Then she felt heat between their palms.
For one moment it was simple warmth, like the outside of a cup filled with hot tea. Then it flared hotter and hotter until it seared her skin with a heat so intense it felt like being stabbed with ice. A choked-off scream shuddered in her lungs, and tears started in her eyes.
And then it was done. As suddenly as it had begun, the pain was over. Runajo was doubled over, panting for breath, still clutching Paris’s hand—
Paris’s eyes blinked open.
In a moment she was on her feet, saying breathlessly, “I command you to be free of the Master Necromancer.”
If he hadn’t already overwritten his loyalty, then an order probably wouldn’t make a difference. But she couldn’t help herself.
Was there a bond?
Runajo couldn’t feel any emotions from him, any sense of another mind touching hers. But he wasn’t making any move to attack her; as she watched, he sat up slowly, gingerly, still staring at her.
“Tell me if you’re free of him,” she said.
“Yes,” Paris said instantly, in the same dazed, obedient voice that Juliet had first used when Runajo asked her questions.
She could never hear that voice again without sickness, and yet relief rolled through Runajo in a dizzying wave. Because they had done it. She had done it, had finally made something better, and for a moment her eyes stung.
Juliet, she called silently. Juliet, it worked. He’s free.
There was no answer. Juliet had walled off her mind again as soon as she had arrived at Makari’s house and didn’t have any more directions to give them. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to be distracted; maybe she had wanted to face her death alone, without the girl who had wronged her.
Runajo couldn’t blame her. But even after such a brief conversation, the inside of her mind felt strangely empty.
Paris said, softly, roughly, “What did you do?”
Runajo remembered that while Juliet had consented to this plan, he had not. She drew a breath and knelt down, making herself meet his eyes.
“I put a bond on you. To make me your Guardian. I’m sorry, I know it’s blasphemy, but Juliet gave me permission.”
“Juliet,” he echoed.
“Yes,” said Runajo.
His eyes were very wide. “You—you should have—” He rubbed a hand over his face, finishing the thought silently: You should have killed me.
And then she did feel his mind: a horrifying cascade of guilt and memories, screams and blood and driving a blade between someone’s ribs. The scrape of a blade against bone. The sound of a final breath choking out, and the sick smell of blood dribbling out on the ground.
Runajo cringed, choking on the memories.
“Stop,” she whispered, and then added immediately, “that’s not an order.”
The wave of memories ceased, but she could still feel his guilt and misery bubbling on the other side of the wall between their minds.
He stared at her, and he asked, “Why did you save me?”
Runajo stared at the Catresou boy who was nothing to her—who had been forced to kill the same way that she had forced Juliet—and felt unutterably weary.
“Because,” she said, “I love a girl who loves a boy who loves you. And this is all I can do for her.”
He stared at her, and she walled off her mind as best she could, but she didn’t need any bond to tell that he was utterly confused.
She didn’t really understand it either.
“Paris!” she heard Romeo shout from behind her—he and Vai must have finally gotten down from the rooftop—and a moment later he rushed forward to pull Paris into an embrace.
And then she heard Juliet’s voice call, Runajo?
21
“YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL,” SAID Makari. “You might say that I’m doing this for you.” He flashed a bared-teeth smile over his shoulder.
Juliet looked at the ballroom: the high vaults painted red and gold, the polished floor, the cages of weakly hissing revenants.
“You might,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”
Along one wall, servants stood to attention; from the blank, obedient look in their eyes, she guessed they were living dead.
At the center of the ballroom, with an air of infinite loneliness, sat a Catresou girl—Juliet’s own age—with eyes just as blue as hers, but golden curls. Juliet recognized her because once Lord Ineo had taken Juliet to look upon her, that she might understand the depth of her people’s evil. It was the living dead girl who had been locked inside Juliet’s father’s laboratory. She sat now in a wooden chair, free of any visible bonds.
She met Juliet’s eyes. There was intent in that gaze, without any hope.
“But you haven’t met my lady yet,” said Makari.
Juliet looked at him. She recognized his mocking smile from Runajo’s memories and Romeo’s words. Runajo hadn’t cared about him and Romeo had thought the sun rose and set on him and they had both been terribly, terribly wrong.
“Does she have a name?” she asked.
“No,” said Makari. “That’s why I hate your people.” They stood before the dead girl now; Makari grasped her hand, raised her to her feet, and kissed her slowly, passionately. The girl returned the kiss just as hungrily, her fingers grasping at his sleeves, but when he loosed her—she swayed, and said nothing.
“She was the Juliet once,” said Makari, turning to her. “She feared to die, because your people taught her that there was no hope for her.”
Juliet crossed her arms. “If she was ever the Juliet, she would hate you for destroying her people. But that doesn’t matter to you, does it, when you’ve made her living dead and a slave.”
Her voice was calm, measured, but her heart was beating very fast. She wanted to attack now, to snap Makari’s neck in one clean motion the same way she had her father’s. But Runajo and Vai had probably just reached the house. They must be looking for Romeo and Paris right now. She wasn’t sure what power Makari might call on when attacked—if, seeing he was going to lose, he might silently order Paris to kill himself or Romeo—so she had to wait as long as possible. She had to buy them time.
It was lucky that Makari was so in love with talking about himself.
“Oh, she is nothing like the puppets I raise,” said Makari.
“And yet she is silent,” said Juliet, and looked into the other Juliet’s dazed blue eyes. “Is this what you dreamed of, when you were a child suffering the pain of new seals? Is this the price you wanted to pay for loving him?”
The girl looked at Juliet. Then she said, softly but distinctly, “I want to die.”
And for a moment, Juliet felt her heart shudder within her. Because she knew the sound and the shape and the taste of those soft, dead words; they had been all her own heart said, when she woke in the Cloister and believed Romeo dead for nothing.
“Those are all the words she has left,” said Makari. “And I will grant her wish.”
He snapped his fingers. Another door to the ballroom opened, and two more of the living dead dragged in another prisoner: Justiran. His face was bruised, and his right sleeve was soaked with blood, but his eyes were alert as they brought him to Makari and shoved him to his knees.
“I’ve got one demand,” said Makari.
Justiran looked at Juliet, and then at his daughter.
“I am so sorry,” he said quietly.
“Listen to me.” Makari’s voice was cold and clipped now. “Your daughter wasn’t newborn when you handed her over to the magi. You must have given her a name.”
“Zaran—”
Makari’s hand cracked against Justiran’s face. “I told you not to call me that.”
“Then you can’t need to know her name that badly,” said Justiran, his voice soft and tired.
There was rage in the set of Makari’s shoulders, in the white knuckles of his fingers as he gripped Justiran’s hair and tilted his head back, and Juliet felt a thrill of hope. Because Makari was definitely distracted now.