Chapter 43

The Council of Sistren's Inner Sanctum was a meeting chamber in the western wing of the building. Tiered rows of tables encircled a round table at its very center, where the most senior Council members sat to conduct business while the other sorceresses looked on. It was a place of discussion, of arguments, of pleas, both secret and sacred. A part of me wondered, distantly, if they might change the name now that it had become a mortuary.

The dim light made the room seem far smaller than it was. The shadows had closed in overhead, and the candlelight was too weak to hold them back. Now that night had fallen, the domed glass ceiling would let in no light until the moon passed over it.

The sorceresses had laid the dead out on the tables to prepare their bodies for burning. Twenty sorceresses and mages in all, nearly a third of their numbers. And then … there were the other two.

I sat on the stairs that separated the two tables, staring down the aisle at nothing. A bucket of sweet herb water and a rag waited on the step below, but I couldn't bring myself to take them. One of the sorceresses had tried to tend to the bodies, but I'd lost it at the mere thought of anyone else touching them but me.

I drew in a sharp breath, wondering why it hurt so much to even think their names.

A nearby sorceress began to sing a soft prayer as she drew a shroud over another—a sister, maybe, or her mother. Others waited nearby to take the body to the funeral pyre. The lovers were the worst to watch, their faces glistening in the candlelight as they wept.

But they, at least, could face the ones they'd lost.

It was almost unbearable to stay here, in the terrible silence. The death in the room felt like a dull buzzing against my senses, and made my skin crawl. It was a sharper, more pronounced feeling than the one I'd had in the cemetery only hours ago, but as the hours passed, it had dulled again. It was almost too frightening to think about what it meant.

Nash's unfinished words drifted through my mind again. Your … power … is …

What? I thought helplessly.

Nothing useful, clearly. Nothing that could have stopped all of this from happening. And if this sensation was what he'd meant, then I didn't want it. I didn't want to feel like death was constantly walking in my shadow, combing its bony hands through my hair, or that I was slowly being buried alive in a shallow grave of rot.

You felt it in the cemetery, the spark of potential, the call of new life.

What did that even mean?

The dead sorceresses and mages had died by death magic, their souls claimed by Lord Death, but they hadn't transformed into Children of the Night. Not yet. Burying their dead might have brought the surviving sorceresses a modicum of peace, but the High Sorceress had felt that the risk was too great.

The one small mercy was that Neve wasn't among the bodies laid out around me. After the fighting was over, I hadn't been able to reach her before she was swarmed by a protective cluster of sorceresses, who had watched her with awe and trepidation.

I'd listened silently to Mage Robin, their face still streaked with sweat and soot, as Neve was led away. Excalibur had reacted to Neve's touch and awakened the full potential of her power because it recognized her as its rightful heir. The granddaughter of the first Lady of the Lake, who had been one of the Firstborn, like Gwyn ap Nudd. Like his brother … Nash.

No, my mind corrected. Erden.

And Neve's gift was the same as her mother's, and her grandmother's before her—she could call on the purifying power of the Goddess's light.

I needed to go find her, to see for myself again that she was all right, but I couldn't let myself leave this room. Not until I did what needed to be done.

I drew in another steadying breath; then I forced my body to move. To stand. To turn. The sorceress's quavering song filling the silence. My hands curled around the bucket's handle and the rag.

Nash's stone face was still turned in my direction, only now his blank eyes seemed to gaze through me, as if seeing something just beyond my shoulder. His lips were curved in a small smile, unafraid. He hadn't been caught in amber, but he was frozen at the moment of his death all the same.

I wondered then if there was another life for him, if his long-dead family had come to greet him at the end, or if his soul would forever be trapped in that stone.

Nothing could be done for him. The High Sorceress had said as much. The stone had destroyed his body.

Still, I found myself dipping the cloth into the water and wetting the stone planes of his face to clean the ash and dust away.

"In ages past," I murmured, "in a kingdom lost to time, a king named Arthur ruled man and Fair Folk alike, but this is the account of his end. Of the barge that emerged from the mists and carried him to the isle of Avalon …"

My throat ached as I told him one final story, my hands working steadily, slowly. And when my work was done, when the tale had reached its end, I turned to the other body. Forced myself to look at his beautiful face .

They shut his eyes. A spark of fury moved through me at the thought. No one should have touched his face. They had no right. Water dripped from the rag onto the floor and my boots.

"Tamsin," came Neve's soft voice. "I can do that. You shouldn't have to."

No, I thought fiercely. It has to be me.

Neve was back in the clothes she had worn when we'd left Lyonesse, her curly hair loose and cloud-soft around her face. She had fresh water and a new rag. Wordlessly, I traded with her, letting her take the soiled set away. But when she returned, I still hadn't moved.

"What happened?" The tears in her voice were catching, and the fortress of anger I'd tried to wall myself up inside crumbled.

"Why did you do this to me?" I asked her hoarsely. "Why did you have to make me care?"

"You've always cared," Neve said, coming back up the stairs. "You just didn't want to."

"No," I said, the word breaking. "No, I didn't. I was okay. I was safe. Nothing touched me. I was safe. "

But that wasn't true either. Deep down, the part of me I couldn't kill—that little girl. She was in pain all the time, and I'd never let her wounds heal. To survive, I'd had to be strong. I'd had to build a tower within myself.

When Neve was one step below me, she stopped, her expression heartrending. "What do you need?"

Hot tears spilled over my face, and I hated them, hated myself, hated the sharp pain that radiated from my chest. I doubled over and she was there in an instant, wrapping her arms around me and holding me there. I clung to her, sobbing.

"It hurts," I told her, pressing a hand to my chest. "It hurts so much … I can't make it stop …"

"The hurt is real, " Neve said in my ear. "Thinking you can protect yourself from it was always the illusion. When we lose someone, we can't bury our feelings. Denying them won't make them go away. You have to feel, you have to remember, because it keeps them alive with us."

But they're not alive, I thought. They're not here.

It was a long while before I managed to piece myself back together again. When I straightened and pulled back, Neve said nothing—she only picked up the bucket again and handed me the cloth.

I took Emrys's hand, inhaling sharply at how cold it was. The pads of his fingers and palms were callused, from whittling, maybe, or, more likely, gardening. I tended to them first, trying to commit the feeling to memory. Neve went to retrieve two shrouds. She dusted dried petals and herbs on his chest, whispering a chanting prayer that was too quiet to understand.

And in that moment, in the shadows of the chamber, we were back in Avalon. Kneeling on the cold, bloodstained stones, tending to the ruined faces of the isle's dead. I knew Neve was thinking about it too by the way her hand shook as she stroked my arm.

Finally, I came to his face.

The blood had dried on his lips. I dabbed at them gently.

"He was so happy," I whispered. "Just before …"

"Miss Lark?"

The High Sorceress stood at the bottom step of the aisle, her face as pale as the shrouds around her.

I turned my head away from her, scrubbing my tears from my face.

"Yeah?" I asked roughly.

She'd changed out of her ruined gown into a sensible shirt and trousers—clothes for working, for restoring. The pretense of her glamour and power had burned away.

But there was an intensity to her expression, a steadiness. Rather than making her fall to ash, the flames had only proven there was a steel spine beneath all her layers of silk. Her sleek black hair had been braided away from the healing cuts and bruises on her face .

The wounds were striking. Kasumi wore her bandages proudly, the way a queen might wear her best jewels. But there was no haughtiness in her expression. The High Sorceress knew, just as the rest of us did, that we would all be dead if not for Neve.

As she ascended the steps, her footfall soft against the old wood, I saw that her arms were wrapped from shoulder to fingertip. The bandages were soaked in some sort of salve, likely to heal the extensive burns I'd seen on them earlier. That sticky wetness had to be why she was so careful to use only the tips of her index finger and thumb to pull something out of her trousers pocket.

A rumpled envelope.

Just below us, she hesitated, stealing a glance at Nash's stone form.

"He …" Kasumi cleared her throat. "He—your father, that is—"

"He's not her father," Neve cut in. Her eyes had narrowed with what looked like genuine annoyance.

"He was," I said quietly. "Well, he tried. In his own way. With varying degrees of success. But he tried."

Kasumi let out a soft breath as she passed me the envelope. "I am sorry, Miss Lark. For your loss."

"And I'm sorry for yours," I said, looking at the rows of shrouds and bodies around us. The High Sorceress gave a nod of acknowledgment.

"Maybe you should have thought about letting me out of that room sooner," Neve said sharply.

"Then we might be mourning you as well," Kasumi said.

She was right. The past was past now, and any wishes to change it were wasted breath and fairy dust.

"What is this?" I asked, holding up the envelope.

"I've no idea," Kasumi said.

"Really?" Neve pressed, skeptical.

"The envelope is cursed to destroy itself if someone other than the intended recipient opens it," Kasumi said. "I should know, did the spellwork myself. "

I turned it over, and, sure enough, a faded line of curse sigils was scrawled along the bottom edge of the paper.

"Hn." Neve crossed her arms over her chest, fighting to look unimpressed.

"I shall leave you to it, then," Kasumi said, starting back down the stairs.

"Have you searched the property for Lord Death?" I asked. "I told you, he has the mantle of Arthur."

"We have," Kasumi said. "He is no longer in the estate, or its land."

"What about Madrigal?" I pressed.

As I'd suspected, there'd been no body to retrieve.

"Not as of yet," Kasumi said. "Rest assured, the Council's punishment will be swift and commensurate with the crime."

My jaw all but locked with tension. Anger bled into my words. "What's left of the Council, you mean."

The only "commensurate" punishment as far as I was concerned was death, but with the blow they'd been dealt, they weren't about to voluntarily reduce their numbers again.

"Please find me when you're finished here," Kasumi said to Neve. "With today being the solstice, we must discuss how your power might be used to destroy our enemy."

"We don't need to discuss anything," Neve said, her hands curling to fists at her sides. "We need to find Excalibur. The light alone had no effect on Lord Death when we were in Avalon, and I have no idea how to change that."

A hot, static buzzing grew in my chest.

"I already have some of the Sistren out searching for Caitriona," Kasumi said.

"Check the Dye family estate," I told her, remembering my dream of Emrys's death. "Lord Death and the others may be using it, or at least keeping Olwen there."

"You're sure that's where she would have gone?" Kasumi asked. "To find Lady Olwen? "

"Yes," Neve and I said as one.

Kasumi lifted her hand in a silent farewell, descending the steps swiftly, careful not to meet the gazes of the living or dead around her.

I waited until she had left the chamber before facing Neve again. " We need to find Caitriona. And Olwen."

Neve sighed. "The problem is, they're not going to let me out of their sight. I tried to step outside for some fresh air and four of them followed me."

Even now, I noticed that two new sorceresses had arrived and were pretending not to watch us.

"Are you … all right?" I asked.

Neve let out a hollow laugh, sinking back down to the step. "I guess as much as I can be. Having the answer about my mother … it doesn't feel real. And there's still the question of my father."

I sat heavily beside her. "Do they think she's still alive?"

"Robin couldn't say for sure," Neve said. "She would've been hundreds of years old by the time I was born … it doesn't make sense."

"Plenty of sorceresses wait centuries before having their first child, if ever," I said. "That's the least surprising part of all of this to me."

Neve seemed placated by that, at least.

"If I don't have the soul," she began, "does that mean that it's still out there?"

I didn't answer.

"Tamsin?" Neve's brow furrowed. "What aren't you telling me?"

"It …" It was a struggle to drag the truth out of me when I'd only just begun to accept it. I lowered my voice to a mere whisper. "I have the soul. It was in me the whole time."

"What!" Neve's shrill voice drew the attention of the room to us, but she didn't care, slapping a hand against my arm. " What? I swear to the Goddess, if you're joking, Tamsin Lark—"

I tried to quiet her; it wouldn't help us at all if the sorceresses knew. They'd try to keep me under lock and key when all I really wanted to do was find our friends and end this, once and for all .

Neve's face fell. She read me in an instant, the way she always did. "You're not joking."

I told her the rest, as quietly and as quickly as I could.

"Oh no," she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "Oh no, Tamsin …"

"It's okay," I said, feeling numb to it now. "I like this option better than the last one, when he was coming after you."

"I don't!" She nodded toward the envelope in my hands. "Are you going to open that?"

I ran my fingers along the weathered paper, tracing the shapes inside it. There seemed to be a note, but there was something else, too—hard and round, it gave the envelope a surprising weight.

I broke the wax seal quickly, before I could change my mind. Something fell out onto the wooden step, clattering loudly. I unfolded the scrap of paper inside to find three words.

Not for me.

"Tamsin …," Neve began, a faint tremor in her voice. She'd bent down to retrieve whatever it was. As she held it out toward me, the hot static returned, growling in my ears.

Free of tarnish and dirt, the coin looked more pearlescent than silver. But there were the words I had seen before with the cold winds of Tintagel at my back and the sea roaring below.

I am the dream of the dead.

"I thought you said he used the last one?" Neve whispered.

"That's what he told me, but it's like I said. He lies …" I swallowed, then corrected myself. "He lied as easily as he breathed."

You bastard, I thought. You no good, flea-bitten bastard.

I reached out as if in a trance, taking it from her and turning it over.

The grime and what I'd assumed was blood had been so caked onto the other coin, I hadn't been able to see the words engraved on the other side.

"I am the dread of the living," I read.

"And I am the dream of the dead," Neve finished. "Death, and life."

A dizzying feeling rushed over me. I tightened my fist around the coin. Bracing my head with my other hand, I tried to regain some semblance of control over my thoughts.

Memories whirled around in a stream of endless color and light. Voices rose and fell like a choir. The woven image of the Goddess shining with joy as she cradled her daughter, surrounded by the blooming beauty of the world she'd created.

All of it rose to a crescendo, clarifying into a single thought. What occupied the space between the cold, deadly grip of winter and the sun-warmed greens of summer? Between the living and dead?

Spring. Rebirth.

And somewhere in that lay the power Nash had tried to explain with his last breaths.

Neve sat beside me. "It's a good thing, isn't it?"

I closed my eyes. "How can it be a good thing to have to make a choice like this?"

"What do you mean?" Neve asked.

I shook my head. "Do you remember the original note? He said to not clean the coin. I think it has to have the blood of the person you're resurrecting when it's buried."

She looked back at Nash, his body rendered in stone. There was no blood to use. "So Emrys, then."

"But what about Olwen?" I rasped out. "What about Caitriona, or you, if something horrible were to happen? What about any of the dead around us? Why do I get to make this choice when everyone in this place is suffering too?"

"That's the chaos demon in your mind speaking," Neve said. "This is what it comes down to: Do you believe Olwen is still alive, and that we'll find her?"

"Yes," I whispered. I didn't believe much, but deep in my gut, I believed that.

"Do you think Caitriona and I are capable of fighting and protecting ourselves, and the people around us? "

"Yes, but—"

"Do you think Emrys deserves to live?" Neve continued. "Do you think he wanted to?"

I'd stay …

"Yes," I whispered. "It's not that simple—"

"It is," Neve said. "The sorceresses and mages around us came here to fight the Wild Hunt, and they died doing just that. Most have centuries to their names—more years lived than any of us could imagine—and they'll live on for centuries still. The surviving Sistren and mages have already begun the creation of their Immortalities."

My nails dug deeper into my palm as I squeezed the coin tighter.

"Is it that you think he wouldn't want to come back?" Neve asked.

I closed my eyes. "He wanted to be free."

Free of his father, free of the scars of his past, of his mother's contract with Madrigal.

He wanted his future.

I could give him that.

I forced my hand open, looking down at the coin again.

It would give him a new body, wouldn't it? One that was entirely his own … a heart that beat only for himself.

A hint of a sad smile touched Neve's lips.

"What?" I asked.

"I think Nash wanted you to use it for yourself," she said. "But that didn't even occur to you, did it?"

This time, I glared at the coin. "I am not using this for myself."

"It's like I tried to tell you," Neve said. "You've never wanted to believe this, but you do have a beautiful heart."

She reached into her jacket pocket and retrieved a small bone. I almost laughed. It was a bird's skull she'd found and picked up somewhere along the way, tucking it into her jacket for safekeeping.

"Think about it, all right?" Neve said, stroking her hand down my back. She nodded to the sorceresses pretending to inspect the other bodies below. "My babysitters are looking like they're getting ready to drag me back to the Council, so I'd better go. Come find me when you're done, all right? We'll figure out how to get out of here together."

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak. As she reached the bottom step, she turned and said, "Tamsin?"

I looked up.

"Do you think we were supposed to find each other?" she asked. "If not in this life, then another?"

I released a long, deep breath. "You'd know better than me."

Neve sent another small smile my way and then was gone.

In the end, it was a single moment that decided it for me: the look Emrys had worn the moment he realized what was happening. In that last gasp of life, there'd been confusion, pain, and, most of all, fear.

He hadn't wanted to die. Not then, when he'd finally freed himself of his father and the future had opened its door to greet him.

My heart throbbed painfully as I stood beside his still body. Neve had drawn the burial shroud up to just below his chin. His face was still streaked with dirt and blood.

Using a clean bowl of water and a new cloth, I gently dampened the dark, dried blood on his lips. I placed the coin there.

In ancient times, the Greeks buried their dead with coins over their eyes or in their mouths to serve as an obol for Charon—his fee for ferrying the dead into the Underworld. It felt right that this coin would instead be planted in the earth like a seed.

I leaned down, pressing my lips to the other side of the coin. I lingered there a moment.

"See you soon," I whispered.

Drawing the shroud over his face, I looked to Nash. Beneath the thin layer of cloth, it looked like he was merely sleeping.

"Thank you," I told him. "For trying. "

With the coin and the small skull in my hand, I emerged from the dark chamber and reentered the world of the living.

Gathering a small handful of ash that had collected on a side table, I wandered the ruined halls until I finally found a door leading out into the walled garden, untouched by the heavy mounds of snow on the nearby mountains and hills.

"Oh, you would have loved this," I whispered. "You nerd."

The night air felt crisp and pure as I inhaled. Vast rows of herbs and trailing vines on trellises stretched out around me, lit by faintly glowing lanterns. Though each plant was neatly labeled, there was a wildness to it all, as if they'd been left to grow as they desired.

I found my way to the center of the garden, marveling at the way the dusting of snow had fallen just outside its perimeter, until I saw the protective sigils carved into the low walls.

I knelt, using my hand to dig into the soft dirt. When I was sure it was deep enough not to be disturbed, I placed the ash inside, then the bone, and, finally, the bloodstained coin.

Please work, I thought. Please. I only had the vague instructions we'd gotten before to go on. Just then, it hardly seemed enough.

As I finished covering the coin and patted the soft earth over it, I heard an anxious voice call my name.

"Miss Lark?"

It took me a moment to recognize Isolde, the small, nervous sorceress who had accompanied Kasumi and the others to Lyonesse. She looked like a fighter now, like she'd been dragged to hell and back by the ankles. The cuts and bruises on her face were healing under a heavy layer of ointment. She no longer looked scared of her own shadow.

Sometimes surviving did that for a person.

I rose to my feet. "Is something wrong? Is Neve all right?"

"Yes," Isolde said with a broad smile. "That's why I came to find you. She and the Council have had a breakthrough. "

My pulse jumped. "Already?"

Isolde opened the door. "If you'll follow me?"

I did, and eagerly. We wound our way back through the halls and up the stairs, to the room they'd locked me in only a few hours ago.

Two other members of the Council stood inside the room, their backs to us. A small trill of warning sounded at the back of my mind as one turned, her expression stony. The slight movement was enough to reveal who was sitting on the settee, arms spread over the back of it, legs crossed.

And smirking.

Madrigal stood behind him, looking exceedingly pleased with herself.

"No—" I began, backing away from the door. A dark shadow lingered in the corner of the room, and it—he—came toward me, his face pale. "Cabell—"

Isolde's hand latched onto my shoulder and I felt an icy spark jump between her skin and mine.

Darkness descended on my mind, slicing through my thoughts, robbing the feeling from my body. Cabell caught me by the arms as my legs gave out, his hands tightening around them, his face expressionless.

And in that last moment of awareness, I heard only Lord Death, his voice low and victorious.

"Now the bargain is complete."