She stopped. How? How could it go bad? There was no longer anything this man could do to her. He was dead.
“The dead are not with her.”
“Not here, no.”
“Where are you, child?”
She resisted the urge to argue with the word ‘child’. “I’m sitting in the center of a big circle that’s been carved out of runes into stone floor. And I’m here with Chase—and you.”
“And you found me through the circle?”
“I don’t know. I was trying to find you—but you weren’t where I expected you to be.”
“When you say circle, what do you mean?”
Emma exhaled. “There’s a big circle on the floor in the center of the Queen’s—room.” She could not bring herself to call it the resurrection room.
The ghost’s eyes widened. “You are sitting in her circle?”
“I only had access to two, and we didn’t think to bring the other one.”
“It is not safe for you to use her circle.”
“It’s not safe for us to be anywhere near her rooms, let alone her citadel, no.”
“That is not what I meant. Take me—take as much of me as you can—back to the circle.”
Emma didn’t tell him that she didn’t know how to get back to the circle. She didn’t want to tell him anything. She didn’t want to take him to where her friends—her living friends—were waiting.
“Could I meet Reyna here, where we are?” she asked.
Silence. She met the man’s gaze, seeing his eyes rather than the gray that lay beyond them, stretching out to eternity.
“You cannot harm her here. If you met here, it is you who would be in danger. She is not more powerful than you, but she is vastly more knowledgeable. Take me back to the circle.” He looked down at the hand into which he had placed his own; his hadn’t gained solidity. “There is, perhaps, something you can do—but you must act quickly. Reyna is aware of me, now.”
“You said—”
“And she is not happy. I have perhaps spoiled her day.” He tilted his face, as if he were listening. “Helmi is coming.”
• • •
Emma opened her eyes. She saw gray; she saw Chase; she saw a ghost. She tried again.
“This will not do,” the man said. “Have you forgotten?”
“Forgotten what?”
“That you are alive.”
“No.”
“Then remember what life is, child. Open your eyes.”
She tried again. She failed again. What was life, exactly? She felt alive here. She had felt alive in the memories of the dead man. She had felt alive when wandering around the frozen tableau of the worst day of Chase Loern’s life. She had felt alive—uselessly, pointlessly alive—in the cemetery to which she had retreated in the evenings with her dog.
She had no experience with death, except as an observer. Talking to the dead was almost exactly the same as talking to the living. This landscape wasn’t life; she knew that. She had no idea how she was to leave it because opening her eyes changed nothing.
No.
She tried, after a long pause, to close her eyes instead. Closing her eyes, she could still see the man. And she could still see Chase. What she could no longer see was herself. She wasn’t sure if this was better or worse—it was certainly different.
She kept her eyes closed, and she listened. The old man had fallen silent. He was motionless, his gaze fixed on something beyond where Emma assumed she was sitting.
Sight hadn’t helped. She chose to listen instead.
Listening was an art; she was an amateur. She had learned—with time—to hear the textures in spoken words; the words had meanings, but they were imprecise, and the voice in which they were spoken compensated for meanings words alone couldn’t convey. The same sentence could have multiple meanings, depending on who spoke.
Silence was the same—but it was harder to understand. Sometimes it was a well, sometimes it was a barrier, and sometimes it was the only response one could offer.
Sometimes it needed to be broken.
“Michael?” The single word was rough, patchy; her throat felt raw.
“Emma?” Michael’s voice.
She nodded, or hoped she nodded. “I’m having a little trouble opening my eyes. Can you keep talking?”
Pause. “About what?”
“Anything.”
“Margaret says to tell you that the statue I saw before isn’t there anymore.”
“You can’t see it anymore?”
“No. I—I think you did something. It . . . broke when you were . . . upset.” She could hear Michael choosing his words with care.
“When I was crying?”
“When you were screaming,” he corrected. “It’s gone now. There’s no statue. But there’s a door, now.”
“Can anyone else see the door?”
“No,” Amy said, before Michael could answer.
To the man, Emma said, “Can you hear them?”
“If he can’t,” Chase replied, “I can.”
“Can you see Michael?”
“No.”
“Why can’t you open your eyes?”
Chase exhaled. “Because I’m probably not conscious. I don’t know how long we’ve been here. Look, I can see the dead—but it doesn’t come naturally. The Queen did something to me—I thought it would kill me.” He had probably hoped, at the time, that it would. “She left me alive as a message to Eric.” Chase laughed. It sounded like a controlled scream.
“Why did you need to be able to see the dead to deliver a message?”
“I didn’t think to ask.”
Emma winced. “Sorry—that was a stupid question.”
“Spending too much time with Michael?” He grinned.
“Margaret is worried,” Michael said. “Allison is worried.”
“Is Amy?”
“I think so. It’s hard to tell with Amy.”
“Amy,” Amy said, “doesn’t appreciate being talked about in the third person.”
Chase muttered something under his breath.
Amy said, in a distinctly chillier voice, “I heard that.”
And Emma opened her eyes.
• • •
Michael was standing outside of the circle; he was much closer than he had been. Then again, so was Allison. Margaret, Ernest, and Amy remained closer to the wall. Amy’s eyes were narrowed in a very particular way, but their edges were largely aimed at Chase. And yes, Amy was worried.
Amy Snitman didn’t do worry—or rather, if she did, she used it as a springboard for confrontation. She liked to face her fears. And stomp them flat. Unfortunately, if there was nothing immediately stompable, her foot sometimes came down anyway.
Chase was lying, cheek to stone, in a curl against the floor. Mindful of Ally, Emma reached out and poked his shoulder. He opened his eyes and pushed himself into a sitting position. On any other day, Emma would have told him not to bother. His complexion was almost gray, his lips the same color as the rest of his skin.
“Thanks,” Emma said to Michael.
He blinked rapidly but nodded. “Did you find him?”
Emma unfolded her legs, stood, shook them out. “How long have I been sitting here?”
“Nineteen minutes,” Ernest replied. “You have not been entirely silent.”
“Amy? Care to explain that in normal English?”
“You’ve been screaming your lungs out or sobbing so much we were afraid you’d throw up. Better?”
Emma winced. “Sort of.” She offered a Chase a hand; he glared and refused to take it. It took him longer to stand, and he didn’t look particularly steady on his feet when he did. Allison also offered him an arm—but this time, his pride didn’t get in the way of accepting aid.
E
mma turned.
The man was standing behind her; she could see him if she concentrated. He was no longer transparent; he was so diaphanous she couldn’t be certain he wasn’t a trick of the light. And the light, in this room, was bright and endless.
She reached out to touch him and wasn’t surprised when her hand passed through his arm. She had no idea how to make contact with him, beyond the visual.
“Scoros, can you hear me?”
She thought there was a ripple in the air. Chase left the circle, attached by arm to Allison. Emma hovered at its inner edge. She was afraid to lose Scoros. “Helmi’s coming, by the way.”
Margaret stiffened. “When?”
“Now,” Helmi said.
“Now,” Emma repeated. She wasn’t touching Helmi, so no one but Margaret could see her. She doubted Chase was putting in the effort, given he was standing and his color had gone from gray to white.
• • •
Helmi looked like a bruised, underfed child. She wore a very simple shift, with a tunic hanging loosely from scrawny shoulders; her hair was long but not tidy. Helmi could choose her appearance.
Emma didn’t think her current appearance was a conscious choice. Her expression was thunderous; she’d entered the light-filled, cold room, and she’d brought the storm with her. It flashed in the eyes she turned on Emma; they’d widened.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Finding a man called Scoros—which is what you told me to do.” She might have grown an extra head with less effect on Helmi than the words she’d just spoken.
The fact that the advice had come from Helmi was not enough of an excuse. “Are you insane? Do you think my sister won’t know?”
Emma had no answer.
“Leave him alone.”
Helmi.
The child’s eyes widened further. Emma heard Scoros’ voice as an echo—something easily missed if one wasn’t listening. Helmi, clearly, did not.
You saved the Queen’s life the last time we met.
Helmi did not reply.
Will you save it again?
“There’s nothing you can do, now. You’re dead.”
So are you. Do you feel there’s no harm you can do because of it?
Helmi folded her arms.
“Can you see him?” Emma asked the girl.
Helmi didn’t answer. Instead, she said, “You can’t use another person’s circle. Whatever you tried to do, it was just as dangerous as having no circle at all. You really don’t know anything.”
Emma nodded. “You said the circle—”
“You have to draw your own. You don’t use someone else’s. This is the Queen’s. It’ll keep her safe. It won’t do squat for you.”
Helmi is correct.
“If it was yours,” Helmi continued, “you would never have found him.”
“But . . .”
“But what?”
“The circles were meant to be used so we could find the dead safely, weren’t they?”
Helmi snorted. “There’s no safe way to find him. You need to let him go. Or make him go.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re alive. Most of your friends are alive. I’m assuming you’d all like to stay that way.”
“He can’t hurt us. He’s dead.”
“Outside of my sister and her stupid knights, he’s the only person who can.”
I cannot hurt any of them, Scoros said.
“She doesn’t understand what was done to you. She doesn’t understand how the citadel rose. Almost no one does.”
You do.
“I was there.” Helmi turned to face Amy and Margaret and Ernest. “Scoros attempted to kill my sister. He failed. His betrayal actually hurt her. It hurt almost as much as Eric’s. Maybe more.”
“She killed him.”
“Yes.”
“And then she bound him.”
“I don’t think it’s as simple as that. What did he tell you?”
Emma said, after a thick pause, “He’s told me almost nothing. What I know of his life, I . . . lived.”
She wasn’t certain what she expected Helmi’s response to be—but it wasn’t a derisive snort. “Of course you did. There’s no other way to find the dead. But Emma, you need to understand something. Most of what was done to him was done before he died. It was done with his consent.”
Emma turned to face the thin impression in the air; it hadn’t moved. “Is she right?”
Yes. The dead are dead, Emma Hall. But what remains of them when they no longer draw breath was in them before they ceased to breathe. It is how Chase Loern can see the dead. It is how you can see and touch the dead. There is part of you that is already dead. It is how the Queen can make bodies, how she could build a citadel that can house the living.
We are what you are.
“What does Helmi mean?”
She was lonely, she was afraid. She understood that she was not valued by her knights. They did not love her. They did not revere her, although she had given them their power. They betrayed her and would have continued to betray her.
I see the citadel. I saw its streets before I attempted to kill her. I saw its halls, its rooms. There was only one room I could not—could never—see.
“This one.”
Yes. She trusted me more than perhaps she trusted any living person—but she was not given to trust. She needed a place in which she might rest, in which she did not need to worry that someone would see and disapprove of her. It made sense that it would be this room; this room was the heart of her power.
And now you are in it. She will come.
“What does Helmi mean? What is she afraid of?”
If I had to guess—and Helmi did not love me—she is afraid that you will die.
“And will I?”
If I am consumed, if I am recalled? Yes. But Emma, so will Reyna. She is like a god, but she is human.
Emma had her doubts.
She cannot fly. Disentangle me from the citadel, and the citadel will fall.
Emma turned toward her friends.
Yes. No one will survive.
“You’re bound to the Queen of the Dead?”
I am bound to the citadel. He paused. And yes, some part of me—the part that was not built into the foundation of her current life—is bound to the Queen. But one part of me is not. When I threaded myself through the citadel, I created one space which would be my own.
“You left your mother there.”
Silence.
“Emma, maybe this isn’t the right time,” Chase said. His voice sounded normal. His color, when Emma spared him a glance, was better. He probably wouldn’t achieve good for a couple of hours, if then.
She inhaled and stepped out of the circle. Nothing had changed if you didn’t include the presence of Helmi. The girl had traded the expression of outrage for a mask that denied emotion.
“Is the Queen on her way here?”
Helmi said nothing.
Scoros said, No. Not yet. You have time to escape these chambers.
“What did you do?” Helmi asked again. “Why did you come to this room?”
“I thought there was a man trapped here.” She turned to Michael and added, “Can you still see the door?”
Michael nodded, lifting an arm to point at the frustratingly blank patch of slightly curved wall.
Helmi, following the direction of his arm, frowned. “There’s no door there.”
“There’s no man there, either. Or if he is, that’s not where I found him.” She exhaled and added, “You might as well come out. I know you’re there.”
Another ghost materialized. She became far more solid than the almost invisible form of the man who had been her son.
• • •
Emma
wasn’t certain what reaction she’d expected from either Scoros or the older woman, and at least in Scoros’ case, it didn’t matter, as she could barely make out his face. The old woman, however, was dour and grim; she wasn’t exactly welcoming.
“He was always a fool,” she said, confirming the lack of joy. “But we all want to think well of our own sons. I could not imagine how much of a fool.”
She felt, rather than saw, Scoros’ surprise and almost shied away from it. Lifting her hand, she turned it and examined the palm she had offered to what remained of Scoros. It was empty, but she felt something—a texture, a subtle weight.
He was demonstrably capable of speech, but he said nothing.
“You’ll help her, of course,” the woman continued.
“She’s talking about you,” Helmi told Emma, her face expressionless.
Scoros did not answer.
“Yes,” the old woman continued, as if he somehow had. “I’m bound to the foolish child. Did you know that? Did you suspect?”
Yes.
“I can’t find my way back to my room. I’ve tried. For me, there is only one possible safety now. Reyna will not be happy to see me. How did the girl find what remains of you?” Nothing in her voice wobbled. She was as lifeless, as joyless, as vacuum.
She searched. This was clearly not enough of an answer, and Scoros knew it. She searched the old way.
“In a circle not meant or drawn for her use.” Flat, almost disbelieving tone.
You must ask her, then.
“She couldn’t answer. You can.”
I was not in a position to observe her progress objectively. There was now a sliver of irritation in his reply.
“Even when you were, you were never objective,” his mother snapped back.
Amy’s brows rose; she looked to Emma. “I want to know who he’s talking to.”
“You can hear his voice, but not his mother’s?”
“No.”
“Be grateful,” Helmi told her. Amy couldn’t hear Helmi, either. The leader of the Emery mafia folded her arms; she looked about as friendly as Scoros’ mother, but infinitely more attractive.
How did she find you?
“You’ll have to ask her.”
How did she bind you?
The old woman fell silent.
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