“Aina, there’s…” Teo’s voice faded, too weak to finish the sentence, but he pointed toward the floor next to the crate.
A sheen of liquid had gathered in a puddle on the ground. Heart pounding somewhere in her throat, Aina peered around the crate. Two smashed vials lay on the ground, broken bits of glass interspersed in the spilled liquid—a liquid that looked far too familiar. Her breath caught in her throat, but she still breathed in the scent, a scent she knew better than any other: the acrid rust-and-copper scent of Kosín.
“The poison.”
She’d hardly breathed out the words when Teo collapsed next to her.
32
The stench of smoke grew thick in the air now, making her eyes water as she dropped next to Teo. Or was that an effect of the poison? Her heart seized, her thoughts raced—no, that wasn’t an effect of it, she would know. She’d brewed it, after all. For some reason, the poison wasn’t hurting her.
But as she turned Teo over, she saw the effects. The veins stood out on his neck. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. If he didn’t get the antidote, he would die in twenty minutes. Her thoughts went hazy, her heart stuttering as she watched him.
The realization struck her, then, like a punch to the face: Kohl had tricked them.
Her hands shook as she lifted Teo into a sitting position. Forget the weapons. She’d pry open the door, they’d get out of here and find Kohl, and force him to give them the antidote.
“Come on, Teo, let’s go.” She wrapped her right arm around his waist to bring him upward. Her left hand couldn’t get a good grip on him anywhere, the fingers twitching whenever she tried to close them. Gulping, she tried not to think of it and concentrated on lifting Teo.
But his legs trembled when he was halfway to standing and he collapsed. Her knees slammed hard on the wooden floor as she fell with him. The crackle of flames from somewhere in the ship grew louder then, and her throat went dry. Her thoughts scattered, and it took a moment to focus on what Teo said next.
“It’s poison, isn’t it?” His voice was a frail copy of what it should be, hoarse and scratchy as if he’d been yelling for hours. When she nodded, he let out a sharp laugh, like he should have known this would happen to him. “What will it do to me? How long do I have?”
The anatomy of the poison she’d created crashed into her, Kohl’s voice in her head telling her all the effects in a methodical tone. It would devour Teo’s lungs and heart, eating through them like acid. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t get the words out. The only thing that left her was a hollow sob.
“Please,” she whispered, imagining the Mothers appearing to her in the cave under the Tower. She withdrew her knife and made a cut on her arm, coating the diamond with the blood. She knew this spell could only stop blood loss, not cure anything else, but maybe if she begged, the Mothers would listen.
“You’re not going to die,” she told Teo, tears trickling down her cheeks as she stared into his eyes—eyes that had only ever shown her kindness, eyes she knew better than anyone else—that now took on the resigned look of every person she’d faced who knew they were about to die … and he wasn’t even trying to fight it.
“Amman inoke,” she whispered, holding the diamond closer to his face as if that would help.
“It won’t fix this,” he whispered, his voice a harsh rattle as his eyes lost focus.
Dropping the diamond and the knife, she tried to haul him to his feet again. He slid on the liquid from the poison, nearly bringing her down again. Smoke filtered into the room through the cracks on the door, making her eyes water and her breaths shallow. She wondered how long until the fire blazed through here and claimed them both.
As Teo leaned on her, his eyes started to close. Tapping him on the face to make him open them again, she walked slowly toward the door with him.
“Almost there,” she said, coughing on the smoke that had now grown so thick, she could barely see through it to the door handle. After leaning him against the door, she began hacking at the lock with one of her scythes. Metal clanged against metal, and she coughed harder with each swing. Sweat built all down her back, and she knew it wasn’t just from the exertion—the air was heating up drastically, turning the ship into an oven.
The next swing of her scythe, the lock broke and fell to the floor with a clatter. The door swung open, and a wall of heat hit her so fiercely, she stepped back. At the same time, Teo swayed and fell facedown onto the cabin floor.
Dropping next to him, she grabbed his wrist, her hand nearly sliding off with the sweat that had built up on it. A pulse still beat, but so slowly she thought, for a moment, he was already gone. His breaths came in ragged inhalations, like each one caused him pain.
I did this to him, she thought, the words repeating on refrain as she turned him onto his side. This boy who’d known her for years, who’d bandaged her wounds when they barely knew each other and had been her friend ever since. She’d promised his mother she would protect him, and now her poison was working through his veins and organs, killing him slowly.
All because she’d trusted Kohl.
Of course the Mothers wouldn’t let her heal Teo; she’d killed with their magic, gone against everything they taught. She should be the one with poison in her veins now, not him.
After she tapped his face a few more times, he reopened his eyes. With her help, he was able to get into a sitting position, but his arms trembled so badly, he nearly collapsed again. A trickle of blood appeared at his lips.
“Do you have the antidote?” he asked, one word at a time and in a whisper so low she barely heard.
“If Kohl … I don’t think—”
“He tricked us,” Teo gasped out, his eyes unfocused as he spoke.
The realization weighed heavily on her chest, squeezing her heart and lungs, making it hard to breathe. After she’d given him the poison and antidotes, he must have given some of the poisons to a Jackal to plant on the ship and lock them in this room. He’d probably already given Bautix the rest of the poison and thought he’d successfully killed her and Teo.
“There’s still time for you,” Teo said.
Halfway through his sentence, Aina was already shaking her head. “I won’t leave you—”
“Aina, please,” Teo said, his voice sounding like the useless prayer she’d sent to the Mothers. One of his hands fumbled for a dagger from the brace across her chest. He placed the hilt in her hands, and when he looked up at her with a plea in his eyes, she nearly dropped the knife.
Though the ship burned around them, her whole body went cold.
“I won’t do that, Teo,” Aina said.
But with a surprisingly strong grip, he grabbed her wrist and brought the knife to his chest.
“Either the fire will claim me, or the poison will,” he gasped out, each word sending a stab of fear through her heart. “Make it quick, Aina. Make it painless.”
“No,” she whispered, unable to believe he would ask this of her.
“You have to get back to the city. I don’t need to be there, Aina. But either you’re making it out of this alive, or neither of us are, and I won’t pull you down with me like that. You’ll live, and you can save a lot more people than you give yourself credit for. The city needs you.”
His other hand had moved to the back of her head, his fingers shaking. Her tears blurred his face in front of her and she blinked them away furiously, refusing to miss any last glimpse of him. Wishing she could sear his face into her memory.
“I’m not letting you die here with me, Aina,” Teo said, his voice so soft through the crackle of flames nearby that she had to lean close to hear him. “I’ll bring your knife to my own heart if it means you get out of here faster. You only have a few minutes. Please, Aina. I trust you.”
She told him no over and over again through her sobs, but her hands brought the knife to his chest anyway, one slow inch at a time. She had to prove to him, in his final moments, that he could trust her—that there was someone
left in the world he could count on, someone who would be there for him, even for something as terrible as this. The tip rested on his shirt. It bumped against his skin.
She leaned forward over the knife and kissed him. His hand tightened in her hair, and the other trailed down her face to her neck. He kissed her back, softly and slowly, their lips parting now and then to let out the smallest breaths. But then he slowed, and his fingers in her hair loosened, his grip too weak.
She wished she could stay here in his arms forever and that the fire would never reach them. But there was no forever for people like them.
There never had been.
Pulling away slightly, she blinked away her tears, letting them stare into each other’s eyes for one long moment.
And then she drove the knife in.
A choking sound came out of him, and more blood trickled from his mouth. Her hands slipped on the blood that left his chest. As his eyes lost focus, she pulled out the knife and he fell forward, his head landing on her shoulder.
The heat of the flames grew so close, the smoke so thick in the air, she knew she only had minutes to make it out of here.
She gently moved his head to the ground. Tears blurred her vision again, but she didn’t blink them away, refusing to have her last memory of him be this. Instead, it would be the kiss they shared, the trust in his eyes as he placed the knife in her hands.
She didn’t look back. She ran through the door and stumbled down the hall through the smoke. It had grown so thick, she barely managed to find the staircase. Now that she was in the thick of it, she could tell the flames came from above rather than below. Bounding up the stairs, she expected the floor above to fall down on her any moment. Cinders fell onto her head, singeing her skin where they landed.
As she reached the next landing and rounded the corner, she nearly ran into Ryuu. In the hall beyond him, flames devoured the wood, licking up the walls and searing through the floor. As she watched, floorboards caved in, the fire eating through it all and flames racing to the floor below—where Teo was.
“Aina, we have to go,” Ryuu said, his own face strained and covered in sweat from the heat. “Where’s Teo?”
Hearing his name was like a sharp punch to the chest. She rose her eyes toward Ryuu’s, hoping he understood without her having to say it.
Teo’s dead. I killed him.
Something shuttered in Ryuu’s eyes, then he blinked and began to pull her away. He understood.
33
The hall ahead of them collapsed on one side, a burst of smoke and flame nearly knocking Aina and Ryuu off their feet. Stumbling into the wall behind them, they covered their heads to avoid getting burned by cinders that flew toward them in a cloud.
Peering through the haze of smoke, Aina could make out a light ahead that wasn’t the roaring flames.
“We should run for it,” she said, and Ryuu nodded stiffly. Aina moved in front of him and, without wasting another second, ran down the hall with her arms covering her head.
Heat seared along her arms, flames grasping at her clothes as she raced down the side of the wall that was still intact. The heat grew so intense, she feared her skin would melt.
Seconds later, she skidded onto the pier outside and Ryuu nearly slid into her as he followed.
Coughing smoke out of her lungs, Aina bent over, hands on her knees. Her throat was scorched dry, her thoughts jumbled together. For a moment, she convinced herself this was a nightmare.
When one lone Jackal stepped into the center of the pier ahead of them and pointed a gun at them, she didn’t even try to move away.
Ryuu slammed roughly into her, knocking her to the hard, wooden pier. He lifted his own gun and fired at the Jackal, hitting him in the center of his forehead.
As Ryuu stood, Aina placed her hands on the dock to push herself up. Her left arm still shook as she did. When she stood, she looked down at her bloody handprints on the docks—Teo’s blood. The setting sun behind the ship and the growing flames sent red and orange light across the blood, making it brighter, more accusatory. A bitter taste built in the back of Aina’s mouth, and she thought she’d vomit before Ryuu pulled her away a moment later.
As they ran from the burning ship, Ryuu kept one arm around her shoulders as if he could tell she needed the support. Together, they left the ports, walked across the train tracks where the station’s employees stared wide-eyed at the fire blazing above the ship, and headed across the plains toward a copse of trees ahead.
The whole way, she barely felt herself walking, her limbs seeming too numb to move, her thoughts too scattered to tell her body which direction to go. But somehow they made it. The trees closed around them, a cool darkness that Aina wanted to sink into. The spaces between the trees deep with the approach of night were even more mercifully dark. No flames hid between them.
She breathed in the scents of the trees to banish the smoke in her lungs, but then stopped short, her breath catching in her throat as she remembered walking through the forests on the outskirts of Kosín with Teo. He loved the trees, the dirt beneath his feet, the wind carrying the scent of eucalyptus. Why was she allowed to breathe such fresh air when he couldn’t?
A small clearing opened ahead as they walked, moonlight forming a white pool at its center. She dropped to her knees there, her hands gripping the wild weeds and grass. Ryuu sat next to her, leaned his head against a tree trunk, and stared at the pocket of sky above.
“Where are Raurie and Lill?” she asked, her voice surprisingly clear. She’d expected it to sound raw and broken.
“We got separated when the fire started and some Jackals found us. I thought maybe I’d find them on my way to look for the weapons, but there was no sign of them. Then I ran into you. I don’t know what happened to them.” He paused for a moment, and devastation shook his voice when he continued, “It was a setup. It couldn’t have been anyone but Kohl.”
But Aina merely blinked at his words. He didn’t know the half of it. He knew Teo was dead, but he didn’t know how. Her poison and her knives, Teo’s blood and his last breaths. Raising a hand to her lips, she touched them, remembering their first and final kiss. How had he succumbed to poison and she hadn’t?
As she considered it, Ryuu watched her, his eyes soft with concern. She scoffed under her breath. “I don’t know how you can sit there and not want to yell at me right now. I’m the one who trusted him.”
“I don’t blame you for trusting him. I blame him for taking advantage of that.” He sighed then, seeming merely resigned—as if he should have predicted this outcome and now simply had to suffer it with her.
“After two months of spending all your time with people from the Stacks, you’ve really gotten used to having low expectations,” she said with a humorless laugh. “He didn’t just set the Jackals on us. When we found the smuggler, he told us the weapons were downstairs. A door was open, with a light on. Looking back, we should have known something was wrong, but we were both injured and … Kohl took some of the poisons I gave him and got them onto the ship. A Jackal locked us in that room, and the poison, it was going to kill Teo. He asked me to…” She gestured weakly at the brace of knives strapped to her chest, and understanding dawned in Ryuu’s eyes. When her lips trembled, he reached forward and pulled her into a hug.
“I’m sorry, Aina,” he said in a gruff voice. “I know that does nothing—it never helped me when people said sorry for my parents or my brother. But I am sorry about what Kohl did. I know you didn’t want to trust him again, and I know you were being careful.”
“It’s not just that I trusted him,” she said with a sigh, staring into the forest. “I was so stubborn, so determined to prove he could never hurt me again … it only made it easier for him to do exactly that.” Her words choked up for a moment, but she pushed through, trying to make sense of it all. “It’s strange, though, isn’t it? I was in the same room. The poison should have killed me too.”
And then it hit her. She gasped, her whole body tensin
g as she remembered Kohl approaching her in the café, touching her lips softly and then walking away.
“Kohl gave me the antidote before I got on the train, so the poison spared me,” she breathed. “I didn’t realize it until now.” And when she’d kissed Teo before driving her knife into his heart, was there any remnant of the antidote on her lips? Could it work like that with how much time that had passed since she’d ingested it herself? Ingredients and mixtures ran through her thoughts, but everything was a jumbled mess. All she remembered right now was Teo collapsing before her.
But even if the antidote on her lips could have saved him, the knife had killed him. Even if the knife somehow missed his heart, a mistake she’d never made before, the fire tearing through the ship right now would have ended him.
And through it all, Kohl came back to her. He’d wanted her to survive this and realize he’d given her the antidote—would probably expect her to thank him for saving her. Her hands curled around blades of grass, squeezing so tightly, they ripped from the ground.
Mere hours after she’d decided she didn’t need to kill him anymore, he betrayed her. Teo’s words came back to her then, reminding her how she’d always gone back to Kohl even after he’d hurt her and reminding her not to forget it. She gulped, finding her throat dry and sore. She’d thought Kohl couldn’t hurt her anymore, that the only pain he’d caused was when she was too weak to stand up to him. But that wasn’t how it worked. “I’m not surprised that Kohl turned on us,” Ryuu said slowly, still holding her steady. “But I am surprised that he did it now, before Bautix has been killed. Why not let us do the dirty work of getting Bautix out of the way and then try to turn on us?”
“Unless he thinks he doesn’t need us anymore,” Aina whispered. “He only worked with us because he thought he had to. He wanted us out of the city, which means he thinks he can win this fight on his own.”
Everything about it rang achingly familiar to her, and it felt like a fist clenched around her heart. They had so much more in common than she’d ever allowed herself to admit. Constantly fighting to outwit their enemies, doing whatever it took to survive and be safe despite the cost. She knew, in her heart, that she was cast in his shadow.
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