“Arawn,” I gasped. “Come back. I’m going to give you back your heart.”
A shadow lunged through the mist. A monster of torn wings, of thorns, a stag’s skull screaming its rage. The wind struck me full force, ripping my feet from the ground. My back slammed hard against the earth as my fingers clawed into the soil.
The heart slipped from my grasp. I pushed up, reaching for it, but a clawed paw crashed down on my wrist, pinning me to the ground.
Arawn was almost nothing but shadow and mist, strands of liquid ink dripping from him to the Spirits. Darkness clung to him, yellow eyes gleaming between the cracks of his armor of bone and mist. But on one of his antlers, my charm still shone. He had kept it. He was still holding on. His jaws lowered, fangs brushing my cheek.
“Once upon a time, there was a child born in a cold oven,” I whispered, hoping to catch his attention like with the boy of the orchard. “They said he was born of burnt sugar, caramel cooked too long, too black to ever be sweet. His parents fed him bark, not honey. So he grew up in anger, silence, and frost.”
In the way he looked at me, despite the gold burning in his eyes, it was still him. He could have closed his jaws. He could have crushed me in a blink. But he didn’t. He and the Spirits waited.
“One day, he picked an apple. Not a golden apple, but a purple one, the kind that gets thrown away. He ate it, and his heart was bound by sucremort. A witch found him and trapped it too. A weapon, she said.” I pulled from my pocket the confection resting in my palm. “But I say that’s a lie. A heart, even broken, even blackened, doesn’t have to be perfect to beat. This heart, Arawn, it’s yours. It never left you. And I… I came to give it back.” Then, without breaking eye contact, without curling my fingers, I held it out to him. “You have to eat it.”
Arawn recoiled. His pupils narrowed to slits. His jaws opened on a low growl. He was ready to spring, to vanish intothe darkness he came from. The instant the pressure of his paw lifted, I rolled aside and snatched the heart from the ground.
“Stay here!” I commanded.
He froze. His muscles went taut. A gust lifted the dust, shoving me backward, but this time, I didn’t yield. I lunged forward and forced his jaws open. I shoved one arm deep into his mouth, dropping the Heart-Syrup Candy into his throat, and yanked my arm free just before his teeth snapped shut with a sharp crack.
He reared, tail lashing the air. His massive body struck the Spirits, scattering shadows in rolling waves. His wings beat furiously. But I held fast. My arms locked around his jaws. My feet left the ground, the void sucking at my legs. Arawn’s human heart pounded at a frantic speed, as if it would burst.
He shook his head violently, trying to unseat me, to fling me like a splinter driven too deep. His dilated pupils flickered, frenzied, contracting under the pain.
“I won’t abandon you!” I screamed, my hair plastered to my face. “You have to swallow! You don’t have to become this!”
He fought me, his whole body rejecting the confection. A single tear broke free, tracing a thin line across his skull. His human heart thrashed wildly, like a creature desperate for its master. The Spirits surged toward me, sliding down my arms, clinging to my shoulders, joining their strength to mine, rebelling against their master.
And then, under their weight, Arawn swallowed.
The Spirits hurled themselves at his thrumming heart and forced it back into his chest. Light erupted, piercing his flesh like roots of fire. I let go. The Spirits fled. With a roar and a beat of wings, Arawn tore free from the ground. I grabbed his antlers just in time and swung onto his back. Gravity dragged me backward, but I held on.
He was flying straight toward the skies.
Beyond the mist, beyond even the clouds, the wind screamed against our bodies. Every beat of his wings was a convulsion that churned my stomach. His flight grew erratic and feverish. He spun to one side, then the other, his body writhing like a serpent trying to shed its own skin.
The air thinned. But I would not let go. I felt everything he felt. The grief. The loss. The pain. The fury. I had bound myself to him. The candy was working, and the battle between his two hearts had just begun.
“I want all of you!” My voice cracked, torn from my throat in a sob. My heart slammed against my ribs. My breath strangled in my chest, crushed beneath the altitude. “Your past. Your pain. Your love. You don’t have to protect me from yourself. I’m here, above the clouds, because I care about you. You don’t have to fight alone! You can be human too!”
He climbed higher. Then suddenly, he went still. The wind stopped, and Arawn tipped. The sky turned upside down.
I was falling.
Back to the earth, face to the sky, face to him. My heart exploded against my chest, the void tearing at my insides. I plummeted faster than him and his draconic form.
He was there within reach. So I stretched out my hand.
“Come back to me… Arawn Crèvecoeur. Take my hand.”
And then, nothing.
36
If sorcerers’ magic never touches the soul, confectioners’ magic does, working upon it like a balm. And isn’t that, in the end, the most powerful of enchantments?
ARAWN
Ihad been a prisoner of what felt like eternal darkness.
