Agravaine is pulling the power through me, out of me, and I can do nothing to stop it.
My body racks, and I fight, screaming through bared teeth.
And then the doors to the gymnasium crash open.
Brilliant light spills into the Winter Formal, casting all the decorations into a blaze of white.
No, it can’t be. My heart seizes, and my breath freezes in my throat. I can’t hope. I shouldn’t hope. But I do.
Dear ancestors, I do.
A figure steps into the light, short and lithe, confident.
The music stops, Agravaine gesturing, Fiann lowering my violin, her fingertips dripping blood.
Syl.
Bloody bones. I’ve broken all the emo barriers, and I’m straight-up hallucinating.
But no. It’s really her.
She stands in the open doorway, my sweet Summer girl at the edge of winter, all badass, dressed in jeans, a graphic tee, and my leather jacket. It’s big on her, but it looks good. Fitting. My body responds with a different kind of heat. She takes a step into the room, and the entire student body parts for her, darkness parting to let in the light.
I feel her presence calling to me. I see her trying not to look at me. I sense she wants to. I want her to, but something tells me I must not distract her.
She focuses on Agravaine, her grey eyes filled with disgust and amusement. And then her voice echoes across the gym. “Did someone order a steaming pile of whoop-ass?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Syl
Before the light of Awakening
Comes the darkness of doubt
- Glamma’s Grimm
After mic-dropping my snarky threat on Agravaine, I get my inner Buffy on by swaggering into the gym in Euphoria’s leather jacket like I own the place. Yeah, just call me the Belle of the Brawl.
I touch my shoulder gingerly. I only hope the Glamoury I just cast holds. It’s one of my first, and it’s meant to trick the Moribund into thinking I’m not a Happy Meal. Nothing like starting the video game on Level Fifty.
The student body parts in a wave. They’re all glassy eyes and hollow cheeks, their mouths open, catching flies. On stage, I see Fiann lowering Euphoria’s violin, and I want to slap the sick look of triumph clean off her face.
But first things first.
Agravaine. He’s got my girl bound to a column in the middle of the stage. I try not to meet her gaze for fear I’ll totally lose my mind and rush in like an amateur. Keep your head in the game, Syl. Focus.
I mean, yeah, I’m gonna rush in. My fifty percent of a plan kind of demands it. But when I rush in, I want to be more Wonder Woman and less love-struck sophomore engaging in Bad Idea Theatre. I take my time crossing the gym, like I have all the time in the world. Like I’m savoring the moment before I kick Agravaine’s sorry Moribund-infected patootie. No matter what happens, I swear I’m going to punch him square in the face at least once.
No one hurts my girl and gets away with it.
My girl… For the first time it feels right. Mine. Because if we get out of this, I’m going to tell her how I really feel.
Somehow, the idea of that is scarier than taking on Agravaine all alone.
All right. Enough teen angst for two seconds. Let’s get to the butt-kicking!
If the Glamoury holds…
If it keeps the Moribund from seeing me as…me. The sleeper-princess. Confused, the dark circuitry revolves in on itself, forming a protective knot in my shoulder, refusing to infect the rest of my body because it can’t sense tasty sleeper-princess flesh. It can’t sense anything. Convinced it’s in a hostile environment, it’s curled into a ball.
But I’m not fully Awakened, and the Glamoury is so not perfect. It has flaws and imperfections. It’s only a matter of time before the Moribund, like a rat in a cage, tests the limits of it Glamouried prison and finds one of the walls weaker.
Only a matter of time before it breaks through.
Until then… I look up at Agravaine on the stage. Until then, I have this jerk to take care of.
I’m not yet Awakened. But hey, this is the part where the plucky heroine saves the day, right?
I swallow hard. I hope.
“Syl.” Agravaine plays the part of jerky bad guy to a T, coming to the edge of the stage to taunt me.
Keep it up, pal.
He leans over, studying me as I saunter up through a parting wave of students. He cocks his head. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I got better.”
“Hmmm…so it appears.” A dark chuckle rumbles from his chest. He’s not wearing a shirt beneath his motorcycle jacket, and all I can see is the chittering expanse of Moribund circuitry that’s taken over his flesh. Gross. Agravaine looks at me and grins evilly. “Here to beat me up, little girl?”
“You know it.”
He straightens to his full six-foot-two and cracks his neck. “You can certainly try.”
“Try, nothing.” I can’t wait to punch his face in. “I’m gonna kick your sorry butt back to UnderHollow. I know it. You know it. All these people know it. It’s gonna be legend.”
“Legend.” He smirks. “Speaking of legend…” He gestures at the dark half of the stage—“Kill her”—and the shadows leap up like eager…hounds.
Crap.
I’m still about twenty feet from the stage, and it’s only now that I notice them. Too busy checking out the cute girl, Syl?
Ummm…guilty.
Disguised as ice columns flanking the giant fake ice castle, the hell-hounds of the Hunt lift their heads and howl, their furnacing green eyes burning through the gloom and fake fog.
Ugh. Of course Cheaty McCheaterface is going to use his minions.
They prowl toward me, their black circuitry coats glistening, hackles raised. Within me, the Moribund lurches. I push back with the Glamoury.
Please hold. It has to.
I’m not done yet.
As one, the hell-hounds attack. I dodge one as it flies off the stage, all teeth and howling. Instinctively, the students move away from the snarling hell-hounds, their eyes glassy. A few of them begin to shake off Fiann’s stolen Euphoria spell.
Agravaine snaps at the Queen of Mean. “Play! Now!”
Fiann jolts, a deer in the headlights, then lifts the violin to her chin and draws the bow across the strings. Her fingers drip blood, and her face wears a plastic expression of triumph, confusion, pain, pleasure—all mixed up into some gross tangle, like that whacked-out grin she wore on Homecoming night.
Note to self: Fae magic is some creepy stuff. Like Euphoria said, there’s always a price.
Also, I will never understand Fiann.
I never want to.
Whatever. Time to kick some dark Fae butt.
I charge in, dodging two more hell-hounds on my race to the stage. I might only be partway Awakened, but I can still pull off some pretty fancy moves. Three more steps, and I do a forward flip onto the stage.
“Agravaine!” I swing, slamming him in the chest, but my fist pangs off the circuitry armor he’s got going. Looks like one hit won’t do it.
Fine. Dude deserves a beating.
I wade in. He backs way up, that annoying smirk on his snotty face, and the biggest hell-hound leaps in my way. I lash out with a kick that sends it sprawling. In a flash, the others leap to their alpha’s defense, charging the stage—and yours truly. One latches on to my arm, and I punch it in the muzzle. With a yelp, it lets go. Luckily, Euphoria’s leather jacket protects me.
Still, the Moribund in the hell-hound calls to the Moribund inside me.
The Glamoury begins to crack.
Hang on. I will it to hold. Hang on.
The other hell-hounds pace around me, all slavering jaws and green-glowing eyes as the music swells and the student body sways on the floor below. Fiann picks up the pace, really winding up with Euphoria’s gramarye.
She turns to me with that crazed Joker grin. “Having fun, Syl?”
“Loa
ds,” I assure her. Without waiting, I lunge, striking one of the hell-hounds in the head with a hammer-fist. I follow up with a kick to its ribs and an elbow uppercut that Ronda Rousey would be envious of. The thing explodes in a shower of jiggering Moribund circuits, raining down over the stage.
And then it’s on.
I’m a blur as I move through the hell-hounds, dodging teeth and claws, lucky as hell that Euphoria’s jacket keeps me from getting too torn up. Power sings through my veins as I destroy hell-hound after hell-hound, the explosion of Moribund circuits around me making my skin tingle, prickle…
The Glamoury cracking and cracking…
Only three hell-hounds left. Hang in there, Glamoury!
The first hell-hound leaps in, and I meet it, my punch entering its throat and tearing out the back of its head in a shower of black circuits.
Cool—gross! I’m not sure which…
The second and third attack me together, leaping on me, bringing me down with their weight. I land hard on the stage, the hell-hounds snapping at my face. I throw my leather-clad arm into the left one’s mouth and turn aside. The right one gets a mouthful of stage. I roll with the left hound, smashing it with my free fist until it lets go.
One more punch sends it to hell-hound heaven, and I turn to face the other one. Two down. One to go.
I don’t wait. I attack, faking a kick and then driving down with both fists onto the top of its head. It collapses, shattering into Moribund circuits.
And then it’s just me standing on the stage, the Moribund circuits chittering and jiggering around me. My Glamoury is seriously cracked but holding. Euphoria’s still alive. We might actually get out of this.
I might actually win this thing.
I face Agravaine. “Where were we?”
He chin-nods, a look behind you gesture, and laughs.
“Seriously, guy? Do you think I’m going to fall for tha—?”
And that’s when the lightning hits me.
Black as night, it tears across my body in great lashes, searing through the leather jacket and into my skin, making me feel like I’ll never breathe anything but burning-hot ozone ever again. I jerk and writhe, caught in the electrical current.
Deep inside me, the Moribund awakens.
It pushes against the Glamoury I’ve constructed, cracking it even more, and my house of cards begins to topple.
Cackling like Witch Hazel in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Fiann hits me again, black lightning lashing over me in jolting tendrils. My knees buckle, and I crash to the stage. In a moment, Agravaine is there. I sit up, but his boot slams me down.
The Glamoury is breaking, shattering. I hold on to it for dear life. If my Glamoury fails, the Moribund will overrun my body.
He leans down, and now the Moribund circuits jitter across the floor. “Come to me.” And they do. They leap at his command and bind me up like they did that day in the lab, like they did to Euphoria. Even now, she is fighting, screaming my name. I can barely hear her through my own struggles, my labored breath, the beating of my heart fast and crazed.
“You failed.” Agravaine’s words are hot in my ear, sowing the poisonous seeds of doubt, and on the heels of it, he tries to gaslight me. “You’re not a sleeper-princess. You’re just a little girl. You failed to save your mother, and now you’ll fail Rouen, too. Aren’t you tired of failing, Syl? Aren’t you tired of fighting? Just give up. Give in.”
“No!” I struggle, but the Moribund binds me tight, threading around my arms, my legs, pinning me to the stage. Worse, the Moribund inside me surges like nobody’s business.
More of the Glamoury breaks and breaks, collapsing.
“Why fight it, only to fail again?” Agravaine’s voice is rumbling, soothing. I struggle and strain, but he presses down, the Moribund binding me tighter. “Just let go, give in. It’ll be so much easier.”
I fight on, struggling, but the Moribund ignites like a fever, and for a second, his words make a twisted kind of sense.
And then, the Glamoury shatters.
My skin tingles, becoming numb as the Moribund within me breaks free and begins to infect me. Immediately, I feel my strength ebb, the Moribund splicing into me from the inside out, taking me over cell by cell.
All my doubts grow stronger, darker, and my strength rushes out. My partly Awakened body grows tired and heavy, the black circuitry racing through my skin, rewriting me into a creature of despair and darkness.
“That’s it, Syl. Good girl.” Agravaine’s words come from far away now. “Give up. Give in. Rest.”
I’ve fought the good fight. I tried to Awaken, tried so hard to become the sleeper-princess, the new Syl. I deserve to rest now, don’t I?
He echoes the thoughts poisoning my mind. “Stop fighting, and I will show you mercy. I’ll let you and Euphoria be together. I’ll send you to your end together.”
That sounds…nice. The Moribund steals my anger, steals my pain. Everything is going numb and blissful. I should be immune to the gramarye Fiann is pumping out, but the Moribund opens me up to it. Steals my immunity the way Fiann stole Euphoria’s gramarye.
“You didn’t think you could actually beat me, did you?” He looms over me, his weight like having a house on my chest. “A little girl like you. You’re not even Awakened.”
He’s right. I’m not even Awakened. I’m not the sleeper-princess. I’m just the old Syl. My heart cries out for Mom, for Euphoria, for anyone to help me.
I can’t do it alone. What’s the point of doing it all alone?
“That’s it. Give in. You’re nothing. Become nothing…”
I want to fight. My heart cries out, but my body, drained by the Moribund, can’t fathom how to fight. My eyes are closing, my body relaxing, the Moribund eating through my cells at an alarming rate. In a few moments, it’ll all be over. I am ready to let go.
Only a tiny part of me remains, a tiny flicker inside.
I claw at the stage, my heart not allowing me to let go even though my mind is sluggish and my body aches. The agony will only continue.
I guess I will die in agony then.
Euphoria… My heart beats hard. Euphoria… I cannot give up. I will not.
The agony bears down, and my world lights up in darkness and doubt and pain.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rouen
Standing at the finish line
Not knowing if we win or lose
As long as we’re together
There’s a chance
- “Endgame,” Euphoria
Syl…Syl! All my excitement at seeing her stride like a total badass into the gym, all my pride in seeing her fight, destroying the hell-hounds and standing up to Agravaine, goes up in smoke as he slams her to the floor and begins binding her with Moribund circuits.
Her cries are blotted out by the music, and she fights, but he is too strong. The Moribund is too strong. Something else hinders her, too, but I cannot put my finger on it.
I want with every fiber of my dark Fae being to help her, but I’ve got troubles of my own to deal with first.
Pinned to a fake ice castle, the Moribund poisoning my strength, draining my life-force away in tiny ebbs like a tide pulling out to sea.
I’ve stopped fighting. For now. The Moribund binds me too tightly anyway, and I’m saving my strength for one last surge to break free. I’ll have to deal with Agravaine and his Command over me, that blasted Contract, but seriously?
I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.
For now, I wait, fighting my every instinct as the Moribund drains and drains me. It knows I want to escape. It knows my heart goes out to Syl, and it locks down, trying to crush my body, my spirit.
“S—” It steals my breath, and I cannot even cry out to her.
My chest constricts and then expands painfully, and I feel the hearthstone inside me like a second heart, cracking and breaking from the strain. At any moment, Agravaine will force me to tap into its power.
More and more moonbeams shin
e down upon me. It’s only moments before the moon hits its zenith, only moments before the solstice occurs. He’ll Command me then, force me to pull the remaining power from the hearthstone for his own dark purposes—to ignite the ley lines and bend them to his will, encasing Richmond in a citywide Glamoury. He’ll Command me to use the last energy of the hearthstone to make it real, to turn it into a Grimmacle.
UnderHollow come to Earth with him installed as king, dictator, tyrant.
The thought of it is bad enough, but Syl…
She lies on the stage, thrashing in agony, and now it hits me like a hammer to my head. The Moribund. They’ve infected her. I can tell from Agravaine’s triumphant smirk, from Fiann’s creepy grin.
They’re like a crappy pair of James Bond villains. I can’t wait to kick both your asses.
But maybe that’s a little…ambitious.
Syl and I aren’t in any condition to kick much of anything.
Except the bucket, the grimdark part of my mind nudges me, and I tamp down on it with gritted fangs.
But it does look bad. And I’m not even being emo about it.
Not one little bit.
The Moribund infects her body. I smell it, the sickly-sweet ozone of it filling my nostrils even at a distance. Somehow, Agravaine and Fiann bypassed what should have been her natural sleeper-princess immunity and infected her.
And it’s getting worse. It ripples and writhes beneath her skin. Her cries are lost in the sounds of Fiann sawing away at my violin, but I hear her. It strikes a chord in me, rumbling in my chest.
I have to help her.
I have only one chance to break free.
And then what?
Agravaine will only Command me, and I’ll be right back at square one. There has to be another way…
I have only seconds. Even now, the moon is almost framed in the makeshift skylight. Any second now, any breath, it will move into position, and the moment of the solstice will come. The ley lines will fire. They’ll be ripe for the bending, the plucking, and then Agravaine will Command me to tap into the hearthstone. He’ll blow the Moribund circuits in all of us—me, Syl, the students—and our deaths will power his dark scheme.
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