Steadfast

Suddenly titanic, consuming pain lanced through her, coring her out, as surely as though she’d been impaled. Verlaine clutched at the locket around her neck—that was where the pain came from, and it had to stop, it had to stop!—but then she remembered and grabbed her hair instead.

Warm arms closed around Verlaine, held her tightly. “Be strong, my beautiful girl,” Asa whispered. “It’s terrible but it won’t last long; I promise you it won’t last long.”

It had to be a lie. There could be no living through pain like this, no surviving, no after. And yet she was Uncle Gary’s only chance, and Asa was here with her, helping her be strong. She just had to breathe—and again—and again—

The pain ended as swiftly as it had begun. She gasped, almost unable to believe she was still in the world.

“You did it,” Asa said. “Elizabeth’s spell will shatter my own small power soon. But at least—at least I was here for this.”

“Thank you,” she said. Their eyes met—and he let go of her even as she stepped away.

Quickly Verlaine pulled a chair next to Uncle Gary’s bed and took one of his hands in hers. Just being with him made her feel steadier. Then she glanced over her shoulder at Asa and repeated, “Thank you.”

“It’s no less than you deserve,” he said. “About time you finally got some shred of what the world owes you.”

“Will you stay with me? After time starts again?”

He shook his head very slightly; already his gaze had turned inward, as if he were trying to listen for a distant sound. “Not for very long. I won’t be able to. You see, I can defy Elizabeth—but not the One Beneath. There’s a price to be paid now. I shall have to pay it.”

Verlaine realized that Asa had defied the One Beneath by saving her. “What happens now?”

“That’s not up to us. It never has been. One thing we have in common, you and I—the great and mighty plot their wars, and we shiver down in the trenches. We fight for others’ glory, or at best our own survival. Ours is not to question why.”

Verlaine wanted to protest. She fought alongside Nadia and Mateo because she trusted them, and knew that their goals were worth fighting for. But she realized that wasn’t a justification she could throw in Asa’s face. It was a luxury he had never been allowed, as a slave to the One Beneath.

Asa brought his hands together again. The room remained still, but the heart monitors began beeping again. Verlaine sighed, reassured by the sound. “What about the doctors?” She gave the door to the room a meaningful glance. “They saw us in the hallway.”

He backed a few halting steps away. “They’ll think they imagined it—or that you left—not that you magically—magically went right past them—”

“Are you all right?” Verlaine stared; Asa had begun to shake. The lamp by Uncle Gary’s bedside shone toward him, highlighting his strained face, casting his shadows even blacker. “What’s happening?”

“Time for me to pay.”

Then his shadow changed.

It tore.

Asa winced as one sliver of his shadow, then another, was ripped away. The darkness didn’t just disappear; instead it fluttered away, as though it had turned into one of Elizabeth’s menacing crows. The slivers ripped from him faster and faster, until he cried out in pain.

Verlaine dropped Uncle Gary’s hand and ran to Asa. In the moment before she would have reached him, he cried out and vanished.

For a moment the remnants of his shadow fluttered in the corners, making soft, raspy sounds like wings, and then they, too, were gone. Nothing of Asa remained.

“No!” Nadia cried, but Elizabeth didn’t listen. Her rings glinted on her fingers; her minerals were with her, and even now she must be summoning the ingredients for her murderous spell.

A few protective spells flashed through Nadia’s mind, but none of them was strong enough. None of them was right. To hell with it, she thought, and threw herself bodily at Elizabeth.

They fell together on the scrabble of seashells, and for a moment they grappled with each other. But then a hook seemed to arch around Nadia’s body and yank her away so sharply that she tumbled onto the steep slope that led to the water. She was only just able to grab at the gravel and shells enough to stop herself from falling in. A wave crashed high enough to soak her jeans with near-freezing water, and drag her another couple of inches down.

The hook she’d felt so clearly didn’t exist. It was, of course, just another of Elizabeth’s spells.

Elizabeth knew too much. She was too strong. Nadia was outclassed, and all the help she’d gotten—everything she and Mateo and Verlaine had tried to do, every spell she’d read in the Books of Shadows—it wasn’t enough.

“You’ve lost,” Elizabeth said. “The only question is whether you’ll make the others die along with your hopes.”

“I can keep you from killing them.” But how? Nadia’s defiance was empty, and she knew it. Still, she kept scrambling up toward Elizabeth, determined to at least meet her again on her feet.

Then she heard Mateo’s voice: “Nadia!”

She whirled around to see the boat he sometimes borrowed. Despite all her warnings, Mateo had sped across this dark, stormy sea to her side. Because he was willing to die with her.

As she stood, waiting for him to join her, Elizabeth said, very calmly, “You can save them.”