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"It is not working," Cercing announced a short time later. The mirror sat on the deck before her. She'd almost fallen over when she tried the spell the first time so Ari had made her sit down and now Cercing looked like a strange, sulky kindergartner in her hood, legs stretched out straight in front of her. "It may be that the summons was unexpected."
"But it might not?" Ari asked, willing her to deny it.
"It is... very strange. If my Master were unavailable, as has happened once before, there should still be a slight vibration when the spell finds the other mirror."
"And it's not doing that this time?"
Cercing frowned at the mirror as she set it in her lap. "It is not."
Ari swore. She'd thought the mirror was a pointless little bit of micromanaging from Virgil when he'd shown up with it in the first place but now that they were in the middle of what was looking more and more like a coup it felt a lot less silly. "Can you contact him another way?"
Cercing shook her head.
The whole time they had been talking, Loren and Naiah had stalked the edges of the ship, looking out for who knew what. The Iron King was already on the ship, ten feet away. Anything they might find beyond the ship couldn't be half that scary.
This wasn't the first time he'd tempted her with bargains, but usually they sounded a bit more well thought out. Seductive. And someone had gotten a few hits in on him earlier. That was fresh blood on his arm. Fresh knife cuts. It could have been from the castle guard while he was escaping. But if it wasn't?
She groaned. She would be tearing her hair out soon.
"You can't contain him with some kind of special super secret magic by any chance?" Ari whispered, sitting down next to Cercing.
The look that earned her was a definite no.
"Just thought I'd ask." She sighed. "I think I believe him that he's the only one that can heal Cylian. Which is awful."
"Indeed."
"I'm gonna have to do it, aren't I?"
"That is not my decision to make."
Ari glanced at Cercing. She was sweating a little even though the night was cool and she had the look of someone that had been up for three days without sleep, not entirely impossible but—had she looked that way earlier? Ari didn't think she had. These dark circles were different than her usual ones. "You touched Cylian, didn't you? Virgil told me not to touch him. That's why isn't it?" She waved a hand at Cercing, careful not to brush her just in case. "You're cursed too."
Without looking at her, Cercing nodded.
Ari nodded back even though the bottom had just fallen out of her stomach. It didn't seem right to ask how long she had left—Cercing might not even know—so she asked the only thing she could. "So, as a member of the doomed party, what would you do if it was your choice to make? I don't even know what this curse does. Will you just fall asleep? Or...?" She couldn't voice the other options she'd thought of. Cylian had looked peaceful enough, but what if he wasn't? She didn't know if her conscience could deal with that.
There was a long silence. "I have never killed anyone," Cercing said but her voice lacked its usual backbone of steel. It made her sound simultaneously older and younger than she was. "But I would kill him, I think. Though perhaps it is easier to say these things when I will not be called upon to enact them."
"Well I have killed people," Ari said, wincing inwardly even as she forced her face to remain neutral. It had been self defense and only the once—most of the Iron King's forces had been some kind of clockwork, not living at all, which had made it so much easier at the time—but she could still remember the look on his face as Cheyna slid through flesh. That was the only time she could remember but there were probably others that she had never even known about. They'd had to escape from one town when the Iron King's searchers caught wind of them. The last thing she'd seen before a jump out a second story window and a sprint to freedom was the frantic face of the couple who had hidden them. She didn't want more memories like that in her head. "I think I have to take his deal. I don't know what else to do."
"Then why do you ask me?"
"I dunno. I thought maybe you would try to talk me out of it or something. That's what Virgil would do. If he really disagreed." Ari looked down at her hands clenched in her lap and then out out at Naiah and Loren, still circling. The Iron King had made no move at all. He could've been a self satisfied statue. Well, maybe not self satisfied exactly. He actually looked... sad. Just a little. It was easy to miss but if she stared at him just right without blinking she could see flashes of it, like staring at those Magic Eye pictures she had always hated.
Looking at him now she could see both Iron Kings: the one from her memories, large and looming, and this new one that stooped and hesitated. He had smirked when they first met face to face, like the antihero of some kind of fantasy epic. There had always been something so ambiguous about him when she saw him in the flesh, but he had radiated power. Assurance. She had never doubted that he could do what he claimed. But this one? He still inspired plenty of shudders, but more and more it was like rewatching a movie that had terrified her once and now only had her counting the jump scares.
What should she do?
Even if he wasn't the monster he had been, she shouldn't free him. But if she didn't, Cylian was lost and Cercing was fading fast. And what about Virgil? Where the hell was he? Was he cursed too? Was he behind everything?
Ari squeezed her head in both hands but the answers refused to pop free.
"Are you strong enough for one more spell? I need to know."
Cercing rubbed her forehead with her cuff, blotting the sweat beading there. Her eyelids fluttered. Each time Ari worried that she might not open her eyes again. She needed more time. Just a little more, but her hesitation had already taken up too much. "Yes. I will manage it."
"It's a big one." Ari looked up at the sky overhead. The stars looked different here than they had back in Callaria. "I'm not even sure if it'll work."
"Tell me what it is and I will do it."
So she did.
***
ARI TRIED TO HELP CERCING below deck but it was hard when she literally couldn't touch her with anything short of a pole. Mostly she just hovered behind her and hoped that Cercing wouldn't trip on the ladder and crack her head open.
The box was right where they'd left it, at least in the sense that Ari knew it was somewhere on the ship but not its exact location. Some helpful, forward thinking crew member had set the over-sized and slightly ostentatious box to one side of the cargo hold within easy reach. Ari had worried they would need to rearrange everything to find it, a feat which would have been nearly impossible even if Cercing hadn't been walking with a decided limp by then.
"You're sure you're up to this?" Ari asked and if Cercing could have lit her on fire it probably would have happened right then. Lucky for Ari, it was either outside her skill set or she had decided to save her energy for the bigger spell she would be doing. "Well, do you need anything else to... do your thing?" Ari waved her hands around in a boxlike shape. "I don't know what kind of supplies you might need."
"Silence, mostly."
Ari snorted. She was definitely Virgil's student.
"I'll leave you to it then," Ari said as she backed away. It didn't stop her from throwing a couple concerned glances back over her shoulder as she left though.
Ari climbed the ladder back to the deck and took a deep breath. The air smelled like salt and fish and she was terrified. Her hand shook whenever she lifted it from Cheyna's hilt and she had the feeling that everything she was doing was horribly wrong.
Naiah and Loren spotted her then and came to stand beside her, making Ari feel small between them. Naiah was taller even than Loren, she noted with a sense of irrational urgency. Ari licked her lips.
"What is it?" Naiah asked. Her gaze darted around, still waiting on an attack that might not happen.
"I feel like I should say something inspirational," Ari said and a laugh bubbled up. It wasn't a happy laugh either. "But so far I got nothing and I'm probably about to do something really stupid." She shrugged and drew Cheyna. The sword sang as it came free of the scabbard and a little of its excitement bled into her. Ari's hand tightened on the grip.
Loren started to say something but Ari shook her head. "Time to see a man about a cure," she said, to herself more than anyone else.
The Iron King had shifted, turning his attention up to the stars just as she had earlier, head tipped back, neck long and exposed. Anyone who didn't know better would have taken him for an innocent. Ari raised her sword. He flinched and his hands came up, a move that surprised her. It was the first show of something like fear that she had ever seen from him. Her swing cut neatly through the chain that ran between his wrists and for half a second the ends of the broken links glowed white hot. The links had been inscribed with flowing script that flashed with the same burning light before that too faded. She didn't need to ask if it had worked. The light of the broken spell had barely gone out before the shackles opened with a faint clack and fell onto the deck at his feet.
Ari watched them fall. Her mouth had gone completely dry.
Behind her Naiah and Loren were talking over each other until it was hard to understand anything but Naiah's impressive string of swearing that wove the whole thing together. Ari ignored them.
"I did my part. Now give me the cure," Ari said.
The Iron King ringed his wrist with one hand. The flesh beneath the shackles was rough and reddened, edged in old scars. "Thank you, Champion."
"I didn't do it out of the kindness of my heart. Give me the cure."
"And then?" He eyed her from beneath the curtain of his hair. "Would you kill me once you have what you seek?"
"You know when you ask like that I can't tell if that's what you want or not," Ari said, not even thinking before she said the words. It felt like she'd wandered into some kind of never ending dream and was going in circles. He had probably been lying and then she would have to kill him. She didn't want to have to kill him. "You probably deserve it for everything you've done and if Virgil was here he would probably help you out with that and not even bat an eyelash. But he's not. And I am." She paused. "Never come back. Find a hole or a cave or a mermaid city or something, I don't care what it is, but go there and never come back. Now tell me how to break the curse."
She stared up at him. Her voice hadn't wavered for once but it was still hard to breathe.
The Iron King nodded.
***
THE CURSE BREAKER WAS surprisingly nondescript once she saw it. It was only a waving of his long nailed hands and then he held up a small greyish ball of non-light. It couldn't be called light when it seemed to suck everything into itself, like a hole cut into the world. She didn't want to touch it. The orb sat atop his outstretched hand.
"That's it? It doesn't look... like anything," Ari said.
"It is."
"How does it work?"
"Every spell has a root. Destroy it and the rest withers. Do you understand?"
She didn't exactly, but she had an idea. That was probably the best she was likely to get from him.
You hesitate, Cheyna whispered and it felt so much like a voice in her ear that Ari shivered.
"You never said who was behind all this," she said.
"I gave you what you needed to know. And now I give you what you need to succeed." He spun the spell in his hand. The marks on his wrists were already fading, disappearing into the skin like invisible ink, and somehow his hair seemed to have gotten longer. He drew in a deep breath. "I did so miss the breeze off the ocean. Goodbye, Champion. I will honor our agreement."
He tossed the spell into the air and Ari squawked, hands out to catch it. He was gone just as fast. She was left with the faintly cold, grey light of the spell in her hand and the heavy weight of all she had left to do.