by Sara Holland
Marcus loops one arm beneath my torso and one behind my knees, trying to lift me up. But I pull back. My mind isn’t working properly enough to form words, but I don’t want him to take me away, I don’t want to leave Nahteran. Yet in yanking away from him, a wave of dizziness hits me and I stagger, coming heavily back down on my knees. I belatedly realize the blow to the head I took must have been pretty hard.
A few yards away, Graylin is bent over Nahteran, healing magic shimmering between his hands. Mom is kneeling by his side, oblivious to Sal’s attempts to bandage her up as Willow tends to Taya.
But I can’t stop myself from staring at Nahteran, that horrible, heartbroken void in my chest yawning open again. He was telling the truth before. He didn’t betray us. He did what he had to do to get Mom back. And now we have her. But he might not get to be with her again.
Somehow, we’re moving, Marcus helping me stagger over to join the huddle at my brother’s side. I can see the magic swirling through Graylin’s fingers. But it’s not working, or not working fast enough.
I fall down on my knees, reaching out to put pressure on the wound, and something falls out of the neck of my sweater. The jack necklace.
Taya notices it too. “What’s that?”
I take it off with trembling hands and show it to Taya. “Soul-silver. I think it’s a piece … a piece of his soul.”
Taya, Graylin, everyone goes very still. For a moment, everything is quiet.
Then Taya says, “Give it to me.”
My mouth dries up. I’d completely forgotten about the jack after Nahteran and I discussed it at Winterkill.
I’d need another Solarian, he had said. Another Solarian to restore that fragment of his soul.
Taya takes the necklace in her hands. I’m focused on Nahteran, but out of the corner of my eye I see her lips part and shock and awe register on her face.
“Maddie, it’s a piece of his soul.”
“What?” Focused as I am on Nahteran, making sure that his chest is still rising and falling, her words don’t sink in at first. Then they do. I look up, my breath snagging. “What do you mean?”
She doesn’t answer. Just takes a ragged breath. “Maddie …”
For a moment, everything else in the world fades away except Nahteran and Taya and me. I watch, not daring to breathe as she pulls the chain from the jack and tosses the former aside. She holds the jack carefully in cupped, bloodstained hands. She squeezes her eyes shut, her face creasing in concentration. And …
Something floats up from the metal. Something scarcely visible, hardly more than a shimmer in the air.
I hear myself make some indistinct noise of exclamation, words being far out of my grasp at this point. Taya’s eyes fly open and fix on the same thing, the shimmering bit of something in the air.
Selu, I think. Soul.
Taya lets the jack, its shine duller now, fall through her fingers to the floor. She lifts her hand and catches the selu, wrapping it around her fingers like the palest, most translucent thread. She lowers it to Nahteran’s face. She tips her hand down over his mouth, and the translucent light slips from her fingers and between his lips.
My heartbeat fills my hearing, slow and erratic. I’m spent, as exhausted as I’ve ever been in my life, but also as alert as I’ve ever been, waiting, hoping for Nahteran to wake up.
His chest reaches the top of its arc and stops.
My heart threatens to break all the way open.
But then he breathes in deeply. His eyes flutter. He shifts beneath my hands, and turns his head to the side and coughs out a mouthful of blood.
I snatch my hands back from his chest, still scarcely breathing. Taya, Mom, Marcus, Graylin, Sal, Willow, and I watch in wonder as the wound from the dagger slowly closes up, his skin repairing itself like new. Bloodied, but unbroken.
Muscle memory from first aid classes at school finally kicks in, and I hastily but gently roll Nahteran over on his side, positioning one arm under his head and one extended outward, holding him up. Then Graylin and Marcus are on either side of me, Willow and Sal standing by with hesitant smiles. And hope starts to trickle back into my heart.
Soon, I’m in the covered porch that serves as an infirmary, lying on one of the narrow white-sheeted beds. Nahteran is sleeping in the one next to me. Early morning sun from an eggshell blue sky pours into the room. Half an hour ago, the room felt crowded with Mom, Taya, Marcus, and Graylin all clustered around us. The anxiousness in the air was palpable as they monitored us for signs of downturn. Graylin sat between Nahteran’s bed and mine, taking turns pouring healing magic into us both. Nahteran was on the edge of death from getting stabbed, and the jack’s magic—getting that piece of his soul back—didn’t fix the burns on his arms and chest. I am, according to Graylin, extremely concussed, and my body is covered with bruises from tangling with the Silver Prince. Meanwhile, Taya—who came out the best of us three, though she still needed bandages up and down her arms to cover the bright red burns—caught Marcus and Mom up on what happened.
I can’t help but wish that Brekken were here, to hold my hand and distract me from the aching all through my body and the pounding in my head. But he’s gone, through the Fiordenkill doorway to stand trial. And more than that, I don’t know, even if he were here, that there would be any coming back from the things we said yesterday, as far as our relationship goes. He’ll never change his priorities—his duties, his country, the order and safety of the Realms—and maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’ll never be sorry for trying to save Nahteran and Mom, even though it risked everything else. Even if I had failed, I still wouldn’t regret it. I don’t know how to bridge that gap with Brekken or how to mend that break.
“Graylin,” I mumble, and he turns his head toward me, brow wrinkled with concern.
He reaches out to feel my forehead, but I stick a hand out of the covers to stop him.
“I was just wondering about Brekken. Did he talk to you before he left? Did he rehearse his defense?”
Graylin smiles sadly and nods. “I tried to convince him to let me go instead, but he wouldn’t have it, your Brekken. He showed me the speech he was planning to read at the trial. It was good.” Graylin lays a comforting hand on my shoulder, his eyes sympathetic. “I know it must not be much help to hear, Maddie, but I have faith. If anyone can win Myr over, it’s Brekken. You know he’s a charmer.”
I smile weakly and nod. I’m not totally satisfied, of course, but I don’t have to figure out things with Brekken today. For all Brekken’s trepidation about our plan with the Silver Prince, I survived. I have a chance to make things right, now. I just have to hope that Brekken gets that chance too. I want him to be safe and happy no matter what becomes of us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Taya looking our way, her hair tucked not so casually behind her ear. My heart flips a little. Turns out, shoving away my feelings for her while she was in Solaria didn’t make them disappear. But deep down, even if she feels the same way, I know I need to take time to heal from everything that happened with Brekken. I need to focus on my family for now. My newly whole family.
Once Nahteran is out of the danger zone, everyone clears out except for Mom. To give us some privacy, I guess. Mom quickly falls asleep in the chair between our beds. I close my eyes too and let the quiet wash over me. But then …
“Maddie.” I hear my name, softly. I let my eyes open a crack, not sure if I’m dreaming or not, to see Mom leaning toward me, outlined in hazy sunlight.
Some time has passed, I realize. The sun streaming into the infirmary isn’t morning sunlight, but bright midday rays. And Nahteran is sitting up in his bed. He still looks pale and fragile, but he’s awake.
He smiles weakly at me. “Hi.”
Joy lights me up, and I clamber out of bed to give him a hug. My battered body screams in complaint, but I ignore it. Nahteran’s alive. That’s the only thing in the world that matters at this moment. He’s still for a second, like he’s surprised, but then his arm
s come up hesitantly around me too.
“I was just telling Nate—” Mom’s voice cracks, and she breaks off, starts again. “I was just telling Nahteran that I’m sorry for not protecting you two from this. Sorry for everything.”
I open my eyes to stare at her over Nahteran’s shoulder. Protests immediately rise to my lips, and I open my mouth to voice them, but Mom stops me with a shake of her head.
“I thought Cadius loved me. I thought he was different,” she says, her voice pulled taut, on the edge of cracking. “I trusted him when I shouldn’t have, and I ruined everything.”
Nahteran pulls back from me, looking pained. He shakes his head slightly. “I’m the one who should apologize.” He takes a deep breath and looks down at his hands. “I worked for the Prince for years. I trusted him. I almost gave him the armor—”
“But you didn’t,” I cut in. I grab Nahteran’s shoulder so he’s forced to look up at me. “You were a kid.” I turn my gaze to Mom. “And you fought the soul trade. You dedicated your life to fighting it. One mistake doesn’t undo that.” Tears are welling up inside me, but they aren’t tears of sadness, not precisely. Still …
I glance at Mom, who was watching Nahteran like a hawk for hours before I fell asleep. Even though Mom is almost entirely still, even bruised and battered and her face lined and heavy with grief—even so, she looks more alive than I’ve seen her in ten years.
“No more apologies,” I manage to get out. “No one’s ruined anything. We’re all here, we’re alive. That’s what matters.”
I know it can’t stay like this, the three of us here in peaceful stillness. When the Silver Prince’s lackeys broke into Sterling Correctional and kidnapped Mom, they obviously didn’t do her the courtesy of covering his tracks. She’s still a fugitive, still wanted, still on death row. We’ll have to help her go into hiding, or figure something else out. But at least she’s alive. She’s alive, and she’s going to stay that way.
As it turns out, yesterday was the last day of the summit. I’d completely lost track of the time. Willow supervised the exodus of the delegates through the doorways this morning while Marcus was with us in the infirmary. Somehow, miraculously, the commotion from the ballroom this morning didn’t wake the delegates, and the exit proceeded as planned.
By the time I’m feeling well enough to venture out to the kitchen with Marcus at my side, the hallways of Havenfall are shockingly empty and so quiet that I almost think I can hear the yellow sun streaming through the windows. Usually, the end of the summer and the delegates leaving makes me melancholic, the final ritual before I have to climb on the bus back to Sterling and go back to my life. To being Murder Girl again, to being alone every day, to a world empty of magic.
But I don’t feel sad this year. Mostly because when I was dozing in the infirmary, eyes closed but not quite asleep, I caught a little of the quiet conversation between Mom and Marcus. I overheard words like tutors and homeschooling and possibly SATs. And keep the kids together.
Nahteran and Mom can’t go back into the real world, at least not yet. Nahteran is thought to be dead, and Mom’s a fugitive. So I have a feeling that Marcus won’t make me go back to Sterling. After what happened, he’ll probably never let me out of his sight again. And given the choice, I’ll always choose Havenfall.
“I’ve been thinking,” Marcus tells me in the kitchen, then trails off. I’m at the worktable, wolfing down a bowl of cereal as fast as I can without my bruised face hurting. My uncle’s at the counter, chopping vegetables for dinner. His favorite thing about the end of the summit, every year, is that with all the staff gone, he gets to start cooking again. I look up—thinking, at first, that his voice has just been lost in the loud drone of the window AC unit that he’s cranked up. But I see him looking thoughtful, eyes in the middle distance.
“Thinking about what?” I prompt.
Marcus takes a deep breath. “I think we should call off next summer’s peace summit.”
I stiffen, a half-chewed bite of cereal lodging in my throat. I swallow it down painfully and then stare at Marcus like he’s lost his mind. “Cancel it? Why?”
“Not cancel,” Marcus says. He tips the cutting board to the side, pushing a pile of carrot slices into a bowl with the blade of the chef’s knife. “Postpone it, I suppose.” He looks up, meets my eyes. “And instead, call a few people we trust from all the Realms to spend the year here with us. And work together to root out the rest of the soul trade here in Haven, and even in the other realms, since we have the phoenix flame armor. What do you think?”
I’m almost speechless. Postponing the summit, directing Havenfall’s resources to stopping the soul trade and gathering the silver? It hadn’t even occurred to me that that was an option.
“Why are you asking me?” I manage.
Marcus holds my gaze. “Because I care about your opinion. You’re going to be the next Innkeeper, if you still want to be. What we do here affects you.” He looks down then, suddenly becomes very still. “Which is something I should have learned a lot earlier. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay.” I sit up straighter, genuine excitement squiggling through me. It’s almost an unfamiliar sensation. I’ve spent so much of this summer being afraid or shoving down my fear. But with the whole year at Havenfall, with the phoenix flame armor and Mom and Nahteran and maybe others too, I suddenly feel like there’s nothing in all the worlds we can’t do.
“There are things we have to take care of here first,” Marcus continues. “The peace treaty, for instance. We still need a few more signatures each from Byrn and Fiordenkill. And we don’t have any at all from Solaria.”
Momentary panic shoots through me, then embarrassment. In all the chaos, I’d almost completely forgotten about the peace treaty. “But the delegates are already gone. How can we …”
“We have the phoenix flame armor,” Marcus says with a wry smile. “Willow is going to be going into Byrn with Sal, since it might be unstable after the Prince’s death. But if you ask very nicely—and do some self-defense training with Sal—I might let you go into Fiordenkill and Solaria, as long as you take a buddy.”
I stare at him, almost too shocked to be excited. Instead, the hope is like a tidal wave on the horizon—only a tiny ridge in the distance now, but growing bigger, closer, and I know it’ll be overwhelming when it hits. I could go back to Fiordenkill, not in secret this time, but on a diplomatic mission. I could go to Solaria with Taya and Nate.
Marcus comes around to my side of the counter and leans against it with his arms crossed. His expression is carefully neutral. But no matter how much he tries to hide it, I think he’s excited too. I can see the spark in his eyes.
“We need to repair the ballroom, at the very least fix the roof before it rains. Replace those gold plates that mysteriously went missing.” He cracks a smile. “And we need a more secure way to keep the phoenix flame armor. I’ve been calling around. Thinking maybe we could get some kind of built-in vault downstairs, like they have at banks.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“Very.” He massages his temples. “Just one of the very many things you’ll have to deal with as Innkeeper.” Raising his head, he smiles crookedly at me. “I won’t be sorry to pass the mantle when the time comes. But you have a lot of learning to do in the meantime.”
I nod, resisting the urge to say something snarky about how I managed well enough before. But I can’t stop the grin from spreading across my face. “Just tell me what to do.”
“To start with,” he says, “I think you should call your dad.” He pulls my cell phone from his jeans pocket and comes over to slide it across the table to me. “I mean, finish eating first, but it’s past time he heard about Nahteran.”
I stare at the phone, my heart thudding. I’m excited by the prospect of sharing good news, but—
“What do I even say? How do I even begin to explain all this?” I gesture vaguely around, trusting that Marcus will get what I’m trying to say.
>
Oh hey, Dad, remember how your ex-wife snapped out of nowhere and murdered your adopted son? Turns out none of that is true at all. She lied to protect me from the magical bounty hunters who actually kidnapped him and sold his soul to an evil prince. But I found him. Nate is alive and he goes by Nahteran now and is actually a shapeshifter from another world. Oh, and there are other worlds.
Annoyingly, Marcus just says, “You’ll figure it out.”
When I stare at him incredulously, he adds, “Tell him the truth. Your dad’s a good guy; I trust him. Invite him to the inn if you want. I don’t think Nahteran will be venturing out anytime soon, so if your dad wants to see him it has to be here.”
“Are you serious?” I ask, holding my breath.
Keeping the inn secret has always been priority number one. But how great would it be to bring Dad here? The petty little kid in me wants to see his face when I prove to him I never lied about the magic that lived here, not ever. And the greater part thrills at the idea of having my whole family, here, together, even if it’s not forever.
Marcus shrugs. “Tell you the truth, Maddie, I think things are going to get a lot messier from here on out. Harder to keep a secret.”
But the way the corner of his mouth curves up tells me he doesn’t entirely hate this idea.
“We might as well get ahead of the story.”
Later that night, I stand up on the balcony where I once poured my heart out to the Silver Prince, and then later begged Nahteran to give our family a chance. This time, I watch the sun slip below the mountains. I’m alone, but I’m not. Dad is with me, connected through the phone at my ear. Below my feet, somewhere in the inn, are Marcus and Graylin and Willow and Mom and Nahteran and Taya.
They are probably still sitting in Marcus’s living room where I left them. There were so many people that Nahteran and Taya and I were relegated to cushions on the floor, the adults claiming the couch. We spent the night playing cards, drinking wine and tea, telling stories, making plans. Together. Safe.