The world is silent. A silence that swallows all sound. I’m adrift, far down beneath the water of the ink-dark lake. The waves rock me, soft and slow. They lift me up and up, until I break the surface.
It’s dawn, but the moon still dips in and out of the clouds. Silver light traces the shore as I’m washed onto the darkened ground. The sigil on my wrist aches.
Far off, there’s a faint light. A lantern flickers, a tiny flame that’s almost burned down. Someone stands beside it. The ache in my wrist turns to a steady pulse.
Rowan is waiting for me. He touches the spell. I feel myself, held precious in his mind as colors wash over me, pearl and rose and gold. I picture an incandescent thread, knotted between our hearts.
Waves rush over his boots as he crosses the shore and comes toward me. He bends to me, pulls me close. His breath is rough, unsteady. He’s crying. His fingers touch my throat, searching for my pulse. He lets out a sigh, relieved, when he feels my heartbeat.
His arms tighten around me, and he lifts me from the lake. He carries me away from the water, back to the pale trees. “Leta,” he whispers. “You’re safe.”
I try to respond but I can’t move, I can’t speak. I’m still lost in lightless silence. I lean against his chest, my head slumped heavily on his shoulder. I am a branch, a stone, a leaden weight. Behind us I can hear the lake, the hush and sigh of the waves. The sound softens as we reach the forest, replaced by the shiver of air through branches.
He lays me down beneath the trees. I look up at him—his eyes smudged with tired shadows, his throat marked by scars and bruises.
“Rowan.” When I speak his name, the tether between us glimmers. “Rowan.”
He leans close and brushes a kiss over my lips. At first, all I can taste is the lake. Beyond that, though, glows the tiniest ember, a little flare of remembered warmth. Honey, spice, molten heat. The two of us in the brilliant light beside the window.
The world comes awake, blink by blink, sound by sound. Someone takes my hand. Arien. He’s crying, too. “I thought you were lost. I thought you’d be gone forever.”
“No,” I manage faintly. “Not forever.”
I try to move, try to unfold. It takes a long time. I put a shaking hand against the ground and push myself upright. Nausea surges through me. My lungs go tight. I can’t breathe. I begin coughing, then can’t stop, turning on my side as a wash of bitter, ink-dark water rushes from my mouth.
I can’t—I can’t—
All I can feel are claws, and teeth, and my skin being torn apart.
Rowan gently rubs my back as I struggle to catch my breath. I dig my fingers into the earth and curl forward as I choke and spit out the endless mouthfuls of poison. Finally, it stops. I try to scrub my mouth clean against my wrist, but I’m smeared all over with blood and dirt. I spit again, then slump down weakly, sprawled out with my back to the earth, my face to the sky.
Rowan folds his sleeve over his hand and wipes my face. Then he smooths back my hair and touches my sweat-damp cheek, looking at me as though he isn’t sure I’m real. “Leta. You’re home.”
I try to smile up at him, but instead a sob slips out. My eyes blur, and I press my hands against my face. I feel like something broken that’s been put back together imperfectly, the cracks sealed with gold paint. Mended, but changed. I can still feel the dark all over me. Inside me. The way the creatures tore me apart. The last terrible breath I took before I was devoured.
Florence tucks a blanket around my shoulders, and I curl into it gratefully. Clover kneels down beside me. She takes my hands between her own; her fingers alight with magic. Her power is warm against my skin, but the heat does nothing to cut through the chill that’s overtaken me.
“You’re safe,” she says, her voice heavy with tears. “Oh, Violeta. I’m so glad you came back.”
I slowly sit up. Rowan puts his arms around me and I rest against him, my fingers clutched weakly in a fold of his mud-stained cloak. I look out across the shore. The ground is still dark, the wound that opened and let me into the world Below still cuts through the earth. But everything is still. As though it’s waiting.
I turn to Arien and Clover.
“You can mend it now.” I don’t have words, yet, for what I saw. For what I did. Perhaps I never will. “It’s safe.”
They exchange a look, then rise to their feet. I wait by the trees, just as I did on the night of the first ritual, and watch them walk down to the water. I can’t stop shivering. Rowan holds me and strokes my hair, cards the tangles with his fingers. He murmurs to me as he picks loose leaves and bits of moss, all the pieces of forest and lake that are woven through my curls.
“You were brave.” He whispers it over and over, and I let myself fall into the rhythm of his words. “You were brave, you were brave.”
“I’m so cold.”
He holds me tighter, close against his chest. “I’ll keep you warm.”
“Here.” Florence takes another blanket from her basket and wraps it around both of us. She keeps her hand on my shoulder as we watch Arien and Clover work their magic on the shore.
Arien bends to the ground. Shadows unfurl from his hands, careful, controlled. They weave a delicate latticework across the mud as Clover presses her fingers to the earth. The web of shadows begins to glow as light streams from her palms.
The ground is still. No creatures rise. It won’t fight them.
I think of that night, long ago, when Clover put her hands over my hurt knees. She and Arien touch the ground in the same way. Gentle, gentle. A press. A whisper. And it is mended.
Once again, the shore turns to smooth earth. In the pale forest, more new leaves unfurl from branches.
The blackness, the Corruption—it’s all gone.
A thread of light glimmers over the horizon as the moon dips low in the sky. The clouds thicken, and raindrops start to settle on my skin and hair like a veil. A scatter of sparks drifts from my hands as the power granted to me by the Lord Under gives a final, bright shimmer. Then it goes dim. It’s just my magic again now. Small and soft, the barest traces.
“It’s done.” My throat and chest and mouth feel scorched. “We’ve mended it.”
Rowan takes my hand. “Yes, my love, it’s done. We can go home.”
Home. All I want is to go back to the house, scour myself clean, and sleep for a dozen nights while a fire burns in the hearth. Rowan helps me up. He puts his arm around my waist, holding me as we make our way back through the garden. The others follow; I hear their footsteps and the relieved murmur of their voices.
I wish I could share their relief. It’s over, I’m safe, we’re all safe. But a heaviness weights my chest, and I can’t shake it off, no matter how hard I try.
The rain turns heavier, falling steadily through the leaves and over the lawn. I tilt my face to the sky, and the rain looks dark. Like shadows, like poisoned blood. My vision starts to blur. We reach the house, step into the kitchen. I take a single breath and let the scent of smoke, of spiced tea, of warmth ghost through my lungs.
Then the cold spreads over me.
I look down at my hands and touch the blackened crescent that scars my palm. It splits. Ink-dark water spills from the wound. There are cuts and cuts and cuts all over my arms and wrists and fingers. And my skin, beneath the wounds and the blood, is lined with darkness. Rowan gasps. “You’re—you’re—”
Poisoned.
“It can’t be.” I’m shivering so hard I can barely speak. “I mended it. It was gone.”
But I can feel the Corruption uncurling beneath my skin. It has teeth and claws. It hungers.
Arien and Clover crowd through the doorway. Florence comes in behind them, the blankets still draped, forgotten, over her arm. Horror and despair fill their eyes.
“This was how I stopped the Corruption,” I whisper. “I let it inside me. It’s still there. It’s part of me now. And I think it’s going to destroy me.”
Arien runs to me. I cling to him as he starts to cry. “You promised. You promised you’d be safe.”
Clover throws her arms around me and presses her tear-streaked face against my shoulder. Florence touches my cheek with shaking fingers, her other hand pressed over her mouth. They encircle me, and for one single, perfect moment I am safe and I am home.
Then the darkness closes in. I take a struggling breath past the poison snared like thorns through my chest. My mouth is full of blood. My vision is blotched black.
Rowan pulls me close. His hand grips tightly at my waist, his shaking fingers knotted into my skirts. “Leta, please.”
I wrap my arms around him and bury my face against his chest. His heartbeat is frantic beneath my ear. I know there’s only one way this can end.
I look up at him, blurred by tears. “Take me to the altar.”
“No.” His voice turns fierce. “No.”
I try to move forward on my own, but my legs give way. He catches me before I fall, and I sink against him.
Rowan looks at me with despair. “I can’t do this, Leta. I can’t give you to him.”
“He’s the only one who can help me.”
His expression shutters. His arms tighten around me and he hesitates a moment. I think he’ll refuse, that I’ll be here in his arms until I’m lost to the shadows. But then he carries me into the parlor, with Arien, Florence, and Clover close behind us.
Rowan lowers me down beneath the icon. I clutch a handful of his shirt, drag him toward me. I start to kiss him, kisses that taste of bitter herbs, blood, and ash. “I love you.”
He sighs a helpless, furious breath across my mouth, then he kisses me back. And in spite of all his fear and anger—he’s gentle, so gentle, like I’m a fragile thing, made of glass.
I put my hand on the altar, smearing blood across the wooden frame. I find the dwindling thread of my magic and draw out just enough power to light a single candle. In the icon, the Lord Under is sharp-edged and dark, his fingers laced with shadows.
“What have you done?” I whisper, desperate. “What have you done to me?”
The world shifts and fractures. I see Rowan, with his dark cloak and long hair, haloed by the pale light from the window. I see the Lord Under, with the heartwood forest at his back, his hand outstretched, a sharp smile carved across his face.
Both come toward me. Both take my hand. Both whisper against my ear.
“Leta.” Rowan sounds so far off, so far away. Like I am back in the lake, beneath the endless water. “Don’t let it claim you.”
“Violeta.” The Lord Under runs his claws across the scar on my palm. “You did this to yourself, my Violet. You let it in. Our worlds are mended, but the Corruption isn’t finished, not yet. It needs to devour you. Only then will it be completely gone.”
I bite down hard into my lip until I taste blood and see stars. The pain steadies me, bringing the world back into focus. I reach for Rowan and cup my hands around his cheeks. I kiss him as the poison spreads through me, so strong and hungry and ruthless that I can barely fight it.
He strokes my face, his fingers trembling. “Stay with me, Leta. Please.”
I think of an orchard beneath the moonlight, the whole world gone still. The two of us, alone among the trees. I rest my forehead against his and close my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Then I turn to Arien. He looks so hurt and wretched and angry that it almost breaks me. I put my arms around him as a sob catches in my throat. “I’m so proud of you, Arien. You were so brave at the ritual.”
He presses his face into my neck and starts to cry. I hold him tightly and wish there was another choice, that I didn’t need to leave him behind.
“You can’t do this,” he says. “You can’t.”
“Listen, my love.” I put my hands on his shoulders and hold him still. “I need you to take care of everyone here. Take care of them for me.”
He nods, his face streaked with tears. “I will.”
I turn back toward the altar. Darkness gathers, and the air fills with mist. Waves of black water rush over the floor. Everything blurs and softens, until I’m shrouded in shadows. My heart starts to slow. I feel the Corruption in my blood, around my bones. I don’t have long until I’m lost.
I see the Lord Under and the heartwood trees.
I get to my feet. It’s almost impossible, the effort, but I don’t falter. I stand before the Lord Under, meet the cold frost of his gaze as I turn to shadows and poison. “Take me back with you. Take me, alive, to the world Below.”
He opens his arms to me. I step toward him. He enfolds me, as if with wings.
Then everything turns quiet, and I am gone.