Chapter 18

A deep foreboding filled me as we climbed the hidden emergency stairs into the decoy library. It built beneath my skin like a gathering swarm of flies, buzzing in my ears and stealing my breath long before we came across the first body.

Caitriona emerged first, holding out a hand to us as she looked around. I pushed Emrys aside and joined her, letting the slow horror of the scene wash over me.

"Holy … gods …," Emrys began.

The fine carpets squelched underfoot, blood soaking the hem of my jeans. The feel of it, the stench of it all—raw meat—was intensified by the sight of the human remains strewn like a wolf's uneaten carrion across the furniture, the low shelves, everywhere.

Some had tried to run for the display cases before the hunters had stolen the weapons inside, leaving only bloodied handprints on the stands.

The silence from the hall was absolute, the terror of it penetrating the library and spreading through us. The smell of smoke clung to everything, but still wasn't enough to cover the cloying stench of blood.

The world flickered around me, and for a moment, all I could see was the tower's courtyard. The bodies.

It's happening again.

We moved in different directions, searching for survivors, or anything that resembled a weapon .

As I rounded one of the bookshelves, my foot caught, and I fell. A scream clawed its way up my throat, lodging itself there. The headless torso shuddered as I staggered forward, heaving, desperately trying not to vomit.

I swore a blue streak under my breath, picking up one of the wooden chairs and slamming it against the worktable until the leg splintered and finally broke off. It was likely the best weapon I was going to find here.

Emrys tried to pull an old sword down from where it was displayed over the fireplace, yanking it with increasing frustration.

"It's bolted on, genius!" I snapped.

"You think?" he bit back. The whole plaque came tumbling off the wall with his next tug. He yelped as it hit the floor and the blade broke off from the hilt.

It was only then that I saw who was crouched beside the unlit hearth.

Olwen's knuckles were white as she gripped a piece of smashed shelving. Her hands trembled violently as she tried and failed to force herself to rise. Breath tore in and out of her. Her eyes were unblinking as she stared at a nearby body, her face devoid of color.

I gripped her arm, forcing her to look at me. "Olwen?"

Her gaze seemed to pass through me. She wasn't really here—and I knew her mind was in the past, in the courtyard of the tower.

"Olwen!" I gave her a hard shake, finally breaking through. She turned with wild eyes. She might have been a healer, she might have dealt with broken bones, pus, and jagged cuts, but you could only heal the living.

"You should go downstairs," I said. "Stay with the mirror while we see what happened."

"What?" Olwen said. "No—no, I can handle this."

"Please," Caitriona said, crouching down on the other side of her. "It's all right. We'll rejoin you in a moment."

"What if someone needs help?" Olwen breathed out. "And I can heal them. "

"Dear heart," Caitriona said, holding her hand gently. "They didn't leave anyone alive."

Indecision warred on Olwen's face, but in the end, she nodded. We waited until she was safely down the stairs before turning back to the carnage around us.

"Why would they do this?" Caitriona asked me.

I lifted a shoulder in a helpless shrug. This wasn't the bloodless death of the Sorceress Hemlock, when her soul had been ripped out.

"Maybe the violence is the point?" Neve said, looking faint at the scene around us. "Violent death creates more death magic, doesn't it?"

Glass crashed just outside the door to the hall, ripping me out of the haze of fear. Caitriona pivoted toward something in the far corner of the library—a pale spear half buried beneath a pile of Immortalities and the remains of one of the Hollowers.

"That's—" Emrys choked at her manhandling of the weapon, following her as she strode toward the door leading into the hall. "That's Gáe Bulg, the spear of Cú Chulainn—made of the bone of a sea monster—"

She threw a single glance back over her shoulder as she pulled the door open. "Now it is the spear of Caitriona."

"It splinters—" Emrys began, but she was already gone. "Never mind. She'll figure it out."

I followed, narrowly avoiding the body splayed in front of the door, his face torn away to reveal bone. Static rose in my ears, until the crackle of it burned away all the sound in the room, save for my own galloping heart.

Somehow it was worse than my dark mind had imagined.

The hall was almost unrecognizable. The windows had been blown in, leaving gleaming spikes of glass scattered over the floor like deadly ice. Several of the Hollowers had tried to rush toward the library, only to fall, smearing blood across the stone as they'd tried to crawl to safety. Their chests gaped open, as if skewered.

The long feast table was on fire. One of the burners beneath the trays had been knocked over, and now gorged itself on the once-pristine tablecloths. Emrys came to stand just behind me. He'd picked up someone's axe and now spun the handle in his grip, surveying the slaughter with a hard expression.

Neve wandered out through the bodies, a hand pressed to her mouth in horror. I would have gone to her, if I hadn't caught sight of a smudge of darkness moving at the edge of my vision.

The lanky figure strode around the long drive, the shape of him black against the heavy snowfall. Something glimmered in his hands—the shimmering fabric of Arthur's mantle.

I couldn't make sense of the sight of him here. Alone. The exact opportunity I'd been too afraid to hope for.

His shape grew smaller and smaller as he headed down the drive, his long strides eating up the distance.

No, I thought. I'm not letting you walk away again.

Not when he was within reach. Not while he was away from the distorting magic of Lord Death's influence.

"Stay here!" I shouted to the others, ignoring their own cries as I ran for the cold air and drifts of snow blowing in through the broken windows.

Smoke clogged my mouth and nose, heat burned against my face, but everything else—the fighting, the screaming—it all fell away as I vaulted over the remains of the elaborate window frames and gave chase.

"Cabell!"

Somehow, through the wind and relentless snow, my brother heard me. He turned just enough for me to see the silhouette of his profile, but he didn't stop. His strides only lengthened. Quickened.

So did mine.

I wove through the maze of cars still parked on the circular driveway, barely conscious of their cracked windshields and smashed roofs. One SUV had managed to make it halfway down the long drive and was still rolling forward despite the lack of driver and passengers. The broken, blood-streaked windows told the full story.

The torches had gone out, leaving only the moon to illuminate the snowy landscape. The snow flurries danced with the ash drifting from the house.

With his dark hair and even darker clothing, my brother seemed to drift in and out of the fabric of the night—until, I realized, he'd drawn Arthur's mantle over his shoulders and disappeared entirely. But while the relic hid him from even those with the One Vision, it didn't disguise his footprints in the dirt and snow or stop his breath from blooming white in the air.

His steps slowed as we came to the end of the drive and the empty road intersecting it. Clusters of trees swayed with the wind, their bare branches shivering in the silence.

I lifted my eyes from the last of his visible tracks, staring into the dark air where he ought to have been. There was a whisper of fabric against fabric, and for a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of his profile again, as pale and thin as a crescent moon.

"Cab," I said, my own chest burning for breath. I fumbled for the right words—the ones that might cast the spell to keep him here, if only for a little longer. "Can we talk? Even when we fought, we were always able to hear each other out."

He said nothing, but I felt the anger radiating from him like a wraith hovering between us. It seemed Lord Death had fed it, nurtured it, in those days since I last saw him.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. "Has he … has he hurt you?"

"No."

The word was colder than the snow gathering in my hair. It iced my veins.

But at least he was talking. That was something. If I had been bigger, or stronger, or had even an ounce of magic, I would have knocked him out and dragged him away from all this death and darkness. Even still, I wasn't convinced it would do any good. Distance alone wouldn't be enough to break the hold Lord Death had over him, not when Cabell refused to fight it.

"No, you're not okay, or no, he hasn't hurt you?" I clarified. "I'm just trying to understand—what did he do to get you to turn your back on us? Did he promise you something?"

The silence was back, festering. I bit the inside of my cheek, my mind racing. The last few days had conspired to rip every last shred of pride I'd had away from me, to tear at my sense of self. When we were children, I'd fought to hide my tears from him, to be the strong one. I couldn't do it anymore. The pressure built behind my eyes.

"I know …" It felt like I was ripping the words out of my chest. Tears burned down my frozen cheeks. "I know I wasn't there for you. Not the way you needed. Tell me how to fix this. Tell me how to fix us, and I'll do it, Cab. I'll do anything."

"Why wouldn't you listen to me before, then?" he said. His cold mask cracked, revealing the frustration simmering below.

"Before?" I asked, startled. "In Avalon?"

"I told you what he's doing is to help all of us, to rid the world of creatures like the sorceresses," he said. "Like the Hollowers who turned up their noses at us and would have let us starve."

I stared. "You saw what the hunters did in there. How is that helping anyone but himself?"

"He only wants what the sorceresses kept from him," Cabell said. "All of this will stop when he has it."

"Will it?" I pressed, daring to take another step forward.

"Come with me," Cabell said, an edge of pleading to the words. "We won't be helpless ever again. We'll never be the orphans hidden away in the attic, or prey to men like Wyrm ever again. Everything we need, we'll have. Power. A home. Respect. We can have it—but only if you come with me."

Until that moment, I'd seen the conversation going one way: me begging him to come with me. To hear him turn the question back on me flipped my world inside out. I couldn't make sense of it. These weren't Lord Death's words. They were his.

Maybe … maybe I was breaking through. And if I just pushed a little harder—

"We don't need Lord Death for any of that," I said. "I know you think you're in control of what's happening, but the depths of his magic, Cab—what he's given you isn't power. He's taken away your freedom."

"Is that what you think?"

The words were a punch to my lungs. Panic raced through me, trembling and terrible. I reached out a hand to search for him. "Please. It's not too late—it's never too late. You can come back."

I really was a fool, because I almost let myself believe that the silence that followed meant something. That I was starting to bring him around.

"There's no going back. All I see now is what lies ahead." His tone was rough and low, as if he didn't quite trust the wind not to carry the words to more distant ears. "You can come with me now and see the truth of what's unfolding around you, or you can stay here in the dark and die."

"All of those people, Cab," I said. "In Avalon, tonight—how can you stand it, knowing what he did? How could you stand there and do nothing to stop him? Some part of you, deep down, the part of you his magic can't touch, knows all of this is wrong. Knows that what he's doing to you, to everyone, is wrong. "

He scoffed, his laugh cruel and baiting. "Am I supposed to believe you actually care?"

When I didn't answer, his boots crushed the gravel as he made to cross over the road. I had one last card to play, and I threw it down between us.

"Nash is alive," I told him. "He came back."

His steps stilled. I heard his sharp intake of breath. "You're lying. "

"I'm not," I told him. "We can go to him together. He'll explain everything."

I held my breath, as if any small movement might tip us off the knife's edge we stood on.

Damn Nash, I thought. Damn him for leaving again. If he'd just stayed with us, if he had come here, if Cabell could have seen him with his own eyes …

If, if, if, my mind echoed, singing the refrain of my entire life.

"It's too late for that," Cabell said, barely a whisper.

"It's never too late," I told him again. So close. He was so close.

"In ages past, in a world that was full of darkness and curses, there were two children," I said softly. "And all they had—all they ever had—was each other—"

"Stop it," he hissed.

Cabell's low noise of distress was almost too much to take. In a single, powerful move, he unsheathed his blade and whirled on me. Its cold steel point hovered over my heart, where my death mark still ached.

My eyes slid from his face, hollowed and pale, down to the unfamiliar sword. My agonized expression was mirrored back to me in the silver blade. An inkling of a thought dripped through my mind, only to disperse before it could take shape.

"There's nothing you can do to stop what's already begun," Cabell snarled. "I'll only warn you once—if I see you again, I'll kill you myself."

He lifted his sword and I instinctively reared back. My chest seemed to be caving in on itself; the death mark throbbed sharply, as if pierced by broken bone. He strode through the underbrush and trees, sending rivers of snow falling from their branches. I struggled to draw in my next breath, my body hollow with grief.

"Tamsin!"

Through the slant of snow, Emrys appeared. His expression blazed with concern, eyes flashing as he searched the darkness .

The sight sent an unwanted flutter of warmth through me, as if some unconscious part of my mind or heart had summoned him.

Don't touch me.

The twin flames of shame and anger lit within me, not even half as terrible as the deep longing that followed in their wake. The desperation to feel something other than loss was all-consuming, sawing me open from the inside.

Don't touch me.

Why had he even followed me out here? Why was he doing any of this—seeming to care one moment, ripping it away the next? Was it just to hurt me, to have yet another little laugh at my expense?

"Was that Cabell?" Emrys asked, trying and failing to catch his breath.

I nodded, keeping the distance between us even as he took several steps forward. He stopped then and just watched me, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides. No doubt trying to work some warmth back into them. The snow pelted me, my eyes stinging and watering.

He raised his hand toward me, as if to grab me, hold me—only to let it fall back to his side. On another day I might have had the strength to cut him back in some way, but just then, I couldn't overcome the quiet cruelty of it. My nostrils flared.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" I half begged, half raged at him. He'd taken the ring, taken my trust, taken my deepest secrets. What more could he want? What else was left? To see me break?

Emrys's expression shuttered again as he started to turn away.

"I wish I could," he said, "but you need to come too—we found a survivor."