Give the Dark My Love(80)

His hand supported the back of my head, and I leaned into his touch, relishing it for a moment before finally letting my feet come back to earth.

“Grey,” I whispered. “I have to go.”

He silenced me with another kiss, deeper this time, more insistent. More desperate, as if he hoped a kiss would be enough. Maybe it could be. My arms reached up, sliding up his back, his neck, my fingers twining in his hair. I felt the spark again.

The hunger.

I broke away, gasping for air. “Grey,” I said, more forcefully this time. “I have to go.”

“There’s no one left at the quarantine hospital,” he said. “You can take a break, Nedra.”

I shook my head.

Grey straightened, and I knew he was trying to catch his heart and calm it the same way I was doing with mine. He let his gaze linger on the broken pieces of the room, the shattered glass, the bent pages of books tossed on the floor.

“Just promise me one thing,” Grey said. “Promise me you’re not going off to finish Ostrum’s work for him.”

I met his eyes.

I did not speak.

“Nedra,” Grey said, his voice a warning. “Ostrum’s been arrested. He’ll hang for treason.”

“Without a fair trial?” I snapped.

“Maybe,” Grey said. “Kill the necromancer, kill the necromancy. Worked on Wellebourne.” It wasn’t until Bennum Wellebourne’s body had quit bucking in its noose that the dead army he had raised fell lifeless once more.

Grey’s eyes were pleading. “That’s why you need to quit. Forget everything he told you. Distance yourself from him. Don’t let him drag you under.”

“I will do what needs to be done,” I said. I started for the door again.

“I love you, Nedra, but . . .” I didn’t realize until that moment just how much the “but” canceled out the “love.” Love could not exist when it came with conditions.

Whatever he was going to say died on his lips as the weight of his words fell on him. We had said many things to one another since the day we met, but we’d never said I love you. “Does it really matter what I do if it will stop the plague?” I asked, giving him one last chance. “If it will save people from suffering? From dying?”

“Yes,” Grey said emphatically. “Necromancy is a line you cannot cross.”

I shook my head. “There is no line,” I said.

“I won’t come with you,” he said, taking a step toward me. “If you do this, Nedra, if you choose necromancy . . . I will not follow you into that darkness.”

“Oh, Grey,” I said, shifting my bag on my shoulder. “What do you know of darkness?”





FIFTY


    Grey



I watched her go.

She was different now. Something had happened. At her village, at the hospital . . . maybe here, in this ransacked office with shattered glass on the floor, crunching beneath my feet.

Something had happened.

And she had emerged on the other side a different person.

There was something wild in her—I could see it in her eyes. Like a monster caged inside her skull, scratching along the edges for escape.

I listened for her footsteps to fade to silence. She was gone. Out of my reach.

Fear welled up inside me, and I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid for her, or of her.





FIFTY-ONE


    Nedra



Stealing a boat was my first crime this night, but it would not be my last.

The water was warmer than the air, and mist rose up like steam, blurring out the waves, the other boats in the bay, and, I hoped, me.

My muscles strained as I maneuvered the oar through the water. The flat-bottomed boat was small—designed to carry two people, maybe three—and the bay was particularly gentle tonight, but it was still rough going. I had not truly slept since the night I turned my parents to ash, and the weight of all that had happened since then made my entire body ache.

The clocks chimed midnight.

The bells rang out, one chime from the tower in the quarantine hospital, one chime from the tower at Yūgen, and then back and forth, twelve each, followed by a resounding silence. I pulled up the oar, resting it on the bottom of the boat. My shoulders sagged.

The emptiness of the world enveloped me.

My hands—calloused and cracked, with blood and ash and dirt caked under my fingernails—rested in my lap, palms up. I was surprised at the first lines of wetness that cut through the grime, my tears gliding between my fingers.

I tilted my face toward the quarantine hospital. The boat bobbed in the water.

I was alone.

I could go back. The thought came to my mind, unbidden and unwelcome.

It’s not too late.

I had carved runes into the dead flesh of my parents. I had stolen a crucible cage created by the worst traitor in all of history. I had taken the horrible, soul-crushing first steps.

But I could still turn back.

My eyes dropped to the water. It was black—cold and unforgiving, but there was a hint of sapphire reflected in its depths.

That blue reminded me of the robes of the alchemists who had fled, of the tincture the potion makers left behind before closing the hospital doors, abandoning those who needed them most.