Steadfast

Mom gave her a look, like she didn’t know what Nadia was talking about. “How it would affect me,” she said. “I don’t love anymore. Not anybody, not anything. Once, I know, I used to take pleasure in my appearance, in my home. Now I don’t even know what that would mean. And I used to have favorite foods, too. These days I only remember to eat when I get extremely hungry, and even then—what’s the point?” Mom shook her head. “Sometimes I try to recall what it was like to feel love. To have that kind of joy in other people, in food or friends, or even in just existing. But I can’t even remember it clearly. All I know is that it was the only thing that made life worth living.”

Their eyes met. Nadia knew she must look stricken; Mom only looked annoyed. She couldn’t even understand what this moment meant to her daughter. Not even that was left.

Finally her mother said, “I gave all that up forever to keep you safe, and make sure your choices were your own. So I suppose I must have loved you very much.”

Nadia nodded. By now her vision wavered with unshed tears, and Mom was just a blur, nothing more.

“I can’t help you with your Sorceress.” Mom rose from the couch, and Nadia realized that she was about to be asked to leave. “And I’ve done as much as I can do to shield you from the One Beneath. He could still trick or coerce you into serving Him; all I’ve done is keep Him from enslaving you. Now that He sees what you are, He won’t stop until you’re His.”

“There has to be something I can do,” Nadia insisted.

“If you want my advice? Don’t go back.”

“What? You mean, run away? Just leave my family?” How could she ever think Nadia would do that? Then again—Mom had left them, and she no longer even possessed the part of her soul that would have told her why that mattered.

“They’ll manage. I have to say, your father’s stronger than I thought.” Mom stepped closer, and for the first time all afternoon, Nadia felt some flicker of intensity from her. If she couldn’t feel love, she could still feel fear. “Nothing else will save you. If you return, the One Beneath will claim you. No matter how hard you fight, no matter what magic you try to perform.”

Nadia swallowed hard. “You can’t know that.”

“Believe me or don’t,” her mother said, opening the door so Nadia could leave for good. “But mark my words. It can’t end any other way.”

22

“HOLD OUT YOUR ARM,” ELIZABETH SAID.

Asa did it without hesitation. Though she could see in his eyes the foreknowledge of pain, he still obeyed instantly. That was what it meant to be the slave of the One Beneath.

The demon needed reminding of that. Besides, the next step required blood.

They stood together on the small scrap of island that surrounded the old lighthouse. Sun shone down brightly, making the day feel more like early autumn rather than November’s end. Elizabeth pushed up the sleeve of Asa’s black coat, exposing his tawny skin.

In most ways, her body had once again become like that of any other human being, but a few aspects of her ancient, once-immortal power remained. For instance, her fingernails remained far harder than they should have been, less like any aspect of the flesh and more like steel.

So Elizabeth was able to use her thumbnail to slice into Asa’s flesh.

He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth as she drew her nail up the length of his inner arm, splitting his skin along the middle, just above the veins. Blood welled from the wound, dripping down either side of his arm to fall on the shell-strewn ground beneath their feet. Asa pressed his lips together and adjusted his stance; Elizabeth knew he was bracing himself for what was to come.

She dragged her nail back along the cut to deepen it, then took both hands and pulled the flesh apart. Despite the heavier bleeding, she could now make out the very structure of the arm: muscle, nerves, veins, and arteries quivering. No need to delve all the way to bone.

Only a small cry escaped Asa, and that he stifled as best he could. Elizabeth wondered whether she should punish him for it regardless.

The spell was punishment enough, she decided. Quickly she brought to mind the ingredients for the summoning:

A call to war.

A fire at night.

A cry of purest pain.

“Hold,” she murmured. Asa had begun to waver on his feet.

“Quickly,” he said, voice shaking. “I might black out.”

A rider on a horse, shouting about Fort Sumter, and stupid, ignorant boys dashing out of their houses to fight in a war that would shred their arms and legs and souls, take their lives before they really knew what living was.

The church blaze she’d created to consume that upstart coven, flames licking at the steeple, the screams of women whose attempt to defy her had been their final mistake.

Lauren Cabot, trembling at the shore before setting out to die, thinking of the little boy she left behind and unable to keep herself from screaming in misery.

Power lanced through Elizabeth, a shock as great as being struck by lightning. She felt the crackle of it all throughout her body and deep into the earth, high into the sky. There was no illumination, no outward sign of its strength, but she knew it was enough.

She had laid the foundation. Now the bridge was coming into being. Soon the One Beneath would travel to the very brink of the mortal world.

Asa stumbled to one side. “We have to stop.”

“Beg.”

“Please,” he whispered. With his wound held open, blood pulsing from him with every heartbeat, his demonic pride could hold no sway. “Please stop. My mistress, I only wish to obey. Let it end.”