Chapter Fifty-Four

He’s gone.

Asterin approached the bed one step at a time, her eyes fixed on Quinlan’s bloodless face. But with the sluggish thud of her heart, everything in her went utterly numb. Not possible. Not possible. The words looped over and over again, in time with her pulse. Quinlan wasn’t dead. She refused to believe it. He wasn’t gone. No—in a moment, surely she would escape the shackles of this unspeakable nightmare and Quinlan would wake.

Perhaps Eoin had concocted the entire thing. Perhaps this was just another one of his horrible tricks.

She watched her own hand raise before her, fingers out­-stretched. Felt nothing but emptiness beneath her fingertips as she brushed them along Quinlan’s cold jaw.

Emptiness. An absence of magic . . . and an absence of life.

The agony came, all at once. It split her in half. She buried her face into the space between Quinlan’s neck and shoulder and screamed.

Never had a scream so full of rage and grief torn from her throat. Never had she hurled her fist into the floor so hard that the crack of shattered bones drowned out her every thought.

After everything she had said to him. After everything they had done to get him back. After everything Eoin had promised.

“No,” she gritted out, her voice scraped raw. “No,” she said again, because she had nothing else to say.

It wasn’t fair.

She was the Queen of Axaria.

The Immortals were not meant to be cruel to her.

Rose knelt at her side and took her hand, all gentle grace. Asterin hardly even registered the pain in her hand fading away as the Eradorian murmured a healing spell and pieced her knuckles back together. Rose was summer rain when Asterin had nothing left within her but the unforgiving wrath of a winter storm.

“What went wrong?” Eadric croaked.

Taeron wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Who knows? No one truly knows anything about the forbidden element, do they?” He held up the nameless book and threw it down in disgust. “It’s forbidden for a reason.”

“I guess even Eoin overestimated his own abilities,” Eadric murmured. He glanced anxiously at Quinlan. “I—I wonder if he’s somehow trapped inside now.”

Well-deserved, Asterin thought nastily. She resisted the urge to touch Quinlan’s face again. The furrow between his brows had yet to smooth. “He doesn’t look like the dead,” she whispered. “He doesn’t look like he’s resting.” How cruel, that even now, he seemed to be caught midstruggle. She rose to her feet and let her hand drift above his abdomen, where the fatal wound had carved its mark into his flesh.

As soon as her hand neared his body, scorching heat singed her palm. She recoiled so quickly that she tripped over Taeron.

He caught her just in time. “What is it?”

She rubbed the angry red welt on her skin. It had been like holding her hand over a bonfire. Without responding, she approached Quinlan a second time and tugged his shirt up, careful not to singe herself again.

Her eyes widened.

The others crowded beside her in dazed disbelief.

Together, they watched the darkness infecting Quinlan’s flesh and veins and arteries gradually recede, expunging inward, driven away by a power that could only be a certain god’s doing.

To their bewilderment, a message inked itself onto the skin above Quinlan’s heart in crimson. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Insolent mortals. Have a little faith.

A hoarse laugh escaped Asterin’s lips, a laugh that cut off abruptly when Quinlan’s chest surged upward in a strangled gasp of air.

His eyes flew open and he shot upright, his face imbued with color and light and life—from the bright flush blossoming across his cheeks to the feverish shine of his indigo gaze. That gaze locked onto her.

“Asterin,” said Quinlan, his voice rough from near ruination, but she knew she would have traded every sound in the world to hear it again. She grabbed his hand and nearly sobbed at the restored warmth of his palm against hers. He shoved himself off the bed and seized her, wrapping her in a furious embrace so tight that it robbed the breath from her chest. “Immortals. Asterin.”

“Easy,” she gasped. Apparently Eoin had revived him past full strength. Quinlan relented. Slightly. Enough for her to gulp down a few proper lungfuls of air, at least. She ran her fingers through his hair and buried her face into the crook of his neck.

“I’m so sorry, Asterin,” he mumbled. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—you didn’t deserve—” He swore. “Immortals. I love you, Asterin. I can’t believe I almost died without ever telling you.”

Tears streamed down her face. She laughed, hysterically, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Damn you, Quinlan Holloway. I love you, too.”

“Thank the Immortals.” He kissed her hard on the mouth once before breaking away to throw his arms around Rose. “Sorry to you, as well.”

His cousin pinched him by the ear and tugged. “For what?” she said. “Forcing us to watch you kiss someone or . . . you know, dying?”

He shot her a sheepish grin. “Both?” he tried.

Rose sighed. “I’ll take it.” She sent a quick wink Asterin’s way over Quinlan’s shoulder.

Once they separated, Quinlan turned to Eadric. “Thank you, Captain. For everything.”

“I didn’t do much,” muttered Eadric. “I’m just grateful that you’re alive.”

“Shut up,” Quinlan growled. When Eadric’s eyebrows rose, he flinched immediately and averted his gaze. “Sorry. Wasn’t talking to you. Just . . . forget that I said that.”

I will not take control of his mind, nor his body.

The hairs on the nape of Asterin’s neck rose as a chilling thought occurred to her. When Eoin had laid out his terms for their deal, he had mentioned existing in Quinlan. With death as the only other alternative, it had seemed a lesser evil.

For one moon, the god had pledged that he would dwell within Quinlan and then leave forever. Except . . . no one had thought to ask him where he would be dwelling.

Asterin exchanged a glance with Taeron and saw in his expression that he had guessed much of the same. Obviously, Eoin hadn’t opted to merely squeeze himself into a dusty little corner of Quinlan’s mind and keep his mouth shut.

Before either of them could comment, however, Quinlan moved in front of his brother and opened his arms. He pretended not to notice when Taeron hesitated.

“I heard what you offered Eoin,” said Quinlan softly. He drew away from the embrace. “I’m thankful he didn’t accept.”

Taeron’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I just wish we could have found a cure for you sooner, little brother.”

The implication wasn’t lost on Asterin, but she thought it best to avoid discussion. For now. No, right now, they had other pressing matters. Like—“How are we getting back to the Mortal Realm?”

Rose tilted her head at Quinlan. “If Eoin’s power supposedly runs through your veins, Quinnie, does that mean you could open a portal back to Eradore for us?”

A wistful look crossed his face. “Actually, I might be able to shadow jump all of us to the Mortal Realm.” He held out his hands to them. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Taeron didn’t seem convinced. “Unless, of course, you muck it up and we get devoured by the infinite void between realms.” But he joined hands with his brother anyway.

Quinlan smiled and beckoned for Asterin and Rose to grab ahold of his right hand while Eadric joined the left with Taeron. Once they had formed a neat line, he merely said, “Have a little faith.”

Asterin shivered at the echo of Eoin’s earlier message.

It was going to be a very long, very nightmarish month.

“Will you be able to shadow jump past the palace wards?” asked Rose. Asterin remembered Harry explaining that he had only managed it with the help of the nebula diamond augmenting his powers—a fact that, pointedly, neither she nor Rose chose to mention. “The Wardens might allow you access, but if they don’t . . .”

“Trust me. I can handle it,” Quinlan promised. “On the count of three, hold your breath. One, two—”

“Wait,” said Eadric. “Right on three or after three?”

“I said on, didn’t I?”

“Then why not just say on three?” Eadric demanded.

“It’s a valid point,” said Rose while Taeron nodded supportively.

Quinlan glared. “I am going to shadow dump the three of you into the ocean.” He exhaled through his nostrils. “Fine. On three, then. Happy?”

“Quite,” said Eadric. “Though I would have been happier if—”

“Immortals!” Asterin interrupted loudly. “One. Two.” They all drew in deep inhales. “Three.”

The shadows around them shuddered to life. They surged upward, a wave encircling them from every direction. When they crashed down, they pushed and pulled at them like a capricious ocean current, a strong-willed tide with no destination in sight.

Asterin saw Quinlan beside her. He wore a crown of swirling darkness upon his head, and it stained the air black.

He closed his eyes and ripped them right through the divine fabric separating the two realms. They burst out on the other side and found themselves standing in the middle of the bridge connecting the Academia Principalis to the Eradorian palace.

As the ether clinging to their bodies dispersed, they released one another’s hands. All except for Quinlan. Asterin couldn’t help but smile to herself when it didn’t seem like he would be letting go of hers anytime soon.

Rose grinned up at the palace and elbowed her cousin. “Not bad, Quinnie. Not bad at all.”

They turned toward the Academia at the sound of small feet pattering across stone. Two children raced toward them, still in their school uniforms.

“Avris and Avon!” Rose exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest. “What are you two doing out of class?”

Still holding Asterin’s hand, Quinlan let out an oomph as the twins simultaneously pounced upon him. He somehow managed to bundle them into his arms. “Hello, little cubs.”

“We missed you,” said Avon, his words almost completely muffled.

Avris peeked up at him. “A Warden flew into our class and told us you were coming. Did our analgesic work okay?”

Quinlan tugged at her braids. “It worked perfectly, you clever little delinquent.”

“Hey! I’m here, too!” Avon whined.

“Delinquents, sorry,” Quinlan amended.

Avris let go of Quinlan and fiddled with the buttons of her blazer. “A letter came while all of you were away,” she said quietly. She looked up at Asterin. “It was addressed to you, Your Majesty. From someone named Nicole.”

Confusion struck Asterin first, and then worry. “Nicole? The Elite? My Nicole?”

Avris nodded. “The letter arrived from Cyejis.”

“What?” said Eadric. He pushed closer with a frown. “That makes no sense. She should have long returned to Axaris. How in the name of the Immortals did she end up in my hometown?”

Avon scuffed the ground with his shoe. “Uhh, well . . .”

“You read the letter, didn’t you?” said Rose with a disapproving eyebrow arch.

“Of course not,” Avris exclaimed at the same time that Avon mumbled, “Maybe,” to which Avris gave him a hard shove.

Asterin smiled at their antics. “It’s all right, I’m not mad. Could you tell me what Nicole wrote, please?”

“You tell her,” Avris hissed at her brother. “Since you said maybe.”

Avon opened his mouth to retort, but then Rose put her hands on her hips and he surrendered. “Uhh . . . it was a pretty short letter, I guess,” the boy began timidly. He ducked his head. “Nicole wrote that you must return to Axaris as soon as possible, Your Majesty. For urgent matters.”

Foreboding settled in the pit of Asterin’s stomach. “Such as?”

“It’s your mother,” Avon responded. “The Queen Regent. She’s taken full control of the city and arrested all of your Elite guards. And . . .” The boy trailed off, looking desperately to his twin sister for help.

Avris took pity on him. Her expression had gone eerily grave. “And afterward, she executed one of them. His name was Silas.”