We had better luck on the other side of the hall; the first door we tried opened into an airy bedroom that was mostly untouched save for the broken-out windowpanes and the wind and water damage near that jagged portal to the outside. In a smaller, closed-off antechamber, however, we found what might once have been a nursery. There was a large bassinet adorned with a canopy of green silks and lined with yellowing satin.
“Those canopy curtains might work,” I said. “Can you get them? I’m going to try this closet.”
Onal wasn’t listening. She’d gone to the edge of the bassinet and was looking wistfully into it, her hand resting on the mattress where a baby might once have lain. It was the first time I saw the echo of the doll-loving little girl in the prickly old woman. I closed my mouth and quietly turned back to the closet, letting her have that moment alone, lost somewhere in her long memory.
18
Rosetta passed around some of the rations we’d brought with us and a bottle of wine she’d dug up from the muddy sludge that had overtaken the wine cellar. The nursery closet had yielded enough blankets for everyone to have one, and we all huddled together around the fireplace, listening to the storm howl outside as we tried to get some sleep. One by one, the others seemed to drift off, but I remained awake long into the night, watching the celestial chandelier gently dip and sway.
I wasn’t the only one with insomnia. While everyone else slept, Zan crawled out from under his blankets and shuffled quietly from the library.
I sat up. “Zan?” I asked in a whisper. But he didn’t hear me.
I went out into the hall. “Zan, wait!”
I turned in just enough time to see him disappear in the direction of the kitchens below. He’d brought me to the library this way before, and I knew at once he was headed to the canal passages. I pulled my boots on and followed.
After the floodwater receded, the canal tunnels were left in much the same condition as they were before, but with an extra six inches of silt and sludge coating the bottom. I waded through it, hoping that up ahead, Zan could not hear my squelching steps. A couple of times, his bobbing candle paused, and I prepared myself for imminent discovery, only to have him carry on a few moments later.
I followed his light out of the castle as it flickered in the darkness of Achlev’s eastern groves. Of all the city’s landmarks, the woods were the only part that had absolutely flourished since the wall came down. No longer divided from the Ebonwilde, the trees seemed to have gained a new vigor, like lost children being re-welcomed into the fold. Even the large swaths of forest that had been burned were already showing new and not-entirely-natural growth.
I fully expected Zan to head toward Kate and Nathaniel’s old house, once a haven to us both. But he did not turn west at the pond. Instead, he headed deeper and deeper into the woods until he and his light disappeared altogether.
He’d come to a ridge, seemingly impenetrable but hiding a secret: before the earthquakes began, there’d been an entranceway here that led into a hidden hollow. I ran my hands alongside the stone until I felt the gap. The doorway was still here, even after the earthquake. Holding a breath and hoping for the best, I ducked into it.
Zan was waiting for me on the other side, arms crossed over his chest.
“You heard me call your name,” I said accusingly. “You knew I was following you.”
“I was hoping you’d see the mud and turn around.”
“I don’t give up all that easily.”
“No?” His eyes flashed green. Only a few flecks of gold remained from our encounter in the city, and I wondered if
the effects of my vitality wore off slowly, over time, or if they were permanent and stayed with him long after the gold had disappeared from his eyes.
“Why are we here, Zan?” I looked around the tomb. The stone he’d erected for his mother as a child was lying in pieces. The drawing of Kate we’d left beside it was gone, probably long disintegrated into the earth upon which it rested.
“This is a place for goodbyes, and I just learned I’ve got one more to say.” He had something in his hand, but when I leaned in to see it closer, he gave a hard sigh and raised his arm like a barrier, trying to keep me at bay. “If you stay,” he said, “I’ll ask you to keep your distance.”
I nodded and gave him a wider berth. The object in his hand was a familiar one: a vial of blood.
“Simon gave this to me after my mother died. He said it was tradition for blood mages to give some of their blood to the people they love best. So that even after they die, some of their spirit—and their magic—remains.” He held it up on the cord, more so that he could look at it closely than to show it to me. “It meant a lot to me. I had to hide it, of course, so my father wouldn’t find it—he hated Simon—but it comforted me, knowing a little of Simon’s spirit was always nearby.”
“That’s where you were earlier today, while the rest of us were looking for blankets,” I said. “You went for Simon’s blood vial.”
He nodded, lips in a thin line. “But, stars save me, I am done with blood magic.”
I watched, stunned, as he popped the cork and emptied Simon’s blood onto the soil.
“Zan, what are you doing? Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” He whirled around, eyes full of emotion. “I just found out that Simon is dead because of me. That you almost died because of me.” He shook out the last of Simon’s blood and then threw the empty vial down too. “No. I am not all right.”
I dashed to retrieve the empty vial from the dirt—leaving it there felt like sacrilege—but I didn’t know what to do with it. Any comfort I tried to offer would have sounded dismissive and remorseless at best, ruthless at worst. But the silence was no better; it hung between us, an indictment all its own.
Finally, I said, “I’m the one who killed Simon, not you. He died because I dared to want what I knew I couldn’t have. To touch what I never deserved. And I’m going to pay for it. Have no doubt.”