The stench of smoke grew thick in the air now, making her eyes water as she dropped next to Teo. Or was that an effect of the poison? Her heart seized, her thoughts raced—no, that wasn’t an effect of it, she would know. She’d brewed it, after all. For some reason, the poison wasn’t hurting her.
But as she turned Teo over, she saw the effects. The veins stood out on his neck. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. If he didn’t get the antidote, he would die in twenty minutes. Her thoughts went hazy, her heart stuttering as she watched him.
The realization struck her, then, like a punch to the face: Kohl had tricked them.
Her hands shook as she lifted Teo into a sitting position. Forget the weapons. She’d pry open the door, they’d get out of here and find Kohl, and force him to give them the antidote.
“Come on, Teo, let’s go.” She wrapped her right arm around his waist to bring him upward. Her left hand couldn’t get a good grip on him anywhere, the fingers twitching whenever she tried to close them. Gulping, she tried not to think of it and concentrated on lifting Teo.
But his legs trembled when he was halfway to standing and he collapsed. Her knees slammed hard on the wooden floor as she fell with him. The crackle of flames from somewhere in the ship grew louder then, and her throat went dry. Her thoughts scattered, and it took a moment to focus on what Teo said next.
“It’s poison, isn’t it?” His voice was a frail copy of what it should be, hoarse and scratchy as if he’d been yelling for hours. When she nodded, he let out a sharp laugh, like he should have known this would happen to him. “What will it do to me? How long do I have?”
The anatomy of the poison she’d created crashed into her, Kohl’s voice in her head telling her all the effects in a methodical tone. It would devour Teo’s lungs and heart, eating through them like acid. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t get the words out. The only thing that left her was a hollow sob.
“Please,” she whispered, imagining the Mothers appearing to her in the cave under the Tower. She withdrew her knife and made a cut on her arm, coating the diamond with the blood. She knew this spell could only stop blood loss, not cure anything else, but maybe if she begged, the Mothers would listen.
“You’re not going to die,” she told Teo, tears trickling down her cheeks as she stared into his eyes—eyes that had only ever shown her kindness, eyes she knew better than anyone else—that now took on the resigned look of every person she’d faced who knew they were about to die … and he wasn’t even trying to fight it.
“Amman inoke,” she whispered, holding the diamond closer to his face as if that would help.
“It won’t fix this,” he whispered, his voice a harsh rattle as his eyes lost focus.
Dropping the diamond and the knife, she tried to haul him to his feet again. He slid on the liquid from the poison, nearly bringing her down again. Smoke filtered into the room through the cracks on the door, making her eyes water and her breaths shallow. She wondered how long until the fire blazed through here and claimed them both.
As Teo leaned on her, his eyes started to close. Tapping him on the face to make him open them again, she walked slowly toward the door with him.
“Almost there,” she said, coughing on the smoke that had now grown so thick, she could barely see through it to the door handle. After leaning him against the door, she began hacking at the lock with one of her scythes. Metal clanged against metal, and she coughed harder with each swing. Sweat built all down her back, and she knew it wasn’t just from the exertion—the air was heating up drastically, turning the ship into an oven.
The next swing of her scythe, the lock broke and fell to the floor with a clatter. The door swung open, and a wall of heat hit her so fiercely, she stepped back. At the same time, Teo swayed and fell facedown onto the cabin floor.
Dropping next to him, she grabbed his wrist, her hand nearly sliding off with the sweat that had built up on it. A pulse still beat, but so slowly she thought, for a moment, he was already gone. His breaths came in ragged inhalations, like each one caused him pain.
I did this to him, she thought, the words repeating on refrain as she turned him onto his side. This boy who’d known her for years, who’d bandaged her wounds when they barely knew each other and had been her friend ever since. She’d promised his mother she would protect him, and now her poison was working through his veins and organs, killing him slowly.
All because she’d trusted Kohl.
Of course the Mothers wouldn’t let her heal Teo; she’d killed with their magic, gone against everything they taught. She should be the one with poison in her veins now, not him.
After she tapped his face a few more times, he reopened his eyes. With her help, he was able to get into a sitting position, but his arms trembled so badly, he nearly collapsed again. A trickle of blood appeared at his lips.
“Do you have the antidote?” he asked, one word at a time and in a whisper so low she barely heard.
“If Kohl … I don’t think—”
“He tricked us,” Teo gasped out, his eyes unfocused as he spoke.
The realization weighed heavily on her chest, squeezing her heart and lungs, making it hard to breathe. After she’d given him the poison and antidotes, he must have given some of the poisons to a Jackal to plant on the ship and lock them in this room. He’d probably already given Bautix the rest of the poison and thought he’d successfully killed her and Teo.
“There’s still time for you,” Teo said.
Halfway through his sentence, Aina was already shaking her head. “I won’t leave you—”
“Aina, please,” Teo said, his voice sounding like the useless prayer she’d sent to the Mothers. One of his hands fumbled for a dagger from the brace across her chest. He placed the hilt in her hands, and when he looked up at her with a plea in his eyes, she nearly dropped the knife.
Though the ship burned around them, her whole body went cold.
“I won’t do that, Teo,” Aina said.
But with a surprisingly strong grip, he grabbed her wrist and brought the knife to his chest.
“Either the fire will claim me, or the poison will,” he gasped out, each word sending a stab of fear through her heart. “Make it quick, Aina. Make it painless.”
“No,” she whispered, unable to believe he would ask this of her.
“You have to get back to the city. I don’t need to be there, Aina. But either you’re making it out of this alive, or neither of us are, and I won’t pull you down with me like that. You’ll live, and you can save a lot more people than you give yourself credit for. The city needs you.”
His other hand had moved to the back of her head, his fingers shaking. Her tears blurred his face in front of her and she blinked them away furiously, refusing to miss any last glimpse of him. Wishing she could sear his face into her memory.
“I’m not letting you die here with me, Aina,” Teo said, his voice so soft through the crackle of flames nearby that she had to lean close to hear him. “I’ll bring your knife to my own heart if it means you get out of here faster. You only have a few minutes. Please, Aina. I trust you.”
She told him no over and over again through her sobs, but her hands brought the knife to his chest anyway, one slow inch at a time. She had to prove to him, in his final moments, that he could trust her—that there was someone left in the world he could count on, someone who would be there for him, even for something as terrible as this. The tip rested on his shirt. It bumped against his skin.
She leaned forward over the knife and kissed him. His hand tightened in her hair, and the other trailed down her face to her neck. He kissed her back, softly and slowly, their lips parting now and then to let out the smallest breaths. But then he slowed, and his fingers in her hair loosened, his grip too weak.
She wished she could stay here in his arms forever and that the fire would never reach them. But there was no forever for people like them.
There never had been.
Pulling away slightly, she blinked away her tears, letting them stare into each other’s eyes for one long moment.
And then she drove the knife in.
A choking sound came out of him, and more blood trickled from his mouth. Her hands slipped on the blood that left his chest. As his eyes lost focus, she pulled out the knife and he fell forward, his head landing on her shoulder.
The heat of the flames grew so close, the smoke so thick in the air, she knew she only had minutes to make it out of here.
She gently moved his head to the ground. Tears blurred her vision again, but she didn’t blink them away, refusing to have her last memory of him be this. Instead, it would be the kiss they shared, the trust in his eyes as he placed the knife in her hands.
She didn’t look back. She ran through the door and stumbled down the hall through the smoke. It had grown so thick, she barely managed to find the staircase. Now that she was in the thick of it, she could tell the flames came from above rather than below. Bounding up the stairs, she expected the floor above to fall down on her any moment. Cinders fell onto her head, singeing her skin where they landed.
As she reached the next landing and rounded the corner, she nearly ran into Ryuu. In the hall beyond him, flames devoured the wood, licking up the walls and searing through the floor. As she watched, floorboards caved in, the fire eating through it all and flames racing to the floor below—where Teo was.
“Aina, we have to go,” Ryuu said, his own face strained and covered in sweat from the heat. “Where’s Teo?”
Hearing his name was like a sharp punch to the chest. She rose her eyes toward Ryuu’s, hoping he understood without her having to say it.
Teo’s dead. I killed him.
Something shuttered in Ryuu’s eyes, then he blinked and began to pull her away. He understood.