I crouch by the stove, the wood box pulled up close beside me. One by one, I feed pieces of kindling into the fire. They light slowly. Handfuls of smoke curl out before the flames lick up.
The new fire dances. I build it higher with more wood until there’s a bank of orange coals and the air shimmers with warmth. I feel the glow of the firelight. I see the flames. But inside I am as endlessly cold as the depths of the lake.
I shut the drafts and put my hands against my face. The newly healed cut throbs. Can I really accept the help of such a creature as the Lord Under? I’ve made no promise to him—yet. But I can’t forget how it felt, to have that power and know I could use it to end the Corruption.
The door from the hallway scrapes open. I get to my feet and brush the dust and ashes from my skirts. Rowan watches me from across the room. Light from the window streams in and turns him to amber and gold, his hair, his eyes, his skin. As always, his dark cloth shirt is without a single crease, and the firelight gleams over his polished boots. There’s almost no sign of him as he was last night. Almost none, except for the way he smiles, hesitant and shy.
Then his eyes go to the table, where I’ve left the knife beside the basket of fruit. A wary confusion darkens his expression. The air still smells of wax and smoke, carried from the blown-out candles in the parlor.
He goes over and picks up the knife, cautiously running his finger along the side of the blade, which is still stained with ruby juice and the even deeper red of my blood. “Violeta Graceling. What have you done?”
I tuck my hand into my pocket, and for a brief moment, I think I’ll tell him another lie. But I know I can’t hide from this anymore. I show him the black crescent on my skin, delicate and beautiful and sinister.
“I’ve done something very foolish.” The truth is inescapable, bitter. “I summoned the Lord Under.”
He drops the knife back onto the table with a thud. He crosses the room and takes hold of my shoulders and grips tight. His expression is all raw betrayal.
“Tell me.” His hands, circling my arms, have begun to tremble. His eyes are wide, full of desperate fear. “Tell me exactly what you mean.”
I tell him everything. How the Lord Under spoke to me. How he saved Arien during the failed ritual. How I cut the fruit and myself to summon him. How he offered me the power to mend the Corruption. Me, alone.
“Leta, how could you keep such a secret?” Rowan stares at me as if he can puzzle the answer from my face. “Even after we—” His cheeks flush and he looks away. “You stayed with me when I gave my tithe to the Corruption. I told you about my family and all the terrible things I’ve done. Even after that, you didn’t trust me enough to say anything?”
“I had to do this alone. It was the only way.”
His head slumps forward and he sighs, frustrated. “How could you risk yourself like this?”
Guilt prickles at me, but I don’t relent. “You’ve expected Arien and Clover to risk themselves for you. This is no different.”
“It’s completely different.”
“No, it isn’t. What would you have done, that day in Greymere, if it had been me you saw with magic, instead of Arien?”
He tries to turn away. I reach out, knot my fingers into his shirt, and pull him closer. “Tell me. If I’d had the magic you needed, what would you have done?”
Our eyes meet, and he tenses. I see him as he was when we first met. The Monster of Lakesedge who circled me with feral, watchful hunger in his eyes.
“I’d have gone to your cottage. I’d have asked you to come with me.”
“You’d have offered to teach me to be an alchemist.”
“Yes.”
“You’d have threatened me.”
“Yes.” Darkness starts to spread in lines under his skin. At his throat, more slivers of poison shift alongside the scars, then slowly fade into shadow. “I’d have done whatever it took to have your help. But—” He touches my palm, following the curve of the crescent mark. “I’d never have asked this.”
I curl my hand closed around his fingers. The mark on my palm gives a steady pulse. “You’ve not asked me to do anything. It was my choice to summon the Lord Under. And if I do work with him, that will be my choice, too.”
“Leta, please.” His voice lowers, rough and hurt. “Whatever price he’ll ask of you will be too much. He’ll take you apart, use you up until there’s nothing left.”
“He might. But he also needs me.” I can’t find how to put it into words: how I feel about the Lord Under, the fact that I alone was the one he sought out. That we’re connected. “He needs me just as much as I need him.”
“I know you want to protect Arien, but—”
“I want to protect everyone.”
“Everyone, but what about you?” Gently, Rowan takes my face between his hands. He bends to me, until his forehead touches mine. “You fight so hard to keep everyone safe. But who is going to watch over you, when you go into the dark?”
The day when the Lord Under first asked for my help, I stood alone and afraid as the darkness overwhelmed me. For the first time, I imagine how it might feel to stare into the shadows with someone at my side.
I look up at Rowan. He’s flushed from the heat of the kitchen and the banked-up stove. I think of how undone he was when I went to his room. His bare skin. His tangled hair. The sparks of magic that scattered as he kissed the sigil on my wrist.
I’ve hated him. I’ve lied to him. I’ve seen him bled and wounded. I’ve bandaged those same wounds. I’ve heard truths from him that he’s never told another person. And right now all I can think about is the two of us in my garden. The world turned to fire by crimson sunset. My skirts tucked back and my scars laid bare. His hands on my skin.
I slip my hand beneath his sleeve and touch the bandages I tied there last night. Then I reach up and run my fingers over the hollow of his throat.
“Rowan, I care for you. More than I’ve ever cared for anyone, except for Arien.” The words are too raw, too tender, to speak louder than a whisper. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”
He reaches past me, enclosing me. I move back until I’m against the door with his arms braced on either side of me. He shoves the door, slams it all the way shut. We both jump—he’s startled by his own action. Then he slides his hand into my hair. His fingers press into the nape of my neck. He moves slowly, and I realize he’s giving me a chance to stop him if I don’t want this.
But this is all I want.
I put my hands against the door, shift forward onto my tiptoes, and close the final distance between us. Rowan’s breath catches in a strangled growl as my lips brush his. My first ever kiss. It’s all so unexpected. How clumsy I feel, the rasp of his mouth on mine, the heat that unwinds all through me when he kisses me back.
At first, he’s hesitant and soft, like he still wants to leave me space to change my mind. But at this moment, I don’t want softness. I want fierceness and fire and incandescent surrender.
I catch hold of him, pull him toward me. He groans against my mouth and his fingers tighten and tangle through my hair. I kiss him more deeply, my tongue sweeping his. He tastes of burnt sugar and spiced tea. I can feel the place where the scars cross the edge of his mouth. Rough, it feels rough, and wonderful.
I let my head fall back, baring my throat. He kisses my neck. His teeth scrape sharply over my pulse. A tattered sound escapes me, and magic blossoms from my hands, heated and golden.
I’m overcome with a rush of desire that blisters, molten, through my whole body. We’re pressed together. Heart to heart, hip to hip. His hand strokes down the curve of my waist, then lower. Through the thin gossamer fabric of my skirts, his fingers grip my thigh. He’s so warm that it feels like he’s touching my bare skin. I gasp, the sound loud in the quiet room. He sighs out a desperate breath that feathers hotly over my skin.
I start to pull at the laces on his shirt, but he catches my hands, stopping me. His thumb fits into the scar on my palm and he sighs again, softer. He bows his head and gently kisses the mark. “Leta, please don’t summon the Lord Under again. Promise me that you won’t.”
His expression is so full of despair that I can hardly stand it. I press my lips together, tasting heat and honey. I wish for another choice. A way out of this where no one would be hurt. I wish I could lie to him, but instead I shake my head. “I’ll not make a promise I can’t keep.”
He lets me go. “You say you don’t want me to be hurt. Well this hurts, Leta.”
I step away from him and cross to the table, to the basket full of the fruit I gathered. I take a pomegranate and slice it open, then scoop the seeds onto my fingertips. Small and bitter, they burst like bubbles over my tongue. Juice runs through my mouth, sharply sweet.
Rowan comes over and picks up a seed with careful fingers. We stand there, on opposite sides of the table, eyes on the opened fruit. Neither of us speaks. Slowly, we eat seed after seed, hesitating each time we reach to pick another. Making sure our hands never touch.
The door opens, sending a bright gleam of sunlight across the kitchen as Clover comes inside. She has a basket of herbs cut from the small patch in the garden; wild mint, nettles, feverfew. The scent of them fills the air. Sweet and bitter and freshly green.
“Whew, it’s really hot in here.” She runs her sleeve across her forehead and peers at the stove. “What have you done to the fire? You know Florence hates when we mess around with it.” When neither of us replies, her mouth lifts into a curious smile as she takes in our stilted silence. “Did I interrupt something?”
I scrub my sticky hands against my skirts and step back from the table. Rowan looks everywhere in the room except at me. “We didn’t touch the fire.”
Clover pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she peers at him. “Are you sure? You look a little … overheated.” She touches his forehead, then reaches to check his pulse. Her mouth twitches, as though she’s trying very hard not to laugh. “Do you want some feverfew? I’ve picked plenty.”
“It’s nothing,” he says tightly. “I’m fine.”
As he pushes her hand away, his sleeve falls back. When Clover catches sight of the bandage, her face grows serious, and she reaches toward his arm. “May I see?”
“No, you may not.”
“Clover, don’t you want to put those herbs into the stillroom before they wilt?” I walk over and take the kettle down, fill it with water, and set it onto the stove with a loud clatter. “Arien is probably awake now. I’ll make him some tea.”
“Oh yes, the stillroom.” She gives us both a pointed smile. “I’ll leave the two of you alone.”
She takes the basket into the small space beside the kitchen where she keeps her alchemy supplies. Through the half-closed door, I hear the rustle and scrape as she moves around. The snip of her scissors as she cuts twine to string up the fresh herbs. The kettle begins to hum, the water quickly boiled from the too-hot stove. I wrap a cloth around my hand and lift it away from the heat.
Clover comes back with a jar of dried flowers and a small handful of mint and feverfew. She takes down a tray and an enamelware cup, then fills the teapot with leaves and hot water and sifts in a spoonful of flowers.
“Don’t forget,” she says to Rowan, “you’re supposed to go to the village later. Keeper Harkness wants to talk with you about the Summersend bonfire.”
“Oh, wonderful.” He rubs his forehead, scowling. “Exactly what I wanted to do today.”
At the word—Summersend—I go still. The first night of Summersend is the time when the border between the worlds Above and Below is said to be the thinnest. Each village lights a bonfire, and everyone gathers to chant the litany as the wood and bundled greenery burns down to ashes.
It always filled me with equal parts fear and wonder. Some of the night was like a beautiful dream. The smell of woodsmoke and spiced cider, Arien and me amid the crowd with flowers worn in our hair, our hands sticky from marzipan cakes. But the crackle and spark of flames against the sky always drew out memories of an older, crueler fire I wanted to forget. Arien’s dreams were always the worst on those nights.
And now Summersend carries a new kind of weight. The next full moon is the week after the bonfire.
“Do you have a white dress?” Clover asks me. I nod and she smiles, pleased. “I’ll help you with the embroidery. And we can make wreaths!”
“We are not going,” Rowan says.
“You have to go, since you’re the lord. And it will be nice for all of us to do something fun.” She twists the teapot back and forth to stir the leaves. Steam drifts from the spout. “Violeta, we can take this up to Arien now.”
She sets the pot onto the tray beside the cup, while I fetch the jar of honey and a small wooden spoon. I follow her out of the room with everything balanced carefully. Rowan stays behind in the kitchen, but as I leave, he calls quietly after me. “Please, Leta, just … think on it, before you do anything else.”
I close the door between us without replying. As Clover and I walk up the stairs, she arches a brow and looks meaningfully back toward the kitchen. “Didn’t touch the fire, hm?”
I let out a breath, grateful for the cool air in the hallway, how it washes over me in place of the kitchen stove heat. “It’s … complicated.”
She snorts back a laugh. “Oh, I’m sure it is.”
I want so much to join in her good-natured teasing, but the mark on my palm has begun to ache. My whole hand feels painfully numb, like frost has been stitched beneath my skin. It’s an unavoidable reminder of what I’ve done, what I’m going to do.
Arien’s room is filled with early sunlight, the window open to a stretch of cloudless sky. He’s curled on his side, still half-asleep. Florence sits beside the bed, a spill of whitework embroidery on her lap. They both look up at us as we enter.
I wish I could preserve this moment, just stand here in the sunlit room and hold all my secrets close. I take a deep breath, searching for the right words to tell them everything. “I need to talk to you about the next ritual.”
Arien sits up delicately, mindful of his arms, and reaches for the tray with his bandaged hands. The confusion in his eyes shifts to wariness as he takes in my expression. “Leta, what’s wrong?”
I lower myself onto the edge of the bed, careful not to tip the tray. “First, I have to explain what really happened in the Vair Woods.”
He lifts the pot and pours tea into his cup. “You already told me about that.”
“Not the whole truth. I did give up my magic. But it wasn’t for myself, Arien. It was for you.”
He clenches the honey jar in his hands, the motion so similar to the one he’s made, repeatedly, during practice for the ritual. He puts it down, unopened. “You gave the Lord Under your magic to save me?”
I nod. “That’s why your magic has changed. He told me it always leaves a mark, when he helps anyone. And that’s why…” I swallow, steadying myself, then go on. “That’s why you were hurt at the ritual. I asked him to save you then, too.”
“You asked him?” Florence cuts in. She draws her fingers across her chest, her eyes widening. “Violeta, don’t you realize how dangerous that was?”
“What else was she supposed to do, let Arien be eaten by those creatures?” Clover pulls restlessly at her braid, looking queasy. “No wonder your wounds were so hard to mend.”
“Because I was hurt by the same magic that made the Corruption.” Arien stares down at his hands, at the blackened tips of his fingers that show past the bandages. Then he turns back to me, his brow creased into a frown. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? And what does all this have to do with the next ritual?”
I hold out my hand and show him the new scar.
“Leta.” Arien pales. “Leta, you didn’t—”
“The Lord Under has offered me the power to mend the Corruption. Alone, on the next full moon.”
“But only the dead can see him.” He turns rapidly to Florence, then Clover, for confirmation. They both look as confused and shocked as Arien does. “You can speak to him, even now?”
“Not right now.” I try to laugh, but his stricken expression silences me. “I summoned him, Arien. I cut my hand and gave him my blood, and I summoned him.”
“Why would you do such a terrible thing?”
“Because I don’t want you to be hurt ever again! Because the Corruption will destroy Rowan—and everything else, too—if we don’t mend it!”
“So, it’s better that you’ve done this?” He shoves the tray onto the bedside table. Tea splashes out of the cup, and the wooden honey spoon falls to the floor. “You didn’t think to tell any of us about this connection before you called on him? You’ve seen what he can do.” He thrusts his hands toward me angrily, showing me the bandages and his blackened fingers. “But you still went to him for help.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, I just—”
“You just wanted to do everything on your own, the way you always do.” He draws up his knees and turns his eyes to the window. “Get out of my room, Leta.”
“Arien.” I try to touch him, but he pushes me away.
“Leave me alone.”
Florence gets up slowly and comes to put her arm around my shoulders. “You must know you can’t save anyone by working with the Lord Under. To even consider this is reckless.”
She and Clover look at me the same way—desperate and concerned. Fearful. But I don’t want them to be afraid. Like they think I’m not capable of this. Like they think I’ll fail.
I shrug out from beneath her arm. “Everything we’ve been doing is reckless. Why is it suddenly a problem now that I’m the one with a solution?”
I go out across the hall and into my room, slamming the door behind me. I sit down on the floor, in the corner where I first heard the Lord Under’s voice, and lean back to rest my head against the wall. I start to cry, hot, angry tears. There’s a part of me that wants to apologize to Arien, to tell him we can find another way. But I don’t.
This is my choice. To risk myself, to burn myself down, to face the darkness so they will all be safe.