Chapter 37

Shortly after sunrise, after a night spent over burning fires and sweltering steam baths, the oil was ready.

Margaux had stayed with me through the entire process, cheerfully fetching water and tools, bringing us carafes of coffee during the thin hours before dawn when giddy exhaustion threatened to overtake us.

We'd worked all through the night, but it was finally done.

I filled a cart, packing it with gauze strips, my medicine chests, and a heavy iron skillet, still sizzling with the green elixir. Rather than straining it out into a fine oil, I'd left in the wilted leaves and stalks, stewing as much potency from them as I could.

Margaux made a gesture over me as I wheeled it out, ready to bring it to Marnaigne.

"The Holy First sees your work," she said with a beatific, if somewhat tired, smile. "She will watch over you and the king. She will watch it all. But I…" Her expression twisted with chagrin. "I shall watch nothing, for I will be asleep. Go do great things, Hazel."

"Thank you, Margaux. I couldn't have done this without you."

She gave me a short bow and trudged off to her chambers.

When I turned the corner, pushing my cart into the great hall, I was surprised to see Euphemia, already up and dressed and lying on her stomach in front of the king's door. She had a stack of paper and some oil pastels in front of her, and was so hard at work on her picture, she didn't look up until I was nearly on top of her.

"Good morning, Hazel!" she cried with a wide smile, pushing herself to her knees. "I'm decorating a note for Papa!"

I knelt beside her, ready to look at her work and offer praise, but she snatched it away before I could get even one glimpse.

"It's just for Papa," she explained. "Are you going in to see himnow?"

I nodded, gesturing to the cart. "I've got some things that I think are going to make him feel much better very soon."

Her little face lit up. "Really?"

It was hard to meet her eyes.

She folded up her missive, staining the creamy paper with colorful fingerprints, then offered it to me. "Can you give this to him? When you go in?"

I stuck the letter in my skirt's pocket and promised I would.

"And tell him how much I love him," she insisted.

"I will."

"And that I miss him."

I laughed, even as my stomach flipped. "I'll do that too."

The little princess threw her arms around me in an impulsive hug and kissed my cheek before scooping up her art supplies and skipping off down the hall.

"Good morning, Your Majesty. I've such good news!" I sang, pushing my cart into the king's chambers.

I had to stop short, allowing my eyes to adjust. The drapes were pulled shut and the fire had burned low, casting the room in lurid orange flickers and deep shadows.

"Your Majesty?" I called curiously.

"Ah, my healer has returned."

My head snapped to the left as I tried to place where the voice had come from.

"Would you like me to draw back some of the curtains?" I asked, already crossing to the nearest window.

"No!" I thought the cry came from one of the armchairs, but it was too dark to tell. "Leave them!"

"I will need some light to work," I murmured, peering at the hulking shape of the canopied bed. Was he ensconced in its satin folds like a fat black spider lurking in its funneled web?

He sighed. "I suppose you must."

I glanced over to the corner, where I knew there was a desk. It was too dim to see paper and pen. What was he doing over there all alone? "May I light some candles?"

There came a series of rattled clinks, as if the king was struggling to set down a glass on a marble tabletop. "If you insist."

I fumbled at a side table and lit a filigreed candelabra before rounding toward him. "Sir?"

I tried not to jerk in surprise as the jumping flames highlighted the new shape of his visage.

The Brilliance was no longer gold, and it clumped on his face like wax melting down a taper. It was almost entirely black, with red rivulets of blood swirling within the sodden mess. The dark sludge had ripped apart pores as it flowed out, leaving his skin pocked and puckered.

He looked like a demon summoned from the deepest pits ofhell.

He already looked like one of my ghosts.

"Oh, Your Majesty," I breathed, unable to hide my horror.

The grim line of his lips said more than words ever could.

"I don't know what to do," he whispered, holding up his hands. The thick tar fused his fingers together into leaden stumps.

"A…a bath first," I stammered. "We'll clear all that away and get you into the wraps."

The king shook his head. "It's valiant of you to try, Hazel, but I don't…I'm afraid I no longer see the point."

Professionally, I agreed with him. It was a wonder he was still standing. He looked like an eldritch horror, an ancient being of wood and stone, a monster. It would be an act of kindness to let the deathshead have its way and end him now. But I needed him alive for just a bit longer to test the effectiveness of this new tonic.

"Into the bath," I insisted, brushing the callous thoughts from my mind. "We're getting this off you. And then a new treatment." I gestured to the cart. "Geranium oil."

Marnaigne let out a bark of laughter. "That's your cure?"

"That and other things. We're testing the potency of this blend, but I am certain it will help."

"At this point, nothing can possibly hurt," he allowed, his voice as rough as gravel.

I drew the bath as hot as the king could stand, adding the wilted geranium stalks. They sank into the steaming water, turning it slick and verdant. Next came a sprinkling of witch hazel and comfrey.

"Please take off your robe," I requested.

Without shame, the king dropped it to the floor, showing the full extent of damage. Heavy strips of Brilliance peeled from his body, taking thick ribbons of flesh with them, and I fought the urge to gag. This sickness was flaying him alive.

I put on my gloves and offered my hand to help him into the steaming tub.

The king let out a sharp curse as the water washed over him, breaking away more of the buildup, more of his skin. Everything beneath the hardened sludge was wrinkled and sodden, corroding into pale curds. His flesh smelled dank, like milk gone sour.

Marnaigne looked up at me, mournful and silently crying out for an end to his suffering, but I busied myself with a washrag, gently massaging away the last of the sludge so that my tinctures could soak in.

"I've made a paste as well," I said, turning to my cart of supplies as if I were simply showing him my work and not needing a moment's respite from his pained stare. "Once we're done with the bath, I'll get you covered in that and let you rest. Rest will help. The paste will help."

The king shook his head. "There are things I need to do. Before…" He took a laboring breath. "Before the end. If I can't…if I can't see my children, I need to write to them. There are things they need to know. So many, many things." He blinked at me, and his eyes were so round. "Will you write for me? I can't hold anything."

"Of course I will. Oh!" I turned back toward him, happy I could offer at least one thing I knew was sure to make him happy. "I've a letter for you, from Euphemia. She was outside your rooms earlier." I reached in to grab it from my pocket before I realized I was still wearing the gloves. "I'll read it to you after the bath."

The corners of his mouth rose, and I supposed he was smiling, but his lips split with half a dozen deep cracks and blood streamed from his chin to the bathwater. "Yes, she'd tucked herself beside the door and was singing me a song she'd learned. She has the sweetest little voice, my Phemie. A songbird, like her mother." He let out a shaky breath and I could hear the Brilliance rattling in his lungs. "I'm never going to see her again, am I?"

"Oh no, Your Majesty. You will. These wraps are going to do wonders, you'll see, and then we'll—"

I never got to finish because a flurry of shivers spread across the king, starting at his shoulder blades, then racing outward as his arms and legs jumped. He thrashed like a marionette on uneven strings. A froth spilled from his mouth and his eyes wept black tears, but through it all, Marnaigne didn't make a sound. It was the eeriest thing I'd ever borne witness to.

There was a great shudder, a collective spasm of every muscle within him contracting in one horrible united motion. Then he crashed back into the bath, spilling water across the floor, and lay completely still.

"Your Majesty?" I dared to whisper.

It was so quiet, as if the very air around us were waiting with bated breath.

"René?"

Had he—

Was he—

Dead?

In a flash, I was kneeling beside the tub, soaking my skirts in a foul mixture of geranium parts, bloodied bathwater, and blackened Brilliance. I pressed my fingers to the king's neck, searching for a pulse. I couldn't feel anything at first, the Brilliance was too thick, so I peeled back sections of it, horrified when he didn't move, didn't stir, because there was so much skin and muscle ripping off of him and why wasn't he moving? But then…

It was there. Faint and thready, but there all the same.

I watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest with a careful eye, feeling a wave of relief crash over me.

Marnaigne was alive.

Just barely.

I sat back on my heels, wondering what I ought to do next, when I heard the crunch of paper in my skirt pocket.

Euphemia.

I thought of what the king had been saying just before the seizure had come over him, how Euphemia had been at the door that morning, to sing him a song. He couldn't watch her, she couldn't see him, but still she wanted to sing; she wanted one part of her, however small, however tenuous, with him.

I couldn't imagine a love like that, so pure and earnest and insistent on existing in a world where things that were pure and earnest were so often crushed. I wondered what it would be like to feel such a love so wholeheartedly. Had I ever cared for anyone with even a fraction of Euphemia's devotion?

I wanted to believe I had with Kieron, but when Merrick had laid out the consequences of letting him live, I'd destroyed him.

Not with my own father, certainly. But if things had been different—if I had been different, if I'd been born first instead of thirteenth—would our relationship have been different as well?

I'd never know.

The deathshead had demanded I kill him, erasing any chance we might have had for reconciliation, however slim.

And now it was demanding I kill another father.

Tears welled as I thought of Euphemia being given the news that her father was gone. I could imagine the way her blue eyes would widen in disbelief, in denial. They'd widen and then they'd shatter.

"I can't," I whispered into the too-quiet bathroom. "I can't do that to her."

The words were easy to say, but the next steps were treacherous.

If I wasn't going to kill the king, I needed to save him, and my best effort, the geranium oil, had nearly ended him.

Calamité's voice singsonged in my head: You know how to findus.

Slowly, methodically, I peeled the sodden gloves from my hands and dropped them into the muck.

The Divided Ones' pipes still hung around my neck, the metal charm always a few degrees cooler than my skin. Even as I'd toiled over the hearth, distilling all that oil, it had felt chilled against me, a constant reminder that the gods who'd given it were only a breath away.

I marveled at how easy it would be to call them.

Merrick had never given me anything so helpful. Merrick had only ever foisted books and cakes at me, blessed me with a gift that felt more like a curse, and saddled me with a job I did not want.

If I did this, if I used the Divided Ones' offer, I would be severing something deep with Merrick. I wasn't a fool. I knew he'd be enraged. I knew it might not end well at all. But nothing in my life ever had, and this act, this one act of defiance, ensured that one little girl got to keep her father and her childhood and her innocence. It felt like a fair trade.

I put the charm to my lips and, bracing myself, blew.

The blast was just as loud and horrible as it had been in the temple. I winced as the notes echoed in the marble room, and waited for the palace guards to break in, running to see why the end of the world had begun in the king's chambers.

But somehow, they didn't, and I was left wondering if only I could hear it.

I waited, flinching at every sound: a drop of water, the king's labored breathing, and then, the splitting of the air as a host of gods entered our world.

"What a mess you've made in here, little mortal," Calamité chastised me, looking around the room with a curl of disgust wrinkling his side of their nose. "And you're just sitting in it?"

"I need your help," I began without preamble, keeping my voice calm and my cadence measured. This wasn't the time to let emotions reign. I needed to say my piece and let the chips fall where they may. "I don't believe the deathshead is right in telling me to kill the king."

Félicité's eyebrow arched. Calamité's side of their lips grinned.

"I want to save him," I went on, my words feeling strong and right and true. "But I need your help, your…blessing."

Both the gods' eyes flickered with interest.

"The Dreaded End's daughter comes to us for a blessing," they intoned in a unified voice, hundreds of gods strong.

"I need to know how to treat the Shivers," I said. "I thought what I was doing would work, but it didn't, and now…now I don't know what to do. I feel very lost."

"We're not in the habit of giving even a single blessing to most mortals, and you ask us for many," Calamité mused.

"Just one," I protested.

"You want to save the king and you want to end the Shivers."

"I have to end the Shivers to save the king," I argued.

The gods shook their massive head.

"Wresting the king away from his sickness will not erase the deathshead covering his face," Félicité explained.

My heart fell as her words sank in.

"There is, of course, another way." Calamité's grin was vicious. "We know about the candles, Hazel."

I froze. Merrick had made it seem like they were a terribly hushed secret, one to be kept at all costs. But Calamité knew. Which meant Félicité knew. Which meant all the other gods trapped within their crowded body knew.

"You take Marnaigne's flame onto one of your unused candles and he's good as new," Calamité went on, speaking slyly from his corner of their mouth, as if that would keep his words from Félicité. "Cured. No more sickness. No more deathshead."

"But…but then I lose a candle."

"You've got another. What's one little life compared to the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, that Marnaigne touches? That Marnaigne protects? You were so concerned about the war and the orphans and the…whatever, before. This one little act could save them all."

Félicité tsk ed. "You're both treading on dangerous ground."

"What do you say?" he went on, unconcerned. "One life for countless multitudes? It seems an easy decision, don't you think?"

When he put it that way, it did, of course.

And there was still the third candle. Two lifetimes were enough, so much more than enough.

But when I tried to agree with the god of chaos, the words stuck in my throat.

It was tempting. It was so terribly tempting. But I shook myhead.

"It doesn't matter. I can't get to the candles without Merrick. And he'll never agree to any of this."

Calamité looked offended. "Do you really consider your kindly uncle so toothless? I could have you there with a snap of my fingers."

Many years before, I'd traveled to a small seaside town to help with an outbreak of the pox. After nearly a month spent at sickbeds, I finally made my way to the shoreline and stood in awe of the water before me. I'd kicked off my boots and waded into its cooling depths, letting the waves rush over my bare feet. With each sweep of water, the sand beneath me was tugged back, and I'd felt it pulling at me too. Half delirious with exhaustion, I'd nearly allowed the water to take me deeper, dragging me into depths and currents I could not swim in.

I felt like that now. Calamité had set a plan in motion, and I was helpless to do anything but go along with it.

"The candles all look the same," I pointed out, playing my final card of resistance. "There's no way I could pick out the king's from any of the others."

"No," Calamité agreed. "Not with those mortal eyes."

Félicité made a sound of disappointment I knew she did not feel. "So unfortunate we aren't able to traverse the grounds of his domain." She shrugged her shoulder, the matter closed. "Oh well."

Calamité scoffed. "As if I'd allow such a minor snag in logistics to derail this master plan of mine. Of Hazel's," he corrected himself quickly.

I could hear the goddess of good fortune grind her teeth. "Brother, I swear if you—"

"I don't want to save the king like this," I started. I didn't know how I'd fix this, but it didn't feel right. It felt very, very wrong. "I'll find another way. I'll—"

"Of course you do and of course you won't. Close your eyes now, healer," he interrupted, reaching out to press his thumb against my forehead.

A sudden wave of motion swept over me and I scrunched my eyes closed, trying to squirm away from him. I'd never been struck by lightning, but this was what I imagined it felt like. Bolts of power sizzled from my head down through my veins, electrifying my senses and burning the ends of my nerves. I fell to my knees, a meteor striking Earth, and curled in on myself, hunching over in a shell of protection.

"What did you do to me?" I shrieked.

"The Dreaded End isn't the only one who can bestow gifts," Calamité said.

Félicité sighed. "He's going to be so mad at you."

"Take it away, Félicité, please!" I howled, pawing at my face. "I don't want to do this, I don't want this, I don't—"

"I can't," she admitted softly. "But this gift won't last forever, mortal, I promise you. Only an hour or so, at most."

My head pounded in agony. "What is it?"

"I've blessed you with the godsight. For a time, you'll see as we do," Calamité explained. "It will let you find the king's candle. You might try saying thank you, at the very least."

I clawed at my scalp, wanting to rip my head open and free the pressure building within it. "You don't know what you're talking about. I'll never be able to find him. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of candles."

" You don't know what you're talking about," Calamité snapped. "He keeps them organized, families and friends next to those they know and love. Study the flames. You'll see." He laughed darkly. "You'll see everything."

"Don't!" I started to cry, but before I could protest any further, I heard the snap of fingers.