“IT’S NOT GOING to be enough.” That sounded like Chrysalis.
My head throbbed as I climbed back into consciousness. Melanie’s hands were cool on my cheeks and throat as she checked my pulse, which meant I couldn’t have been out for long. A few minutes. My head rested on her knees.
“What do you mean?” Melanie looked to her left, and the breeze caught her hair. “It has to be enough.” Her face was fuzzy.
No matter how deeply I breathed, I couldn’t clear my vision of the blackness simmering at the edges, fading into gray in the center. It would be a miracle if I could stand.
“You poured magic into the barrier, but not enough.” Chrysalis stood on the wall around the overlook, staring into the dark waters of the bay below. The white suit he’d worn to my coronation was battered and bloody, torn in a hundred different places. “This won’t work without more magic.”
I pushed myself into a sitting position, swaying. “When did you get here?”
The wraith boy flashed a smile my way. “Just a moment ago, my queen. I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Then this was pointless?” Melanie jabbed a finger at the bay. “Magic went into the barrier while the metal was molten. Now what do we do?”
I pried my hand open, stretching my fingers around the anchor scale.
Dizziness still swarmed my head, but my vision cleared a little. Around us, guards, nobles, and Ospreys stared on, their expressions a mix of fear and uncertainty. The queen mother and her sister moved to the fore of the crowd, closer to their sons.
Everyone was scared, which meant I should stand up and take charge.
James and Tobiah edged closer so that when I climbed to my feet and let them take most of my weight, it wasn’t obvious I needed help.
Chrysalis stepped off the rail and strode toward me, his movements mimicking mine after all this time spent together. “My queen.” An odd gentleness filled his voice. “I promised to protect you from the wraith, that I’d never let it hurt you.”
“I remember.” I brought my fingertips close to one of the burns on his face, but didn’t quite touch. He went so still he was nearly lifeless. “You did protect me tonight. When I told you to control the wraith, you did that, too.”
His eyes never shifted from mine. “But you also said it isn’t just you anymore. It’s the entire kingdom, and you need to protect everyone here, too.”
“That’s right.” I dropped my hand and stepped backward, carefully, because my balance was still weak. Behind me, one of the boys breezed his hands over my shoulder and waist, keeping me steady.
Chrysalis seemed to study me, or memorize me, and then he said, “I can do it. If you want.”
Yes, of course I wanted him to protect Aecor.
“I’m made of wraith,” he said. “Same as the beasts they used for the barrier. If I—” He shifted his weight and lowered his eyes. “You gave me life for a little while. I had the chance to experience something incredible, even though I made everything harder for you. But maybe this time I could help you get what you want—what you truly want.”
Silence fell across the overlook as people realized what he meant.
“You would sacrifice yourself for Aecor?”
“I would sacrifice myself for you, my queen. If that’s what you want.” Chrysalis tilted his head. “I’ve made many wrong decisions in my desire to serve you.” His gaze flickered toward Tobiah. “I’ve done many things that, now, I understand were bad. Even tonight, freeing Patrick and bringing the wraith. I thought only to help you. I thought I could control something uncontrollable. I don’t want to make more mistakes. I don’t want to cost you anything else.”
“So you’re waiting for me to order you to do this.” My throat tightened.
He nodded as the castle shuddered again. “I know you will make the right decision.”
No.
It was an impossible order to give.
It was the kind of order queens had to give all the time.
But I’d made him. I’d brought him to life. Unwittingly, yes, but now it was my responsibility to teach him and care for him and ensure he did the right thing.
“I won’t make you,” I whispered. “When I bring something to life, it’s never sentient. Almost never. It never has a choice but to do what I order.”
Clothes brushed behind me, like James and Tobiah exchanging glances. But I wouldn’t look. I wouldn’t give anyone here a reason to question Captain Rayner and his miraculous life. It was his secret to tell, when he was ready. If.
A low rumble filled the air: the wraith still struggling against my mirror.
“You’re sentient, Chrysalis. You have a choice. You said you’ve made wrong decisions in the past, and I know you have. Many of us have paid the price of those decisions. But this one is about you, and your life. I won’t take that decision away from you.” He was a person, not a tool. I could no longer treat him as one.
The wraith boy bowed his head. “You honor me.”
“We don’t have much time,” someone said.
I lifted my hand, signaling the crowd to be quiet.
Chrysalis pressed his palms to his chest. “I’ll do it. For you.”
Someone breathed praise to all the saints.
“But I won’t be enough. Not to make the kind of mirror you need.”
A small noise escaped me. “What?”
His shoulders slumped. “I can make myself part of the barrier; you’ve already linked it all together. But it wouldn’t last. Liadia poured so much magic into their barrier and I can provide only a fraction of that. I’m just wraith, after all. I’m more about destruction than anything.” He lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry I can’t be more.”
Someone in the crowd was crying. Another cursed him for offering false hope. And all around us, the castle rumbled and wraith shone bright across the city, waiting, straining. There was no way to know how much longer the mirror would last.
“What about me?”
Everyone looked at James.
“What?” Tobiah grabbed his cousin by the jacket. “Don’t say that.”
Murmurs fluttered through the crowd. “What’s he talking about?”
“The king’s cousin is made of wraith?”
“No!” Kathleen Rayner pushed through the crowd. “James—”
He placed one hand on his cousin’s shoulder, and the other on his mother’s. “This is a very long story that Tobiah will have to tell.”
Tobiah shook his head. “I won’t let you.”
“Why not? What makes me any different from him?” James pointed at the wraith boy.
“You’re my friend. My cousin. I still need you.”
“Your friend, maybe, but not your cousin. That boy died ten years ago.”
Lady Rayner’s eyes went wide, and tears dripped down her cheeks. The queen mother joined the group, standing by Tobiah’s side. “What do you mean that boy died?” she asked.
My heart climbed into my throat as I looked between them. In the audience, people pressed their hands to their mouths and whispered uncomfortably.
“You made me because you missed the first James.” A faint, sad smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “You asked Wilhelmina to bring me to life because you needed me, and I’ve spent every day of my life protecting you, because that was my purpose.”
“What are you talking about?” Lady Rayner grabbed James’s arm. “You’re my son. You’re my child. You’re not like that creature at all.”
Chrysalis dropped his head. “He’s not like me, but he’s not human, either. He’s made of magic. He’s stronger than I am. Better.”
“Shut up,” Tobiah growled. “Don’t encourage him.”
“Is that true?” Francesca asked. “Just—just explain, please.”
Tears shone in James’s eyes as he repeated a shorter version of Tobiah’s story, outing the king’s secret, my involvement, and his own existence. “That’s why I healed so quickly after the Inundation. Because I’m not human. Not really.”
Others tried to close in, but Melanie and a handful of guards held them back. I wanted to help, but not all the buzzing was from the wraith; my head spun with magic being sucked out of me. James, Chrysalis, the mirror, the barrier: something had to go.
Sandcliff Castle shuddered in agreement.
“Earlier tonight,” James said, “I asked if I made my own decisions. You said I did. Let me make this one now.”
“I can’t lose you too, James.”
“It’s not just you anymore, Tobiah.” James glanced at me, Melanie, and everyone standing on the overlook, praying for a miracle to stop the wraith. “It’s the entire kingdom. There’s only a little of the world left. Someone has to take care of it.”
Tobiah looked at me for help. “Say something.”
“I can’t.” A sob lodged in my throat. “I don’t want to lose him, either, but what kind of queen would I be if I gave Chrysalis a choice, but not James? What kind of friend?”
“A friend who doesn’t want to lose one of the people they love most?” Tobiah lifted his palms in supplication. “I need your help, Wil. Command him. Change his mind.”
I shook my head, just slightly. Everything spun. “He’s not mine to command. He never has been. He’s a person, Tobiah.”
Tobiah hissed through gritted teeth, lifting his eyes to the sky.
“Would I be enough?” James asked Chrysalis. “If I did this with you, would Aecor be safe? Would the barrier work like Mirror Lake?”
Chrysalis bit his lip.
“Tell the truth,” I said.
The wraith boy nodded. “The two of us, yes. We’d be stronger. There’s so much magic in you after all these years. You don’t know half of what you could do.”
“No.” Lady Rayner let out a long, low wail. “No, James.”
Tobiah blinked back tears. “How can you even know that?”
“I’m made of wraith.” Chrysalis offered him a sad smile. “I know what I wouldn’t touch.”
“All right,” James said. “What do we do?”
Tobiah grabbed James’s shoulders. “No. I forbid you. You can’t.”
The queen mother and her sister urged James to listen to his king, but his focus was all on Chrysalis’s instructions.
“We jump. We dive in and grab the barrier, and we push. My queen will need to command the barrier to accept us.”
Tobiah spun toward me. “Don’t do it. Don’t tell the barrier anything.”
James pressed a hand on his king’s shoulder. “Then I’ll be dead for nothing. It’s a long drop.”
“You’ve already been impaled. A drop won’t hurt you.”
James snorted a laugh. “I’m going to say good-bye, cousin. Please don’t deny me. Please.”
Tobiah threw his arms around James’s shoulders, squeezing him tight. “I can’t say good-bye.”
James hugged him back, both of them unguarded in this burst of affection. “Then say, ‘You’re welcome.’ You and Wil gave me ten years of life. You gave me family. You gave me purpose.”
“Then you’re welcome,” Tobiah murmured. “And thank you for—for everything. You were always there when I needed you.”
Quickly, James hugged his friends, his aunt, and his mother, pausing to whisper something in her ear. I couldn’t hear it, and the angle was wrong for me to read his lips, but whatever he said, she just touched his cheek and said she loved him.
He came to me last. “I think Oscar will make a good replacement for head of castle security. Or Ferris, if you want to send Oscar off to his estate when this is over.”
“Shut up.” My jaw trembled with exhaustion and grief, but I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “You were always real to him. To me. To everyone who knew you.”
“Thank you.” He pulled away, unbuckled his sword sheath, and pressed it into Tobiah’s hands. Without a word, he moved toward the edge. “Coming, Chrysalis?”
The wraith boy had barely moved through all this, just stood there and watched. No one had wanted to hug him.
I did. Gently, I wrapped my arms around him. “If I could do it again,” I whispered, “I’d get to know you better.”
He didn’t respond, just joined James on the ledge, whispering instructions or assurances. I couldn’t tell.
Tears streaked down my face, cold against the wraith-heated night. Tobiah pressed himself against my side, and Melanie on the other. Everyone gathered around us, many openly weeping. We left a space between James and Chrysalis and us, like moving too close would shatter the moment as they stepped onto the railing.
“I can’t watch.” Tobiah spoke so that only I could hear.
“You must.” I slipped my ungloved hand into his, and the barrier piece pressed between us. “James’s biggest desire was always to protect you. That’s what he’s doing now. You must honor him.”
Tobiah gripped my hand so tightly it felt like my bones scraped together, but neither of us looked away as James and Chrysalis stepped off the rail and leapt into the Red Bay.
“Accept them,” I whispered to the anchor scale. “Let their magic be spread throughout the ring. Make their sacrifice matter.”
A double splash sounded.
The scale turned hot in my palm, scalding, but the sudden relief was immeasurable. Burden lifted. The slow drain of magic I’d lived with for so long—it was gone.
My knees buckled, but Tobiah and Melanie held me up as white light speared the sky.
It stretched from the Red Bay, north to Tangler Bay, illuminating Snowhaven Bridge from beneath, and then beyond my sight. Cool, clean air came off the water, and thousands of stars appeared in the sky as the mirror cut through the haze of wraith.
“You did it.” Melanie lifted her face to the sky in wonder. “Between your mirror and the barrier, even the wraith in the city is burning away.”
It was glorious, yes, but as we all huddled together on Radiants’ Walk, I could only think about everything this victory had cost.