by Foz Meadows
Moonlight washed the courtyard, marbling her skin and Evan’s with a faint blue glow. It was like they were trapped beneath the sea; as though the whole world had been turned upside down, the earth beneath her feet transmuting into solid sky, and they were in danger of falling. The only sounds were the meaty thunk of the shovel blade biting through turf, Evan’s rapid breath and the occasional grunt as he threw himself into the physicality of doing, being, acting. At the other end of her bond, Solace felt the hollowness rising in him, the palpable sense that he was locked outside his body, controlling it from a distance.
Unbidden, she recalled the words she’d spoken out loud on opening Starveldt; words from her mother’s letter to Liluye. On whom the pale moon gleams. She stared at Evan again, unable to fathom the coincidence, even though it pained her, because the alternative was turning to look at Jess’s body, at Duchess’s tiny form.
She felt a presence behind her, and knew through her connection to Evan that it was Laine. She wondered briefly how long the psychic had been standing there. It could have been minutes, or hours. Time felt fluid as magma: thick, viscous and inexorable, yet still in constant motion, wrapping around her, warping her sense of where and when she was. There was the sound of footsteps, and then they came to a halt.
‘What do you want?’ Solace asked. She didn’t turn round, nor did Evan look up. After a moment, Laine seemed to realise this wasn’t about to change, and moved closer, standing just in front of Solace. Her face could have been chiselled from alabaster.
‘Manx sent me,’ she said. ‘He’s found the rooms. When you come up, there’s a place for you to get cleaned up, and sleep. Both of you,’ she added, dropping her gaze.
‘You haven’t told Manx about ... about Evan and me?’
‘No.’
‘Good. It doesn’t matter. Not tonight, anyway. Not against this.’
‘I don’t envy you,’ said Laine, softly. ‘Anymore.’
‘Thank Manx,’ said Solace, after a moment had gone by. And then, because the phrase was still swimming through her head, she murmured, ‘See if the pale moon gleams on him.’
‘I will.’ Laine hesitated. ‘It’s from a poem, you know.’
‘What?’
‘That line. You said it earlier, too. It’s from a poem by Arthur O’Shaughnessy.’
Her throat constricted. ‘Tell me.’
Stepping hesitantly forward, Laine leaned in and cupped a hand to Solace’s ear, the other resting lightly on the very edge of her shoulder and, as though it were a secret, whispered the words to her. Solace felt tears prick at her eyes. Maybe the poet had visited Starveldt, or known of the Rookery, or maybe he’d just been a human dreamer, but either way, she suddenly felt as though a tiny fragment of a greater truth had lodged itself in the hollow of her heart. Almost, it was a kind of understanding.
Laine stepped away, breaking their contact. Solace exhaled, and the night air seemed to breathe with her.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Laine nodded, and was gone.
Time seemed to pass more quickly after that. When she sensed that Evan was tiring, Solace wordlessly took over. There was still work to be done, but although every motion of the spade caused her muscles to twitch with pain, she persevered. The sky was brightening, the grey at its edges fading to the faintest peach, before Solace realised she truly was standing in a grave. Evan helped her back onto the grass, his hands rough and warm on her forearms. Sudden panic blazed through her as she contemplated the hole in the earth. How do we get her down? Evan seemed to have the same thought, and so they stood there, helpless to think of a solution.
More footsteps approached. This time, they both looked up. There was Electra, her grey eyes tinged with sadness and determination, the others hovering close behind. Through their bond, Solace was aware of Evan’s sudden anger – I told them to stay away, I told them – but knew also that it was unfair.
‘She was our friend, too,’ Electra said softly, reading this reaction in his face as clearly as Solace had felt it, ‘– and Duchess was our guide. We need this. I can help. Let me.’
For an awful moment, Evan was on the brink of arguing, but then she felt some of the tension go out of him: acceptance, of a sort. He nodded, and the two of them stepped away from the grave, watching as their friends filed out onto the grass.
And then Electra glowed again.
It was brighter than her usual aura: gold-white and gleaming, pure as sunrise. At first, Solace didn’t know what she was doing, until similar halos began to form around the bodies on the lawn. Slowly, with an aching gravity that it made her tense to watch, Jess’s body rose up from the ground – floating, limned in gold – and was lowered gently into the grave. Duchess followed, a tiny, strange angel, but still Electra wasn’t done. The pile of displaced earth began to glimmer: rising, it coalesced and poured softly down, the sound no greater than if sugar were being tipped into a mixing bowl, until the space in the ground was filled. Like a sun being extinguished, the blonde girl gasped, her Rarity winking out, and would have fallen, except for Manx, who caught her at the last moment, wrapping his arms around her slender shoulders.
Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Words had to be said, Solace realised – something, anything – but through Evan’s empathy and her own sharp sense of loss, she knew that there could be no eulogy, not yet, not when the death itself was still so near.
They were all paralysed, until Laine stepped forward, her pale eyes flickering with unreadable emotion. The psychic opened her mouth to speak.
It was part of the poem. Laine’s voice was both soft and strong, and as the creeping dawn approached the walls of Starveldt, her words reached each of them, carried on the air:
‘We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.’
As Laine fell silent, a ragged peace settled over the courtyard. The trailing braids of the willow tree moved gently above the freshly turned earth, and Solace swallowed against the lump in her throat. Goodbye, she wanted to say, but surely, if Jess was anywhere and able to hear, it wouldn’t matter if she spoke aloud or not. Manx turned her way, caught Evan’s gaze and nodded towards the castle proper. Nothing more needed to be said.
‘Well, Mother? Are you displeased?’
Glide kept his head down, trying to avoid the attentions of both Grief and Sanguisidera while simultaneously keeping his gaze from any more distressing sight. They were in the laboratories, and it was all he could do to avoid staring at what had become of Sharpsoft, no matter that the spectacle repulsed him. Rubbernecking, he’d heard the phenomenon called, after the swivel-headed drivers who slowed down to stare when passing a car crash. Extraction tubes glistened in his peripheral vision, some blood red, some salt white. A low moan thrummed against his ears. He blocked it out.
‘No,’ said the Bloody Star, after a moment’s pause. ‘It is not what I had planned, of course, but as dear Erasmus pointed out, the capture of my former favourite is no small thing. Though denied the pleasure of meeting the Starkine personally, the seer is nonetheless dead, as is the meddlesome Aer.’
‘And what of this one?’
Glide, who was kneeling, stayed stock-still as Grief laid a hand on his head.
‘Shall we turn him, do you think, or keep him fresh?’
This time, he couldn’t help but lift his gaze. Sanguisidera looked different away from her throne – more real, somehow – but no less menacing.
‘Fresh,’ she said, a wicked smile curving her mouth at his obvious discomfort. ‘For now. Perhaps there is merit in the use of unblooded servants, after all.’
Unblooded. Glide rolled the word over in his head, and almost laughed out loud. He had killed th
ree people. Thanks to his information, Jess was dead, and so too was Solace’s guardian.
Whatever I am now, he thought, the blood will never wash off.
Paige and Harper showed them upstairs – guiltily, as though the offer of cleanliness and rest were somehow vulgar. Solace was moving slowly by then, as was Evan, pain and the relief of Jess’s burial having dulled any desire for conversation. Only Paige spoke, and even then, she kept her words to a minimum, softly describing what to expect while Harper took the lead.
As promised, Manx had found a place for them to wash and sleep. Indoor plumbing was the dullest possible mystery of Starveldt, Solace distantly suspected, but one for which she was overwhelmingly grateful.
Eventually, she and Evan were shown to the door of a single room. Harper looked like he wanted to say something, but in an unusual display of quietude and tact, Paige gave the tiniest shake of her head, squeezed his hand and led him away.
Inside, there were two single beds, both made of antique wood and covered with musty linen. Tapestries hung on the walls, their images faded, but still colourful. Most glorious of all, there was a bathroom attached, its white enamel furnishings eerily modern against the ancient stone. Trembling in every muscle, Solace wandered through. As she contemplated the prospect of rest, her last reserves of strength ran out. Before she knew it, she was sitting, slumped, with her back to the shower recess. Despair bubbled through her like black tar, choking the breath from her lungs. She didn’t know what to do.
Evan crouched opposite her, his blue eyes soft. ‘Hey, Lacey.’
‘Hey.’
‘You need some help?’
She stared dumbly at him. ‘Help with what?’
‘Getting fixed up.’
‘Oh.’
Evan sighed and rocked back on his heels. Solace watched as he pulled his shirt off. The fabric was sticky with blood, smeared through to his chest, and like her, he was covered in dirt. His bruises from their encounter with Mikhail had faded, yellowbrown roses marking his pale skin. She reached out and touched the largest one, a discolouration across his lower ribs.
Evan shivered and looked away. ‘Yours will be worse than mine. Grief didn’t go easy on you.’
Solace managed a nod. She tried to shrug out of her jacket, but her muscles had stiffened since digging the grave, and they’d been sore before then. Even small movements hurt. Blood from her brother’s bite had half-stuck the leather to her neck, and she winced as her efforts prised it away. Leaning forward, Evan helped her finish the job. His hands grazed her collarbone, brushed down her arms. The jacket fell aside, and it was Solace’s turn to shiver. Evan stared at her. He was right: her hands and arms were already mottled with purple bruises.
‘I should find Electra,’ he said roughly. ‘We’ll both need new clothes. And towels.’
And before she could answer, he stood and left the room, leaving her with a jumble of contradictory thoughts.
Jess is dead. My sister, Jess, is dead. My sister. Jessica. Jess.
Evan couldn’t think. His feet moved independently of any other process. He passed through the stone halls of Starveldt, but he barely saw it. Everything inside him felt numb. There were tears, but they seemed inadequate. He couldn’t even feel the surface of his skin.
Electra, he told himself. Find Electra.
He couldn’t tell how much time had passed before he stumbled into one of the other rooms and found the summoner crouched by a bedside, pushing something into the space beneath. At the sound of his footsteps, she whirled and stared. Her eyes were red. She was Jess’s best friend. Had been. Was. The past tense had become a cruelty. For a moment, they stared at each other.
‘Clean stuff,’ he said, unable to articulate the context of the question. But somehow, Electra understood. Evan closed his eyes against the brightness of her Trick. When he looked again, she was handing him an armful of soft, new towels and clothes for Solace and himself.
Lacey.
What should he feel, at a time like this? Jess was dead. He shouldn’t want anything. But as he turned towards the door, all he could think about was forgetting, of making the same mistake he’d made with Laine, the better to take him away from himself. Neither girl deserved it, and this time, he really had wanted more. But the pain was too much. He couldn’t bear to be sensible.
‘Evan?’
He swung back to face Electra.
There was a black bag in her hands. She trembled as she spoke. ‘We went shopping for it, and she wanted you to have – it was for you, she said to summon it when we got here, and I thought, with the blood, but I can’t hang onto it –’
Falling silent, Electra thrust the bag at him. Evan took it without thinking, then made the mistake of peering at the contents.
It was a coat. He didn’t need to do more than look to tell that it was beautiful. Doubtless it would fit him perfectly. The breath seemed to solidify in his throat, so that he was choking. He waved the bag at Electra, willing her to take it back, but she stepped away again.
‘For your birthday,’ she whispered.
Evan fled.
Solace stared at her hands. They were caked with dried blood – Duchess’s, Jess’s and her own – and layered with grave dust. Suddenly, the thought of being filthy was intolerable. Wincing at the effort, she bent to remove her boots, her fingers fumbling with the laces, tugging at her socks. Pulling her top off was even worse: like Evan’s had been, it was partially stuck to her skin, and raising her arms caused a fiery ache to shoot through both shoulders.
Swearing, she gave up and pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the shower door. This close, she could make out the reflection of Grief ’s bite. It didn’t look good and unlike the mark she’d made on her own wrist, the skin he’d bitten away would take a while to heal. She wished she could get the scent of blood out of her nostrils. Her senses had been shut down before, everything muted by the haze of loss, but now they clamoured at her. The salty aroma was omnipresent and awful, the promise of food to a starving man, and she loathed herself for it.
Slumping down again, she rested her hands on the stone floor of Starveldt. The key was in her jacket, tossed in the corner opposite, but even so, she tried to reach for Jeon Faraday.
Are you there? she thought at him, and to her shock, an answer came.
Did you know this was going to happen?
A horrible notion occurred to her. Did Duchess?
Did Jess?
And just like that, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. As though the stone had burned her, Solace drew her hands into her lap. None of them had dwelt overly on Jess’s inability to read the future once they’d reached the Rookery, but like the words of the prophecy, it had been there all along, a clue that none of them had recognised. She wondered if Liluye, at least, had known who the Starkine was, or even if Duchess – Vivari – had, despite Jeon’s claim of the little cat’s ignorance. There was too much danger in such thoughts. Solace pushed them away.
She stood up, stepped into the shower and turned on the taps, crying out as an icy jet hit her wound. She forced herself to stand still, biting her lip as the temperature gradually warmed. The water dripping from her neck and arms turned red-brown. Solace braced her palms on the wall and closed her eyes, feeling the pressure drum against her, soaking into the fabric of her bra and pants. Minutes passed. She wanted to cry, but the tears were stuck in her throat, too small for such a loss.
Behind her, the door to the bedroom opened and closed. Startled, she whirled around, half afraid of attack. But it was only Evan, his arms laden with dry, clean things: a welcome luxury. They stared at each other through the foggy glass. The only sound was water falling. Her heart started to pound. Everything she felt was mixed up, care and anguish, regret and longing tangled together like clothes in a washing machine. Without speaking, Evan set down his bundle. Sh
edding only his shoes, he opened the shower door and stepped inside, pulling it closed behind him.
The shower drenched both of them. Neither spoke.
Solace closed her eyes. Suddenly, desperately, she wanted the comfort of physical contact, to take refuge in touch, but even thinking it felt like a betrayal. She dug her nails into her palms and waited. When she looked again, red lines snaked down Evan’s chest as Jess’s blood sloughed away. He stared at her, pain and naked hunger in his dark blue eyes. It was unbearable.
‘It’s my fault,’ she whispered. The weight of unshed tears tightened cruelly in her throat. ‘If I’d been faster … Harper was right, you should’ve all stayed in the Rookery. It’s me they want, and all I had to do was walk away, but I couldn’t –’
‘Solace –’
‘– it just got so tangled, you know? I’m such an idiot, all I had to do was read the signs –’
‘Solace –’
‘– and now she’s gone, and I don’t –’
‘Lacey?’ Evan’s voice was rough with emotion. ‘Shut up.’
‘ – understand,’ she finished, and then his mouth was on hers, warm and furious with need. The bond between them flared like wildfire. One hand cupped her jaw, the other folded against the curve of her hip. Evan pulled her close, and as the water poured down around them, Solace found there was no need to think at all.
Epilogue
There was no light, and no darkness. Everything around her was an absence: colourless, intangible and beyond the descriptive range of her current senses. Thoughts from her old life came and went, drifting through her consciousness like campfire smoke through morning fog, each concept almost identical to the substance through which it moved, but sharper, more distinct. Brother. Pain. Friends. Death. They felt like they should hold greater meaning – or, indeed, any meaning – but with each iteration, the ideas became more and more like echoes, everlessening repetitions of an earlier voice long gone, and soon to fade away completely. She felt herself dissolving, what little of her was left: bubbling away, rising, and dissipating like steam.