How could he make sense of all that had happened? In the most beautiful dream of his life, he’d shared his hearts with Sarai, kissed her, flown with her, and tipped over the edge of innocence with her into something hot and sweet and perfect, only to have her ripped from him with sudden waking—
—to find the alchemist Thyon Nero at his window, cold with accusations that had led Lazlo to the extraordinary discovery of who and what he was: no war orphan of Zosma, but the half-human son of a god, blessed with the power that had been Weep’s curse, just in time to save it.
But not Sarai.
He had saved everyone but her. He still couldn’t draw a full breath. He would be haunted forever by the sight of her body arched backward over the gate it had landed on, blood dripping from the ends of her long hair.
But the chain of wonders and horrors hadn’t ended with her death. This was not the world as Lazlo had known it, outside his books of fairy tales. This was a place where moths were magic and gods were real, and angels had burned demons on a pyre the size of a moon. Here, death was not the end. Sarai’s soul was safe and bound—oh wonder—but a grubby little girl dangled her fate like a toy on a string, plunging them both back into horror.
And now Minya snatched her away, and the bottom fell out of Lazlo’s despair, proving it an abyss, its depths unknown. He tried to hold her, but the tighter he gripped, the more she melted away. It was like trying to hold on to the reflection of the moon.
There was a word from a myth: sathaz. It was the desire to possess that which can never be yours. It meant senseless, hopeless yearning, the way a gutter child might dream of being king, and it came from the tale of the man who loved the moon. Lazlo used to like that story, but now he hated it. It was about making peace with the impossible, and he couldn’t do that anymore. As Sarai melted right out of his arms, he knew: He could only make war with it.
War with the impossible. War with the monstrous child before him. Nothing less than war.
But .. . how could he fight her when she held Sarai’s soul?
He clamped his jaws shut to keep unwise words from flying out of his mouth. Breath hissed out between his clenched teeth. His fists clenched, too, but there was too much fury for his body to contain, and Lazlo did not yet comprehend that he was no longer just a man. The boundaries of his self had changed. He was flesh and blood, and he was bone and spirit, and he was metal now, too.
Rasalas roared. The creature that had been Skathis’s, and hideous, was Lazlo’s now, and majestic. Part spectral, part ravid, it was sleek and powerful, with vast mirror-metal antlers and such fine rendering that its mesarthium fur felt plush to the touch. Lazlo didn’t mean the beast to roar, but it was an extension of him now, and when he clamped his own mouth shut, Rasalas’s came open instead. The sound …When the creature had screamed down in the city, the sound had been pure anguish. This was rage, and the entire citadel vibrated with it.
Minya felt it rattle through her and she didn’t even blink. She knew whose rage mattered here, and Lazlo knew it, too. “I don’t speak beast,” she said as the roar died away, “but I hope that wasn’t a no.” Her voice was calm now, even bored. “You remember the rule, I trust. There was only the one.”
Do everything I say, or I’ll let her soul go.
“I remember,” said Lazlo.
Sarai was by Minya’s side now, rigid as a board. She was suspended in the air, like she was hanging from a hook. Horror and helplessness were plain in her eyes, and he was sure the moment had come—the impossible choice between the girl he loved and an entire city. A rushing filled his ears. He raised his hands, placating. “Don’t hurt her.”
“Don’t make me hurt her,” Minya spat back.
A sound came from behind Lazlo. It was part gasp, part sob, and, small though it was, it spidered a crack through the atmosphere of threat. Minya cast a glance to the other three godspawn. Ruby, Sparrow, and Feral were still reeling with shocks. The citadel’s lurch, Sarai’s fall, and this stranger carrying her back to them dead. It was shock upon shock, and now this.
“What are you doing?” Sparrow asked, disbelieving. She stared at Minya with haunted eyes. “You can’t… use Sarai.”
“Clearly I can,” replied Minya, and to prove it she made Sarai nod.
It was grotesque, that jerk of a nod, all while Sarai’s eyes pleaded with them. It was the only weakness in Minya’s gift: She couldn’t keep her slaves’ horror from showing in their eyes. Or perhaps she simply preferred it this way.
Another soft sob tore from Sparrow’s throat. “Stop it!” she cried. She came forward, wanting to go to Sarai and grab her away from Minya—not that she could—but she stopped short at the corpse, which lay in her way. She might have gone around it or stepped over it, but she came to a halt and stared. She’d only seen it from across the terrace, when Lazlo laid it down. Up close, the brutal reality robbed her of breath. Ruby and Feral came up beside her, and they stared down at it, too. A whimper escaped from Ruby.
Sarai had been impaled. The wound was right in the center of her chest, an ugly ravaged hole. She had hung upside down, so the blood had run up her neck, into her hair, saturating it. At the temples and crown it was still cinnamon, but the long waves of it were wine-dark and clumped into a sticky mass.
The three of them looked from Sarai to Sarai and back again— from the body to the ghost and the ghost to the body—trying to reconcile the two. The ghost wore the same pink slip as the body, though it was without blood, and there was no wound on her. Her eyes were open; the body’s were shut. Lazlo had kissed them closed when he laid it down, though it couldn’t be said that it looked peaceful. Neither did, the one lifeless and discarded, the other frozen in midair, a pawn in a treacherous game.
“She’s dead, Minya,” Sparrow said, a tear tracing down each cheek. “Sarai died.”
With a little chuff, Minya said, “I’m aware of that, thanks.”
“Are you?” asked Feral. “I mean, because you called this a game.” His own voice sounded thin to him now in contrast to this stranger’s. Unconsciously, he deepened it, trying to match Lazlo’s masculine burr. “Look at her, Minya,” he said, gesturing to the body. “This isn’t a game. This is death.”
Minya did look, but if Feral was hoping for a reaction, he was disappointed. “You think I don’t know what death is?” she asked, amusement quirking her lips.
Oh, she knew. When she was six years old, everyone she knew was murdered in cold blood, except the four babies she saved just in time. Death had made her who she was: this unnatural child who never grew up, who never forgot, and would never forgive.
“Minya,” said Ruby. “Let her go.”
Lazlo couldn’t know how unusual it was that they were standing up to her. Only Sarai ever did that, and now, of course, she couldn’t, so they did what they knew she would do, and lent their voices for hers, which had been silenced. They spoke in little surges of gathered breath, their cheeks flushed violet. It was frightening, and also freeing, like pushing open a door that one has never dared try. Lazlo waited, grateful for their intervention, and prayed Minya would listen.
“You want me to let her go?” she asked, a dangerous glint in her eyes.
“No—” he said quickly, reading her intent, to release Sarai’s soul to evanescence. It was like a fairy tale, a wish unclearly phrased, turned against the wisher.
“You know what I mean,” said Ruby, impatient. “We’re family. We don’t enslave each other.”
“You don’t because you can’t,” retorted Minya.
“I wouldn’t if I could,” said Ruby—rather unconvincingly, if truth be told.
“We don’t use our magic on each other,” said Feral. “That’s your rule.”
Minya had made them all promise when they were still little children. They’d put their hands to their hearts and sworn, and they had abided by it—the occasional rain cloud or burned bed notwithstanding.