“What do you mean, it let you go?” He turned to me, his forehead creased. “Are you saying that the Stone somehow … held your mind?”
“Yes. It is what causes the madness. The Stone took my mind, and Dominic’s. And Mother’s. I saw them. It…” I recalled the laid-bare feeling of madness, the sense of being consumed. I shuddered. “It feeds on them.”
“But how can that be? It didn’t exist yet, when you went mad. It wasn’t finished.”
“Not finished. But somehow it was already there, in some form. I felt it. I—I saw it.” I thought of the dark figure and shuddered. “I know.”
We fell silent. I did not want to think of the sinister implications of what I was saying. I felt my mind trying to slide past them.
“Will tried to fuse with the Stone,” I told him. “It rejected him. It wants me to complete it.”
I took Will’s letter from my bedside table and handed it to him. I stood before him while he read it. When he finished, he looked up at me.
“Thea,” said my father. There was wariness in his eyes and warning in his voice.
“I’m going to meet him, Father,” I said. “I’m going to get the Stone and use it to cure Dominic and Mother.”
“Thea, think of what you’ve just told me,” said Vellacott. “The Stone is dangerous. You say it is feeding on their minds—what will it do to you, if you complete it? We don’t understand it. We don’t know how it works or what it will do.”
“I know it needs me to work,” I said. “And I know it heals any ailment. Every text says that.”
“But, Thea, the risks—”
“I know them,” I said, and suppressed another shudder. “Dominic knew them, too, when he took them to save me. He said—”
I didn’t want to say what he said, after he had recovered from the first threat of madness. I forced it out.
“He said it was like being among the damned in hell. And it is,” I said. “It is. I can’t leave them there.”
My father’s head drooped. He took a long, shallow breath. He shook his head.
There was no way to explain to him how much I needed the Stone. How everything in me screamed for it. It was something I needed for myself, but he did not see that. I tried another angle.
“You said you feel responsible for what happened to Dominic,” I said as gently as I could manage. “Then think how I must feel. When the situation was reversed, he chose to face the same risk for me.”
“I know,” said Vellacott. “I was there. I didn’t stop him.”
“Then you will not stop me,” I said.
He looked up at me again with an anguish I had not expected. I took a step back. It was too much. I could not accept responsibility for that much misery from him. I went to the window and let him gather himself.
“If you still wish to help, I would be grateful if you would go to London and find Valentin,” I said. “Tell him to meet us across the channel in Caen with Dominic if he still wants the Stone.”
“You will go to your mother first?” Vellacott asked.
I nodded.
“Valentin will take the Stone from you,” said my father. “Will you let him have it, when you have healed them?”
I did not answer at first. I closed my eyes and let myself feel the low throb of longing that flared up into fierce desire at the thought of giving up the Stone.
Give it up? No. Never.
But first things must be dealt with first.
“Tell Valentin I will,” I said.
19
I arrived in Portsmouth late, the night before I was to meet Will on the docks. The salt air hung so heavy that I tasted it when I licked my cracked lips. I walked down the dock and stared at the ships in the enormous port, my eyes glassy from the sharp sea wind. The church bells tolled the late hour, and a ship in the harbor fired its guns in agreement.
Will was here, somewhere. And the Stone.
The Stone. I had felt it calling to me, stronger and stronger as I drew nearer to the port. It was a throb inside me that never stopped, a soundless keening that set my mind and heart racing. Since Will had taken the Stone from me, I had never stopped feeling the lack of it. Now, though, I felt nothing else. It knew I was here, and it wanted to find me as much as I wanted to find it. I had to have it. I would do anything, anything to have it.
A quiet voice inside myself, struggling to speak through the Stone’s pull, tried to remind me of what the Stone had done to me in the past, to my mother, to Dominic. Was it good to long so much for something with the power and the will to do so much harm?
Power to do harm is still power, said my mother’s voice. That power in your hands becomes the power to do good. To do anything.
Her voice was so much louder than the quiet one inside myself. So much easier to listen to. I pushed my doubts aside. The thing now was to get the Stone, to heal my mother and Dominic. The rest would come afterward.
I took a room at the cheapest inn in Portsmouth Point, the cheapest part of town, reasoning that I would be likely to find Will somewhere he could afford. I stood at the door of the inn and hesitated to enter it. The water lapped quietly against the jetty beneath me, and the air was thick with mist and the brackish smell of the harbor. It was very quiet and very still. From where I stood on the point, I could see the docks crowded with ships, the town behind them, and the white-pocked hills beyond the town. The Stone was here, somewhere. I felt it.
I went inside and booked a room. I avoided the cloudy mirror on the wall, but I still saw my ill appearance reflected in the concerned frown of the innkeeper. I clutched my shawl tight and found myself worrying about how this cold damp affected Will. I tried to dismiss the thought, but to my dismay the anxiety remained. It was only habit, I reassured myself. I did not truly care if he was cold, no matter what it did to his lungs.
I climbed the creaky wooden stairs slowly. It was a necessity—my breath came shorter with each step—and it was also a good way to listen. Sure enough, his cough tore through the walls, and even from the stairway and down the hall, I knew it was him. He was on the third floor, one above mine. I gripped the rail and waited in vain for my heartbeat to slow. He coughed again. It was worse than it had been in London. I had not thought it could get worse, but it had. He couldn’t have long.
I made my way slowly down the hall to his room. I waited outside his door until the coughing subsided. I waited a long time. He must have heard me.
“It’s not locked,” he said from inside. His voice was little more than a gasp.
I opened it. The room was snug and dark from the unpainted walls of wood. Faint light filtered in through one small window; just enough for me to see how dreadful Will looked. More corpse than man. He made an effort to sit up when I came in, but failed. What had been left of the flesh on his body had wasted away, and the dark circles under his eyes seemed to have spread to his whole sunken face. His lips were red with blood. He clutched a mass of red-stained handkerchiefs in his hands. He looked up at me with flat, hopeless eyes when I came in. I tried to hate him. I tried to call up his betrayal, his lies, his selfishness. None of that could take hold. He had been so beautiful, and so alive. All I could feel was sadness that now he was not.
“Bee,” he said, so very quietly. “Thank you for coming.”
“I didn’t come for you.” I tried to hide my pity. I doubted I succeeded.
“I know.” He gasped, coughing into his handkerchiefs. “You came for the Stone.”
I looked around the room, then closed my eyes for a moment to listen for it. Will spoke, confirming what I already knew.
“It isn’t here.”
My mind filled with panicked questions, but I forced them down. He hadn’t lost it. He would have hidden it somewhere, until he could be sure I would do what he wanted.
“Then I cannot heal you,” I said.
His eyes lit with a trace of pathetic hope. “You can make it work, then? Are you certain? It nearly killed me when I tried.”
I no
dded. The Stone would work for me. I was certain of almost nothing but that.
“Then you will, but not until we’re away,” said Will with a little more force. “When you’re on a ship with me to France, and we’ve left England and the Germans behind for good.”
“So it is already on the boat?” My pulse quickened. A reckless plan, if it was. Too many things could go wrong. “That was foolish, Will. We don’t leave until tomorrow, and you look like you might not last the night.”
He made a ghastly wheezing sound. For the half moment before it became a cough, it was almost like laughter.
“Very true,” he gasped. “I might not last the night. But you should try to see to it that I do. The boat sails with the early tide. If I don’t get on board, the Stone will be thrown into the sea.”
My anger rekindled. I pressed my clenched fists into my thighs. A new reason to hate his illness occurred to me. If he were well, I could hit him in his selfish face. But nature had taken my revenge for me.
“Even now,” I said in a low voice. “Even now you think of nothing and no one but yourself. If you let the Stone be thrown into the sea my mother will never be well. And I—I will have nothing. You know that, and you do not care.”
“You’re wrong about that,” he said. “I do care. I’ve always cared about you. Just not quite as much as I care about myself.”
There was a spindly chair in the corner. I felt an urgent need to sit down. I pulled it over and sank into it.
“I think—” I met his sunken eyes. “I think that is the only honest love speech you’ve ever made.”
He coughed again, and I closed my eyes against the way his wasted body shook with it.
“What other honest love speech is there?” he asked when it had subsided. “You want the truth, Bee? You already know it. I was willing to watch you suffer and perhaps lose your mind if it could save my life. I hated to do it. It caused me more pain than anything else in the world could, except my own death.” He coughed again, and when he stopped his death hung in the air between us, feeling very near.
“I love you, Bee. I truly do, but love has a limit. Men say they’d die for their beloved, but that’s nonsense.” Will’s eyes were wide and deep. Looking at them was like staring into an endless void. “Easy to say when you don’t have to do it. I know death now, Bee. I’ve had to face it, truly face it. And I choose not to go, if I can help it. I’m only human.”
“I’m human, too.” I looked at my hands, balled in my lap. “But I was willing to face something worse than death for you.”
“There’s nothing worse than death,” said Will.
“You are wrong about that,” I said.
“Perhaps,” said Will. “But you expected a cure. And in the end you got one.”
But Dominic didn’t.
I rose and went to the window. It had started to rain. I tried to count the ships in the port, and the ones in the harbor. I could probably rule out the proud, many-sailed British warships. He would have made some deal with one of the humbler merchant vessels. But even so, there were too many.
“You won’t find it without me, Bee,” said Will, reading my thoughts. “You still need me, for a little while longer at least. Then you can have everything you want, except revenge.” He made a ghastly wheeze of a laugh. “I’m afraid I can’t let you have that.”
“I’m not looking for revenge,” I said.
“No?” He frowned, then coughed. “I don’t like that at all, Bee. What kind of lover would forgive me for what I’ve done without making me pay first?”
I looked at him in surprise and realized he was being quite sincere.
“Forgive you?” I asked. “You expect me to forgive you?”
“Not at first,” he said. “First you’ll need to punish me. I understand that. I deserve it. But then you’ll see what I see, Bee. We’re meant for each other. No one will ever understand you as I do. No one else could ever make you happy.”
“Perhaps not.” That much, at least, I believed. No person could fill the hole his betrayal had left behind. But the Stone would. I knew it would.
“Bee—” Another cough took him. I watched his body convulse with it. When it had finished with him, he looked up at me, alarm all over his face. “Why are you so calm, Bee? You should be angrier with me.”
“What would be the point of that?” I asked. But he was right. It was strange, the blank feeling that came over me when I looked at him, when he coughed like a man not long for this world. “I’ll keep you alive through the night, and in the morning we’ll sail together. You will give me the Stone. I will heal you. And we will go our separate ways.”
“No.” Will pushed himself onto his elbow. “I won’t lose you. You love me, Bee, I know you do underneath—”
This time, somehow, the cough was worse. Deeper and fuller than the others. Will clutched the bloody handkerchief to his mouth, but brought up too much blood for it to contain. It spilled down his arm. I looked away until it was over.
“You have to tell me where it is,” I said when it finally stopped. “You do not have time for this, Will. Do you want to go on suffering this way? Tell me where it is, and I will come back. I’ll heal you tonight.”
He looked up at me, his eyes dark pits of terror. He knew it was the only way. He would agree.
“Swear,” he whispered, blood dripping down his chin.
“I swear it,” I said at once. “I swear, I will bring it here first. I don’t want you to die like this, Will, whatever you’ve done. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.”
“You have a worse enemy … than me?” he whispered, then coughed again.
“I never wanted you as an enemy,” I said. “You know I loved you.”
He stared at me, struggling for breath. Then he closed his eyes. “I love you still,” he whispered.
“Then trust me,” I said. “You know you can.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I need proof.”
“What proof?” I asked.
“Proof that you love me.” He opened his eyes again, and now I could see something else in them, something dark behind the fear. “Marry me.”
I almost laughed, though nothing could be less amusing.
“Be serious, Will,” I said. “You are dying. Now is not the time—”
“Now is the only time I will ever have.” He reached for my hand. It was a desperate movement that seemed to require his whole body. I wanted to cringe away, but I held myself still. His hand clamped on mine, slick with blood. “There is a minister at the church down the street. I told him to come in the morning, but he will come tonight if you ask him. Tell him I’m dying, and this is my last wish.”
He was coughing again, but instead of pulling his hand away his grip tightened. He seemed stronger, suddenly. It dawned on me, slowly and horribly, that he meant this. He had planned it all along. He was going to insist.
“You don’t even believe in marriage,” I said faintly. We had argued about it, once, though not seriously.
“But you do,” he said. A sickly smile twisted his mouth. “If you say the words, I will know you mean it.”
I stared at him. Disgust curdled my stomach. I could almost see, from his mind, how it made a grotesque kind of sense. This creature, this thing that had once been Will, wanted to bind me to him with whatever power could come to hand. And nothing was more binding than the bonds of marriage. The Stone would be mine, but what was mine would be his.
“Don’t do this, Will,” I said. “If you care about me at all, you will not do this to me.”
“I knew it.” He fell back, loosened his grip. “You mean to betray me. If I tell you where it is, you’ll leave me here to die.”
He turned away. I stood. I backed out of the room. And when I had shut the door behind me, I ran.
20
I wasn’t going to marry Will. The very thought of it made me want to scream. I ran down the stairs, out of the inn, into the cold salty night.
I wasn’t going to
marry him, but I found myself looking up into the night sky for a church spire and following it to the church steps. A cold, horrible solution occurred to me. I could marry him, take the Stone, then let him die. Become a widow. I did not want to marry him, or let him die, but wasn’t it better to do both than lose the Stone, or live with Will as my husband?
What else was there? If I refused him, the Stone would die. Oh, I could look for it, of course. But I had little hope that I would find it. I tried to ignore it calling to me. Would the calling stop, one day? When it lay at the bottom of the sea, perhaps? I didn’t know which was worse: the thought of living with this longing unfulfilled for the rest of my life, or the fear of what would be left behind when it went away.
A breath became a sob, and I choked on it. If I let myself cry now, I would find it hard to stop. I had to think, but my mind swam.
Is this all it takes to deter you?
My mother’s voice again. The only voice in the world I wanted to hear even less than Will’s.
I would have done anything to make the Stone mine. Anything. This? This is nothing, and you quail. The Stone should have chosen me instead.
I shook my head. Nothing? Would it be nothing to take Will’s hand and swear to love and obey him? To bind myself to him for the rest of my life, or at least his? Even if I let him die immediately after, it would be a horror. Bile rose in my throat. Once I had dreamed of marrying Will, and now he had turned it into a nightmare.
I stood and started away from the church. There had to be another way. I walked down to the docks, staring at each ship. The Stone pulsed in me, but no stronger before any particular vessel. It was only a few hours before dawn. When it came, I could run down the dock and call out to each ship’s captain, trying to convince them to give me what Will had hidden. It would be impossible to reach them all before they sailed, but perhaps I would be lucky. Perhaps I’d find the right captain, and somehow he would be persuadable.
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