A hollow ache grew in my chest. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“Liar!” she screamed. “You can help her. You just won’t.” She spat at my feet as tears bisected her cheeks. They streamed over the edge of a wound stretched across her jaw, and the foaming blight seemed to writhe with pleasure as it caught her tears. As if it took joy in her sadness, her pain.
“Seville, look around you.” Rorik’s words were soft but full of authority as he gestured to the manor. Everything was rotting from the inside out. Blight was a patchwork design of black and yellow crawling across the ceiling, dripping from the rafters, seeping into the furniture. The air was thick with yellow dust that settled against everything like a weighted sheet. There was no escaping what they’d become. The collective glamour they used to hide from it all couldn’t obscure the truth any longer. Seville had destroyed it in her search for any scrap of power she could use to help her grandmother.
“There isn’t any time left,” Rorik said. “Edira can only do so much.”
At the sound of my name, Mavis’s eyes flew open. With a forceful wheeze, she struggled to turn her head and meet my gaze. “Come.”
Everyone stilled. Time slowed as the weight of her dying request filled the air, and I bit the inside of my cheek. I glanced at the family and blissfully found their expressions free of suspicion. Only Rorik’s brows drew together as he watched me drop to Mavis’s side.
“I’m here.” I knew I couldn’t cure her, but I’d ease her passing just the same. My light covered us in a gentle barrier that blocked the drifting spores. Soft hisses filled the space as the yellow snowflakes drifted to their demise and burned away against my skin. Ipushed soothing energy through to my fingertips and willed it to transfer to Mavis, to take away her pain. Her gaze never softened.
“Speak.”
It was the last thing she said before her eyes slipped closed and her breathing stopped. And as her last thread disappeared into nothing, my magic finally receded.
“Grandmother.” Seville ran light fingers along Mavis’s brow.
“What did she mean?Speak?” Clesian asked as Lydia stepped out of his embrace to take a cautious step forward. Tears filled her eyes as her breath hit harder. Faster.
“People tend to lose their grips on reality in the end.” I pitched my voice low and kept my pulse steady. Not yet. Not until I had the power to save my brothers. “I’m not sure what she meant.”
Lydia’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth as if to probe further but never got the chance. Just then, Orin sped into the room. As he crossed the threshold from the outside world into the blight-ridden house, his glamour fell. Seville’s power stole whatever magic it could, sharpening suddenly with Orin’s presence, but he didn’t flinch. Instead, he silently scanned the surroundings, taking in the display of blight and his grandmother’s corpse on the floor.
“Seville, that’s enough. She’s gone. Take her body to the tree so she may join the others,” he said quietly.
She complied with one last shuddering sob. Capping her power, she slipped her arms beneath her grandmother. She trembled when part of Mavis’s body disintegrated in her hold, but she steeled herself by pressing her lips tightly together. As they walked away, they left a gray-and-yellow trail of ashes and blight.
“Lydia, Clesian, I need you...” Orin swallowed as his voice broke, and he pinched his eyes shut. His nostrils flared as he took a long, heavy breath through his nose.
His pain was sobelievable. It made me want to puke. But ratherthan show my distaste and let him in on my budding plan, I kept quiet. Still. Beside me, Rorik’s expression hardened, and a tendon strained against his neck.
When he regained his composure, Orin straightened and once again met his family’s gazes. “Gather what’s needed for the ceremony. We’ll join you later.”
Like Seville, the four of them left without saying another word.
“Ceremony?” I blurted. So much for poise. The ceremony was exactly what I wanted—needed—but in the aftermath of Mavis’s death it just felt wrong. “What about Mavis?”
“Seville will bury her. She may not make the ceremony, but that’s all right. She needs to grieve.” Orin came to my side, and he palmed my cheek with a gentle hand before letting it fall to my waist. Anger clawed beneath the surface of my skin at his touch, but I didn’t wrench his hand away and spit in it. Yet.
My tongue, however, was not as easy to hold back. “And you don’t?”
His eyes dropped to my mouth, and he exhaled so deeply it seemed to stem from his bones. “I will miss my grandmother. But I can’t change what happened, only prevent this from happening to anyone else.Wecan prevent this.”
I hated how, even now, his syrupy words made me question my resolve. “Mavis is gone. What happens to our bargain? Are my brothers safe?”
Orin had the smarts to look appalled. “Edira, I would never harm them. Mavis may have been the reason you came here, but she’s not the reason I’m asking you to stay now.” He tucked a strand of moonlit hair behind my ear before brushing his knuckle along my jaw. “You know that.”
At that, Rorik scoffed. A nocturnal sheen passed over his gaze, and all at once I was reminded that he was a killer. The reflective gold flash was a threat aimed directly at his brother, and I believedin my core that if I broke the vow, he’d rail against Orin—not for me, but for himself. And that was enough reassurance for me.
“As if you’re actuallyaskingher to stay.” Rorik’s grin was feral, his words tight.
Orin didn’t respond as he inched closer to me. Claiming me. His fingers on my waist tightened like the shackles of the evervow that held everyone’s collective rage at bay.
Rorik tilted his head toward me but kept his gaze on his brother. “Edira, leave while you can. I know you don’t want to, but it’s the only way. Do it now while you’re not bound to anyone here.”
“I have her brothers,” Orin seethed, taking a small step forward. His eyes widened a fraction at his own outburst, at the glimmer of his true intentions finally rising to the surface.
