leave. She has seen and spoken to so many of the dead. She has seen the door, the window, the exit to which they must all walk, in the end. She knows where the dead go when they accept the fact of death.
She rises. She rises and gently rolls Eric’s corpse off her lap. She glances, once, at her mother, grimaces, and turns away. Her mother is dead. Her mother has no voice; her hands will never rise again, to either strike or caress. Her voice, her harsh, judgmental voice, is gone to silence, and Reyna will not call it back.
Reyna has always lived with death. She has accepted the wanderers and the lost; she has dedicated most of her childhood to finding and freeing them. But she has wanted life. This life.