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Iggy shrugged. “Never did care much for your suggestions.”
Beatrice was silent, and as soon as I looked at her, I understood why. She’d been directing our piratical army to a more military position. Men with tattered clothes—not because the magic hadn’t healed them but because they were in that state when they’d died—surged forward, a wall of newly re-fleshed bodies.
My ancestor had obviously read about military formations, and she was arranging our forces for battle.
Behind me, Eli began to bless the site, asking the sea and earth to protect it. I wasn’t sure that blessings, my smart mouth, or an army of corpses would help. The memory of Iggy saying Chester couldn’t be killed didn’t do a whole lot to add to my optimism.
And the weapon, so far, appeared to be a heart pretending to be a rock.
I debated stabbing it, shredding it, stomping it. The body and voice that my mind said were connected to the stone heart weren’t Chester’s. I’d seen the body. I knew it was buried here.
Put it back where it must be,a voice not my own urged. I looked around. I’d had Eli, Beatrice, and Iggy in my head enough times to know it wasn’t them.
Stone hearts ought not speak,I told it.
The weapon, apparently, was a person whose heart was in my hand.
Putting that heart back wasn’t a useful order, though. And it didn’t exactly come with instructions.
“Sanctify,” Eli asked again, whispering the words in that language I only understood in small measures still.
“Why areyouhere?” Chester asked Eli with the first genuine interest I’d seen. “I gave you the option to end this, to be safe.”
My husband said nothing, merely continued to weave whatever magic he could over the ruins, and I felt like the lack of sufficient weapons was a measure of idiocy that I shouldn’t have fallen prey to.
After ignoring Chester, Eli earned a look from the old alchemist that was akin to what I suspected many people gave dung beetles.
“Give us a vow to not hurt us and our loved ones,” I suggested, knowing with absolute surety that Chester would refuse my invitation, but rather desperately wanting to keep his gaze off Eli—althoughmydeath would also be Eli’s.
The wrongness of that particular detail made my default tactics useless. I stifled the growl of frustration that rose up. I was rather used to making myself a target if it would protect my loved ones. That was not an option here.
“I’m no longer willing to negotiate foreverything.” Chester eyed the heart in my hand. “I’ll letthemgo free in exchange for your life and the heart.”
“Eli would not be free if you took my life,” I pointed out. “This deal is—”
“Geneviève?” Eli interrupted. He sounded as if he were only mildly irritated.
When I glanced at him, he extended a hand, and I went to his side. So far the barriers we had were keeping Chester out, but I knew from the wince that Eli barely flashed that Chester was trying to knock down the invisible walls Eli had erected around the ruins.
Eventually, Chester will overcome the walls.
The heart was dripping on the ground as I moved. My blood? The heart’s blood? I wasn’t sure anymore. There was blood from my injured wrist, and there was a stone heart. Neither ought to be sprinkling blood droplets so quickly.
“Friends,” Eli added, louder now. “Join me, Beatrice and Iggy.”
Beatriceflowed,half-dragging Iggy in her wake.
As I’d moved into the ruins of the Neolithic village, a veritable gush of blood had begun to pour around my fingers. It seemed like it was trying to roll toward one particular stone, as if the stone were beckoning the blood.
I stepped toward the stone, following the blood that was flinging from my hand to the stone like a red line on a map. The earth over there felt like it was calling me closer.
Surreptitiously, I hoped, I glanced at Eli. “Love?” I whispered.
He nodded once, but he rather looked like I felt: exhausted beyond reason but still unflinching as we were facing our foe.
“Sanctuary,” Eli order-asked whatever force or deity faeries implored. “Grant us sanctuary now.”
I felt the shimmer of fae magic rise around the Neolithic village, a cage that extended into the sky. It felt like blown sugar had taken shape, millions of interlocking magical hexagons and polygons tethering together. I couldseethe wall of magic. I hoped it was sturdy.
