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The more he fights it, the more magic I have to employ. I show him everything, feeling him tremble in my grasp, hearing the small cries of denial. Soon I am aware of him as well. His secrets. His vanities. His fears. His life flits past my mind, a thick ribbon unspooling. And I am the one who should like to look away. But I can’t. There’s too much magic at work. I am no longer in control. We’re recklessly joined. I am aware of the small scrap of paper in his pocket, an address in East London where he will find the opium he craves. It has begun again. I feel his struggle turning to resolve. He will do it, and the cycle will begin again.
Despair, shiny and jagged, rakes across me. I swallow hard and will myself not to feel. Not to care. But I can’t. I know that the magic can’t heal, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I will take this longing from him, and then I will cure Tom of his attraction to the Rakshana, and we will be as happy as we were before.
Father gives another small cry, and suddenly, I feel nothing from him. My hand is cold where it touches his. I break the contact, and Father falls to the floor, unmoving. His eyes are open; his mouth is twisted. His breathing is strangled.
“Father!” I shout, but he’s beyond me. What have I done?
I run for Mrs. Nightwing and Tom.
“It’s Father,” I blurt out. “He’s in the parlor.”
With me leading the way, we hurry back. Tom and my headmistress move Father to a chair. His breath is still raspy, and there is bloody spittle on his bottom lip. His eyes stare straight at me, accusing.
“What the devil happened?” Tom asks.
I can’t answer. I want to cry, but I’m too horrified. Lord Denby appears. “Can I be of assistance?”
“Stay away from my father!” I shout. The magic roars to life again, and it takes all my strength to silence it.
“Gemma!” Tom reprimands me.
“She’s overcome by grief. Perhaps we should help the young lady to her room,” Lord Denby suggests, reaching for my arm.
“No! Don’t touch me!”
“Miss Doyle…,” Mrs. Nightwing starts, but I don’t stay to hear the end of it. I run fast for the secret door, and as I stagger through the passageway, I could swear I see the Borderlands fairy there, but I can’t stop. Magic leaks from my pores. My legs shake, but I make it all the way up the mountain and to the well of eternity and Circe.
“Asha, have the forest folk come?”
“I have not seen them,” she answers. “Are you well, Lady Hope?”
No. I am not well. I am diseased with hate. “Stand by. I may have need of you.”
“As you wish, Lady Hope.”
Face your fears. That’s what the well is for. I’m ready. And after tonight, I’ll have nothing more to fear.
The room is warm. Close. And the floor is wet. Water trickles from tiny cracks in the well.
“Circe,” I call.
“Hello, Gemma,” she answers, and my name echoes in the cave.
“I know you’ve made a pact with the Winterlands creatures. You were in league with them all along. But now I have the dagger, and I’ll set things right.”
It’s quiet save for the trickling of the water.
“Do you deny you wanted my power?”
“I’ve never denied that,” she says, and there is nothing of the careful whisper to her voice now. “You say you have the dagger?”
“I do, and I’ll return it to Eugenia, and all your plotting will be for nothing,” I say. “Wilhelmina Wyatt tried to warn me. The two of you were close—Brigid told me. And Wilhelmina told Dr. Van Ripple that her sister had betrayed her—‘A monster.’ I can think of no one that description fits more. She trusted you,” I say, fighting the magic inside me. “As my mother did. As I did for a time. But not anymore.”
“And what will you do now?”
“What I should have done already,” I say. “The forest folk are coming to make the alliance along with the Hajin. We will lay hands together at the well. I’ll return the magic and bind it. And you will die.”
A rippling sound, clear and strong, comes from the well. Movement. One of the stones pushes out of the well, and water splashes out in a stream. It is followed by another and another, and then, like some leviathan of the deep, Circe rises from the well, pink and alive.
