Kato looked up at me and smiled. “May your embers burn ever bright, hearth sister.”
“No! I didn’t ask you to trade places with me.” As I floated farther away, I stared at the last nail that he sacrificed to make my heart keep beating, knowing it would silence his. “Oh Grimm, why?”
The shadows lurched at Kato, encircling his muzzle to keep him from speaking. The warmth in his wintery-blue eyes was the only answer I would ever have as inky tendrils swirled and pulled his body to the ground, covering him like a death shroud. Kato’s gaze stayed locked with mine until the last moment.
As I faded away from the underworld, I relived one of Dorthea’s memories. A dream she’d told me about. Except some of the details were different.
I stared into the mirror. Dorthea stared back at me. She looked sickly pale, hair falling out in patches, and she was dressed in a long, white robe. She held a leather-bound book with gold leafing. After opening the book, she ripped out a page.
Before I could grab it, the wind kicked up and stole the page from my fingertips.
I chased after it and screamed my frustration into the sky.
The sky screamed back.
Kato crested the hill of wildflowers, but he wasn’t the kind-eyed chimera anymore. He was a black beast that could have swallowed Sherwood Forest whole. He reared back and roared again.
The trees shook in fear.
As my soul snapped back into my body, the vision shifted to reality.
A roar shook the very ground beneath me. I scrambled and clawed clear of the stain my shadow had left behind in the sand. I bumped into Blanc’s feet. The ice Kato had magically trapped her with had melted, so she stood in a small puddle, tinged red from the blood dripping from the wound I’d given her.
“Congratulations,” she said, ripping the trident out of her side. “It seems he loved you after all.” With a flick of her finger, Blanc called forth a riptide, dragging me back into the water. I searched the hills for help, but all my friends were lying on the ground inside the circle of dead grass. Unconscious or, worse, drained from the curse. Blanc’s creatures were scattered around the shore as well as some of the other patients from the institute, who had come out to see what was going on.
They were all in danger. Morte was coming. I called out to warn them, but my screams were garbled by the waters that closed around me. I couldn’t drown, but the liquid held me like a prison.
A twin-tailed black chimera burst from the ground and into the air. His eyes and horns were white. He had no claws. “The king has returned.” Morte’s voice overlaid Kato’s in soul-shattering discord.
“Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today. There’s no better way to put a cramp in your inevitable domination than to leave an archnemesis around to witness it.”
—Seven Habits of Highly Evil People
36
Aim True
“You finally found a way out. Don’t get used to it. I haven’t forgiven you for keeping my sister trapped in the underworld.” Blanc held one arm at her side and raised the trident in the other. Water columns shot into the air, wrapping around Morte’s wings, pulling him to the ground.
I wondered why Blanc didn’t just suck the life out of him, but she looked as if she was having trouble breathing herself. The gold collar around her neck tightened as she drew on its power. She dropped the trident and clawed at her neck. The water lost shape and began falling like rain.
“With most of your power still bound, we are at an impasse, so I offer you a truce.” Morte’s dark, smooth voice came out of Kato’s mouth. His pupils were white. It was Kato’s body, but it wasn’t Kato anymore. Only the Grimm Reaper. “Grizelda’s soul was so shattered by the disenchantment the Girl of Emerald used that this”—he waved one of his tails, not Kato’s dragon-scale tail, but the other twin tail that Morte had added, an enormous silver snake, snapping and hissing wildly—“was the only life I could offer your sister. I saved her from the ink forge and brought her with me as an offering. To you.”
He circled around Blanc, letting the snake caress her cheek as he spoke in low, sultry tones. “Excalibur will soon be in my possession. Agree to rule with me, Blanc, I will free your binds and use my ink to turn this story’s useless characters into an army of shadow souls to do our bidding.”
My core shook as I pictured a living army of Forgotten at Blanc’s and Morte’s command. If the two joined forces, the world of Story would fall into a darkness that would make Nome Ore look like a cuddly enchanted forest. I argued helplessly, unheard, for Blanc not to listen to him, that his sword was a fake. Except Blanc didn’t need my help to decide what to do with Morte.
She reached slowly to the shadow chimera to caress his face in return. “Never. I serve no one. I need no one.” With a snap, she yanked his muzzle down, put her lips to his, and breathed in. Dark life flowed from Morte into Blanc, the water beneath her feet turning black.
I felt Dorthea regain consciousness at the same time I heard her.
“Kato!” The O dragged out into a wail filled with so much raw emotion it not only pierced my ears, but it also pierced my heart. It was the sound of someone’s soul shattering. I knew, because that’s the exact sound I would have made if I could have. I mourned Kato’s choice doubly—for myself and for the pieces of Dorthea that lived within me.
Dorthea’s cry made the water sorceress aware she had an audience. Blanc stalled her death kiss for a moment to sneer at Dorthea’s pain. “I watched helpless from my cell as you murdered my only family,” Blanc said. “Now I will return the favor.”
Let it burn. Take it all. Make them bend.
The twisted chorus of voices in my mind was my only warning before Dorthea’s entire body erupted into flames.
A phoenix would have looked like a single match compared to the blinding, green bonfire before me.
“Give him back,” Dorthea cried in a voice not her own. Half-mad but all fury, she flicked her arm and a torrent of flames headed for Blanc.
The elemental witch raised her hands, the water coming to her aid and canceling out Dorthea’s Emerald fire.
Blanc’s neck wrinkled as the choker did its job, cutting off her air supply.
“Care to reconsider my offer?” Morte asked. He stood up, but his legs wobbled from the drain.
Blanc’s pale face was turning blue, so she only nodded. Morte threw his body, Kato’s body, in between Blanc and Dorthea.
“Dot, please. I love you. Save me,” the black chimera said as the flames scorched his dragon’s tail.
Dorthea clenched her fist, sealing the flame. I cried and cursed from my water prison, but she couldn’t hear me. She only saw what she wanted to see: a glimmer of the real Kato. She ignored the empty gaze and the discordant voice because the words were what Dorthea wanted. She was so blinded by that, that she didn’t see the silver snake tail striking until it knocked her across the field.