Wait. I tried to speak, but nothing happened. My voice was lost somewhere, spinning there in the darkness, trapped in Father’s soul. Wait, no, this isn’t right. I couldn’t know what exactly the Binder meant, but how could it be kindness when all I knew of this place was pain?
It was too late. Seven had made its decision. I saw a flash of understanding in Mother’s eight eyes, her arms still lifted in pleading and prayer, and then she, too, was hoisted into the air with us, held by the Binder’s unnaturally strong hands.
Father’s screams were unending, but I didn’t look at him. I could only stare at Mother, hoping she could see in my dying eyes that this was not what I wanted, that none of this was balanced. That none of this was fair.
Then Father’s spirit thinned, turning slowly to smoke, smoke that was caught in one of the Binder’s jars, settling there to mix with some inky liquid within. A quill was dipped into the vessel and a blank book was produced from the shadowy nothingness above us. At least, I thought, helpless and hurting, it would not be Mother’s skin used to make that new cover, as it was already bound in something smooth and pale. Whose it was, I would never know, but I saw the beginning of the binding, of the writing—Father’s spirit, his knowledge of the Dark Fae book, rewritten in his own essence.
One of the thin, pale hands of the Binder wrapped around Mother’s neck and began to squeeze. I was frozen, dying, and soon she would be, too. Her arms stretched out toward me, her lips twisted in a lost, sad smile. I watched her tears disappear into the void around us and heard Malatriss cackle with satisfaction from somewhere beneath our feet.
“Courage, Louisa, daughter,” she whispered. “Your feet are on the path. I’ll be going with you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It did not feel as if my feet were on the path. I felt . . . nothing. What a strange sensation, nothing. No pain and no fear, no understanding if I had become hot or cold, or if my body was scattered in a million pieces. Instead, I existed only in my mind, in a place, like the tomb, out of time. I was dead, that much I understood, or soon to be dead, suspended by the Binder’s will, not in my body and not yet laid to rest.
When sound and light and feeling returned, it was all too much. I cried, as a baby must cry, forced through darkness and uncertainty, entering the world reluctant and confused. The place of not feeling or knowing was better than this. Here, back on the floor of the Tomb of Ancients, there was only more pain. Dust. The smell of wet leaves and earth, as if I had not been born but sprouted from the ground. My arm remained useless, broken, limp, and aching at my side.
The Binder waited above, Malatriss hovering close, and Mother, sprawled and empty on the stones, dead at the place of her birth.
I pulled myself toward Mother, heedless of the Binder, of its arms like slender white birds flying through the air as they prepared the new book and unwrote another. Mother looked as if she could be sleeping, with her lips slightly parted, as if the last breath pulled from her had been a sweet one. She didn’t smile, but her eyes were closed, her hair pooled around her like a pillow of camellias.
“After all that I did to save you, it wasn’t enough,” I whispered, finding that touching her hand did not give the same soothing comfort. “I failed you. I should never have brought you to this place. You were nothing but peace and light, no soul so undeserving.”
A shadow fell over us. Malatriss.
“Are you quite finished?”
“You.” Refusing to leave Mother’s side, I twisted toward her on the floor, wincing as my injured arm took some of my weight, then collapsed. “I won’t let you keep her body,” I whispered fiercely, covering Mother with my arms. “It was not one of your demands.”
Malatriss glared down at me with her yellow eyes. One single scratch bled across her shoulder. Father’s doing. Her snake had not suffered, still wound faithfully around her neck. “It would not be wise for you to return here, little one, no matter how great your need. I grow weary of your tone.”
“What is this all for?” I sighed, lifting Mother’s hand and clutching it. “The books, the gods, the Binders. Why keep them here? Why not just give the world all of these creations?”
It was not Malatriss who answered me but Seven. I had not expected to be worthy of its notice now that it had passed judgment, but the egg-round head and soft white torso dipped low, regarding me with a curious smile.
“This one sees so much yet understands so little. Chaos, Daughter of Trees. Because chaos. The humans wander. They squabble. They battle. All so amusing. And if the humans do it, why shouldn’t the gods? It is one more game to watch, one more match to observe.”
Chaos and balance. I shook my head, outraged, knowing that many a wicked and wayward schoolgirl had proposed to me that there truly was no God above, and that all our mortal toiling was meaningless. But to hear it, plainly, from one that might actually know . . .
“So it . . . it’s all a game,” I murmured. “You create the books, these gods, just to see which one will win?”
The Binder stared at me as if I were simple and perhaps a bit pathetic. “Well. Yes.”
“A game. A game. My friends, the shepherd’s people, Father, Mother, all of us bashing against one another just for your amusement?” A voice within me said to be still. A voice within me said that nothing more could be done, that to die here would accomplish nothing. I held my tongue for one moment longer, then took a long breath and said, “And if I refuse to play this hateful game?”
All the Binder’s free hands, perhaps twenty in total, spread wide. “What this one does when it leaves this place is not for me to say. But I will watch this one.” And here Seven smiled for the first time, and it shook me to my bones. “I will watch this one with great interest.”
“You will be disappointed,” I said.
The scribbling above us stopped; the quill rewriting our book had finished its task. It had all happened so quickly, but then, to these strange and otherworldly beings, our lives—our game—was probably a play readily consumed. Our human lives, no doubt, passed but in the blink of an eye, and the eternal ones like the shepherd and Mr. Morningside warranted only marginally more attention. We cannot be killed, Father had told me, only be made to surrender. Only . . . That was no longer true of me. I sensed not even the smallest trace of Father’s influence in my mind. I forced myself to think of the shepherd, and about him, my feelings were blessedly my own.
That was the one good thing to come of all this . . . loss.
I dragged myself up and watched as Malatriss accepted the finished book from Seven. She received it reverently enough, then placed it into the bag I had discarded. Returning to me, she waited until I offered my back and then slipped the shoulder straps over my arms, surprisingly cautious of my broken right arm.
“How will you take her from this place?” she taunted, hissing in my ear, so close that I felt the beads of her collar brush my good arm. “We do not waste a single part. You may leave her knowing she will resume her place in the world as a future book, as pages, as another story to tell. You will never see it, but she will not be wasted. You may take her spirit with you, but you cannot take her body from the tomb. You haven’t the strength.”
“Watch me.”
The book was not heavy this time, but light. I supposed that only the words of another or other gods weighted one down. Mother was still sprawled beneath the Binder, and I turned from Malatriss, crouching and slipping one arm under her soft, feathered gown. It did not matter how difficult the burden, I would carry her back with me.
Malatriss observed, then smiled as I gained my feet again, grunting, struggling, but still managing to slide Mother along with me as I approached the doorkeeper.
“She should be in that case,” I spat. “She should be at rest.”
Her eyes widened, the snake around her neck drawing back. “She is at rest, little one. In you.”
I blinked. “Like . . . Father was? Her whole mind and will was given to me, not just her spirit?”
“I am sure you will hear her,” Malatriss said with a nod, “when she is ready to speak.”
Mother did not speak as Malatriss led me away from the single pool of light in the tomb. And she remained silent as the Binder retreated to its nesting place, its body and legs receding into the deep shadows of the vast, perhaps endless top of the tomb. This had been a place of my dreams once, and with Mother within me, I wondered if I would see it again. I wondered if it would return only as a nightmare, after all this.
Mother remained silent as I limped along, dragging her body because I could not properly carry her. Over and over again I looked at her lips, realizing each time that they would be still. The tomb never brightened, but I sensed the sleeping forms of all those gods around us, waiting to be pawns again in the Binders’ games.
A door appeared, much like the one that we had entered through at the castle, but instead of blackness beyond there was the promise of something else. I saw green and sunlight, a hint of ancient stone. There was nothing to feel but persistence. Need. The way out lay before me. Mother had to come along, and no matter how long it took to drag her out, I would huff and sweat and grunt and struggle. She would not be fodder for another book. She deserved to have the sun’s kiss and the fields’ embrace one more time.
Malatriss waited next to the door, her head drawn back, chin high. She lifted one dark brown brow in expectation as I sidled toward freedom. Her snake, Nira, danced its head back and forth, sizing me up for a meal.
“Do not trouble yourself,” I told her, sensing the cold, fresh air of our world. “I will never come here again. I wouldn’t be willing.”
She froze, but the snake darted forward, wrapping itself around me, Malatriss holding her tail while the snake squeezed, forcing the breath out of me. In my shock, Mother’s body slid out of my grasp.
“You were the first to survive the dice and the Binder in this place,” Malatriss whispered, her eyes as cold as the void. She flashed her razor-sharp teeth. “Maybe you should die instead. Maybe it would be better if nobody escaped, not even when fortune and fate have their way.”
“Please.” My hands wrapped around the snake, and I found Mother’s strength, pressing hard, digging my fingers into the soft, fleshy middle of the creature. “Let me go, or your pet dies with me.”
“Nira!”
It was a call to attack. But I could attack, too, with what little strength I still possessed. I had come too far, lost too much, to give up on the threshold of survival. My hands crushed down before the snake could strike, and it gave a strangled hiss. Malatriss screamed in fury, and I felt the creature’s grasp loosen around my neck. With the last of my breath, I pulled, hard, flinging the broken snake at her mistress, crouching, grabbing Mother by the shoulders and dragging until every muscle screamed. The door was open only a crack, and it closed, slowly, but I forced us through, listening to Malatriss weep and curse as we landed on the other side, my last glimpse of the Binder’s realm a mouth full of teeth and sorrow.
I collected myself on the other side with a gasp, falling to my knees under the dead weight of Mother’s body. At first, I was greeted with silence, then intermittent bird song, then a long, groaning harooh that I knew could belong only to a dog.
That spurred me to my feet, and I ignored the blinding pain in my arm, staggering under my burden, taking one slow step after another away from the castle door. There was no ramp this time; I had simply been dumped out where I had begun, like so much unwanted refuse. A low sprawl of bodies lay across the courtyard, each more covered in blood than the last.
Khent was closest to the door, lying in a heap, panting, lingering in his moon-touched form. But the moon was gone now, the sun returned once we emerged from the door. I watched the magic fade from him until he was but a man again, slashed with deep wounds, his eye and jaw badly bruised. Mother slid from my arms gently, and I joined him on the ground, pressing the blood-soaked fringe from his eyes and breathing a sigh of relief as he swore, spat blood, and slicked the sweat from his face.
“Did we win?” he asked, head lolling back on his shoulders.
“In a fashion,” I said at first. Then, “No, not really. But stars, I’m so happy to see you alive.”
“Me, too,” he teased, then twisted on his side. “That one was about to finish me off,” Khent explained, pointing at Finch. “But then . . . but then . . .”
“The book,” I told him. “It’s gone. I cannot say what will happen to them now.”
“Teyou, they dropped all at once,” he said. “Like leaves floating one by one down to a river.” He noticed me favoring my left arm and frowned, getting onto his knees and gingerly taking my right wrist. I hissed through my teeth, clamping a hand down on his shoulder.
“Broken. No idea what it looks like. Frankly, I’m not ready to see.”
“We must find a physician then.” Khent stood, shaky, and lifted me up by my waist. “Or Mother could try to heal you, but—”
“But she’s gone,” I finished. We had only a moment to look at her, for there was movement among the other bodies. Their need was more urgent, and I accepted Khent’s help as he guided me over toward the three men flat in the dirt.
“Did you do it?” Dalton gasped. He did not appear terribly hurt, but he clasped his chest, gulping air, harder and harder, and it was clear he could not breathe. “Is it gone?”
“I destroyed it. I’m so sorry, I don’t know if it was right . . .” I lowered myself next to him, and took the hand that he offered, letting him place it back on his fluttering chest. “You’re dying.”
“Now that it comes to it,” he whispered. “I’m not afraid. Tell Henry . . . Tell him I was wrong. He can be more than he is. There’s still time.” Blood trickled from his lips, and I reached under him to support his head. He wasn’t finished, and I wasn’t leaving until he had said all he wanted to say. “What was it like?” Dalton asked. The bandage had fallen away from his eyes, and I gently wiped the blood and perspiration from his forehead, looking down into the darkened red pits where his eyes had been. “Was it astounding?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “But terrible, too. I wish I could tell you all about it.”
“My dreams of it will be better,” he said. “They always are. But this feeling . . . I think it’s time for me to go now. I think I have no choice.”
I pressed my eyes shut and tried not to let it hurt so much. “I’ve killed you,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“You saved your folk, gave them a chance,” Dalton wheezed, a thick clot of blood dribbling down his chin. “That’s what I wanted. We never let them have that before. You will say goodbye to Fathom? The safe house,” he said at last, “I want it to be hers.”
A muddled groan came from behind us, and Dalton’s head turned toward the sound. “Father—”
But there was no more, the last word pulled everything out of him. There were no eyes to stare or close, but I felt him go, felt the last shuddering breath that rustled the grass. Gently, I let his head fall back into the green carpet of the courtyard, and then laid the bandage once more over his face, folding his arms one at a time across his chest.
Mother had not spoken until then, but her spirit whispered to me now.
One kiss to the moon, one bow to the sun
A gift of flowers to where the wild deer run
That is all that is asked, when our day is done
I repeated the prayer to Dalton, knowing it was what Mother had used to send restless souls to their repose. And then it seemed the wind took him, and all at once he was a riot of yellow butterflies and light.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A wren fell out of the nest once outside my dormitory window at Pitney. Jenny and I puzzled over what to make of it, neglecting our mandatory exercises. Neither of us cared much for taking turns about the lawn to keep the bloom in our cheeks, and so instead we hid behind a solid oak and debated what to do with the dazed bird.
“We could knock it on the head and put it in
Francine’s bed,” Jenny suggested.
It was creative but nonetheless cruel. To the bird, obviously. Francine could go soak. “I’m not sure I can bring myself to kill it.”
“The nest is awfully high. We might fall and break a leg trying to put it back.”
Jenny was reasonable and creative. It was part of why I liked her, and why we had become fast friends. Perhaps also we had become friends because we were the only two girls at Pitney who would spend time considering whether or not to shove dead birds into a rival’s bedclothes. Francine and the rest would never consider something so vulgar, but they had not grown up in the shit-stained slums. Their distant family still wanted them in some regard, and they simply awaited their return to place them as a governess or to offer them off to some random lad as marriage material.
“If we leave it, then a fox will come,” Jenny added.
“But isn’t that what would have happened if we had never found it?” I asked. I dropped the stick that might have been used as a tool of execution. The wren twitched, little feet kicking helplessly. “We never notice the bird. The fox comes. The fox eats the bird. If we cannot decide anything productive, then I believe we should let nature take its course.”
Jenny presented no compelling alternative, and so we left the bird behind the tree and returned to our vigorous walking. The next day, alone, I looked behind the oak. Nothing remained but a tuft of feathers. The fox had found its meal, or the bird had regained itself and hopped away. I think I always knew the answer, but I told myself the wren escaped unscathed.
The fallen wren lying before me today was not so lucky. The fox had found this bird, and I could only wonder if anything would remain of him after.
I knelt next to the shepherd, amazed at his smallness. He was not a large man, but in dying he seemed to shrink more; his arms were very short, and his oversize flannels made him look childlike. Pitiable. Dark blood ran from his lips as I knelt beside him. Khent stood a ways off, perhaps aware that he was not invited to the exchange. Or perhaps he did not trust that our battle was truly over.
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