The Deepest Night

Chapter 25

I jolted upright. I didn’t even realize I was awake until I heard the mournful piping of the water bird again, and I looked at the windows because it sounded so near.

I was awake, and I was alone in the bed. I felt ill and sweaty for no reason I could think of, as though I’d just broken a fever.

A fever.

I looked down and yes, there they were: his shirt laid out flat, the bandage that had been around his head fallen to his pillow. Beneath the sheets I’d find his trousers and underwear, too.

I sprang from the bed.

“Armand! Where are you? Mandy!”

I didn’t bother to keep my voice down. There was no one else here, no one at all.

All the windows were closed tight. If he’d left as smoke, it hadn’t been that way. There was no fireplace up here, but there was the one downstairs, and the door—

I hit the stairway so hard my feet slipped; only my grip on the railing kept me from spilling all the way down. As it was, I had to skip and hop and finish the last few steps at an awkward run, my boots cracking against the floorboards of the landing.

The front door gaped open. The night sky hung beyond it, coal black dappled with treetops and stars.

I tried to Turn. It didn’t work. I raced out into the open and scanned the heavens, searching for him.

There were some clouds, that persistent haze hanging over the lake. No smoke that I could see. But he had to be here. He had to. He wasn’t going to be one of those unfortunate young drákon who Turned and dissolved into death, because I was going to save him—

“Where is he?” I shouted to the stars. “Where?”

rise up, came their response; even they sounded mournful. rise up, fireheart.

And then, as if they’d unlocked the hidden shackles that had bound me, I could.

I went to smoke, freed from the earth. I left my garments behind, the lodge, its mossy roof. I launched upward, and suddenly I could see all of the lake, the bristly stretch of forest encircling it, the mist that shifted and curled above the surface of the water …

Hold up. There was no wind, no reason for that patch of curl there near the center of the lake. I moved closer to better see. It spun and whirled like a miniature cyclone, no natural thing.

Armand.

I flowed over to him, became thin and hollow and surrounded him as best I could. I couldn’t tell if he realized I was there; now that I knew where and what he was, I felt him as strongly as ever. It was obviously Mandy, gone to smoke but in such a furious way. The force of his whirling was sending me spinning, too, tearing me into tendrils.

I was beginning to feel ill again, so I had to draw free and let him alone.

What was he doing? Below us both, the water grew stormy, thick wide ripples that slapped all the way back to shore.

I wished he’d stop. I wished he’d move away from the lake, because if I accidentally Turned to girl here, I probably wasn’t going to be able to swim to safety. I was rotten sick of nearly drowning.

He went faster, faster. He was pulling a spiral of water up into his middle, sending drops in every direction. I hung back farther, baffled, as the spiral became a funnel, and the drag from his rotation became something stronger and more ominous.

What’s happening to him? I asked the stars.

They didn’t answer. I wandered higher and hunted the heavens, but Jesse wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Tell me why he’s doing this, I demanded.

shape and form, they sang to me. form and shape.

So … Armand was attempting to hold on to his shape? To not Turn back to a human or into a dragon, but remain as smoke?

Why would he do that? Unless … unless he thought that if he didn’t, he’d have no form left at all.

this beast was never meant to be fully as you are. the thread of his life has always been destined to be severed here.

If I had had breath in a body, it would have left me then. I rushed upward, trying to see as many of them as I could.

No! You can’t take him!

we do not take, fireheart. Their song was so sad now. So chilling. he is a child of magic. by law of magic, he ascends to us.

I sped higher and higher. Where is Jesse? Let me speak to Jesse!

Again, no answer. They glittered against a black, black sky, ice cold and remote.

You told me I wasn’t alone!

you were not. your span of hours with this dragon were freely given. that time is done.

Far below, the cyclone that was Armand began to break apart. The waterspout grew shorter, splashing into diamonds upon the surface of the lake. The mist settled. Armand spread thin … then began to rise.

I arrowed back down to him, surrounded him. I tried my own cyclone to keep him in place. He only twirled with me and then beyond me; I wasn’t able to stop him from flowing higher.

Please, he can’t die now, I pleaded.

I had no hands to capture him. I had no words to encourage him. Within moments he was so diaphanous it was as if he had no substance at all, not even color. Zigzag rips began to cleave him; unvarnished night peeped through. A distant, horrified part of me wondered if it hurt.

I’m supposed to save him! I have to save him!

The stars burned in silence. I wanted to scream and I wanted to cry. I wanted to destroy the magic that was taking him. If I’d had a bullet or a bayonet, if I’d had a machine gun, if I could have killed this thing that was killing him …

I watched, helpless, as the smoke of the only living soul who loved me wisped away, molecules falling skyward, gone forever.

And I realized that I had no true power, after all. Not over death.

I’d failed. I’d failed at everything.

A sudden new song swelled around me.

what do you give for this life? what sacrifice do you give?

My answer was instant, unthinking.

My own life. Mine for his.

agreed.

Have you ever done something so rash, so immense, that it takes an eternity of seconds for the magnitude of it to sink in?

I’d just committed suicide.

For Armand.

I had survived my youth immersed in storybook fairy tales. Spent the last few months of my life living one. The one thing I knew with absolute certainty about magical pacts was that they were binding, evermore.

I floated, suspended, waiting for it to happen. That same distant part of me that had been horrified for Armand was now cringing at my own impending pain, but I wasn’t going to try to fly away or Turn to escape it. I was petrified and defiant, and if I’d been in my girl-shape, I’d likely have been huddled in a ball on the ground, covering my head with my hands. But what was done was done.

So I floated.

Slowly, beautifully, the shredded bits of Armand Louis sifted down around me, growing longer and denser until I was threaded through with him. Strands of his smoke coiling around mine, reshaping the mass of me until I was new and unknown, even to me.

We twisted into helixes together. We joined and separated and joined once more, dancers on air. Dancers made of air.

I thought, I never knew it could be like this, this coupling. I never guessed. I wish I’d known, I wish—

No. I wasn’t going to waste the final few beats of my life wishing for impossible things.

Armand slipped free of me, sinking down to the water. I remained where I was, still waiting for the stars to claim me as he drifted toward the shore.

Eventually, since nothing else was happening, I drifted after him.

He Turned to boy in the mud. He was flat on his back, his knees raised, eyes shut. But his chest was rising and falling. He lived.

I returned my attention to the heavens. No songs now, only those brilliant flecks of light shining down.

If they were giving me another hour with him—blimey, another few seconds—I’d take it. I hurried to his side and Turned to girl, kneeling by his head.

“Armand?”

He moaned, deep in his chest. I touched my hand to his hair.

“Armand, how do you feel?”

In response, he rolled over and vomited into the water.

“Oh,” I whispered. I kept stroking his hair. It felt so soft against my skin. Had it always been like this?

“That,” he announced, guttural, “was truly, profoundly vile.”

“But you’re here. You’re alive. You’re going to be fine.”

I said the words as if casting a spell. I said them and thought, This is so. This is what must be true. My life for yours.

Armand rolled flat again. His eyes were red and watery.

“Mind if we … walk back?”

“No.” I shot a frightened look up at the stars. “No, don’t Turn again.”

“If you insist,” he said weakly, and I helped him to his feet.

Daylight came. I must have slept through a good portion of it, because by the time I opened my eyes, the world was mellow and golden, as if the sun was already dipping to kiss the horizon.

I felt warm and comfortable. I was a lazy girl wrapped in woolly blankets and Jesse’s arms and—

No, I wasn’t.

I craned my head up. It was Armand holding me, not Jesse. He was awake, too, watching me. Our bodies were nestled close; he was the source of all that heat. Our legs had entangled.

“You looked cold,” he said, as if that explained everything.

It might have been true. All I had on was my shirt. The bedcovers had rumpled down by my waist.

He was also wearing a shirt. I’d helped him into it last night after we’d made it back to the lodge. I remembered that. I remembered …

Oh, crikey.

I remembered it all. My warm lazy happiness swiftly evaporated.

I had changed something. Maybe everything. Armand was going to live now, and I was not.

It’s fine, it’s fine, I reminded myself, trying not to panic. A fair bargain. Worth it.

So why was I still alive? Why was I burrowed here in this bed with him and those generous rays of golden sun? How much extra time were the stars going to allow me, anyway?

Armand’s palm shifted against my shoulder, a sweet, familiar pressure. His lashes were long and ebony. A shadow of blue whiskers roughened the planes of his face. He held my eyes and gave the smallest smile. It was crooked, almost shy.

Right then I made a choice. Until the stars summoned me, until my thread was severed, I was going to finish what I had come here to do. Because if I was going to leave this boy behind, the least I could do was leave him with his brother.

“Was it only a dream?” he asked, losing the smile.

“No.” I sat up and pushed away the covers. Mud had dried into flakes all around us, grayish brown smears ground into the sheets. “It was real.”

“I Turned,” he said wonderingly. He picked up one of the flakes, which went to dust almost at once between his fingers. His eyes took on a fierce, faraway look. “I can’t … quite seem to recall most of it.”

I was surprisingly disappointed. “Oh?”

“Some. Perhaps you might fill in the gaps.”

“Well …” I had to weigh my words; I didn’t want to accidentally let him know too much. I could barely stand to think about what I’d done. I definitely wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

Mandy was waiting. My fingers found the bottom button of my shirt and began to pluck at it nervously.

“I awoke, and you were gone. I found you over the lake, er, spinning.”

“Spinning? Like a top?”

I shook my head. “Like a gale. Like a windstorm that would consume the world.”

“There was the mist,” he said abruptly. “And the funnel of water.”

I glanced back at him. The fierce look hadn’t faded, but now it was directed at me.

“That’s right. And then we—we danced a little.”

“We did?”

I shrugged, embarrassed. I’d never danced with a boy before. All my lessons at Iverson had partnered me with Stella, because we were closest in height, and we’d had to take turns at playing the man. To be granted permission to dance in public was one of the most coveted ambitions of any young woman of any class. But to have your first-ever dance be with a genuine lord, no matter what form we’d had at the time—

I was sorry then that I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it. I jolly well would’ve enjoyed the expression on Stella’s face. It might even have made up for all the times she’d trod on my toes.

“Rather a dance,” I amended. “That’s what I’d call it, anyway. You don’t remember flying?”

He sat up, his brows knit. Blots of mud stained the back of his shirt, too. “I remember the pain. I remember tearing about, unable to …”

I tugged and tugged at the button.

“I remember the colors of the stars. How they were every color I’d ever seen, and more. Colors I can’t even name.” That hint of slow wonder crept back into his tone. “How exquisite they were. How they sang, and how I hoped they’d never stop.”

“What did they sing to you?”

“Just come.”

“Oh.”

He looked at me askance from beneath those black lashes. “I remember you as well. Now I do. I remember sensing you below me. Wanting to be with you so badly that I ached. Even more than the pain—more than the songs—I ached. And then it happened. I came down and we …” The crooked smile returned. “As you said, Lora. We danced.”

The button popped free. I cupped it in the heart of my palm.

Armand said, “I suppose I wanted it badly enough, eh? To be with you. To live. That’s what saved me.”

“Yes,” I said. “That must have been it.”

At Blisshaven, at Moor Gate, I used to make bargains with myself all the time. Lonely little if this, then that deals to help me endure.

If I keep my shirtwaist clean all day, I can read an extra chapter of my book tonight.

If I can dodge Billy Patrick’s pinches, I can think about my parents before going to sleep.

If I can snatch a piece of bread at tea, I can pretend it’s cake. White cake, with pink and silver frosting.

If I make it past Lizzie and her lot down the hall, I can imagine I’m the queen. They’ll be my slaves.

If I live through this session with The Machine, I’ll find a way out of here. Tonight I’ll find a way out.

If I don’t mention my pact with the stars to Armand or anyone else, never ever, I can stay a while longer. Exist a while longer.

Perchance we never really outgrow our childhoods. Not the worst of them.