‘I understand.’
‘I know I’m being ridiculous—’
‘You’re not,’ Nell said. ‘I keep thinking about what Flora said, about how the fiends were once part of us. I don’t know that they’re capable of genuine good, but I know we are. Choosing not to enslave another creature and bend it to your will doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you Prosper. And besides … the coven wants to try to get as many fiends as we can back Downstairs and then wait out the Void. Maybe the contracts will automatically be nullified if …’
‘That whole realm is destroyed?’ I finished. ‘That doesn’t feel right either.’
‘No,’ she agreed, rubbing at her forehead. ‘It doesn’t.’
I lay back on the rug, staring up at the shimmering blanket of the protection spell through the hall’s skylight. Nell did the same, resting her hands on her stomach.
‘It’ll be all right,’ I said, letting my eyes shut. ‘We’ll figure it out.’
Within seconds, we lost our grip on the world and drifted into sleep.
Trapped inside the boy’s undreaming mind, Prince Alastor of the Third Realm stewed.
It was an inglorious way to describe his current ignoble predicament, but it would have to suffice until he thought of a better one. The boy and witchling had fallen asleep on the ground and no one had come to awaken them. Now, if Alastor had nothing else, he had time to think. About the boy. About the key. About his family. About his realm.
But even the hours were dwindling, passing by like clouds caught in the wind.
He strained against the iron bonds, testing the bracelet the witch had placed on the boy. Outside, the infernal clanging of church bells continued, and the wards he himself had established centuries ago on this land held.
Alastor supposed he ought to have been proud of that, in a way. There had once been a time when his power was as unquestionable as it was unrivalled. No fiend had dared to challenge him, not until his sister. In the end, Pyra’s scheme had been flawless. All she’d had to do was choose the one creature he would never expect to best him – a human – and plant the seeds of betrayal in exchange for what he desired.
Now Alastor found himself again in the grand home that had been built on the foundations of Honor’s deceit and greed, his mutilated portrait staring down at him.
When Alastor had first met the man, Honor and his wife had lived in little more than a simple hovel of wood. His requests had started so small, so humbly. Then they had grown fangs, and the price had become darker. Destroy the Bellegraves. Grant us never-ending wealth and prosperity.
Prosperity.
And what had the boy asked him for? Help me save my sister.
He tested the iron restraints again, feeling the ache in the boy’s shoulder. It was because it was such a nuisance, he told himself, and because it would impede him once he found a way out of the irons that Alastor sent a swirl of healing magic toward the wound. Just enough to close it. The boy would do well with a few more scars.
The witches moving the town out of sync with the mortal realm’s flow of time would prove a challenge to overcome, but one he was willing to face in the name of completing his agreement with Pyra and saving Downstairs. Though he had not seen her, Alastor felt Pyra nearby, stalking the perimeter of the estate’s vast grounds. She was as unyielding as the black sky back home. The fiends were gathering around her, the start of what promised to be a ferocious storm.
There was precious little Alastor desired more than watching the fortunes of the Reddings wither and Honor’s descendants grovelling for mercy. Precious little, aside from saving his kingdom.
He had not been entirely honest with the boy. While neither party could violate the terms of a malefactor’s contract, the contract could be voided … if both parties agreed to it. He had never known a malefactor to consider such a thing, to voluntarily give up potential magic, until now. In trying to destroy him, Honor had made his request to end the contract clear – and now Alastor would answer it.
Outside the walls of the property, the blood key thrummed, starving for more magic. Still not in his true form, Alastor could not send his sister a dream to communicate his plan. His message would have to speak for itself.
He supposed that the Reddings watching their world crumble would have to be enough to sate his centuries-old grudge.
As he reached for the tether of old, brittle magic, Alastor wondered how long he would hear the boy’s heartbeat filling his ears, if he might carry it in his mind always, like the echo of a bad dream.
Then, as easily as he had formed the contract with Honor three hundred and twenty-five years before, Alastor severed it.
Into the Woods
The house was calling my name.
The old joints and bones of the Cottage seemed to grow restless as the night wore on, as if it had to adjust its stance to accommodate the new families sleeping inside. The walls loved to play with storms, the old windows whined with each brush of the wind, and the walls caught the thunder, letting it shake them down to the studs.
I’d always hated the nights Prue and I had to sleep over here. I could never shake the feeling of being watched, even after all of the house’s many occupants went to sleep. Countless generations of Reddings had lived here, and maybe some just hadn’t wanted to let go.
‘… per?’
My groggy mind registered the voice again, different from the murmuring of the house. I glanced over at Nell, but she was curled up on her side, pillowing her head on her arm. For a second I didn’t understand where I was.
‘Prosper? Prosper …’
Okay, I hadn’t imagined it. I pushed up on to my feet, wiping my eyes. Careful not to wake Nell, I made my way down the great hall, toward the entryway. The voice sounded like it was coming from the bay windows in the informal sitting room …
What are you doing? Alastor asked. You hear a phantom wind call your name and you rush toward it?
You heard it, too?
Alastor retreated back into his silence as I searched the room, checking under the sofa and behind the chairs – even inside the armoire.
Never mind, I thought, you are definitely hearing things …
I drifted over to the windows, glancing up at the magic spread across the sky. The cold night seeped through the thin glass panes, but it felt good. The contents of my head were blurry and unfocused, and my skin felt ten degrees too hot.
The velvet curtain to the right of me fluttered, and before Alastor could gasp, the cutting edge of a blade was digging into my neck.
I couldn’t turn to look without the knife slicing in deeper. But we stood close enough to dark glass that I could see Henry Bellegrave’s reflection in it. His long pale hair was wild. He spun me around, keeping the knife on me.
This hedge-born fool, Alastor growled. Take the iron cuff off, Maggot. Let me finish what I started centuries ago.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.
‘Finishing this,’ Henry said, pulling back his fist and letting it sail toward my face.
Lights out, Prosper.
Somehow, even before I opened my eyes, I knew exactly where I was.
The air blew colder here, carrying a hint of smoke from the trees that had never fully recovered from the fire that had happened there centuries ago. The wind played the splotchy grey branches like discordant flutes.
Are you awake now?
I opened my eyes to slits, trying to absorb the sight of the forest without alerting the fiends I heard walking through the mulch nearby. A heavy layer of fog trailed lazily over the ground. Now and then, a shadowed fiend would appear in it, only to vanish again.
The right side of my face throbbed in time with my pulse, and I could actually feel the massive bruise forming. My fingers curled into the soft, wet dirt beneath me.
I think … we’re going to have to work together, I thought at him. One last time. It’s not too late to change the path we’re on.
Only humans believe in such dreams,
Alastor said. It is now the time of fiends.
‘I can feel your thoughts, even if I cannot hear them,’ came Pyra’s silky voice through the creeping mist. A moment later she herself appeared in her panther form. The blood key rose in the air behind her, casting the forest in blood-red light. ‘Forget whatever last-minute plan you may be brewing, it’s already too late.’
Alastor’s voice jumped to my mouth before I could stop it. ‘At last, you’re here and we can begin. I voided my contract with the Reddings, which nullified the protection spell on their property. The humans are yours for the taking.’
‘Splendid,’ Pyra said, signalling to the ogres nearby. They stomped through the forest toward us.
‘Why?’ I whispered. ‘Why would you do something like that – there are kids in that house. They have nothing to do with any of this.’
Alastor’s reply was slow to come. Yes … and their fear will give me the last bit of power I need.
‘Human,’ Pyra said, looking over her shoulder. ‘Get on with it. We haven’t much time.’
Henry Bellegrave stepped out from behind the nearby trees, limping over to me. I pushed myself up off the ground, but before I could stand, a massive hand clasped the back of my neck. I barely got one kick in before the ogre wrapped his other arm around my centre and pinned me against his massive chest. The fur of some long-dead animal he wore as a vest prickled against my skin.
‘I thought you would enjoy visiting the site of your intended grave three centuries past,’ Pyra told her brother. ‘I watched, from just over there, as the witch and the Reddings tried to roast you alive. I would have set another pyre, but I’ve grown rather bored of them after eradicating the vampyre families.’
No wonder this place had never felt right to me. The evil that had occurred here with the death of the innocent girl had permanently scarred this part of the forest.
The blood key glowed brighter, throbbing with menace. That same uncomfortable tug at my centre began again, growing in intensity until my head pounded in time with it, and my vision began to swirl, then blur. I tried to push back against the panic, knowing it would only feed Alastor the magic he needed, but I couldn’t help it.
I was alone. My chest clenched at the thought. Alastor was still inside me, but I was alone in a way I hadn’t been in a long time.
‘What do you intend to do?’ Alastor asked through me.
‘Finish it, Bellegrave,’ Pyra said. ‘Then you can consider your contract complete. Not too quickly, however. I want my brother to feed off the pain as long as possible. I need his power restored before his sacrifice.’
My head felt like it was twice its normal size. I forced myself to look up, my neck straining. Through the haze of fog and disorientation, I saw the man’s pale hair glowing like flame in the blood key’s eerie light.
‘I’d say sorry,’ Henry said, the blade flashing in his hand. ‘But your family and its contract have killed countless Bellegraves, stomping us out each time my ancestors believed they could build a new life. For that, at least one Redding deserves to die – nice and slow.’
‘Wait—’ Alastor began, the word like lead in my mouth. His presence exploded inside me, all static and sparks.
The knife slid into my belly.
It wasn’t the pain that scared me, but the lack of it.
I choked on my next breath, watching as the hot blood spilled out of me and over Henry’s hand. He stared down at it, his grey-blue eyes wide behind his thin glasses. His jaw worked silently, back and forth, shock strangling the words before they had the chance to leave his throat.
‘I …’ he began, fumbling over the simple sound. ‘I …’
I, I, I … He was only thinking of himself. I was thinking of everyone else.
Who would find my corpse out there, after all the fiends had finished their dark work.
Who would tell my dad what had happened.
Who would hold Mom’s hand at the funeral.
Who would reassure Nell that it wasn’t her fault.
Who would make sure that Prue … that Prue would …
It became harder to hold on to the cloudy images. The light in them began to dim, and the pounding in my ears slowed. Every breath hurt.
Every single one.
I don’t want to die.
You will not go, Alastor said. I forbid it!
A hurricane of pain, fear and hopeless anger swept through me. It drowned out the last of my thoughts, and kept growing and growing, feeding itself until the pressure inside my chest twisted and tightened and I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t breathe.
Agony tore down my centre, firing through my blood. It felt like—
I’m being torn in two.
I couldn’t tell if the screaming in my ears was my own or Alastor’s. Light flared behind my clenched eyelids, and I had to force myself to open them again, to face the strange magic that poured out of the centre of my chest, raging through the darkness of the woods.
‘Prosper!’ Nell’s shout sounded like it had travelled from the other side of the world.
Henry stumbled back, throwing an arm over his face to shield his eyes. Fiends began to scurry away from the clearing, squeaking and howling at the intensity of the glare.
What is this? Al? Alastor!
Pyra’s lips peeled back, revealing her full set of fangs. I only had one glimpse of her before the blood key’s crimson light clashed with my own, showering sparks of magic between us.
The pressure and pain faded, stealing the light along with them. Bright spots in every colour swirled in my vision, as if the power had been tattooed on my retinas.
The ogre finally released me, letting me fall to the damp dirt below. The front of my shirt was soaked through with blood. Whatever strength was left in me drifted away like the last sparks of magic into the starless sky.
Voices – human voices – were calling my name, shouting something I couldn’t make out. Just beyond the rows of fiends, the coven of witches, their changelings and Nell had gathered, staring down the snarling fiends.
Grandmother raised her arms and the trees around us cracked like broken bones, twisting so that their sharp branches surrounded the fiends. Roots rose out of the ground as Barbie guided them forward, making them snap like whips in the air.
And a small white fox sat shivering on the ground, staring up at me with wide eyes. One blue, one black.
‘Alastor?’ I breathed out.
Threads of power from the blood key lashed out at him, wrapping around him until he choked, thrashing with baby-weak limbs. His form, which only a second ago had been as solid and pale as a pearl, flickered like a flame caught in the wind.
‘Marvellous,’ Pyra said, laughing. ‘It actually worked. Now, the time has come for you to uphold your end of the bargain. Give your power to the blood key. Prove to me that you are different from our brothers. From our father.’
Alastor extended his small claws, digging them into the soft earth, desperately crawling forward even as the blood key dragged him back. ‘But … the boy …’
He sounded so young outside of my head.
He sounded … scared.
‘There, you see?’ Pyra sneered to Alastor. She towered over him in their animal forms. One of her paws lashed out, pinning him with the ease of a predator about to enjoy a long-awaited meal. ‘I knew you would not do it. Coward!’
‘Prosper!’ my grandmother called from somewhere in the trees. Something brightly coloured fluttered at her shoulder– Ribbit? ‘What is happening? What do you see?’
‘I think,’ Pyra said, the muscles of her neck rippling, ‘I shall enjoy devouring her first. Not much meat left on her old bones, but destroying a realm rather builds an appetite and I’ll take what I can get.’
‘I’ve honoured my end of our deal,’ Henry Bellegrave said, his voice tight. ‘I have, you see? Release me – release me!’
Pyra flicked a paw in his direction. ‘Begone, then.’
A flash of pale hair was all I saw
before Henry Bellegrave turned and started running for his life.
‘No!’ Nell shouted. ‘Stop him!’
Alastor turned his gaze away, his eyes flicking back toward mine. They travelled down my front, to the pool of blood collecting on the fallen leaves below.
Please, I thought. My lips were numb. Please help them … get them out of here …
The whites of Alastor’s eyes flashed. His gaze sharpened, as if he were coming to a decision.
Stay still, Prosperity. We remain connected, but only for moments more.
A faint thread of green magic slowly manifested between us and began to glow brighter and brighter. The end that met my chest suddenly drew back, only to surge forward like a striking snake.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I clenched every muscle in my body to brace myself for the oncoming pain.
It never came.
I forced my eyes open again, watching in shock as that same sparkling thread began to stitch down, weaving itself in and out of my body. Mending. The magic left behind a warm, tingling sensation that was somehow both numbing and soothing.
‘As it turns out, Maggot,’ Alastor said, his voice no more than a whisper, ‘I have decided to care about one human child.’
What … ?
The glow around me faded. I looked down, touching the bloodied hole in my shirt. The skin beneath it was the shiny pink of new, healthy skin.
It was impossible, but …
Alastor’s form trembled and shimmered before me. He tried to unfold his legs and stand, but couldn’t seem to catch his balance. I took a step forward to help him, only to be cut off by Pyra, swinging her tail around in my path.
‘You human-loving, folly-fallen hedge pig!’ Pyra snarled. ‘You give your power away – the magic you promised me – to heal the boy? You’ll drain your life for him? I won’t let you! I won’t! I command you, Stin—’
A new voice roared out through the night, spilling around the agonized shapes of the trees, blanketing the clearing like a shadow.
Prosper Redding: The Last Life of Prince Alastor Page 27