I won’t let this happen again. Ipromisedthis would never happen again. I made sure of it.
“You’re okay,” I tell him, but my words snap in half. “I’m going to fix this. It’s going to be okay.”
The power is close by, as if it were lingering just around the corners of my heart, watching, waiting. The gift of the Green Flame.
I gaze upward through the mist. Green lights dance along the edge of the cliffside. In their glow, I can barely make out Dayton and Dom, desperately trying not to be overrun. They need help. But I have to do this first.
Knit him back together, Malekai Furiondemius whispers in my mind.You can do it. Unbreak his spine. Pull the ribs from his lungs. Make him one of us.
I can do it. I won’t mess this up like I did with the soldiers. Billy will be just how he was, my brother, forever at my side.
The strange magic rises in me, blood humming. A cool heat burns my eyes, flooding my vision with a green haze as I’m flush with the Baron’s power.
Billy’s golden gaze burrows into mine, pupils shaking. “Where’s…my brother?”
“He’s up top, with Dayton. Dayton will keep him safe.”
“No.” Though weak, his voice is fierce. “Where’s my…brother? I want…my brother.”
What—
I release my hold on the Green Flame’s power, letting it drain out of me. My vision clears. “I’m here, Billy. I’m right here.”
“Don’t go. Stay…with me. ’Til the end.”
I curl over him, tears falling from my face onto his. “No, no, no, Billy. You’re not going anywhere. I’m going to keep you with me, okay? Okay? I’m going to fix your body. Fix you right up.”
A smile twitches over his mouth. “I don’t think…I need a body…anymore, Fare. Not where I’m going.”
“No.” The baron’s magic rises in me again. “I won’t let you go. You’re my brother. Mine. I have to keep you with me.”
That’s right, Farron, Autumn blood. Remake the world as you desire. It is yours to control.
Rage mingles with my fear and my grief. What did I do to keep losing them? Is this my punishment? Was it never the beast but rather a curse to watch those I love die and die and die again? I won’t let it happen. I gave the Baron a part of me, and now Caspian can yank on it at whim. It has to be worthsomething.
“I won’t let you die,” I gasp, putting my hands on my brother’s chest.
Billy’s eyes are losing their glassiness, but somehow, he still finds a way to hold my gaze. “Do you feel it? The wind found…me, even down here.”
“The wind?” There’s no wind. Only the dark, miserable mist.
Billy closes his eyes. His voice quickens, breaths coming in sharp gasps. “Smells like the orchards. There’re leaves. Do you see them? Yellow and red and orange. How’d…they…make it down here?” His eyes burst open, pupils huge. “It hurts, Farron.”
“I’ll make it stop.” I dig my fingers into his chest, feeling the flow of the Green Flame pass through my chest, over my arms?—
“No.”
“No?”
Billy’s staring straight up now, even though there’s nothing there. “I…want…Mother…to recognize me…when I get…wherever I’m going.”
“No,” I say, because there is nothing else. “No, no, no.”
“I’m gonna keep protecting you, okay?”
I want to scream. To beg. To plead. But I stoop over my brother until we’re nose-to-nose, and I know, more than ever before, I must be brave.
Because he’s going somewhere I can’t follow. And he’s said he’ll watch over me there. So right now, in this last moment, I need to protect him.
