Steadfast

“That I was going to stay with Verlaine for a couple of days to help out while Uncle Gary’s in the hospital. Right now he can’t get to his job anyway, so he can be around for Cole. Verlaine’s going to cover for me if he drops by there.”

“Got everything?”

She nodded, and at last she turned back to him. “Thanks to you.”

Mateo patted the handlebars. “You walk it at least half a mile past the checkpoint, out in the field. Then get it back on the road and go. You know the way to Providence?”

“Yeah. I go to the airport, put your motorcycle in long-term parking, and then I can pick up my ticket.”

“And you remember everything I taught you about the bike. Really, riding it is easier than it looks.”

“Right.” But Nadia didn’t look too sure. It hardly mattered; this was their only shot.

Only then did Mateo realize he was still thinking of this as their chance, their risk, not hers alone.

“Mateo—thank you.”

He shook his head. “You’d do the same for me.”

“Not just for the bike, or the loan, or the ride. For believing in me, despite everything.”

The thing was, Mateo had his doubts. He didn’t know what temptations Nadia was about to face, or whether she could resist them. Whether any of this would be enough to conquer Elizabeth or the One Beneath.

But he’d made a decision. Mateo knew he couldn’t test Nadia; he could only test himself, and his love for her.

So he had to trust her enough to let her go.

“You can do it,” he said.

Only now did he recognize the forest where they stood. He’d seen it in his dreams. In that vision Nadia had said she might never return—but had that been a metaphor, a sign that she would not return as the girl he knew and loved, but as someone else entirely?

Nadia clutched at his jacket, pulled him close, and kissed him so hungrily, so hard, that he knew she felt the same desperation he did. For a moment he could only think of the first time their lips had met—when she’d been trapped underwater, and he’d had to breathe for her. It was like that now, as though they were keeping each other alive.

The wind picked up around them again, so hard it nearly knocked him over. They broke the kiss, clinging to each other in the gale. And yet there was something about this—a shimmer in the wind that meant it wasn’t only natural. His Steadfast abilities told him another force had caused that . . .

. . . but in this Sorceress-haunted town, when wasn’t magic at work?

He met Nadia’s eyes again, willing himself to be strong for her. When he repeated the words, his voice was near breaking: “You can do it.”

“If I can, it’s because of you,” Nadia said, and she turned away.

Then he watched her walking the cycle out off the paved road, into the dust and brambles all alone, until her shadow was just one more sliver of the night.

20

ELIZABETH STOOD AT THE SEASHORE, LOOKING OUT AT the old lighthouse tower. The gray clouds in the sky hung low, threatening either snow or rain. By now she owned a warm coat, a loose gray cape that reminded her of the cloaks she’d worn long ago; wearing it was her acknowledgment that she had to walk in this world for as long as it endured.

Not much longer now.

She could feel the bridge growing stronger beneath her. Already so much was being pushed up from the muck. The earth beneath her feet was only a shell now, and in time the shell could be broken—but first, first, the bridge had to be completed.

Every stone in the bridge was made of suffering, of sorrow. Her work had created so much pain, and yet still the path was not clear.

Faster, she thought. I must work faster. Or else the One Beneath will begin to doubt me.

This was hard, given what Elizabeth had done for His sake. But that was what it meant to be the servant of the One Beneath. His rules were as harsh as His instruments. His followers were born and shaped by blood.

“Faster,” she whispered, holding her hand up to the sky. A flick of her fingers was enough to summon her crow. It alit upon her wrist, cobweb eyes unblinking.

Elizabeth curled her hand around it. She felt the brief flutter of its wings against her palm, and tried to remember what it had been like to feel afraid. The heart beat faster; that much she could recall. Even now the bird’s tiny heartbeat pattered against her fingertips.

Then she sliced in deep with her thumbnail, swiftly enough that she was able to touch the heart before it stopped beating.

Verlaine was in the hospital when it happened.

As much as she wanted to be there for Uncle Gary, she had come to hate the hospital the past few days. The smell of stale air and disinfectant seemed to have burned its way into her nose, and the fluorescent lights made everyone look as sick as the three people connected to life support in this room. She’d been trying to get comfortable in a plastic chair for hours, to no avail.

And yet she would live like this forever if it meant they hadn’t yet lost Uncle Gary.

She tucked her feet under her in the chair and adjusted herself yet again. Now she was angled to look out the window. The view wasn’t much—a bleak, gray sky over the parking lot—but at least it made a change.

Then the clouds . . . twisted.

The movement wasn’t gentle, like clouds stirred by the wind. Instead their shapes shrank and clenched as though they were being wrung out by unseen hands. From every tree and wire, countless black birds swirled up at once, darkening the sky so that the weak sunlight dimmed almost to dusk. Verlaine shuddered, knowing this was Elizabeth’s work.