Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

MARNIE

T ears blurred my vision.

Levi collapsed to the ground.

A sound escaped me, loud and sharp, foreign to my ears.

I fell to my knees. My weapon clattered beside me.

I lifted Levi’s head onto my lap and pet his hair, praying I’d been wrong, praying that none of this was happening. He shouldn’t be here, how was he here?

I could hear Otis speaking as he knelt beside me.

It seemed the kitsune had released us both, because devastation made for better entertainment than carnage alone.

Blood pooled on the floor.

While his chest still rose and fell, Levi’s face was pale.

A cold emptiness spread through my chest. We’d hardly had a chance to spend time together before that time was being ripped away.

It was too soon. We hadn’t had long enough.

I’d never felt so deeply for someone, not in the way I did when I was with him. We deserved a real chance to get to know each other outside of all of this chaos, outside of the death vortex that was Nevermore.

It wasn’t fair.

“Hey, Marshmallow.” His eyes were closed. His voice was weak. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It’s not. You’re bleeding a lot.”

The weight of loss was so heavy that I could scarcely breathe. I needed a chance to go back and try again, like Mar coming to this horrible town after Nie. Every new Marnie was another chance, another do-over. But Levi didn’t have that luxury.

“I need time,” he said.

Time was one of many things we didn’t have. Desperation, I had in spades.

I told Otis, “Heal Levi like he healed me. He did a magic sewing thing when I cut my foot.”

Otis stared at me, eyes wide. He clenched his jaw. He blinked several times, each one slower than the last, as if hoping that the next blink would bring clarity.

I apparently understood as little about the situation as he did.

“What?” I asked, aghast. “Why aren’t you helping me?”

“Levi showed you his healing magic?” Otis’s tone was taut and quiet.

“Why is that important right now? Heal him.”

He rubbed his temples, as if the pressure might somehow force the reality into a shape he could comprehend. “Unless our lives depend on it, our constable isn’t allowed to reveal our nature, or our magic, to anyone but our mates.”

Mates.

I’d heard the word before. Wendy’s bear man used it to describe their bond. According to him, it was a bond beyond anything expressed between humans.

It meant eternal commitment and never-ending love.

There was no such thing as divorce in the shifter realm, no choosing someone else or moving on.

They each found one special person, and that was it.

And Otis was telling me that Levi had chosen me.

There were no words that I could speak that expressed the torrent of emotion terraforming my heart. Levi loved me beyond any measure. Living through holding him while he slipped away from me now, I realized that I loved him too.

It wasn’t like friendship that was born from time shared together, common interest, and a slow build. It wasn’t falling in the way I’d heard people describe infatuation.

It was a fierce pull, a connection that was there right from the start, even if I hadn’t been able to identify it then.

Levi was my person.

I would give anything to save his life.

“Marnie, Levi will heal,” Otis said. “Trust me.”

I wanted to. I did. But I couldn’t move from this spot until I could bring Levi with me.

Eyes still closed, Levi moved his lips, but I heard no words come out.

I leaned in to better listen.

It was an inaudible whisper, nothing I could make out. He slipped something into my hand, a piece of paper.

In a glow of golden light, he transformed.

He shrunk so small he could fit into my lap. He no longer had hair for me to pet, but soft black feathers.

Levi was a raven.

His wounds appeared to be gone, but his eyes were closed like he required rest to heal. This was good. Everything was going to be okay.

Otis promised that Levi would live. I’d protect him and make sure he did.

I unfolded the piece of paper Levi had given me. It was a paper cone, I immediately recognized from the popcorn stand at the midnight market.

Inside was Levi’s kernel of truth.

He wanted me to see what it said or he wouldn’t have given me the paper. Fingers trembling, I opened it.

You’ll find your mate reflected in the glass eye of a taxidermied fox.

A fox like we’d seen at the midnight market, the one he’d told me to buy.

Levi had known this whole time. He’d known before we even met.

Levi had no home. He considered a constable of ravens his family, and their hidden community his hometown. He was a raven shifter. And I was his mate.

Thunderous stomps echoed down the hall.

Otis and I looked at each other in understanding.

We had to move, now.

When I was halfway to my feet, the third surviving contestant turned the final corner and came to a stop. It was the man with a shark’s head and torso. His legs remained human-looking, as did his arms. All the better for chasing prey and shoving them into his gullet.

I held Levi protectively in one arm, while I gripped tightly to my pirate cutlass with my other fist.

Shark Man smiled a wide and toothy grin. Then he waved. “Hey, guys!”

I knew that grin.

It was my favorite one of Imogen’s expressions—unbridled enthusiasm, honest in its joy. It was strange seeing it on a shark man, but I couldn’t be happier.

“I am so glad you’re here,” I said.

“Me, too. I was so scared when I came back from peeing and you were gone.”

I’d been pretty scared myself.

“Vent Marnie found something. I have to help her,” the Imogen-controlled shark man said. “brB!”

He ran off.

Otis’s brows furrowed in confusion, which was a fair reaction.

“Imogen,” I said.

He looked no less confused.

“My friend is inside the shark man,” I said.

Otis’s expression turned from lost to disturbed.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

We started down the hall after Shark Imogen. Better to be as far away from the yellow fox and the bloody floor as possible.

A few minutes later, we crossed paths with Vent Marnie and Shark Imogen. The possessed sea creature carried an unconscious regular Imogen in one arm and pulled a large box behind him with the other.

Vent Marnie carried our messenger bag over her shoulder. I was glad it wasn’t lost.

“Are we the only two Marnies left?” Vent Marnie asked.

I wasn’t sure if the others I’d left fighting counted as contestants. But the quiet that had filled the tunnels suggested there were no other survivors.

“I don’t know,” I said. “What happened on your end?”

“I found Levi outside, attempting to find a way in,” Vent Marnie said. “I told him how to find you, then I went to hunt down Imogen.”

“You did good,” I said.

“You’re alive, so you did, too,” she said.

“High fives all around,” Shark Imogen said. Then she checked her own hands, which were both full, and shrugged.

“You should see this.” Vent Marnie nodded toward the box.

I looked inside.

There was a body with no head and only one foot. I recognized the clothes and the build. It was Nie.

“Where did you find her?” I asked.

“Noodles,” Shark Imogen said. “She came to help after you were taken. I didn’t know how to get in until Vent Marnie crawled out of a vent. But I wouldn’t have known where to look for this building or for the body room without Noodles.”

My clone frowned. “Can I be Greta instead of Vent Marnie?”

“Of course,” I said, as if I had any right to decide for her. “I’ll go back to Mar.”

“There were a number of bodies stashed in a room down here,” Greta said. “Fortunately, they weren’t taken by the goblins.”

That was fortunate. And possibly purposeful. Had Noodles stashed her there for safe keeping? I was probably giving the kitsune too much credit.

And the how didn’t matter. What mattered was that we had the rest of Nie. I couldn’t believe it.

“Do the honors,” Greta said.

I gave her my sword, took a breath, reached inside the box, and touched Nie.

A flood of memories flashed before my eyes.

I found a website with video footage from a Victorian town with dark flair. I’d found the address on a flier tucked inside a library book. It advertised a competition where the winner could get one wish granted by a wish-granting sprite.

Intrigued, I bought a ticket for Nevermore.

I was sitting on a train when a woman in a black cloak slipped in beside me. She told me Nevermore was “scary bad” and I should choose a different path. She said the competition was to the death. I found her strange, and her warning strange. I was not perturbed.

I was approached by a yellow fox. He knew my exact supernatural nature. He invited me to participate in The Competition.

I agreed.

I was bound to Nevermore until a winner was chosen.

Otis, scared and lost, asked to form an alliance. Given the vast strength of the others I’d encountered since the start, I agreed.

When I realized exactly how little chance I had to succeed, when I realized that Mar could be affected, I knew I had to end my run.

I asked Otis to kill me. When he refused, I begged until he agreed.

I gasped as I watched everything play out again and again in my head.

Nie hadn’t been forced into The Competition, she’d chosen it.

She was so different from the rest of us, including the Marnie I was now with her as a part of me.

I looked down at the empty box where Nie’s body had been.

“We can’t leave until we end this.” I looked at Otis. “Only then will your curse be broken.”

“I cannot fight my brother’s mate,” Otis said.

“We have to find another way,” I agreed.

“Mate?” Greta and Shark Imogen said in unison.

“After we deal with the bad fox. Not Noodles,” I said. “Another one.”

Our only hope was one of us could sneak up behind him before we got possessed, or better yet, Imogen could bodysnatch him first. If kitsune turned into people, that meant Imogen’s magic might work on them.

We returned to the room, leaving our swords, Levi, and Imogen’s body in the hall. Then, all at once, we tried to sneak inside from different angles.

As soon as I stepped across the threshold, I was frozen.

Everyone was frozen.

Shark Man snapped his teeth. “Where am I?”

Actual Imogen stepped into the room from the hall while the fox was distracted.

I waited for her body to collapse again as she took over the creature.

She didn’t.

Instead, the fox turned to her and smiled.

“Is this really the best you’ve got?” he said. “How very disappointing.”

It was over. Our only hope had been Imogen, and she’d failed.

I focused on moving even the teeniest, tiniest bit.

Maybe it was because I’d already gone through this once, or maybe because the fox was controlling so many of us at once, but I was able to break my hand free.

I looked at Greta, who was slowly reaching into our messenger bag for the potions Rose had given us.

“Everyone is here for a show. We have to give them a show,” the fox said. “First, I’ll have one of you stab another. Poke out a few eyes, make it grand. Maybe the shark will eat you all. That could be fun.”

As he was wrapping up with big threats of impending murders, Greta flicked her wrist.

The potion hurtled through the air.

I held my breath, praying this would work. It was our final chance, our only hope.

The tiny glass bottle hit the fox’s shoulder.

The bottle fell to the ground and shattered. The fox looked down as a cloud of green gas burst from the shards.

This was it. Greta did it. Any moment now and the kitsune’s control would falter and we’d all be released. Except I still couldn’t move.

He blinked. “Was that supposed to do something to me?”

I caught a flash of reddish orange—Noodles.

Noodles popped into a person with cat ears and a tiara on top of a full head of red hair. She wore a lavender dress like some sort of fairytale princess.

In one quick movement, Noodles snapped a set of handcuffs around the fox’s neck. Then she flashed a smile at me. “This is good , yes?”

All at once, the grip of the kitsune’s control released. I was in charge of my own body. So was everyone else, including the shark man.

The spell was broken, but one final threat remained.

“If he’s caught, does that mean it’s over?” Shark Man asked, looking around the room.

“Yes,” I said.

“Totally.” Imogen nodded emphatically.

“The Competition is a draw,” Otis said.

“No need for any murder,” Imogen said.

“Thank goodness,” Shark Man said, and then he left.

Well, that was unexpected.

“Are those magical handcuffs?” Greta asked Noodles.

“Yes,” the now-human Noodles said. “He’s magically neutered now, hahahaha.”

“You look like a person,” I said.

“Thank you.” Noodles beamed.

“Are we sure the curse is lifted?” Otis asked.

I shined the black light on his face. There were no vines.

“Curse is lifted,” I said.

A silhouette appeared in the doorway—a vision of all white, with golden hair and the world’s brightest green eyes.

There wasn’t a mark on him, no stain on his clothes, no sign that he’d been injured at all. Though he did look a little pale. A wave of relief washed over me, light and soft as a feather drifting down from the sky.

I ran over and wrapped my arms around him. He squeezed me back.

Feeling his arms around me, I finally exhaled, a long breath I'd been holding for what felt like years. His warmth seeped into my soul, and I knew in that moment that everything would be okay.

He said to me, “I’m not perfect. I’m not the best at expressing my feelings, and I know we haven’t known each other long. But I love you, Marshmallow.”

“Someone once told me that some people are worth it,” I said into his chest.

“Squee.” Imogen clasped her hands together. “That was me. I said that.”

Levi kissed me with a softness that promised the future I’d been afraid we would never get to share.

I kissed him back, and as I did, Greta said to Levi, “If Mar’s tongue in your throat doesn’t make it clear, we love you, too.”