Give the Dark My Love(90)

Nedra had known. She had tried to tell me. The plague was a necromantic curse. I didn’t listen to her.

I let her go.

“We have to do something,” I said, but my voice was already weighed down with hopelessness. What could we do against the Emperor? Against a necromancer?

“The Emperor will not be easy to defeat. But it’s the only way,” Master Ostrum said. “If he dies, the plague will die with him.”

“We have to let people know,” I said. “If everyone knew he caused the plague, we could storm his rooms, drag him out . . .” I swallowed, unwilling to speak aloud what would have to happen next.

Master Ostrum barked with bitter laughter. “You think I haven’t tried that? He’s in the old tower, Astor.”

I frowned, not understanding the implication. The old tower surely wasn’t impenetrable. It had been built a century and a half ago, by . . .

By Bennum Wellebourne.

Realization dawned on me, and Master Ostrum nodded knowingly. “Wellebourne used necromantic runes to protect the tower. The Emperor is safe, as long as he stays in Wellebourne’s tower. That’s why he hasn’t left.” He paused. “But if we had a necromancer’s crucible, we could break down the door. We could reach him, and stop him.”

Governor Adelaide stirred in her seat. The iron bead she’d held in her hand clattered to the floor, rolling over to our feet. Master Ostrum picked it up. The bead was hollow and cracked, nearly split in two.

“When she was inaugurated, Governor Adelaide went to the treasury.” Master Ostrum’s voice was lower now, as if he were speaking in front of a casket. “She found Bennum Wellebourne’s relics. This was his crucible.”

I stared down at the rusted, hollow black bead, and I wondered at the souls that had passed through it. An entire army of dead.

“I suspect it’s protecting her, somehow,” Master Ostrum said, placing the bead back in Governor Adelaide’s limp hands. “But it won’t last. The crucible is breaking. It’s not strong enough to break through the runes protecting the Emperor.”

“But—can we make another crucible? Do we have to use Wellebourne’s?”

“No and no,” Master Ostrum said. “We need any necromancer’s crucible, but we can’t simply make one. They are . . .” His eyes grew distant. “Almost impossible. The sacrifice too great.”

I let out a breath. “But then how . . . ?”

“Astor, there is another necromancer’s crucible.” He paused. “I tried to send men to bring her here. There was some . . . confusion. She’s scared; she doesn’t understand the power she’s unleashed.”

I shook my head. No.

“Nedra Brysstain is a necromancer now,” Master Ostrum said, “and we need her crucible.”

“She’s not,” I muttered, but I knew even as I spoke that this was not the case. I had seen her just before she left Yūgen for the last time. I had seen the darkness within her.

What happened while she was gone? I asked myself again. I should have asked. I should have known.

“You can talk to her. She’ll listen to you, Greggori. She’ll come with you—or let you have her crucible. And with it, we can get to the Emperor.” He looked down. “I won’t lie—even when we break down the doors, it won’t be easy to stop what he’s done. But one thing is for sure: Kill the necromancer, kill the necromancy.”

If the Emperor died, the plague would die with him.

We could stop the illness.

We could save lives.

We would be committing treason.





SIXTY-ONE


    Nedra



Ernesta watched me impassively as I paced around the clock tower. I had read all the books again, quizzed the revenants about their deaths, done everything I could think of to find out more about the plague, but I kept coming up short. I knew it was the creation of a necromancer, but who? And, more to the point, how could I stop it?

I paused in front of Ernesta.

And why could I still not give her the life she deserved?

I stared into her face. Identical to mine. Same gold-flecked eyes. Same high cheekbones. Same large forehead and black hair and big ears and pointy collarbones.

And yet, now we didn’t look alike at all.

“I’m sorry,” I told her blank face. I said it like a prayer.

I pulled up the crucible from the chain around my neck, and I held it in the palm of my shadow hand. I closed my eyes.

I could still feel her soul. There were whispers of my parents, too, deep in the blood iron. My family was not quite past my reach. Their souls echoed in the crucible, whispers, reminding me of who I was, of love that was true. I couldn’t hear words in the echoes, just . . . just feelings. Of calm. Of love. Of peace.

I opened my eyes and my vision filled with the empty stare of the thing that looked like my sister. I had only this pale imitation of Nessie, a soulless, lifeless puppet that shared her name and that stood in the corner of my workroom, watching me, waiting for me to command it.

Her. Waiting for me to command her.

She stepped forward.

“Get me a cloak,” I told her. “I’m cold.”

Ernesta silently moved across the metal floor to the crate I used as storage, rifling through the contents and emerging with my cloak. She walked back to me, holding it out. I took it from her hand, and she lowered her arm. She stood there. Waiting. For my next command.