Spirit Ascendancy

by E. E. Holmes

  We piled into the car, Savvy sputtering incoherently at the reappearance of her Caomhnóir.

  “Hello, Ms. Todd? I hope you are well,” Bertie said to Savvy, with an odd sort of salute.

  I turned to her, smirking. “Ms. Todd?”

  “Don’t get me started. I’ve told him at least a hundred times to bugger off. No one’s ever called me Ms. Todd in my life but my headmistress right before a telling off. It gives me the creeps,” Savvy said with a shudder. She looked back at Bertie. “What the devil are you doing here? I thought you were lying in the hospital ward after that fire!” Her tone was almost accusatory, like he’d done something wrong by appearing so healthy.

  Bertie shook his head. “I wasn’t even in the castle when the fire started,” he said. “When I saw you slip out of the meeting in the Grand Council Room, I followed you, just in case you needed protecting. But I couldn’t find where you went, so I was wandering the grounds when the fire broke out.”

  “What the hell! So then, why did Lucida tell me…” Savvy began, but I cut her off.

  “Everything she told us about Fairhaven was a lie. She didn’t really go back to Fairhaven at all, or at least, she didn’t go back to check on everyone. She was working for the Necromancers, remember? She must have made up all those details about the aftermath of the fire, just so she could cover her tracks.”

  “Once we got the fire under control, I started looking for you again. I thought you might have left the grounds by crossing the border with a ghost, like you did before,” Bertie said, “so I went to investigate. I was on the very outskirts of the grounds when the Necromancers attacked. I didn’t know what to do, so I took one of the cars and made a break for it. I had to run one of them down to get away.” He pointed to a crack in the windshield and shuddered violently. “I think I might have killed him, but I didn’t stop to find out. Then I spotted Finn on the road a couple of miles from the castle, and I picked him up.”

  Finn said nothing, but cocked his head toward the passenger seat. Bertie unbuckled and slid over obediently, looking quite frankly relieved to let someone else do the driving.

  “Where are we going?” Bertie asked him, as Finn threw the car into drive and barreled up the tree-lined street.

  “Back to Fairhaven,” Finn said, eyes on the road.

  “What are we going to do when we get there?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

  19

  Truth of the Heart

  I PRESSED MY FOREHEAD to the back of the driver’s seat headrest and closed my eyes, because it felt easier to ask the question without having to chance seeing his face.

  “So are we going to talk about it?” I asked.

  All was silence but for the hum of the car rocketing along the highway. Savvy, Annabelle, and Bertie had fallen asleep an hour ago, and Milo, trying to save his strength for a check on Hannah when we got to Fairhaven, had not materialized or communicated since we’d left the camp. I knew he was there, though; I could feel the quiet pulse of his presence. Everyone had settled into a temporary bubble of relaxation, a brief moment between tensions, as the car covered the distance between one terror and another, and it was just the two of us, our heads separated from each other by a few inches of fabric, but our quiet voices covering a much larger, much murkier distance between us.

  “Talk about what?’ Finn asked, after a moment.

  “Don’t. Don’t do that. You know what I’m talking about.”

  He sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Why don’t you start with why you left?”

  “Don’t you already know why?” he asked.

  It was a cop-out and he knew it. I didn’t dignify it with a response, but he didn’t seem to expect me to. He sighed.

  “I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t stay and watch you risk that much. What if it had gone wrong? How do you think that would have made me feel, knowing that my one function in life is to protect you?”

  “It’s not your one function in—”

  “It is. I can’t understand what it was like growing up without knowing who you were. But you can’t understand what it was like growing up like I did. The Durupinen defined everything. It was the only lens I ever had to view the world. Everything about me was valued based on whether or not it would help me be a better Caomhnóir, even by my own mother. There was no discussion of what I would do with my life. There was no, ‘what are you going to be when you grow up?’ I’d already been told. So just try to get that, can’t you? If I seem a bit… obsessed with your safety, it’s because I am. It’s what I’ve trained and prepared my entire life for and I’m failing. Every time I turn around, I’m failing again.”

  “You’re not failing. You’re doing the best you can,” I said.

  He laughed incredulously. “The best I can? I’ve already lost half of my Gateway. Your sister was kidnapped by the Necromancers right out from under my nose. We had to use leeching to bring you back from the brink of death. Every Durupinen and Necromancer this side of the ocean is after you, and I’m driving you right into the viper’s den.”

  “But you’re doing it for the Gateway. That’s what you’re really protecting.”

  “It’s supposed to be,” he said. “I’ve failed at that too.”

  “What do you—”

  “Because somewhere along the way I got lost!” he cried, raising his voice in anguish, and causing the others to stir. He watched them anxiously in the rearview mirror, ensuring no one had woken before going on, his voice hushed, but urgent. “At first, protecting you and protecting the Gateway were supposed to be the same thing. I could do both at the same time. And then suddenly I had to choose, don’t you see? The Durupinen and the Gateway were endangering you, and suddenly I had to decide which one I was supposed to be protecting.”

  I shut my eyes tightly. This didn’t make any sense.

  “If you were so worried about protecting us, why did you leave? How could you protect us if you were gone?”

  “Add it to the list of failures,” Finn said. “But I was angry. I was working my arse off to keep you alive and you walked in there and told me you were going to risk it all needlessly.”

  “It wasn’t needless!” I could feel the old anger rising in me, and I did my damnedest to keep it out of my voice. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight here. I needed answers.

  “Any risk of your life feels needless to me. So I left. I left and I told myself that I didn’t care. If you didn’t care enough to protect your own life, then neither did I. If you were going to make my job impossible, then I was done trying to do it.”

  “So then why did you come back?”

  “When I left, I decided to go back to Fairhaven. It took days to make the journey. I was able to hitchhike a bit of the way, but I mostly stayed off the main roads, knowing that people were still out looking for us. When I finally arrived, I knew I could never let anyone see me there, but I thought I could at least sneak onto the grounds, assess the damage, and find out what happened to my sister.”

  I sat up straight. “Oh my God, your sister! Was she… is she okay?”

  “Olivia’s fine,” Finn said. “Or at least, she was when I left. I camped out in the woods and caught sight of her my second day there. I was just laying low, deciding what to do next, whether to risk contacting her or not, when the Necromancers attacked.

  “That was three days ago. They descended in numbers far greater than I could have imagined. I don’t know how they got to be so numerous and so powerful without the Durupinen ever catching wind of it, but they were a veritable army. And they have hundreds of spirits at their command. They are completely under Necromancer control. Well, actually…” he glanced into the rear view mirror again, catching my eye, “they’re under Hannah’s control.”

  “Hannah’s control? How do you know that? What did you see?”

  “I saw her,” he said, almost apologetically. “She was walking with them, heavily protected, working some kind of casting. She
was carrying a torch, and the torch was… screaming, just like the fire back at the camp. And the Necromancers were giving them orders and the spirits were just obeying them without question. It was as though they were hypnotized.”

  I put hands up over my face. “They’re not hypnotized. They’re using Blind Summoners as Wraiths. They’re empty, Finn. It’s like they’re ghost zombies or something; they don’t even know who their human selves were. Every scrap of their humanity is trapped in that torch. Or at least it was, but God only knows what happened to them if Hannah let it go out.”

  “She wouldn’t let it go out,” Finn said, and I could almost hear the question in his voice.

  “I honestly don’t know what she would do anymore,” I said.

  “But surely she’s not doing it voluntarily,” Finn said. “They must be forcing her hand. Why else would she do that for them?”

  “It’s Lucida,” I said, and plunged into the entire story, explaining how Milo and I had discovered the connection between us and Hannah, and everything we’d seen while we were using it to spy on her. When I’d finished, Finn’s mouth was hanging open.

  “Lucida’s alive? But how did she…” he couldn’t even finish the question.

  “She used leeching. She stored up the spirit energy somehow, and used it to heal herself. I can only imagine it’s another trick she learned from the Necromancers. Anyway, Hannah has always trusted her, so she’s probably the best method of persuasion the Necromancers could possibly have.”

  “So they’ve turned her?”

  “I think so.”

  Finn took a deep breath and blew it out again. “Well, that changes some things.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  A long and loaded silence stretched between us, making the space between the front and back seats seem suddenly enormous. I almost didn’t have the courage to break it.

  “So tonight…”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “When Fairhaven was attacked, I knew I had to get help. I almost stayed to fight, but when I saw the Wraiths, I knew I’d just wind up another captive, and that wasn’t going to help anyone. I thought if I could get back to the Traveler camp and tell them what had happened, they might offer to help, or at least help us find other clans that would fight with us. And so I was on my way back when Bertie drove up and found me. I thought it would take us forever to find the encampment again in the dark, but I was wrong. I could see the flames and the smoke from the edge of the forest, and I knew the Necromancers must have found you at last, so I told Bertie to wait with the car and I came to find you.”

  “And you did,” I said. “And you thought I was dead.”

  “Yes.”

  I waited, but he wasn’t going to mention it. It was up to me.

  “And you kissed me.”

  Pressing, pressing silence. Then, “Yes.”

  “Why, Finn? Why did you do that?”

  “I don’t know. It was a mistake. Forget about it,” he said, with every ounce of his usual brusqueness.

  “Seriously? A mistake? No, a mistake is if you tripped and fell and landed with your lips on my face. That’s a mistake.”

  “I said forget about it. Can’t you just let it go?” he asked.

  “No!” I said. “I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. I deserve some sort of explanation, Finn.”

  “What is there to explain?” he asked.

  It was my turn to laugh now. “Gee, let’s see; how about why someone who actually hates me winds up kissing me.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “You hate all of us!” I said. “That was all part of that upbringing you were just talking about, wasn’t it? Durupinen are evil temptresses who steal your soul and suck your blood and wear your testicles as earrings, and all the rest of that bullshit. You’ve never said a single word to me that wasn’t insulting at the worst and condescending at the very best. You had to be dragged kicking and screaming to your initiation, that’s how badly you wanted to get away from us!”

  “That… it wasn’t what it looked like,” Finn said sharply.

  “Oh really? You didn’t turn up until three quarters of the way through the ceremony, and only because the other Caomhnóir found you and forced you to come. What am I supposed to think?”

  “I didn’t… I just couldn’t face it, okay?”

  “And you still can’t! You left us, Finn! So why would you turn around and kiss me like that?

  “I… you don’t…”

  “And what I really can’t figure out is why you would take the time to risk your life to protect me when you can’t even stand the sight of me. And who can blame you? Women are evil, and Hannah and I are like, particularly evil coming from this outcast family who screwed up your whole precious system, and now you’re stuck with us, and we keep landing us in worse and worse trouble.”

  “Just… here!” Finn said, and dropped something small and hard over the back of his seat and into my lap.

  “What’s this?” I asked. I picked it up and recognized it in the passing light of oncoming headlights. “What do I want with this? I already know what you write in these,” I said, flinging it back at him. “You dropped one near the wagon when you walked out on us.”

  “I was wondering what happened to that one. You read it?” he asked.

  “Some of it,” I said. “I admit I was surprised. Up until last week I was pretty sure these were full of page after page of ‘All work and no play makes Finn a dull boy’.”

  “What?”

  I actually knocked my head against the window. “Nothing. Never mind. I don’t see what any of this has to do with why you left.”

  The little book came sailing back over the seat and smacked me in the forehead.

  “Ouch!”

  “Shhh!”

  “How about sorry?” I hissed.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he grumbled. “But just… you need to read it.”

  “Reading this is going to help me understand why you left?”

  “Yes. And also why I came back. And also why I… just read it.”

  Sighing deeply, I flipped open the little book and read the poem on the very first page.

  JESS

  She abides with darkness.

  It clings to her like ash

  To the tips of her eyelashes, to the soles of her feet.

  It wraps about her, a soft, gossamer shroud

  That shields the world from the shine of her eyes.

  If I could brush it like stardust

  From the constellations of her cheeks,

  And see beyond the seeping veil, the blossoming sorrow,

  What mightn’t I give to be so blinded?

  All within me, surely, the pulse of every cell

  For a single brush of lip on lip.

  I read it again. Then I read it again. I couldn’t turn the page. I couldn’t move beyond this single collection of words.

  “What is this?” I finally asked.

  He hesitated, as though he thought it might be a trick question. “A poem.”

  “No. Yes, but… what is this?” I asked. “The title is ‘Jess.’”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s… but you… you don’t like me.”

  “That’s not true,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, it is. You’re not even nice to me. You don’t like me,” I repeated, still staring down at the words on the page, which were causing my stomach to churn in the strangest way.

  “You’re right. I wasn’t nice to you. But it wasn’t because I didn’t like you. It was because I fell in love with you almost the first minute I saw you, and that goes against everything I’ve ever been taught.”

  “I… you… what?” I said helplessly.

  “I can’t explain it. It was just one of those things, like you read about in books, but you never think it really happens that way, not in real life, to real people. But it did. I walked into the room and saw you, and that was it. And I was terrif
ied and angry, because the teachers told us we would be tested. They said that we would be tempted, and that it was the mark of the true Caomhnóir to resist such temptation. I thought I was ready, and there you were on the very first day, tearing my resistance to shreds with a single glance.”

  I was just mouthing wordlessly, staring down at my own name on the page. This was not happening.

  “I tried to poison myself against you. I listened to all the gossip, but it just stoked this fire inside me, and it was all I could do not to tear anyone and everyone down who said a word against you. And I knew I had to get away from you. I knew I couldn’t be tied to you for life, because the agony of it would destroy me. I went to Seamus and asked to be reassigned. When he refused, I went to Finvarra. I never told either of them the real reason. They assumed I was prejudiced against your clan, just like most everyone else, and I let the assumption stand. I panicked when the initiation came, and I ran for it. As you know, I didn’t get far, and suddenly there we were, bound together for the foreseeable future. And perhaps the worst part of it all was that you so clearly despised me.”

  “I don’t… I didn’t… I just thought you hated me, so I put my guard up,” I said. I still couldn’t look at him. It was so much easier to keep my eyes glued to the words of the poem, the words that grew more and more beautiful every time I read them.

  “Of course you did. I did everything I could to make sure you did. Like I said, I wanted to put as much distance between us as possible. Since physical distance wasn’t really an option, I just kept building that wall. And all the while these feelings for you kept burrowing under it to the other side. So I trapped them between the pages of those books before I could give myself away.”

  “Mission accomplished,” I said weakly. “I had no idea.”

  “And then there we were in that Traveler camp, and you walked in and told me that you were going to risk your life like that, and I just snapped. I couldn’t stay there and watch it happen. I couldn’t stop you, and I couldn’t save you, and so I ran. Again. And if the Necromancers hadn’t attacked when they did, it would have been a matter of days before I was back here again, with my tail between my legs, begging your forgiveness, because I knew within hours of leaving that I wouldn’t be able to stay away. And then I did come back, and I saw you there on the ground, and I thought…”