by Tobie Easton
His hands slide up my sides until he’s holding my upper ribs in a firm grip, his fingers wrapping around, grazing the front of my siluess. Even knowing all the dangers tonight could bring, with Clay’s hands on me, I feel safe.
Like Clay, I’m ready, too. I shift some of my weight onto my left forearm and bring my other hand up between our bodies—the hand that grips the obsidian dagger. My gaze darts down to where the black, spiny blade contrasts with the pale flesh of my thigh. I bite my lip and angle my wrist so the tip lies against just the right, carefully chosen spot.
My eyes bore into Clay’s one last time, and then I slice across both my legs.
In that first instant, all I feel is the pain.
Pain like I’ve never experienced. Pain. So much pain. Too much pain for me to even scream. But my mouth stretches open anyway as agony, white-hot with the dagger’s cursed magic, burns through my body. As Melusine promised long ago, the obsidian blade brings with it liquid fire.
Yes, in that first instant, all I feel is the pain. Then I feel the blood.
It pours out of me—hot and wet and horrifying—flowing forth onto Clay.
I twist and writhe on top of him. Fear seizes his handsome features as he stares up at me. Is the color draining from my face? My head is so light, it could float right off. With the agonizing pain still searing through my veins, giving into that floaty dizziness promises relief. My eyelids grow heavy. Soon, I’ll be lost in it all.
Clay curses, says my name, says a lot of things that sound so far away.
Then his voice rings out clear and close, right inside my head.
Lia, stay with me.
The bond. So bright it gleams through the fog, through the pain. I clutch onto it with all my remaining strength.
That’s it, Clay encourages me. Stay with me.
I cling to our bond, drawing strength from it. Enough strength to make the dizziness recede and my thoughts grow clear again, even amid the pain. It brings me back to myself. And back to Clay.
Because Clay is everywhere.
He’s inside me. Inside my mind. Filling my consciousness.
I’m here with you.
We can do this, I tell him. We can.
Blood still flows from my legs onto his. This is going to work.
A jolt of shock radiates from Clay’s consciousness to mine, and he abruptly lets go of the bond, his head lolling to the side. What’s going on?
Before I can find out, someone wrenches me off him.
Chapter Forty-Six
Melusine
Underwater, blood emerges in pale tendrils then disperses and dissolves, washed away quickly by the current. But up here … up here, there’s nowhere for it to disappear. No current to carry it away. It drips and pools in a sticky, sickening mess.
I’ve never seen so much blood.
And the smell. Without water to dilute it, the thick, metallic scent of Lia’s blood fills the small wooden room until my stomach rolls with it. Why would she—oh! If Clay’s not human anymore, then my father and Ondine can’t … She’s found the only surefire way to stop them from destroying the human world. Even if she might die pulling it off.
So much blood. My hand moves to cover my mouth and my feet back up until my spine is pressed against the dresser that Caspian and I have used to block the door. It’s as far away as I can get.
Unlike me, Caspian moves closer. The second the dagger pierces Lia’s skin, he makes a mad grab for his grandmother’s copper case. In two quick strides, he’s across the room and kneeling beside Lia and Clay. He opens the case and bottles clink as he finds what he needs, fast as he can. He places a small tub and a glass bottle full of sloshing, rust-colored potion on the floor in front of the case, but keeps a second, smaller bottle clutched in his hand at the ready. That must be the one he’ll need first.
But now that he’s prepared, he waits there, his large, kneeling frame looming and tense with uncertainty, his blue eyes sparking with panic. “How long should I wait? How long should I let her bleed?”
All I can do is shake my head, my mouth open. I don’t know.
Lia writhes in pain, her blood covering Clay in red. I remember taunting her, so long ago, about how much pain the curse on the dagger would inflict as soon as it broke the skin. Who could’ve guessed then that she’d ever stab herself with it? Could I endure—embrace—that kind of agony for another person?
Clay is cursing and shouting beneath her as she grows whiter and whiter, her head starting to droop. But before Caspian knows whether to spring into action, Clay falls silent and Lia’s head snaps up again, her eyes locking onto his. An intensity passes between them without words. The bond, maybe? Magic crackles around them. Is their spell worki—
Clay’s whole body stiffens. His head falls to the side, his jaw open. He stares out at the room, unseeing. More color drains from Lia’s face, her limbs growing limp atop his as blood courses from her body.
Caspian wrenches her off Clay and onto her back on the floor.
“Nnn …” She tries to protest as she blinks heavy eyelids up at Caspian, but she’s weak. So weak. Something lurches in my chest. “What if it’s not enough?” she forces out before words become too much for her.
“It’ll have to be,” Caspian tells her. He bites the cork out of the glass bottle in his hand and spits it to the floor. “If you lose any more blood you’ll die.” He pours the potion onto the wound slashed across both her thighs. The bleeding stops, and I breathe for the first time in a while.
Caspian grabs the second potion, the one to replenish the blood she’s lost.
I begin to shake. No—not me. The dresser! I jump forward as it shakes with magic.
Caspian’s gaze flies up, first to the dresser, then to me as the same fear grips both of us. “Your father’s figured out how to magic his way in!”
He’s coming.
Wood creaks behind me as the dresser tilts forward and back, stronger than a second ago. He’s coming soon.
I run out of the dresser’s path, farther into the no man’s land between the shaking barricade and the spot where Lia and Clay lie painted in blood.
Caspian uncorks the second bottle. “Lia, you have to drink this. Right now.” He brings the bottle to Lia’s lips, so he can pour it down her throat.
Three of the dresser’s drawers fly across the room. I gasp—one drawer careens toward Caspian. Its sharp corner whacks his arm before it smashes hard against the far wall.
His arm jerks backward at the impact.
And he drops the bottle.
It crashes to the floor, rust-colored liquid soaking into the rough, wooden planks.
“NO!” He runs his hands over the unfinished wood, as if he can grab the potion back. He looks up at me, his mouth opening and closing. Finally, he says, “It was the only bottle. There were at least five doses in there. I thought …” Everything he doesn’t say is written on his pained and panicked face. That this part was his responsibility. That without the replenishing potion to replace the blood she’s lost, Lia will be dead in minutes. That he’ll be the one who killed her.
The last part’s not true, but it’s true to Caspian.
Lia’s eyes are barely open now, her skin pasty, and covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
I move to the copper case. Row upon row of bottles, tubs, and jars of potions and powders stare back at me. Hmm. No. Not this one. No. Definitely not this one. What about … no. I pull out one after another. I never knew my hands could move this fast. But none of these will help. I squint at potions of every color—dark bronze, blanched jade, charcoal gray, yellow and salmon and seafoam and … wait … not charcoal gray. Lighter. Iron gray. I hold the bottle up so the light from the ceiling bulb shines through the glass. Could this be … yes! Yes! The specks I’m looking for flicker in the light.
The dresser tilts forward farther than before. It almost falls over before crashing back against the door.
Lia moans.
I kneel over her, between Clay’s unmoving body and her barely moving one. At the sight of me, she raises her head and tries to sit up, as if to defend herself, even now. “What are you doing?” she croaks. I hold the bottle out for her to take, pointing to her legs so she knows not to drink it.
Lia’s eyes, frantic and turning foggy, fly to Caspian.
He shrugs, his words coming quickly as the dresser continues to tilt forward and backward. “I’ve never seen my grandmother use that one. I don’t know what’s in it.” He turns to me. “You’re sure?”
I nod, slow and certain. If only I could use my voice to explain.
“It’ll work,” he says to Lia, propping her up in the crook of his arm. “Melusine’s father was a medic Below, remember? She knows this stuff.”
Lia studies my face, but she still doesn’t take the bottle.
We don’t have time for this. Not anymore.
I uncork it and press it into her hand, my own eyes pleading with her to believe me. Just this once.
With both our fingers now entwined around the small glass bottle, she brings our hands above her legs. I nod one last time, and Lia empties the vial onto her wounds.
The potion seeps in, deep.
With the last of her strength, Lia looks over my shoulder—and smiles.
What’s she smiling at?
Chapter Forty-Seven
Lia
At the first sparkling glimpse, I think I’m hallucinating from the blood loss. But I could never imagine something this good.
Behind Melusine, the crimson blood covering Clay’s legs begins to shimmer. A drop on his thigh turns a brilliant green. One on his calf transforms from ominous red to the rich brown of fresh-tilled soil. Then on his knee, the orange of a fall leaf. And on his toe, is that … gold?
The next instant, he sits up, eyes open and fixed on his legs as they glimmer and transform, a tail bursting forth in dazzling earth tones, the fins tipped the same gold as my own.
We did it, I think, and I finally let my eyes close as I pass out.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Melusine
It figures Lia and Clay would both be useless when the dresser finally smashed to the floor and my father and Ondine burst into the room, seething.
Lia lies unconscious and smiling like a fool. At least her wound has started to close. And Clay—they actually did it. Clay stares dumbstruck at his (admittedly gorgeous) tail. What an array of colors! But he can’t even stand. He just flops there in new fins he can’t control yet.
It’s Caspian and me who jump to our feet in front of their prone bodies.
The first thing my father does as he steps over the dresser’s splintered remnants is pin me with hard eyes. “Traitor.”
That single word cuts deep, as if it’s pierced the place within me where all my tears are buried. Those same tears rush forward now, pushing to come out. But I can’t cry in front of him.
“Filius,” Ondine says, grabbing his arm to redirect his attention. Shock makes her face hang open.
When my father follows her gaze, his own face distorts with rage. “What did you do to yourself?” he yells at Clay. “You abomination!” He pushes me out of the way, and I hit the back wall with a thud, crumpling to the floor.
“Melusine!” Caspian shouts.
My father launches himself onto Clay. I raise my clunked head in time to see my father’s hands closing around Clay’s throat and new gills.
Clay tries to push him off, but he’s losing oxygen fast. Caspian lunges past me and pulls my father off, dragging him across the small space away from Lia and Clay.
When my father breaks free, Caspian grabs him by the shoulder and punches him in the jaw, his head snapping to the side. My father recovers quickly and pulls away, swinging his own fist hard into the soft spot just below Caspian’s ribs, making Casp’s body bow. Panic steals my breath. I move to lift myself from the floor, but my head spins, the room around me spinning with it as I fall back down.
“Did you help them do this?” my father shouts at Caspian, his head jerking toward Clay as he rains down punches. “You’ve betrayed your own kind.”
Ondine stands there, her attention torn between the flinging fists off to her side and the unprecedented magic of Clay’s new tail at her feet. She looks like she wants to study it. Like she’d just love to get her hands on it. She glances once more at my father, as if perhaps she should try to intervene. In her moment of indecision, Clay leans back, supporting his weight on bent forearms, and lifts his tail off the ground for the first time. In a flash of shining earth tones, it slices through the air, swiping Ondine’s fragile legs out from under her.
By the time she hits the ground, she’s lost the last semblance of leg control that kept her from transforming, and her ice blue tail lands hard on top of Clay’s, while her torso smacks down on the wood floor next to Lia. Ondine catches sight of the rapidly healing wound across Lia’s legs and grabs at her, peering close.
“Don’t you lay a hand on her,” Clay hisses, dragging Ondine away from Lia and toward himself. She lashes out at him, trying to get him to let go, her sharp nails aiming for his eyes.
He may be unused to his tail, but his arms are muscled and strong. He flips her over so her back’s against his chest, then puts her in a chokehold. Okay, maybe he’s not as useless as I thought.
Ondine’s gray eyes glaze over. Her arms and fins go slack as she passes out, leaving Clay gasping but victorious.
Caspian isn’t so lucky. My father has him pinned to the ground now. Casp may be tall and athletic, but my father is lethal. Ready and willing and gleeful to kill. A part of me knows I should be glad my father is ignoring me in favor of someone else, so I’m not on the receiving end of all that fury, but I can’t be glad—not even a little bit. Not when it’s Caspian he’s attacking. Get up, my thoughts shout at Caspian. Fight. I’ve pulled myself to my feet now, but I stay pressed against the far wall, paralyzed, my gaze locked on Caspian and my father. How can I help one and hurt the other?
My dad grips Caspian’s head, one hand on either side, and bashes it against the floor. Shock and pain flare across Casp’s oh-so-familiar face. No! Without even a second’s pause, my father brings Caspian’s blond head back up and bashes it again. This time, those ocean blue eyes turn from anguished to cloudy.
No more.
I grab one of the half-splintered dresser drawers and move behind my dad, who’s oblivious to me, too focused on his task to turn around and notice what I’m doing.
As he lifts Caspian’s head again, I lift the drawer even higher, my arms shaking with tension. He’s about to slam Casp’s skull for a third time. I bring the heavy wood crashing down as hard as I can, and it cracks over my father’s head.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Melusine
My father drops like an anchor at the bottom of the sea. Then the drawer drops next to him as my grip turns slack.
“Melusine?” Caspian moans as he blinks, bringing a hand up to his head.
His voice shakes me from shocked stupor, and I’m at his side in seconds, my hand on his cheek. My fingers tremble as they caress his face, tears burning behind my eyes. A heavy, ragged breath leaves my lungs. He’s okay. Caspian’s okay.
He smiles weakly up at me. “Thanks.”
I duck my head and help him sit up.
“Uh, guys. Ropes would be good,” Clay calls out. A semi-conscious Ondine still lies sprawled on top of him, groaning incoherently. He’s loosened his chokehold so he won’t kill her, but he hasn’t let go of it, I’d bet in case she wakes up enough to start struggling and he needs to use it again. “Huh. I guess I still remember a few things from self-defense.”
I move toward the door to get the ropes, but his voice stops me. “Mel, they gave us something earlier. Lia and me. They drugged us to keep us unconscious while they tied us up. Can you try to find that while you’re down there?”
Clay looks stra
ight at me, waiting for me to answer.
I meet his gaze for the first time in what feels like forever and offer him a single nod.
Then I’m off.
When I return to the attic fast as I can with potion and ropes in hand, Caspian’s baritone, lowered to a murmur, reaches me. He’s giving Clay some pointers about how to call up his legs, so I wait outside the door to give them their guy moment.
“Thanks, man,” Clay says. “I guess I’ll try all that out as soon as I don’t have an evil sorceress on top of me.”
I come inside to see Caspian finally spreading white cream from that small tub onto Lia’s leg wounds.
When he finishes wiping his hands, I pass him the ropes, but before I give the potion to Clay, I hold up one finger and retrieve another glass bottle I saw earlier in the copper case. I add a few drops, then make a stretching motion with my hands.
“That’ll make it last longer?” Clay guesses.
I nod and give him the mixture.
“How long?” Caspian asks.
I hold up three fingers.
“Three hours?”
I flatten my hand and wiggle it in the air. Approximately.
“Good.”
In no time, Clay has poured the potion down both Ondine’s and my father’s throats, but he can’t move around enough in his tail to tie them up, so Caspian does instead (“Really tight. No wiggle room,” Clay instructs).
We’re all left panting, stunned, and exhausted. Well, all of us except Sleeping Beauty over there, who slept through the whole thing like a … well, like a princess.
“Will she be okay?” Clay asks. “Her color is back and she’s breathing evenly. That means she’ll be okay, right?”