The Girl at Midnight

by The Girl at Midnight (ARC) (epub)

  The second thing he noticed was that it was not cold, hard stone beneath him, but the plush white of his own carpet. It was most assuredly ruined now. He would have to import an entirely new one.

  The third thing he noticed, after opening his eyes, was a raven-feathered Avicen looming over him.

  “Oh, good,” the Ala said. “You’re up. I was beginning to think I’d pulled a corpse out of that fire.”

  “Whaaaa …” Jasper was capable of greater eloquence than that, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to rustle up any.

  Behind the Ala, Ivy’s white-feathered head bent over a very still body as she wrapped Echo’s hand with a thick white bandage. Jasper’s heart lurched. He tried to sit up, despite the rather vociferous protestations of his aggrieved abdominal muscles. With a single black-feathered hand, the Ala pushed him back down.

  “She’ll live,” she said. “But you won’t if you don’t lie still.”

  Lie still. Jasper could do that. Nay, Jasper could excel at that.

  “You, with the eye patch,” the Ala called, looking over her shoulder. “Ivy looks like she could use an extra set of hands.” And then, sweet, immortal delight, she clapped twice. “Hop to it.”

  Oh, how Dorian would love that. Even more splendidly, Dorian hopped to it, coming over to kneel beside Jasper, arms laden with clean gauze.

  When Dorian pressed a bandage to the wound right below his ribs, Jasper bit back a yelp. What hurt even worse was the fact that Dorian mumbled a quick apology before letting his eyes drift over to where Caius was struggling to sit up beside Echo.

  No, Jasper thought. None of that now.

  “Would you be surprised to know,” Jasper croaked, drawing Dorian’s attention, “that this is the first time I’ve wound up on the business end of a sword?”

  Dorian’s quiet little laugh was bells on Sunday morning. “Just a bit, yes.” He looked at Jasper then. There was a softness in his eyes that made Jasper’s insides do all sorts of terrible things. “And you took a blow meant for me.”

  “Are you sure?” Jasper asked, voice sandpaper rough. “That doesn’t sound like me at all.” He coughed, and blood tickled his throat. “But then, I suppose I haven’t been feeling much like myself lately.”

  “You saved my life,” Dorian said, swapping out the bandage for a fresh one. The one he laid aside was an alarming shade of red. Jasper decided he was better off not looking at it.

  “And you saved our little dove,” Jasper replied, craning his neck to see where Ivy was still tending to Echo. “I saw what you did back there.”

  Dorian’s lips twitched in a way that wasn’t entirely happy but was entirely appealing to Jasper on a level that should have been disturbing. “Yes, well, I owed her one.”

  Dorian spared another surreptitious glance over his shoulder. Jasper followed his gaze. Caius was holding Echo’s hand, the one that Ivy was not bandaging.

  Nope, Jasper thought. Bad Dorian.

  He laid a hand atop Dorian’s. It increased the pressure on his wound, but the feel of Dorian’s skin, warm and callused beneath his own, was worth it.

  “You see him,” Jasper said. “But does he see you?”

  Dorian turned away from Caius, silver bangs falling over his eye as he bowed his head. “No,” he whispered. Jasper had a feeling that this was perhaps the first time Dorian had ever admitted it aloud. “He never has.”

  There was a whole host of comments Jasper had stockpiled in his arsenal, locked and loaded and ready to launch at the slightest hint that Dorian was willing to admit the futility of his unrequited love, but each and every one of them was rejected in favor of silently lacing his fingers with Dorian’s. When Dorian didn’t pull away, Jasper’s insides quivered.

  Dorian was silent for a moment, his blue eye resting on their joined hands. Then, slowly, painfully, he raised his gaze to Jasper’s. “Do you?”

  Jasper thought he knew where this was going, but he needed to be very clear on one thing. “Do I what?”

  “See me.” Dorian swallowed. Jasper must have lost a lot of blood to be so easily hypnotized by the motion of Dorian’s throat.

  Jasper answered by raising their linked fingers to his mouth, brushing his chapped lips over the scarred skin of Dorian’s knuckles. A pink flush crept up Dorian’s pale neck. Jasper was as enthralled with the blush as he had been the first time he’d seen it. But unlike the first time he had seen that hint of scarlet taint Dorian’s cheeks, he had an overwhelming desire to be the only one to make Dorian blush like that, deeply and often. And that was when Jasper knew that he’d lost a war he hadn’t even realized he’d been fighting. Resistance was futile. Surrender, inevitable. He pressed another kiss to Dorian’s hand, just to see that pink darken a shade.

  “I’m sorry,” Dorian said, shaking his head, Christmas-tinsel hair fluttering with the movement. “I guess I haven’t been feeling much like myself lately either.”

  Dorian drew his hand back, and the smooth glide of skin on skin was nearly too much to bear. Jasper had long ago decided that his heart had little use beyond its biological function, but as Dorian pulled away from him, he knew that his was as breakable as anyone’s.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Echo stirred, feeling the scratch of carpeting beneath her head. Bells tolled, and she’d never been happier to hear them. She was alive, even if just barely, and someone was wrapping linen around her burnt hands. Ivy’s voice floated through the black, and the Ala’s answered it. They were alive too. Echo kept her eyes closed and let the familiar sound of their conversation wash over her.

  Now that she was out of the Black Forest, away from the Oracle’s sanctum and the power of her own reflection, she was beginning to feel like herself again. Her wounds had mostly healed, save for the burns on her hands. The fire she’d called had scorched her, too. It didn’t seem fair that her newfound power should turn on her like that, but it bothered her infinitely less than the sensation of another person lurking at the back of her mind, like an actor waiting in the wings.

  Rose.

  When Echo had opened that door inside her, letting the firebird out of its cage, Rose had come along for the ride, clinging to the power that could have been hers had she only made the choice to welcome it. She’d been a vessel, too, just like Echo. And now, she was occupying a darkened corner of Echo’s brain, not merely with her presence, but with everything that made her Rose. What Rose knew, Echo knew, even the secrets she’d kept until the day she died. What Rose felt, Echo felt. She remembered being happy once, a long time ago. She remembered the way Caius had kissed her the first time, standing on the beach by her cabin with the ocean lapping at their feet. She remembered nights spent huddled together in front of a fireplace, talking about their hopes and fears. All of it was as real to Echo as her own memories, her own emotions. It was too much.

  When she cracked her eyes open, she was greeted by the sight of three people leaning over her. Three of the most important people in her life. The Ala. Ivy. And now, strangely enough, Caius. They were all staring at her. This was how animals in zoos must have felt. Lying there, with all those faces peering at her with equal parts concern and curiosity, was suffocating. When she struggled to sit up, no fewer than three sets of hands—black, white, and a featherless tan—moved to push her back down. It was all too much.

  “Stop,” Echo said, voice breathier than she would have liked. “Everybody, stop. Stop touching me, stop staring at me, stop inhaling my air.”

  Ivy sucked in a breath, and Echo could have sworn she actually held it. God bless your heart, Ivy.

  The Ala’s face slipped into something approaching neutrality, but Echo could see the wonder in her eyes.

  “It was in you the whole time,” the Ala said. “I should have known.”

  Echo pushed herself up to a seated position, back resting against Jasper’s ridiculous suede couch. When Caius steadied her with a hand on her lower back, she didn’t stop him. His hand lingered there, settling right above the wai
stband of her jeans. Echo was acutely aware of every minute detail of the texture of his skin. Ivy’s eyes darted down to Caius’s hand, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  “How could you have known?” Echo asked. “I still don’t even understand how or why this is possible. I remember everything about Rose. She was the firebird’s last vessel—she’s the one who left the maps behind for me to find. And there are other images, things I don’t understand. How do I have those memories?”

  The Ala ran a hand through her feathers and sighed. Echo had never seen her look so tired.

  “When you were out, I meditated to try to make sense of all of this, and I had a vision. The firebird, I believe, is a transferable entity,” the Ala said. “And each person who comes into contact with it leaves a sort of psychic fingerprint. Since Rose was the most recent vessel before you, her voice is the loudest. I’m sure it helps that you’ve given her a reason to shout.” She looked pointedly at where Caius’s hand rested. “The firebird was within the both of you all along. It was your sacrifice that released it. For whatever reason, Rose decided to leave it alone. You chose to unleash it. If my understanding is correct, and the firebird is a being of pure magic, of raw energy, then it needs something to contain it in order to exist in this world.”

  “I don’t get it. Why send me on a scavenger hunt around the world? Why not just send me straight to the Oracle?”

  Ivy broke her silence at last. “Maybe it wasn’t about the destination. Maybe it was about the journey.”

  Echo blinked. “Come again?”

  Ivy fiddled with the hem of her shirt, eyes downcast to watch her hands. “Maybe if things had been too easy, you wouldn’t have been the person you needed to be when the time came. You sacrificed yourself to save us.” She looked up, and Echo recognized the look in her eyes. She was holding back tears, the corners of her lips quivering slightly. “And you didn’t have proof that you’d come back, but you did it anyway. That was really brave.” She sniffled and brought her arm up to wipe her nose on her sleeve.

  Echo reached out to take Ivy’s hand, bandages be damned. She hadn’t felt brave. She’d just been desperate. All this talk of vessels was making the dull ache in her head throb even harder. She rubbed at her temples, hoping it would help quell the pain. “But why me? I mean, I’m just a girl. I’m nothing special.”

  The Ala laid a gentle hand on Echo’s cheek. “Oh, my little magpie, you’ve always been special. I don’t think it was a coincidence I found you in that library. I think we were meant to find each other, you and I. The same way you and Caius were meant to find one another. Without him, you never would have known about the Oracle.”

  Echo raised her eyebrows. “So, you’re saying this is like a destiny thing?”

  The Ala shook her head, black feathers ruffling slightly before settling. “Your fate is your own, but I think everyone in this world is given a role.” She looked at Echo with a weight in her eyes that Echo wasn’t sure she wanted to bear. “Your role is to be the firebird. How you choose to play it is up to you. The fire you called is proof of that.”

  The fire. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She hadn’t meant to hurt people indiscriminately; she’d just wanted the fighting to end.

  “Rowan,” Echo whispered. “And the others … are they okay?” She’d only wanted to stop Tanith, to stop Altair, to stop everyone from ripping each other apart.

  The Ala nodded. “The fire passed over them without burning, like you didn’t want to hurt them.”

  “I didn’t,” Echo said. But it hadn’t been her choice. She hadn’t thought about it. There was power coursing through her veins, and she wasn’t even sure she could begin to make sense of it. She squeezed her eyes shut. The thought of how close she’d come to hurting the people she loved curdled inside her. Caius rubbed circles on her back, and his touch helped her push the thought away.

  Echo shook her head, as if she could dislodge her fear. She couldn’t. What she could do was ignore it and focus on something else. “How did you know where to find us?”

  The Ala smiled, and it was so lovely, so familiar that Echo wanted to weep. “Tanith and her forces followed you. And we followed them.”

  Caius ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I guess none of us were nearly as subtle as we thought we were.”

  He sounded vaguely ashamed, and Echo patted the hand that rested on her waist. That small smile graced his lips, and she wanted to smile back, but the weight of her next question was too heavy to allow for something so light.

  “Okay, so if I’m the firebird, that means I’m supposed to stop a war. How the hell am I supposed to do that?” said Echo. “I’m just one person.”

  “One needs only a single match to start a fire, Echo,” the Ala replied. “It is a heavy burden you bear, but never forget that you do not bear it alone.”

  The Ala placed a hand on Ivy’s arm and stood. Ivy looked like she wanted to protest, but she only blinked, too rapidly, in silence. The Ala nodded at Caius and added, “I’ll give the two of you some time alone. I’m sure you have much to discuss.”

  Echo watched them walk away. Caius’s hand fell from her back, but he scooted a few inches closer to her. It was strange to think of him doing anything that could be described as scooting.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  Laughing hurt, but Echo did it anyway. “Like I died and came back to life. So, you know, not bad.”

  Caius’s mouth went soft at the edges. Sympathy made him dangerously pretty. She had to look away. He looked away, too.

  “I still don’t understand what happened back there,” he said.

  Echo looked at her hands. Fire had poured out from those palms. “I don’t think I do, either.”

  Caius turned back to her. He opened his mouth. Closed it. He looked as if he was debating what to say. Lips pressed into a thin line, he shook his head. Whatever it was, he either wasn’t going to say it, or he couldn’t find the words. His hand rose to hover in front of Echo’s shirt. Someone—Ivy, she presumed—had torn it open about a third of the way so that the puckered skin of the scar on her chest was visible. Caius curled his fingers into fists, as though he didn’t trust himself not to reach out and touch it.

  “You healed.” He shook his head, astonishment in his eyes. “You’re the firebird. And you rose, from blood and ashes, just like Rose wrote.”

  “Yup,” Echo said. She waited a beat before adding, just for good measure, “And you’re the Dragon Prince.”

  “Former Dragon Prince,” Caius amended, though Echo detected a note of embarrassment in his voice. “Once Tanith usurped me, it wasn’t technically a lie.”

  She fixed him with her best dubious stare.

  He winced. “I’m sorry. I know that isn’t enough, but I don’t know what else—”

  Echo held up a bandaged hand, silencing him. “I can only deal with so many revelations at a time, and this whole firebird thing kind of trumps your secret identity by a long shot. For now, consider yourself forgiven, but don’t think I’m going to forget it.”

  “That’s more than I deserve,” he said softly.

  “Oh, I don’t know, I think you’ve maybe suffered enough for one day. Your own sister did try to kill you.”

  “She tried to stop me. If Tanith truly wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Or, at the very least, maimed. She’s my twin, and I’m still her brother. That means something to her.”

  “And does it mean something to you?” she asked.

  Caius sighed, long and weary. “I don’t know.”

  Echo wanted to wrap her arms around herself, but that would have felt too much like cowering. From what, she wasn’t sure. From the people who would be hunting her now that they knew she and the firebird were one and the same. From Caius. From the fact that she had risen from the dead. From herself. From her destiny. Pick a door, Echo thought, any door.

  “What happened in that room?” Caius’s voice was barely above a whisper, but the sound of it snaked around Echo’s r
ib cage, squeezing. “Before Tanith. What did you see?”

  “A mirror,” Echo said. “Just a mirror.”

  Caius ducked his head, hair falling over his eyes and brushing his scales. She wanted to smooth his bangs back for him, to feel the silk of his hair between her fingers again. Now it was her untrustworthy hands curling into tight fists. When he spoke, he kept his gaze lowered. “And then what happened?”

  He looked at her then, and Echo didn’t turn away.

  “I remembered,” she said. “I remembered things I shouldn’t, because they’re not my memories. It’s weird. I remember it like I was there, like I was Rose. I remember you. I remember loving you because she loved you.”

  Hope and sadness and something new, something just for her, warred in Caius’s eyes. Invisible hands wrapped around her heart and twisted, as if they were trying to wring it dry of blood. He looked like a man who wanted to hope but didn’t quite know how.

  Echo didn’t know who moved first. All she knew was that she was kissing Caius, and Caius was kissing her. Something inside her that had been misaligned was slowly setting itself right, gears clicking into place one by one. It was thrilling and terrifying all at once.

  Schwellenangst, Echo thought. The fear of starting something new.

  Caius kissed her as if he knew her already, as if pressing his lips against hers were an old habit, as easy as breathing. He kissed her like he remembered her. And a small part of her, a part that Echo was beginning to realize was not her at all, remembered him. As Caius sank his fingers into the hair at the base of her neck, Echo could have sworn that she felt Rose sigh.

  At the faint tickle of another person inside her head, she pulled away. Caius moved back, reluctantly. His fingers traced a path from the shell of her ear to the curve of her jaw and came to rest there. It was nice, but as soon she had the thought, she wasn’t sure if it was hers. She shook her head, dislodging Caius’s hand.