Evermore

by Sara Holland

  As if reading my thoughts, she beckons her to me. “Come out, Antonia. Come home.”

  “Or what? He’ll send the dogs after me?” I bite back, my voice surly and feeble.

  “You know that’s only a joke,” she scoffs, though she can’t help but shift from the hound beside her, like she’s trying to distance herself from the lie. “He’s not upset, I swear to you. What do you expect to happen when you’re experimenting with magic as powerful as ours? People are going to get hurt. The strong survive.”

  Dread seizes me, but I wade back to her and hold the dagger out, handle first. Caro advances gracefully, water creeping up her shift like dark fingers. She takes it from me and holds it like she would hold a fine bolt of cloth. Her lips curve up in a smile as she stares at it.

  “Destroy as many rooms as you want, Antonia,” she says, a little breathy. “If that’s what it takes to create something like this. Look.”

  She lifts the blade, and for an instant my whole body tenses, expecting it to fall. But Caro just swishes it through the air, admiring the way it shines in the dappled sun, as if it weren’t heavy at all. I wish I could take it from her and drop it, let it sink to the bottom of the glen and be lost forever in the soft sand. Fear is pushing at the inside of my skin. A bone-deep knowledge that this is wrong. We shouldn’t have this.

  “You bound strength into this blade.” Caro’s voice is awed, almost reverent. “This is exactly what we’ve been working for. And look what I can do, without it hurting me anymore.”

  Racing back to the shore, she plucks a bright yellow flower from the soil. I watch as it withers in her open palm, deadening—then as it fills out with strength and color again before it bursts, covering her hands in green-and-yellow confetti. Taking its life away, giving it back, all with the ease of breathing.

  When she looks at me to gauge my reaction, her proud, wide grin wilts into a frown. “Why aren’t you happy?”

  My heart beats faster. “I am happy.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Her voice is light as ever, but it makes fear thrill through me. She takes a step closer and twirls the dagger casually in her hand. Do I imagine that for a heartbeat its tip is leveled straight at my throat?

  I blink, and the blade is flipped over again, Caro proffering it to me with her usual smile.

  “It’s marvelous, Antonia,” she says as I take it back. “Your power. Don’t be afraid of it.” Her hand comes up to my shoulder and rests there for a second, fire-warm through the wet material of my dress.

  “I’m not afraid. Maybe you should be afraid,” I say quickly.

  Caro tilts her head at me. “Why would I be? Power is unstoppable. We’ll be unstoppable together someday, you know that.”

  “Nothing is unstoppable, not really,” I say quietly, slipping the dagger into my belt. “You only need to find something stronger.”

  17

  When I open my eyes, steam is rising gently from the surface of the water, which is now warm around my waist. My hair and shift are soaked, but the steam envelops me. Safe. Protected.

  Except then the steam grows thicker, enough to make the figure approaching me resemble a walking shadow. Animal panic floods me, pulsing the name Sorceress through my blood. She’s here. She’s come for me.

  Then the shape grabs my wrist and I scream, and the scream seems to send waves and waves of cold out into the water, obliterating all warmth. The crackle of ice forming covers the noises of the woods like a fine lace, while the steam around us turns at once to snow. In one motion, it falls to the surface of the water, countless frozen bodies plunging down.

  “Jules!”

  Liam. I’m no longer in the memory. I breathe, reminding myself that I’m Jules, and of course it’s Liam approaching, his lips tinged blue from the sudden cold. Around me, the light has shifted, the trees around me larger and older than they were, seemingly, only a moment ago. I recall the look on young Caro’s face—pure, hungry power—and all at once know where I am, when I am.

  I’m shaking, hard. It’s so cold.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to. That’s never happened before.” My voice sounds more irritated than I meant it to, but within seconds, the water returns to a normal temperature. Now that I have my senses back, I realize we’re both standing in the water. Liam’s cloak is crumpled on a nearby rock. My mouth drops open. “What—what happened?”

  Liam clears his throat. “You waded out into the water.”

  “I—was running, I think.” I glance down. The stream flows around my waist, when in the memory it didn’t go past my knees. “I was Antonia again. The memory must have been centuries ago.”

  Liam shifts. “Steam started to rise, and it was so thick I couldn’t see you. I didn’t know what was happening.”

  Now embarrassment does creep in. I feel my cheeks redden. “I was angry. Afraid too.” I remember the blood splashed across the dagger, how I’d tried to wash the blade clean as if I couldn’t stand the sight of it. “I’d hurt someone. Caro, I think.”

  A moment passes, and I brace for him to pull away from me. Instead, he steps closer, murmuring something about the cold, though I can see that warmth rushes to his face. A torn feeling floods through me even as I turn half to the side, averting my eyes, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around him. All my senses seem to have been turned up. I feel hyperaware of every little sound and movement, the rush of heat to his neck and face, the soft splash as he moves closer, stopping only when he’s slightly more than an arm’s length away. Water creeps up the white fabric of his shirt. Mist lands and sparkles in his dark hair, and something warm and restless stirs beneath my ribs.

  “What did you see?” he asks. His posture is stiff, his eyes trained carefully on my face.

  Caro’s younger, laughing face flashes before me, her eyes that seemed to shift between shades of green. “I had the dagger, and I was running from something I’d done. But Caro found me, like she always does.”

  I shake my head to clear it of the tumble of emotion. Liam gently squeezes my shoulder, and I don’t push him away, even when his gaze grows a little softer. Wrapping an arm around my waist so that I can only barely feel his skin through the wet of my shirt, he guides me back to shore. I sit down on a flat rock. He wraps his cloak around my shoulders. When I’ve stopped shivering, he asks, “Forget about Caro. Did you learn anything about the weapon?”

  “Yes,” I breathe, grateful for his focused mind, that I don’t have to bear this load alone. In as much detail as possible, I tell him of the dagger I’d made—Antonia made—a jeweled blade bound with strength. How it buzzed with power, how Caro tipped the blade against my throat. As I recount it, the image of the slightly younger Caro seems to drift away from me, flattening until it seems like an illustration in a book, rather than a real memory. My racing heart calms; at least until the Caro I know in this life rises up to take her place—cold, cruel, hungry.

  “What do you think it means? Is that all we need? Strength?”

  “I don’t know,” Liam says softly.

  Could the weapon really be bound with strength? But Liam’s doubt is echoed in me, and I soon dismiss the thought. If it were only strength, Caro might have used the weapon on me. No, it would take more than strength to beat the Sorceress.

  “It won’t matter if we can’t find it. Was there anything else at all, anything specific?”

  I have to sift back through my jumble of thoughts. “We spoke about a man, Ever.” I close my eyes halfway, blurring the clearing around me, trying to bring back the memory. I remember the mix of awe and fear as I spoke his name. “Caro must have been bringing me back to him.”

  Liam looks down at the water, faint color staining his cheeks. “Lord Ever. My ancestor.”

  The words hang in the air between us, obvious now that they’re out. The man from the stories—the evil lord—didn’t have a name before now. He wasn’t in my memories or my childhood nightmares. But it’s as though by speaking his name in my memory, we’ve b
reathed life into him. Fear tightens my skin, drops of cold form on my spine.

  “I’m not proud of it,” Liam goes on, curt.

  I take a deep breath. He is more than his blood, I tell myself. I’ve seen Gerlings dissolve years of time into their tea with no more thought than a cube of sugar. Liam is nothing like that. His heart is good.

  “Maybe it means something—maybe there’s something at Everless,” I say. My skin tightens as if in warning. I can’t go back. “There’s no river, but a lake—”

  “Ivan is there.” Liam cuts me off abruptly. “My father is there. Everless is probably even less safe for you than Shorehaven. Besides, I’ve scoured the place and there’s nothing but useless china and dusty blood-irons. We can’t risk it.” There’s just the faintest note of regret in his voice. His shoulders draw in a little, and he looks away, at the waterfall, wiping the slight sheen of mist off his face. “Lord Ever is dead and buried. There’s nothing we didn’t know from the stories already.”

  “Maybe the stories are wrong,” I say automatically.

  Liam’s cheeks redden, a warning—but I don’t take back what I said. I shouldn’t have to. I continue, “The stories have been helpful, but they’re not infallible.”

  “I didn’t say they were perfect, but they led me to you, didn’t they?” He abruptly changes the subject. “Did you see anything at all about killing Caro?”

  “Well . . .” My mind works, turning the remembered moment over to inspect it from every angle, as if it were a blood-iron coin. I look down at my hands, contemplating what I learned. The hands of the Alchemist when she was Antonia, that crafted strength into the blade. The same hands that wove time into blood.

  “I bound strength to the blade,” I reason out loud. “It’s only proof that the weapon I saw does exist. Bound with strength, or—I don’t know, something strong enough to kill the Sorceress. I said as much to Caro. I practically threatened her.”

  Liam shakes his head, staring somewhere into the distance. “Jules, no histories tell of a weapon like you described. Not even in Sempera’s bloodiest war.”

  “Just because it’s not recorded somewhere doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” I need this to be true—because I know there’s some hidden knowledge out there that will help us destroy Caro. “The late Queen destroyed the secrets of blood time to keep them to herself, didn’t she? Who knows what other secrets have been buried by history?”

  “Have you considered—” He stops abruptly, then looks at me, mouth slightly downturned.

  “What?” Excitement, even hope, flares in me. I wait for him to finish, expecting a brilliant twist of logic to fall out of his mouth, some unforgotten fact that will shift everything into focus.

  It takes Liam a moment to answer. “Have you considered that these memories might be a lie? Or just another one of Caro’s traps?”

  I inhale, stung. Part of me recognizes that I might think the same, in Liam’s position—but the other, angry part of me wants to scream at him. Because if I don’t trust myself—if I’m wrong that the truth isn’t inside of me, locked away from Caro’s tricks and deception—I feel as though I might fall apart completely. “Why? Because you don’t have sources on this? Your papers referred to a weapon.”

  He runs a hand through his still-damp hair, exhales a frustrated breath. “Even Stef said that there was something off about your memories.”

  “Off—” I stand up and shrug his cloak from around my shoulders. My whole body burn ember-hot. “You said Stef didn’t know what she was talking about. Besides, we didn’t just wander here on a whim. My journal said to seek the river of red. You brought us here, remember? And we found something by tracing my past.”

  “We got lucky, and we don’t have time to run all over Sempera putting the pieces together. We came here with a purpose and we failed. We’re no closer to finding the weapon,” Liam shoots back. “Meanwhile, Caro’s dogs hunt you.”

  “I don’t know what to do, besides put the pieces together as best I can.” I clench my fists. “Maybe you should have told me who I was sooner.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have come back to Everless at all,” he says coldly.

  I turn from him to hide the tears swimming in my eyes, my shift suddenly cold and clammy against my skin. There’s a moment of silence, then behind me, I hear Liam get to his feet. Slowly, gently, he eases next to me and slips my cloak back over my shoulders again.

  “I’m sorry, Jules.” His words are softer, pleading in a way that strikes a different kind of fear into me than Caro ever has. And what’s most frightening—I believe him. “I just can’t let you—can’t stand the thought—”

  Please don’t finish, I think, because I already know what he wants to say. I can’t stand the thought of losing you.

  I swallow, blink. The pain and fear in his voice threatens to dissolve my anger. Instead, I crystallize it, turning the anger cold and hard and permanent as stone.

  “This world would be better off if your family had never existed,” I spit. “None of this would ever have happened.”

  A moment passes, stretching and unbearable, so long that I think I’ve accidentally frozen time. Then Liam picks his own cloak up off the ground and shrugs it on, his motions tight and snapping with controlled anger. Guilt and fear twinge through me, but it doesn’t matter.

  It’s the cost of keeping him safe.

  Before I can question it any further, Liam turns and strides away from me, directly into the forest.

  The simmering emotions between us don’t dissipate as Liam and I trudge back toward Bellwood, not speaking. When we emerge from the forest and begin to walk along the dome-shaped buildings of Montmere, we stay quiet. A young girl passes, selling flowers from a basket on her arm. The bloodred roses remind me of the flower in Caro’s palm—the way she took away its life and gave it back without effort.

  I took that power from her, at least some of it. A strange mix of pride and confusion steals over me at the thought. Now she’s dependent on others for her strength. I remember the old Queen, pale and cold to the touch even in life. What Caro said after she fell. I’ve drunk hundreds of years’ worth of blood-iron, and I hate the way it tastes.

  The sun sets, layering darkness over us gently. In the gathering night, it’s easier to let my mind wander. I find myself wishing more than ever that the path were clearer, that I was more powerful, that my past weren’t shrouded in mystery. I send up a prayer to everyone I’ve lost—Roan, Papa, Amma—that when we return to Bellwood, the path to dismantling the Sorceress opens up before us, bright and brilliant and clear.

  No, not a prayer—a promise.

  I stare at Liam’s back, wishing I could say this to him. Under his cloak, his muscles move in grim determination.

  Up ahead, the main gate of Bellwood comes into view. Elias is there.

  I feel a pang of relief, seeing him safe, alive—but the sight of what’s behind him roots my feet to the ground. It’s a dark silhouette on horseback, trailed by a group of soldiers. The figure is cloaked from head to foot and moving with an almost supernatural grace that sends ice tearing down my spine.

  Here for me, a still, small voice in me whispers.

  18

  Liam throws a protective arm in front of me before dragging me into a row of shrubs. It’s the best cover we have, aside from risking a display of magic. Next to him, I press my face into the damp spring grass to muffle my breath.

  I dare not even turn my head to look back toward the entrance gate, but we’re close enough that I detect Elias’s voice, and even through the sound of my heart pounding in my ears, I think I can hear the strain in it.

  “Thank you for the escort, though it was quite unnecessary. Connemor has seen its share of assassins and killers, too . . .”

  It seems to take an eternity for the soldiers and the strange man on horseback—so many of them, surely a dozen—to flow into the school. My heartbeat doesn’t fade with their footsteps. It’s completely dark by the time Liam and I we
nd our way back to the Thief’s Fort. Elias is just beyond the archway, waiting for us to enter.

  Upstairs, Liam begins pacing immediately. It’s easier to be calm when I see him so distraught. Elias smiles at me even as Liam bursts out, “Who was that—the man on horseback?”

  “Hello to you too.” Elias’s smile falters briefly. “A mercenary Ina’s commissioned to find you, Miss Ember. The Queen insisted he escort me back to Bellwood—as I’m so eager to get back to my studies.”

  “Do they know I’m here?” I ask.

  Elias pauses. “I don’t think so. But this huntsman isn’t much of a talker. I have no idea what information he has. No one knows anything about him—where he’s from, why she chose him.” He shifts on his feet. “Caro seems to trust him a great deal though. She’s ordered most of the soldiers to watch the rivers and ports, letting the Huntsman have reign over the interior. I thought it might be a ruse to keep the people calm, but she seems genuinely confident that he can find you.”

  Ice drops down my spine. What sort of magic or device might Ina—by way of Caro—have given to this huntsman? The soldiers stationed throughout Sempera were threat enough, but the cloaked man, whose very silhouette froze me to the spot—who knows what he’s capable of. There are enough threats lurking in my past. The thought of yet another enemy stalking Sempera sends a wave of exhaustion through me.

  “There’s something else.” Elias drops his eyes to the floor sheepishly. “The Bellwood headmaster, Linfort, has requested Liam’s presence at a dinner welcoming the Huntsman and his royal soldiers.”

  The blood drains from my face. “Does he know something? That Liam is helping me?”

  “No,” Elias says dismissively. “Master Linfort couldn’t keep a secret like that to himself if you offered him a thousand year-coins. He just likes to show his prized Gerling off to fancy guests. Don’t worry, Jules.”

  Liam halts suddenly. “We need to leave. Now.”

  No, I think. In spite of the Huntsman—an extension of Caro—arriving, being inside the Thief’s Fort is the safest I’ve felt since I fled Everless. Plus, the memory from the waterfall fills my mind again, and this time, a new feeling comes with it: a small twitch of power. I may not have faced Caro down then, but her words linger: Your power. Don’t be afraid of it.