You had no choice. You did what was required to obtain your goal.”
“Get out of my head!”
The voice that emerges from my mouth is not one I recognize. It’s angry and bitter, splintering through the canyon like a nail through rotting wood.
The voice inside, however, is one I’ve become all too familiar with. This voice has been eating me alive for days, but more so since I slunk away from the Fourth, the countess’s blood hot on my hands. I can no longer slough it off as exhaustion. The voice taunts me, driving me mad, relentless in its sinister assurances.
“Come now. Surely you don’t mind my presence. The company must be welcome. The life of a murderer is a lonely one—”
“I am not a murderer!” The last word echoes, returning to haunt me again and again with each step. My entire body itches and burns. I am surrounded by desert, but my state has nothing to do with the Fifth Reflection climate.
The Void is taking over. I am running out of time.
“Tell me, Joshua, how does it feel to be a murderer?”
My internal vexation mimics Haman’s hiss, mocking the memory of our confrontation at the subway Threshold. Back then the words were a jab, cutting at my guilt over my mother’s death. A death that was an accident. A death that was not my fault, just like the death of Countess Ambrose.
It was an accident.
I did not intend to kill her.
It is not my fault.
“Keep telling yourself that,” the voice jeers.
I shove the countess’s son forward, prodding the boy’s back with the tip of my sword. Since when did I become a murderer, and now a kidnapper? My criminal record grows thick, but I’m so close. I can’t give up, not when I’ve come this far. I pick up my pace, clutching the mirrorglass bottle in my right hand.
Once Gage and I delivered the true Midnight Rose to Isabeau, we parted at last, then I returned to the Fourth alone, eager to find my brother and El in the catacombs where I left them. But they were nowhere to be seen, and anxiety mounted among the Reflection’s residents.
“Something is amiss,” a shopkeeper murmured to his customers as I crept between buildings in the marketplace. “The countess is usually up with the sun. Passes through every morning, tasting the baker’s bread, chattin’ with the coffee roaster. Unlike her not to show.”
The countess’s body hadn’t been discovered yet, but it was only a matter of hours before the tides would change. I couldn’t risk remaining in the area. If I got caught, the countess’s death traced back to me, all my hard work would be for nothing. Still, I required information as to where Kyaphus had taken El. The countess most likely would have known, but the woman was useless to me now. My best option was her heir. But of course I couldn’t take his meager word for it. I brought him along to ensure he relayed the truth. He protested at first, insisting the crew had nothing I desired.
“Listen closely. I will find the whereabouts of your captain. With or without your help.” I lifted him by his shirt collar, and his feet dangled aboveground. The extra strength I’d received from the Void was paying off.
“Hey, man.” The boy’s hands shot into the air faster than Ever blood heals. “I’m sure we can work out a deal.”
I lowered him but kept my grip tight. “What is it you want?”
“There’s a girl on board the ship. Ebony. Leave her alone and I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“Done.”
I didn’t give him time to request a Kiss of Accord, and he didn’t attempt it. Perhaps the kid is smarter than he looks.
Fortitude carries us farther from the Fifth’s Fairy Fountain, closer to the canyon’s end. Isabeau was more than accommodating once she had her precious rose. Now we trudge through this forsaken desert land. I bear no interest in Kyaphus’s reasons for dragging—stealing—El away. It only matters that I catch up to them before things turn irreversible. If the Callings expire entirely, if the Thresholds finish draining, that’s it. The Verity’s light will extinguish, and the Reflections as we know them will never be the same.
“How much farther to the nearest compound?” The sound that trips off my tongue is again foreign to me. More animal than man.
Tried or Ride or whatever his name is walks with hands behind his head. “I told you, I’ve only been here once. I think it’s at the end of the canyon.”
“You’d better be right, kid. For your own sake.”
I want to vomit from my own cruelty but refrain. I must keep my wits if I’m to question the people of the Fifth. This Reflection is known for its smaller clusters of people, and most who live here are native born. Rare to have strangers or visitors, which makes my job a crowe of a lot easier. If El and Kyaphus have been sighted, the people here will know.
A small hut at the crest of a winding trail ahead catches my eye and I aim for it, nudging the boy’s arm with the flat of my blade so he adjusts his course. The sun beats down and I blink against its rays, longing for the winter of the Second. I’d welcome snow over sand any day.
The trail takes longer to climb than anticipated, or perhaps I have nothing to gauge time against anymore. Up close the hut looks more like a small cottage, out of place in this terrain with its cobbled walls and potted flowers in the windowsills. It almost seems familiar, as if I’ve seen it somewhere before.
I shake away the notion. Throat parched and legs weak, I shove the boy left, keeping my sword level with his chest. Then I lift a fist and pound the door. Someone shuffles around on the other side. The curtain in the window to my left flutters. I lean to the right and shade my eyes, peering through the glass but unable to catch much of anything through the caked dust.
When I draw back I catch a glimpse of my reflection. Then I recoil, dropping my sword and clawing at my face. This is me? This is the man I’ve become? No, not a man at all, but a monster. No different from the Troll. No better than Jonathan. How could I have allowed this to happen?
“For power.”
No, for El.
“Not for your precious Eliyana. You did this for yourself.”
The door cracks and I shield my face with my arm, all too sure whoever it is will not help me if they see not who but what I am.
The door flies wide and a woman steps over the Threshold. Her belly has reduced since I saw her last. She cradles a baby, bouncing him the way I’ve seen countless mothers do. I lower my arm and her confused expression pales to dread.
My knees knock and I collapse at her feet.
“Joshua!” Her shout echoes the fear widening her eyes.
I can’t move. I gaze at her, tears streaming as I croak, “Elizabeth.”