The priest shook his head slowly. “It’s dangerous, my lad, to invoke powers you don’t understand.”
Invoke. He knew that word. Invocation. It meant, like, to speak an invitation to someone. “He’s a person, don’t worry. He’s not a demon or anything.”
The priest grabbed his forearm. “Son, I’m not talking about demons. There are such creatures, and they are dangerous. But I am talking about the people of the Sunlit Lands.”
Wait. “You know them? Creepy guys who want to trade a year of your life in exchange for letting someone breathe again?”
The priest nodded. “When I was a boy, I was orphaned in a fire. I lived on the streets, and a man came to me and said that in exchange for a few years in the Sunlit Lands fighting the accursed Scim, I could have wealth and a family.”
Whoa. So the bargain . . . it was real. This guy had taken a deal, and here he was, alive and back in the real world. But the old man didn’t seem exactly happy about it, either. And he said he had made the deal when he was a boy. How long had this war been going on, anyway?
Everything in Jason told him there was more to the story than the lacy stranger was saying, that somehow—and he couldn’t see how—the deal was rigged. But then again, here was this priest, alive and well, as far as Jason could see. His bargain had been different, though . . . “wealth and a family.” There was a big difference between wealth and a miraculous healing. And also, so far as Jason knew, priests weren’t known for being wealthy. Or for having family. At least, not a wife and kids.
“They’re trying to make a deal with my friend. She’s dying, and they said they can make her well.”
The priest’s eyes softened. “Perhaps they can. But enter into agreements with them carefully, and—” He looked into Jason’s eyes, as if studying his soul. “Don’t send her alone, young man. It’s a hard road to walk, but without a friend . . .”
“It won’t matter if I can’t find the guy. My friend’s not going to last long.”
The old man’s lips began to tremble. “What was his name? This magic man?”
“I can’t remember. Starts with an h. Hamburger? Something like that.”
The old man echoed the name. “Hamburger?”
“Hamburglar? Hambutcher? Hamolee? I don’t know.”
“Hanali?” the old man asked, tears welling up in his eyes. “Listen to me very closely—”
And then Hanali stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall, plucking at the lace around his sleeves. “You only had to say my name,” he said nonchalantly. “I was listening for it.” Hanali looked at the priest, whose tears had frozen on his cheeks. Time had stopped again. Hanali studied the old man’s face, and his eyes darted to Jason, then back to the priest. “You are fortunate this old man said my name,” he said slowly.
“I said Hamburger like five times.”
“But my name is Hanali,” the thin man said, standing up straight. “Though I suspect you knew that already.”
How long had it been now? Three minutes? Five? Was it too late already? Jason knew about bargaining, knew that you can’t show how badly you need something. Everything in him wanted to grab the guy by his oversized lapels and shake the bracelet loose, run down the hallway, and slide it onto Madeline’s wrist. Instead, Jason shrugged. “Madeline is thinking about taking the bracelet.”
Hanali produced it from his sleeve. “And the bargain which accompanies it?”
“Yeah. Except I’m going to go with her.”
Hanali hesitated. “I did not come to bargain with you.”
“On the other hand,” Jason said, “your weird magic doesn’t affect me, which must mean something.”
“Indeed.” Hanali’s expression clouded just for a moment, and then his face smoothed, as if he had put on a mask. He pulled out a second silver bracelet and showed it to Jason. “If you are to join her, you must agree to a year of service to the Elenil in exchange for your heart’s desire.”
“No. I’d make a terrible servant and a worse soldier. How about I agree to come to the Sunlit Lands, but no guarantees on any service or allegiance or anything like that. In exchange I get a unicorn.”
The stranger shook his head. “Of what use is that pledge? We give you entrance to utopia in exchange for a unicorn? They are war beasts, in any case, and not given to civilians.”
“Aha! So you admit you have unicorns! Okay. New deal. I get to ride a unicorn. And in exchange I live among you for a year.”
“It won’t do. You asked to own a unicorn, so clearly to ride one is less than your heart’s desire. The archon and the magistrates would punish me for such a bargain. Though I must admit many would find you entertaining, and perhaps you are meant to join us. Still, it is a frivolous vow to make. Especially when sealed with the power of the Crescent Stone.”
It hadn’t occurred to Jason that Hanali might not take him. The thought of Madeline going alone made him feel sick. He thought of his sister, Jenny. He thought of his failure. He needed to go with Madeline. To make sure there was someone with her, whatever happened. “Final offer. I pledge allegiance to Madeline. Whatever she tells me to do, I do. In exchange, I get my non-unicorn-related heart’s desire.”
Hanali touched his fingers to his mouth. “It might suffice. For if Madeline is pledged to the Elenil, and you to her, then are you not in some sense pledged to them?” Hanali stepped closer, peering into Jason’s face. “And I sense in you a deep sorrow. Perhaps it is sufficient to meet the conditions necessary to come to the Sunlit Lands. So be it. What shall your payment be?”
Jason paused. It felt dangerous to share anything real. And the things he wanted most, well, honestly, even if it was in this weirdo’s power, he didn’t think it would end well. “I really like those hospital pudding cups.”
Hanali’s eyes widened. “A pudding cup?”
“One pudding cup a day,” Jason said. “In the morning, at breakfast, when God intended pudding to be eaten.”
Hanali looked at Jason warily, as if sensing a trap. “One pudding cup a day, in the morning, for the duration of your human year in the Sunlit Lands.”
Jason looked at Hanali as if he had said something insane. “For the rest of my life,” he said.
Confusion flitted across Hanali’s face. He didn’t understand the request, didn’t know if he was being played in some way. Good. Let him wonder.
Hanali weighed the bracelets in his gloved hand.
“Now or never,” Jason said. “I know it’s a lot of pudding—”
Hanali grimaced and held out the bracelets. “The deal is struck,” he said.
Jason reached for the bracelets, then paused.
Hanali raised an eyebrow.
“Chocolate pudding,” Jason said. “Don’t try to pull a fast one with that fake vanilla stuff.”
“Yes, yes, infuriating child, chocolate pudding. The deal is struck. Will you make me say it thrice?”
Jason shook the bracelets together. They were cold, like they had been in a freezer. “Deal.”
Hanali scowled and lightly touched Jason’s arm. He leaned close to the priest. “What is this man’s name?” Hanali examined his face. “He has a familiar look.” He sniffed experimentally. “There’s a whiff of smoke to his life, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I randomly bumped into him.”
Hanali studied Jason’s face, looking for a lie. “Randomly. Hmm. What a strange creature you are.” He straightened and put his arms behind his back. “Once your friend has her bracelet, you must follow the way to the Sunlit Lands. She won’t be permanently healed right away. The magic responds to intention. So long as she is moving toward fulfilling her promise, her breathing will improve.”
“How will we know the way? Is it over on Fifth Street? There’s weird stuff over there.”
“The way will open if you follow,” Hanali said. “It is a narrow path. You may need to leave certain things behind.” He hesitated. “Or certain people.”
A jolt went through Jason
. He had forgotten Darius. He would want to go too, Jason knew. He would insist on it. “Wait—”
“The deal is struck,” Hanali said. “The bargain final.” Then the Elenil man disappeared, and time flowed in around Jason like water in a tide pool.
“—you must not make a deal with Hanali under any circumstances,” the priest finished.
Jason pulled away and flashed the two bracelets at the priest. “Too late.”
The priest’s mouth gaped open. “He was here? Hanali?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, and he slid one of the cold bracelets over his left hand. It constricted like a snake around his wrist, digging in deep until it felt like it would break his bones. Jason gasped and leaned on the old priest for support. Then there was a sound, a pop, and it disappeared into his skin, leaving only a silver-looking tattoo with a glowing circle where the clouded gem had been.
“Oh no. My child. What have you done?” Tears slid down the old man’s cheeks. He helped Jason straighten, and the left sleeve of his black jacket pulled up, revealing a shiny mess of old scars. The scars crisscrossed and spun around his wrist in a pattern similar to the silver tattoo on Jason’s own wrist.
“She can’t breathe,” Jason said. “There wasn’t another choice.”
The priest looked at him sadly. “There is always a choice.”
But Jason was already running toward her room. “She’ll die without this!”
The priest shouted something, but Jason couldn’t hear. The words kept ringing in his ears: There is always a choice. But if it ends in death, is that really a choice? Can that even be on the table as a possibility?
No.
Blood rushed to Jason’s face.
Definitely not. Not if he was making the call.
Darius was leaning against the wall outside the room. He straightened when he saw Jason. “They won’t let me back in,” Darius said.
“She needs this,” Jason said, panting. He couldn’t breathe now, either.
Darius looked skeptical. “This is the bracelet?”
Jason didn’t have time to keep explaining everything to Darius, and in the end, did it matter? Darius wasn’t going with them. Jason’s stomach clenched with guilt. He hadn’t meant to make that decision for them, but he had. “Yes, Darius, this is it,” he snapped, much more curtly than he had intended. “This is magic jewelry from Hamburger, and it’s gonna make Madeline better as soon as we stick it on her left wrist. Then we’re going on an adventure to Narnia or whatever, and when she gets back you can figure out if you’re going to date. But in the meantime, she can’t breathe, so first things first, yeah?”
Darius searched Jason’s face. “Narnia?” he asked, with a sort of quiet reverence. He looked at the bracelet, turning it over in his hands. “It’s cold.”
“Magic,” Jason said and showed Darius his wrist.
Darius nodded. “Okay. You open the door. I’ll do the rest.” Jason yanked the door open, and a nurse came flying over to close it, but Darius dodged the nurse, and then he was soaring toward Madeline like a rocket, the bracelet stretched out in front of him, the silver designs shining in the artificial light.
6
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
How can I be loyal to the king and disloyal to my beloved friends? I will never leave you. I will follow you to the ends of the earth.
PRINCE IAN, IN THE GOLD FIRETHORNS BY MARY PATRICIA WALL
Darius saved her. Whatever came later, that was something to remember. It was Darius who saved her life.
The room was crowded with people in scrubs and the blaring screams of the machines, the clipped orders from the doctor, the quick replies of the nurses. Darius burst in, spinning past the nurse who stepped in front of him. He danced through the crowd of medical people until he arrived on the left side of her bed and slipped the bracelet onto her wrist.
The bracelet did nothing for a terrifying three seconds.
Then it tightened.
It kept tightening until it was cutting into her skin. She gasped, and then the burning started. The bracelet seared her like it had been in an oven. It glowed furnace bright. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it, the bracelet cooled. On her left wrist was the latticework of a silver tattoo, and the clouded jewel had grown to the size of a watch’s face, glowing beneath her skin.
And she could breathe.
The sudden burst of oxygen rushed to her head, and a dizzy wave of giddiness washed over her. She was breathing again, gulping in the sterile, cool hospital air. She wrapped her arms around Darius and felt his strong arms encircle her, almost lifting her from the bed.
The doctors pulled him away. Someone called for security, and Madeline tried to object, but she was so shocked she couldn’t speak. She just kept breathing, and for the first time in a long time it felt like she could keep breathing forever, like a normal person, breathe for ten, twenty, seventy years without thinking about it.
A security guard had Darius by the arm and was pulling him out of the room. “Can you breathe?” Darius shouted.
“Yes! Thank you,” she said, but it was more whisper than words, and she wasn’t sure he heard. She wanted to tell the guard to let him stay, she wanted to explain to the doctors that she was okay now, but she was overwhelmed, confused, and breathing. There was scarcely room in her head for anything but that.
A smile like sunlight spread across his face. “I’ll wait for you downstairs,” he called. “I won’t leave.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. Darius always said that. I won’t leave. She knew it was true. He had already stuck with her through some terrible things, and there was no evidence he would stop. It was what Prince Ian said to Lily in The Gold Firethorns, the third Meselia book: “I will never leave you. I will follow you to the ends of the earth.” That’s what Darius always said to her. When she first started to get sick. When the diagnosis came. When she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing another doctor’s face. To the ends of the earth.
She heard Darius scuffling with the security guard until the door closed, muffling the sound. She laid her head on the stiff hospital pillow.
Madeline’s head throbbed where it had hit the classroom floor, but her lungs felt brand new. She could run a marathon. She could do jumping jacks or swim or dance or sing at the top of her lungs or yell at someone and still she could breathe!
The doctors ran tests. Tested her oxygen levels. Listened to her lungs. They didn’t have much to say. They weren’t sure what had happened, but in the past her lung capacity had seemed to come and go. They wanted to keep her for observation. Given what had happened with Darius barging in, they said no one else could come in until her parents arrived. No one mentioned the bracelet. They didn’t comment on the tattoo. It’s like they hadn’t seen that part, had only noticed a high school boy bursting into the room, hugging her, and being dragged away.
But between nurse visits, Jason slipped in. He had a pudding cup in one hand and a silver tattoo on his other wrist. “People say tattoos hurt, but I barely felt this one.”
“You have one too?” Relief flooded her. She wouldn’t have to go alone.
“Your friend Handy gave it to me. I figured I’d put mine on today to guarantee we’d go together to the Sunshine Place.”
Madeline looked at Jason. “What did you promise to him? What are you giving up?”
Jason shrugged. “I get to go with you, and they give me snacks.”
Madeline’s stomach dropped. “Jason . . . you’re leaving behind your life for a year. You don’t . . . You don’t have to do that.”
The edges of Jason’s lips twitched up. “I would have flunked chemistry without a partner anyway. Might as well take a gap year.”
“But your parents—”
Jason didn’t let her finish. “Are going to be fine, if not happy to see me gone.”
Madeline couldn’t imagine that was true. Picturing Jason’s parents and their grief somehow made it more real. Her parents would be going through the same trauma.<
br />
“Are my parents here yet?”
Jason shook his head. “Darius texted them, though.”
If her dad was in a meeting, he wouldn’t look at his phone for hours at a time, and her mom often left hers in the car. “I guess we can wait to leave until they get here? Do you want to say good-bye to your parents?”
Jason shook his head. “Hanali said that unless we ‘start our journey’ the magic stops working. Like, if the magic thinks you’re not going to follow through, it takes away your breathing. We should get going soon.”
Now that he mentioned it, she did notice a hitch in her breathing. So slight, and so small compared to what she had been living with up until now, but definitely there. She took a deep breath—amazing that she could do that again—and reflected on leaving home. This was going to be hard. She couldn’t imagine missing her birthday, missing Christmas and Thanksgiving and a hundred other little family traditions. But, she reminded herself, she probably wouldn’t have made it to Christmas anyway. She needed to set aside the chaotic mess of excitement and fear and sadness and confusion and loss, and get ready. Maybe she could send a message to her parents, although she didn’t think they’d believe it for a second. Still. It was time to go. “Close the curtain,” she said to Jason.
He pulled the curtain shut around the bed.
“With you on the other side, dummy,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed.”
Jason blushed and disappeared through the curtain.
Her shoes and socks were in a bag hanging on the end of her bed, but the rest of her clothes were gone. Right. They had cut her out of her clothes. It had been an emergency, they had been moving fast. She put on her socks and sneakers. “You can come back in,” she said.
Jason looked at her hospital gown. “Bold fashion statement,” he said. “I like the shoes.”
Madeline wrapped a blanket around her back. She slipped the oxygen tube out of her nose, something she had done a hundred times before. Hopefully this would be the last time. “I’ll need help getting the IV out.”
The Crescent Stone Page 5