Spirit

by Daniela Sacerdoti

  “Sean,” she slurred, dragging herself to her knees.

  “Sarah. Listen. Elodie, you too,” he whispered urgently. “Get away from here. Take Nicholas with you. Try not to make a noise. The tree is full of them.”

  All of a sudden a shower of leeches began falling on them, but right at the same time Sean’s red ribbons appeared and began cutting them, slashing the air underneath the trees, cutting up the leeches before they could hit the ground.

  Sarah and Elodie dragged Nicholas’ unconscious body away from the death-laden trees, inch by inch, leaving a bloodied trail on the grass. Sarah looked over to Sean, who was walking backwards, whispering words in the Ancient language, his hands dancing faster than the eye could see. Little black bodies were being torn to pieces by whirling ribbons of light.

  Elodie kissed the last demon off Nicholas’ chest and then, with a whimper, she let herself fall beside him, her hair soaked in black and red blood.

  “Elodie!” Sarah whispered, and took the French girl in her arms. She didn’t see one of the Surari they’d prised off Nicholas’ skin leap up with its suckers ready. It blindly attached itself to Sarah’s neck and began sucking her blood, doubling its size in seconds.

  Everything slowed down at once. She was on her back, gazing at the sky. She could hear voices shouting, calling, but they were coming from far away. Her life was flowing out of her and into the creature in a stream that could not be stopped. A sweet, heady scent filled her nostrils – blood – her blood. It was a sweet demise, to bleed out. It was peaceful. The sky was very white and very still, like death.

  She heard a whisper in her ear. It was Sean’s voice, calling her name. Let me go, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. It’s so peaceful. Let me go.

  Something covered the sky – a girl’s face, surrounded by multi-coloured lightning. Micol.

  The Falco girl had seized her moment to kill her then, Sarah thought. She saw sparkling hands rise to her throat, and a soft buzz started in her ears. She found a way. She found a way to kill me . . . What’s the point in trying to stop her? I’m dying anyway.

  The pain was horrendous as the first charge hit her in an explosion of red and orange. She could smell burning, and she was sure it was her flesh. In a second, she was jolted out of her blood-loss-induced trance.

  “No,” she begged. That was not the way she wanted to die. That was not oblivion. It was just more pain. “No!” she pleaded once more, her voice coming out weak and ragged. “Sean, help me . . .”

  But Sean didn’t help her, and Micol didn’t stop. Again she hit Sarah, and again, this time with a blue charge that made her body convulse and her eyes roll into the back of her head. After that, she couldn’t feel any more.

  Sarah blinked. Once. Twice. Slowly, the world came into focus.

  There were trees above her. Trees are danger, she thought, and tried to move, but her body would not comply. Her arms and legs felt infinitely heavy, way too heavy to be lifted. A face appeared over her. Sean. She realised her head was resting on Sean’s lap, and relaxed slightly. “I’m alive?”

  “Yes. Thank God, yes. You’re alive,” said Sean, caressing her face. She saw tears in his eyes and felt guilty – she never wanted to cause him pain. “You were out of it for a long time.”

  “Was I?” And then she remembered. Micol, her hands sparkling . . . the pain. “She burnt me. Am I burnt?”

  “Just a little. Your eyebrows.”

  “My eyebrows? I’m going to kill her.” Sarah scrambled to get up, but couldn’t. Her head spun and her chest hurt.

  “Hey, take it easy. Just lie down for a bit. Micol saved your life,” said Sean.

  “She what? That stupid little girl electrocuted me!”

  “She didn’t electrocute you. She fried the leech. She saved you,” Sean repeated.

  “You should thank me, Sarah!” Micol came into focus, her arms folded, her expression dark. “I have saved you. And I’m not a little girl. I turned sixteen today. I think . . . Or maybe tomorrow. I lost track of time.”

  “Happy birthday,” said an Irish voice. Niall – and he wasn’t even being sarcastic.

  Sarah sat up, Sean’s arm around her shoulders. She saw Niall leaning against a tree, his clothes bloodied and torn. His skin had a blue tinge, and there were deep shadows under his eyes. He must have been bled half to death too. He had Alvise’s jacket around his shoulders, Sarah noticed, and felt another pang of guilt for not having been there to help them. Being in two places at the same time – now that would be a good power to have . . .

  “Are we all alive?” she whispered.

  “For now,” Sean replied tersely.

  “Elodie?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. Sarah gazed at her, sitting beside Nicholas with her back to a tree. Elodie’s breathing was shallow and her fingernails blue, and her exquisite, porcelain-like face was whiter than ever. Nicholas looked pretty shaken up, every visible part of his body bearing the marks of suckers. Sarah remembered him lying on the grass, covered in leeches. Nobody human could have survived such a thing. Could he walk?

  “We need to go,” Nicholas said, as if he’d heard her thoughts.

  Beyond the trees, in the west, the sun was setting. Night was falling on the Shadow World, and on them all.

  24

  Fireflies

  I remember

  The scent of sunshine and of pines

  The coral and the sand

  And the girl I left behind

  They resumed their march, but not for long. Soon they had to stop again. Niall, Sarah and Elodie were too weak, and even Nicholas was staggering, his hands and face covered in little round wounds.

  They found their resting place a few hours from where the demon-leeches attacked. It was a little round copse of trees, shaped so that if anything targeted them they would see it at once. Nowhere was safe in the Shadow World; this was as sheltered as it would ever get. The least affected members of the party – Sean, Alvise and Micol – had to keep watch and wait until the others felt better.

  Twilight had turned into night. As usual, they didn’t dare light a fire or use their torches; they huddled together in the dark and cold. Sarah, Elodie and Niall ate some biscuits and chocolate and drank a little, then they lay nestled in sleeping bags, waiting for their strength to return. Animal calls and noises came from the trees, and every fern blowing in the breeze, every branch creaking made their bodies tense up and their hearts gallop. Everything around them felt threatening anyway, in spite of Sean’s reassurances that they had perfect visibility, that if any Surari attacked they would see it in plenty of time. They were on edge, and this could never change until they returned from the Shadow World. If they ever would.

  Sarah was furious with herself for letting the demon-leech hurt her to the extent that she couldn’t march any more. How long would this forced stop last? How long would they need to remain here, open to attacks, like sitting ducks?

  She closed her eyes and willed her body to recover. Suddenly, little yellow lights started dancing in front of her closed eyelids. Her eyes snapped open, fearing an attack, but all she saw was a small cloud of fireflies twinkling in the darkness in front of her.

  “Sean, look,” she whispered. She didn’t need to look to know he was awake.

  “I see them. They’re beautiful,” Sean replied. Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw a gleam coming from his hand – the light of a firefly reflected on his sgian-dubh.

  “Are they really just fireflies?” she asked. She couldn’t believe that any creature of the Shadow World could be harmless.

  Sean half-smiled in the darkness. “I’m sure. Just fireflies. Rest, now . . .”

  Sarah closed her eyes, praying that no dreams would come. She was so tired . . . Sean’s presence beside her made her feel a little safer, a little warmer. Reluctantly, she let herself fall into a shallow sleep.

  Sean could never allow himself to rest. He looked over to Nicholas, sitting slightly apart from the group, as ever.
His eyes were closed and his expression intense, as if he were thinking very hard. He’d been nearly killed, Sean considered. He’d been covered in those demon-leeches. Maybe that was the ultimate proof of his loyalty? But they could never be sure. Beside him, curled up in his sleeping bag, Niall stirred. Sean saw that his eyes were open.

  “Try to get some sleep, Niall,” he murmured.

  “Aye. I love fireflies,” Niall whispered in reply. Even lying down, the world was spinning around him. He’d never lost so much blood in his life, though he’d been wounded many times before. “There were so many of them in Louisiana . . .”

  Memories of the time he and Mike had hidden in Louisiana flooded him. They’d spent weeks there, in a shack on the beach, until the corrupted Sabha found them. They were attacked by sea demons and survived by the skin of their teeth. Technically, Niall had been killed, but had come back to life, because Flynns can’t die from drowning. He’d never forget Mike’s expression as he’d sat up and spoken, just as Mike was mourning his death, drunk on bourbon. He’d never forget the night they’d spent listening to Cajun music, when Niall had played his fiddle to a rapt audience, the sweet Celtic sounds filling the night.

  “I wish we could have brought Mike home to Louisiana,” Niall said. “When all this is finished, we’re going back to Islay, all of us. We’re going to give him a proper send-off. Make music all night. For him.”

  “It’s a plan,” Sean replied softly. If we are still alive, he added in his heart but didn’t say anything.

  Niall was quiet after that, gazing at the fireflies blinking in the darkness like tiny stars. His heart was heavy. He longed for Winter, for his family, for the sea, and for music. But he’d never talk about his burdens, he’d keep smiling and making little jokes and gliding through life like he always seemed to do.

  He wouldn’t let anyone know that when Mike got killed, the old Niall had died too, and now the new one didn’t know nearly as much joy as the old one had. The new Niall was wiser, and darker. He shut his eyes tight and imagined himself back home in Donegal, with music and whiskey and his family and friends, and Winter, her silver hair down to her shoulders and her eyes shining in the light of the peat fire.

  She was in his mind constantly. Not an hour went by without him wondering if she’d found shelter, if the Vendramins had welcomed her, if once there, she’d been really safe and not caught up in more Surari attacks. One thing was sure: he had not made a mistake in sending her through the iris, whatever had happened to her next. The demon-leech attack had once again proved that to him. Had she stayed with him, Winter would have been dead by now. The mistake had been in agreeing for her to come with him, instead of putting her in hiding somewhere. They’d been unable to go their separate ways – and he had not been strong enough to convince her to stay.

  I just want to see you again, Winter, he prayed, and drifted off in an unquiet sleep.

  Alvise and Micol sat side by side, huddled underneath Sean’s sleeping bag. In the soft light of dusk, before night had fallen, Alvise had seen Micol’s eyes red-rimmed and shiny. At some point, without anyone noticing, she must have cried – for her brother, Alvise was sure. And still, in spite of her rage and pain at what Sarah had done, she’d saved her life. Alvise was beginning to see new sides of Micol, and he had to admit that what he saw was pretty impressive. She was brave. She was strong.

  “Fireflies,” he whispered.

  “Yes. There are a lot of them back home, but they only come out on summer nights. These must be some weird species resistant to the cold. Demon-fireflies . . .”

  “God, don’t make me think about it.”

  “Sorry.”

  “By the way . . . you were amazing today,” he said simply.

  Micol looked at him, astonished. “What?”

  “I mean, that electric thing you do. I’ve never seen you like . . . like that.”

  She was bewildered by his praise, and for a second she was at a loss for words. This guy whose anger she could feel in the air in every room of Palazzo Vendramin, who had seemed to dislike her so much, was actually commending her?

  “You thought I was just a helpless little girl,” she murmured, a hint of resentment in her voice.

  “I did actually, yes. Well, not helpless. But spoiled.”

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Selfish?”

  “Right, thanks. Because I was trying to get away from Palazzo Vendramin? Or fortress Vendramin, more like. You would have done the same.”

  “No. I would have helped keep the hexes in place, instead of breaking them.” They were silent for a moment, watching the fireflies dance as guilt spread in Micol’s chest. She could see his point of view now that she wasn’t incarcerated, breaking her wings against the bars of her cage like a little bird.

  “And you think I’m a monster,” Alvise continued. He sounded upset somehow. Alvise actually cared about her opinion of him? This conversation was proving to be quite surprising.

  She chose her words carefully. “I thought you kept Lucrezia prisoner. And you seemed to hate me. But I don’t think that any more.”

  “I never hated you.”

  “You certainly put on a good show, then.”

  “I was just cross that you kept running away! Putting us all in danger!” he blurted out.

  “I’m sorry. I know it was a stupid thing to do. That place . . . suffocates me! And anyway, I might have changed my mind about you too.”

  “Why?”

  Micol shrugged, tightening Sean’s sleeping bag around her. She’d never been so cold in her life. “I don’t know. You just seem . . . different out here. Not a monster any more.”

  “Right. I suppose that’s a compliment.”

  “Not really,” she said, and he couldn’t help but burst into soft laughter. Then his face turned serious.

  “Micol. I must tell you this. Whatever you might think of us . . . my father and I were so fond of your brothers. I’m so sorry about them both. We tried to convince Tancredi not to go . . .”

  “He wasn’t crazy. He was right. Sarah Midnight had been chosen as Nicholas’ wife, we know it now.”

  “Shhhhh . . . keep it down.” Alvise shuffled closer to Micol. He didn’t want her overheard, in case it created more problems for her. “You heard Sarah,” he whispered, looking around him. Nobody seemed to be listening. “She’s not under Nicholas’ control any more.”

  “So she says.”

  “If you doubt her, why did you save her life?”

  “Because I might be wrong, and you might be right.”

  “Fair enough.” A short pause. “For what it’s worth, I believe her,” Alvise said in a low voice.

  “You don’t even know her. Nobody does. Nobody even knew the Midnights existed.”

  “True. Then put it this way: I believe Niall Flynn and Elodie Brun . . . they come from two ancient, honourable families, and they trust her. And think about it logically . . .”

  Micol snorted. Her heart was broken, her family had been exterminated, and he asked her to use logic?

  “No, listen,” he insisted. “Lucrezia sent me here. Sent us here. I was furious you snuck into the iris, but then it occurred to me: Lucrezia marked you too. She wouldn’t have if you weren’t supposed to come with me.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way. I thought I’d just got away with it . . . but I couldn’t have gone through had she not marked me?” Micol ran her fingers over the burnt scar on her palm. It still hurt.

  He shook his head. “She chooses who goes through and who stays. But why did she mark you? Why did she send us both to this place? Not to save Tancredi. He was already dead when we arrived.”

  Micol breathed in sharply.

  “Not to kill Sarah, or my sister would have given us some indication. There’s only one explanation. Lucrezia sent us here to help them.”

  Micol lowered her head and said nothing. She suspected Alvise was right, but her brother’s death at the hands of a fellow heir h
urt so much. Absent-mindedly, she brought a hand to the shoulder that Alvise’s arrow had grazed. Niall had disinfected it and bandaged it lightly – it was just a cut and it would heal soon. Alvise saw her rub her shoulder. “I’m sorry I had to do that.”

  “Well, you saved Sarah.”

  “That wasn’t my first thought, Micol. You were so lost in your power you didn’t see what was about to happen.”

  Micol raised her eyebrows. “You should know by now that the Falco heirs are immune to other heirs’ powers. That’s why my brother thought he could have the best of Sarah, even if he was so sick, because her powers wouldn’t have worked on him.”

  “Sean was about to throw that dagger of his at you. Did you know that? Did you see?”

  Micol was silent.

  “I suppose you never noticed how sharp it is. It could cut air. I really, really didn’t want to see that thing piercing your heart,” Alvise continued. “Unless the Falcos are immune to steel too . . .”

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered, her voice shaking a little, and then she snorted. “Sean said my brother had asked him to look after me. Some fine job he’s doing. ”

  “He’s in love with Sarah. Anything that threatens her, he won’t hesitate to kill. And I couldn’t let him kill you. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Why?” Micol asked.

  “Why? How can you ask me that?”

  “You threatened to hurt me yourself many times.”

  Alvise looked down. “I would have never hurt you. We did our best to look after Ranieri as he was dying and stop Tancredi from going on his mad quest, but we couldn’t save either of them. I seem to have a habit of letting people down,” he said, a hint of self-loathing shining through. “I won’t lose you too.”

  Micol gazed at the blond man’s face, incredulous, trying to make out his features in the gloom. For the first time Micol noticed how delicate his face was, with his high cheekbones and full lips. He looks a bit like an elf from a storybook, she thought.