“No,” growled the magic, the fear bold now, twisting his impatience into anger. And Kell understood his fear. Vitari wasn’t simply a spell. He was the source of all the stone’s power. Dispelling him would dispel the talisman itself. It would all be over.
Kell fought to hold on to his body. To himself. He forced air into his lungs and out his mouth.
“As Anas—” he managed before Vitari’s hand shifted from heart to lungs, crushing the air out of them.
“You can’t,” said the magic desperately. “I am the only thing keeping your brother alive.”
Kell hesitated. He didn’t know if that was true, if the bond he’d made with his brother could be broken. But he did know that Rhy would never forgive him for what he’d done, and it wouldn’t even matter unless they both made it through.
Kell summoned the last of his strength and focused not on Vitari trying to crush his life, or on the darkness sweeping through him, but on Lila’s voice and the cold ground and his aching fingers and his bloody lips as they formed the words.
“As Anasae.”
VI
Across Red London, the bodies fell.
Men and women who’d been kissed or taken, wooed or forced, those who had let the magic in and those who had had it thrust upon them, all of them fell as the black flame inside them gutted and went out. Dispelled.
Everywhere, the magic left a trail of bodies.
In the streets, they staggered and collapsed. Some crumbled to ash, all burned up, and some were reduced to husks, empty inside, and a lucky few crumpled, gasping and weak but still alive.
In the palace, the magic dressed as Gen had just reached the royal chambers, his blackening hand on the door, when the darkness died and took him with it.
And in the sanctuary, far from the castle walls, on a bare cot in a candlelit room, the prince of Red London shivered and fell still.
FOURTEEN
THE FINAL DOOR
I
Kell opened his eyes and saw stars.
They floated high above the castle walls, nothing but pricks of pale white light in the distance.
The stone slipped from his fingers, hitting the ground with a dull clink. There was nothing to it now, no hum, no urge, no promise. It was just a piece of rock.
Lila was saying something, and for once she didn’t sound angry, not as angry as usual, but he couldn’t hear her over the pounding of his heart as he brought one shaking hand to the collar of his shirt. He didn’t really want to see. Didn’t want to know. But he tugged his collar down anyway and looked at the skin over his heart, the place where the seal had bonded Rhy’s life to his own.
The black tracery of the magic was gone.
But the scar of it wasn’t. The seal itself was still intact. Which meant it hadn’t only been tethered to Vitari. It had been tethered to him.
Kell let out a small sobbing sound of relief.
And finally, the world around him came back into focus. The cold stone of the courtyard and Athos’s corpse and the shards of Astrid, and Lila, with her arms flung around his shoulders for an instant—and only an instant, gone before he could appreciate their presence.
“Miss me?” whispered Kell, his throat raw.
“Sure,” she said, her eyes red. She toed the talisman with her boot. “Is it dead?” she asked.
Kell picked up the stone, feeling nothing but its weight.
“You can’t kill magic,” said Kell, getting slowly to his feet. “Only dispel it. But it’s gone.”
Lila chewed her lip. “Do you still have to send it back?”
Kell considered the hollow rock and nodded slowly. “To be safe,” he said. But maybe, now that he was finally free of its grip, he didn’t have to be the one to go with it. Kell scanned the courtyard until he saw Holland’s body. In the fight the Antari had fallen from the stone bench, and now lay stretched on the ground, his blood-soaked cloak the only sign that Holland wasn’t merely sleeping.
Kell got to his feet, every inch of him protesting, and went to Holland’s side. He knelt and took one of the Antari’s hands in his. Holland’s skin was going cold, the pulse at his wrist weak, and getting weaker, his heart dragging itself through the final beats. But he was still alive.
It’s really quite hard to kill Antari, he had once said. It appeared he was right.
Kell felt Lila hovering behind him. He didn’t know if this would work, if one Antari could command for another, but he pressed his fingers to the wound at Holland’s chest and drew a single line on the ground beside his body. And then he touched the hollow stone to the blood and set it on the line, bringing Holland’s hand to rest on top of it.
“Peace,” he said softly, a parting word for a broken man. And then he pressed his hand on top of Holland’s and said, “As Travars.”
The ground beneath the Antari gave way, bending into shadow. Kell pulled back as the darkness, and whatever lay beyond, swallowed Holland’s body and the stone, leaving only blood-streaked ground behind.
Kell stared at the stained earth, unwilling to believe that it had actually worked. That he had been spared. That he was alive. That he could go home.
He swayed on his feet, and Lila caught him.