Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe #1)(72)

I raised my hands. Slowly, carefully, I started to trace the nullifying sigil into the water. As my fingers moved, the water rippled and stilled; then I saw that I was leaving behind glimmering trails. My lungs ached and burned, but I made myself move slowly because I could not get this wrong.

My fingers met, completing the sigil. The glimmering lines flared blinding bright; then the water was gone and I fell with a thump onto the dry ballroom floor.

For a few moments I could only gasp desperately for breath; then I leapt to my feet and ran forward. Everything was out of order: next was the greenhouse, then a hallway that was nowhere near to either room. Then the grand staircase, but the walls around it were riddled with cracks, and as I charged up the steps, they crumbled to dust behind me. I barely made it to the top in time, and I burst through the nearest door without even pausing to look.

And I was in the round room, but the parchment dome was gone. Above, there was only empty darkness; a chill wind blew from the void, reminding me that I was still soaked through. At the center of the room sat Arcadia; a little leftover light glimmered around it, and it looked very small and fragile.

At the opposite end of the room stood Ignifex, his coat shredded, cradling the box in his hands.

No. His eyes were blue and human. It was the last prince who now stared at me across the room, his face pale and still.

“Nyx,” he breathed, then flung up a hand. Shadows seized me and pinned me to the wall by my wrists.

“No!” I shouted. “You can’t open the box—you’ll be locked in there forever—”

“Because my bargain will be undone, and all Arcadia will go free. No one else will ever be devoured by the Children of Typhon. You wanted that, right?” He walked toward me slowly. “Once upon a time, I wanted that too. I have to want it again.” His voice was soft and sad like Shade’s, but then he cracked a smile that was purely Ignifex. “Or die trying.”

He was before me now, the box still in his hands.

“But you won’t die,” I whispered.

“And once time is unwound, neither will your mother.” Still that soft, sad, implacable voice.

“Then I won’t be born.”

“I saw your father when he was desperate.” That smile again. “I’m sure he’ll think of something. Maybe it will be a better plan this time.”

In an Arcadia that had never been sundered, never ruled by a Gentle Lord or ravaged by demons, my mother and Damocles and a thousand other people would be alive. Maybe Astraia and I would be too, and if we were, then surely we would love each other without bitterness. It would be every one of my childhood dreams come true. But—

“I won’t even remember you,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said, leaning forward over the box. He slid a hand up my cheek, clenched his fingers into my hair, and kissed me.

It was an awkward, desperate kiss; he pulled on my hair ’til it hurt, my arms ached from being pinned to the wall, and my heart banged against my ribs as much in fear as desire. But it was the last time I would feel his fingers in my hair, his lips against mine, and I kissed him back like he was my only hope of breathing.

Then he stepped away from me again. And I couldn’t stop him.

“Thank you,” he said, “for trying to save me.”

“Wait!” I snapped. “You said, they said, if I guess your name then you’re free. Right?”

He took another step back. “I threw away my name when I made that bargain. Nobody can ever find it again.”

I remembered the tattered manuscripts in the library. Every name had been burnt out of them.

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered. “I know you.” He flipped the box open. Light streamed out, and I screamed, “I know you!” as the light filled every corner of the room.

Then there was darkness.





23

I tried. As the darkness closed over me, I fought to remember the name of my husband.

I fought to remember the name of someone I had loved. I fought to remember— What?

I was alone, and I had no hands to clench around my memories. I had no memories, no name, only the knowledge (deeper and colder than any darkness) that I had lost what I loved more than life.

And then I forgot I had lost it.

Time unwound. Prices were unpaid.

The world changed.





24

I woke up crying.

Not sobbing, as if my heart were newly broken. I lay on my back and gasped the quiet, hopeless tears of absolute certainty. I felt like I was afloat on an ocean of endless grief. A memory of my dream flickered through my head: I had been underwater, struggling to swim—no, I had been lost among shadows—there had been a pale face, or maybe a bird—

“Nyx. What’s wrong?” Astraia’s voice shattered the memories. She stood by my bed, eyebrows drawn together with concern. The pale blue light of early morning glinted on her hair and glimmered through the gauzy ruffles of her white nightgown.

“Nothing.” I sat up, rubbing my eyes, ashamed that she had caught me crying. I did not deserve compassion, from her of all people—

No. That thought was from the dream, and as soon as I recognized it, then it was gone. I tried to remember, but the images were lost. The feelings, too, were sliding away between my fingers; I knew I had been utterly desolate, but now I only remembered the concept of the feeling: like looking at snow through the window, instead of shivering in the icy wind.