Echo struggled to find the words to describe the feeling she had in her gut. “The ku?edra is supposed to be the counterpart to the firebird, right?”
Dorian nodded slowly, like he was trying to follow the ramblings of a crazy person. He probably was. “Right.”
“Well, if you have a positive and a negative, they’ll cancel each other out.” Echo neglected to mention the growing patch of black on her own chest. Her logic was even less sound than they knew, but she was desperate, clutching at whatever half-formed straws she could find.
“I don’t think dealing with cosmic forces is similar to doing basic arithmetic,” Jasper said.
“No, but we know that the fire doesn’t always hurt. In the Black Forest, it passed over my friends—over you—because I didn’t want to harm you.”
Their expressions remained firmly skeptical.
“The prophecy,” Echo said. “The firebird prophecy. It said it was—I am—supposed to be able to change things for good. The firebird’s power is not simply a destructive force. What if—and I honestly believe this is true—what if I could be the opposite of destructive? What if I could help heal him?”
Jasper threw his hands in the air and stepped away from the bed. “Fine. Do whatever it is you’re going to do. He’s as good as dead anyway. Even if you wind up killing him faster, then it would probably be an act of mercy.”
Dorian flinched at the words. He was the one Echo had to persuade, not Jasper. She wouldn’t be able to accomplish much of anything if Dorian insisted on fighting her every step of the way.
“A positive and a negative,” said Dorian, as if he was measuring the idea, testing it for holes. There were plenty to find, but until a miracle solution presented itself, it was the best they had.
“The light and the dark,” Echo said. “Two sides of the same coin. I can fight this. I have to believe that I can fight this.” If she couldn’t do it for herself, maybe, just maybe, she could do it for him. “And I have to at least try.”
After a long moment, Dorian stepped aside. “Help him,” he said. It was an order, not a request.
“I will.”
And that was a promise.
Despite her outward confidence, Echo had no idea what she was doing. Since that was not a particularly unusual state of affairs for her, she did not let it deter her from the task at hand.
“Hold him down,” she said with more authority than she felt.
Dorian shot her another skeptical look, but he kept his mouth shut and directed Jasper to take hold of one of Caius’s arms while he held the other. They’d both donned gloves—the last thing they needed was another victim for the ku?edra to consume.
Caius’s head lolled about on the pillow like a rag doll’s. His skin had taken on an increasingly sickly pallor. Every minute that passed was one minute lost; if Echo did not figure out a way to save him now, they wouldn’t have another chance.
Okay, Echo addressed the other vessels, whose voices, with the exception of Rose and her plaintive plea, had been blessedly silent for days. If any of you have any ideas about where to start, I’m listening.
The silence in her head grew even more profound.
Then, when Echo had all but given up hope of receiving an answer, a single small voice spoke up, one she had not heard before.
Touch him, whispered the voice.
Echo raked her gaze over the blackened veins that covered most of Caius’s torso.
Are you sure that’s a good idea? Like, really, really, really sure?
A familiar voice cut in. Oh, for the love of the gods, Echo, just do it, Rose all but shouted in Echo’s skull. Phantom voice or not, it reverberated through Echo’s head, rattling her bones.
“Okay, fine. I’m doing it!”
Echo didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Jasper shot her a quizzical glance and inquired, “Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” said Echo. Now was not the time for that conversation. She stepped closer to the bed, focusing on the sensation of magic coursing through her blood. It was always there, humming faintly like the rumble of a subway far below a city. It had been distracting at first, but one got used to it eventually.
Jasper didn’t look like he believed her, but any other questions he might have had were interrupted by Caius’s sudden thrashing.
It can feel you approaching, said the unidentified vessel. It knows what you intend to do.
The ku?edra. It may not have been in the room with them, but it knew. It had a presence, and all because of the blight besieging Caius. The Ala had told Echo that she believed the ku?edra was using its victims as a power source, as a way to charge its own magic. It fed on them, but Echo had not believed that the infection was sentient. If the voice speaking to Echo now was correct, then there was far more going on beneath the surface of Caius’s skin than any of them had realized.
The closer Echo got, the more Caius struggled. He fought Dorian and Jasper, thrashing against their braced arms with all his might. He was not simply infected; he was a man possessed.
The last of Echo’s reluctance fled at the sight of Caius’s panicked frenzy. There was nothing she would not do to save him from the hell in which he was ensnared.
Unlike Jasper’s and Dorian’s, her hands were bare. She crawled onto the bed, dodging wild kicks from Caius’s flailing legs. A few blows landed on Echo’s shins. She would have impressive bruises to show for it later.
The moment her hands connected with Caius’s chest, she felt the ku?edra dancing below the surface of his skin. Though Caius was sweating and flushed, he was not feverish; his skin was cool to the touch. Dangerously so. Echo knew what he should have felt like: pleasantly warmer than average. But his flesh was clammy and cold beneath her fingers, and it bruised immediately, no matter how light her touch. A pained utterance escaped Caius’s lips.
No, not bruised. Burned. Echo yanked her hands back as Caius’s skin began to blister.
“You’re hurting him,” Dorian said, voice strained as he wrestled down Caius, who had half risen in an attempt to buck Echo off.
The blistered flesh smoothed the second she ceased touching him. His skin was unmarred, save for the dark swollen veins crisscrossing his torso.
It’s a ruse, said the voice in Echo’s head. It wants you to stop. It wants you to give up and go away. You mustn’t.
That was all Echo needed to hear. She pushed down on Caius’s chest as firmly as she could, using her legs to leverage her weight as he continued to struggle against the three people holding him.
The veins stopped spreading.
“Was that you?” Jasper asked, as awestruck as he ever allowed himself to sound.
“I think so,” Echo said.
But there was already so much darkness in Caius. She felt the power circulating in her own blood rise to the surface. A positive force and a negative force, attracted to one another as the laws of the universe dictated. There was a patch of dense blackness on Caius’s chest, just north of his left pectoral muscle. It was right above his heart. Echo zeroed in on it.