“Yes!” Romeo declared, his heart jumping as he realized this plan might work. “Don’t you think he would be happy to come back and see it set to rights?”
Without waiting, he leaned over and started shoving at the boxes. He had no idea what was in them or what he was doing, but it didn’t matter: the important thing was to get Paris away from the door.
If he asked Paris to come over and help him, would he say yes? Romeo was right next to the window; with surprise on his side and a lot of luck, he might be able to push Paris out. The fall wouldn’t kill him, and that would definitely give Romeo time to run.
Then the box Romeo was lifting slid out of his grip, and it fell open.
Inside was a sword.
A shiver of excitement ran up his spine. If he had a sword, then—well, he would still probably have to die tonight, but he might be able to take Makari with him.
He looked up again, and saw that while Paris had barely moved from the door, he had leaned over to poke at a pile of clutter.
There might not be another chance.
Romeo laid his hand on the sword hilt. Took a breath. Then grasped it, and bolted for the window.
He’d already gotten plenty of practice in climbing houses with a sword. He was out the window and hauling himself up onto the rooftop in moments.
But Paris was even faster than he’d thought. Romeo was barely on his feet when Paris clambered up behind him. If it hadn’t been for that month fighting in the alleys of the Lower City, Romeo might not have gotten his sword up in time.
“Don’t—” he started, and then Paris attacked.
Romeo had never dueled Paris when he was alive, but he’d watched him fight Vai, and he’d seen snippets of his training in his memories. He knew that Paris was not a terrible swordsman, but not particularly good either.
Now . . . his technique was barely better. But he moved with such speed and strength that Romeo could barely keep up. He was driven back, slowly, across the rooftop—and he was still trying not to actually strike Paris, but it was gradually dawning on him that Paris would not tire. He could spend all night wearing him down, while Juliet died below.
He had to stop Paris.
That meant truly fighting him.
Romeo lunged. This time his blade slid past Paris’s guard and stabbed straight between his ribs—
And Romeo knew this feeling, the exact way that flesh resisted steel and then gave way, and the scrape of the blade against bone. It was just like Tybalt, just like the Mahyanai he had killed, but this was Paris, and even though Romeo knew he hadn’t struck close to Paris’s heart, the horror of what he was doing rolled over him in a wave and choked him. Stilled him.
For a moment, they stared at each other.
Then, quite calmly, Paris reached down with his bare hand and pulled the black-smeared blade out of his side.
He tried to hold on to the sword, but Romeo jerked it free and staggered back. Not without slicing open Paris’s palm: he saw the black blood dribbling onto the rooftop.
His stomach turned over with nausea. He tried to raise his sword, to ready for the attack, but his hands were trembling.
Paris was living dead. Romeo could practically slice him into pieces, and so long as he didn’t cut off his head or stab him through the heart, he would live. He would never flinch either, and maybe that meant he wouldn’t feel pain—but as Romeo stared at his blood, as he remembered how the blade had felt going in, it didn’t matter how little it might hurt. It didn’t matter if there was nothing left in Paris’s head of the boy who had been Romeo’s friend.
Paris was still Paris.
And Romeo might be able to fight him for someone else’s sake, to stop him from killing another innocent like Emera—but slicing him open to save his own life?
Forgive me, Juliet, he thought.
But she would have been angrier if he died at her hands. And she could vanquish Makari without him. He believed that. He had to.
Just as he had to believe that there was still something left of his friend.
And as he thought that, he threw the sword away, arcing into the darkness between buildings.
“Paris,” he called out. “You’re my friend. I won’t fight you, even if I die for it. But please, can’t you remember me?”
Kill him if he tries to escape.
The order thrummed in his head, and Paris wanted nothing more than to obey. There was nothing else in all the world for him to want.
But as he looked at Romeo—as he stepped toward him—the sword felt strangely heavy in his hands.
Romeo’s eyes were very wide. “Paris,” he said. “I know you remember me. You told me about zoura. You told me I was an idiot. You saved me at the Catresou sepulcher.”
“No,” said Paris.
The word was faint, barely more than a breath, but it made Romeo break out into a desperate smile.
“You wanted to protect your people,” he said. “You did protect them. We did. Together. We stopped Lord Catresou from opening the gates of death. Don’t you remember?”
His head ached. He did not remember those things. If he did remember them, it didn’t matter. He still belonged to his master, walked and breathed and felt his dead heart beat because of him.
But he realized that he had stopped moving.
His body felt infinitely heavy, like in the first moments after he had been raised back to life. He could hear his heart pounding, quick and desperate, like it wanted to escape.
“Please,” said Romeo. “You’re my friend, and I need you.”
“I belong to him,” said Paris.
But with a feeling of cold nausea, he realized that he wanted to spare the boy in front of him. He wanted to disobey his master.
He was dead. He wasn’t supposed to want anything.
But he did, he wanted, and that horror would have made him weep if he had any tears. He had failed his master so completely.
Then he realized his hands were raising the sword.
“I have to obey,” he said.
Something was terribly wrong with him, but his hands could still serve his master, and there was peace in that.
“I agree that his poetry is terrible, but you don’t have to kill him for it.”
Paris whirled around, and saw somebody new on the roof: the girl he had fought just hours before, in the apothecary’s house.
She grinned at him now and his mind buzzed with confusion, because he had to kill Romeo now, he had orders, but she was the enemy of his master and she had to die for it—
“I’m going to kill your master and then I’m going to set his twitching corpse on fire,” she said. “Ready to attack me now?”
And the world became simple and made perfect sense as Paris lunged for her.
The moment Runajo heard the noise of swords on the rooftop, she knew what Vai was going to do. It was the logical strategy.
She still couldn’t believe it when she saw the two figures silhouetted against the evening sky, and saw Vai land a solid kick on Paris that sent him falling over the edge of the roof. She flinched when Paris crashed onto the cobblestones, barely a pace away from where she stood.
He didn’t move. And for one sick moment, Runajo thought, Vai killed him after all.
But then Vai yelled down, “Get him while you can!” and Runajo remembered that Vai, of all people, would know how much the living dead could survive. So she lunged to Paris’s side and dropped to her knees.
Paris was still for now, black blood oozing from his forehead, but she knew it wouldn’t last for long. Her hands shook as she tried to uncork the ink pot. Maybe she should have written the mark on her hand already, but she wasn’t sure how fresh it had to be.
She got the jar open and jammed the brush inside. Then she dropped the ink pot, not caring about the black splash on the ground, and traced the symbol on her left palm, twin to the swirling symbol on her right: the sacred Catresou word for trust.
She grabbed Paris’s slack hand, raised it to hers, and pressed their hands together.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened, and Runajo’s heart thudded in icy horror as she realized she had been wrong, in a moment Paris would wake and kill her, then probably kill Juliet and Romeo and Vai and it was all her fault—