The Mermaid's Sister(60)

O’Neill’s body goes limp as he faints. Unable to support his weight, I slump to the ground, settling him next to me as carefully as I can. I look up at Jasper. Around his throat hangs a very familiar gold locket and chain. “That is Maren’s locket,” I say, scrambling to my feet.

“Yes, and inside the locket is the eye-stone we used to track you, so that we could possess the mermaid. Mama knew from the first time she saw Maren that she would become a valuable commodity. She sold the eye-stone to Maren’s stupid suitor, and the rest is, as they say, history.” His grin is pure evil.

“Did you set fire to our caravan?” I ask, my voice trembling with anger and disgust.

“It was a shame to destroy that splendid conveyance. But I did rescue you, didn’t I? You should be grateful. Could you show me gratitude, Clara? Could you try to love me?” His gun is still aimed between my eyes; his expression is one of yearning mingled with madness. “I adore you, Clara. You have bewitched me. If only you would allow me to teach you the deep secrets of the night, you would forget all that was before. We could begin a new and exciting life together. What do you say, Clara?”

“I say you should go to the devil, Jasper Phipps.”

I hear the whoosh of wings, followed by a piercing shriek. Osbert’s claws root themselves in Jasper’s scalp, and his sharp teeth lodge in the muscles of his shoulder. The gun falls to the ground with a clatter.

“Get off!” Jasper shouts, slapping and pulling at Osbert’s talons.

A shadow passes between us and the moon. The shadow of another wyvern.

I hold my breath as the great wyvern swoops lower and lower. This dragon is no house pet. He would not fit through the door of any house.

The monstrous wyvern shrieks again, and Osbert releases Jasper and moves aside. When I see the great wyvern’s jaws open wide enough to swallow a horse, I squeeze my eyes shut. Cracking and crunching and gulping come from where Jasper once stood.

Shivering, I open my eyes. Jasper is gone. Vanished, as if he’d never existed. Not a scrap of clothing has been left behind. Not a shoe or a fingernail.

The big wyvern belches with satisfaction.

“Great gods above!” Dr. Phipps cries, cowering beside Soraya’s lifeless body. “It has come to pass!”

Both wyverns turn and eye him. Red drool drips from the big one’s bared fangs.

“Osbert, no,” I say. “Your friend must not eat the doctor. Please, Osbert. I have seen enough violence.”

Osbert nods at the beast and it whines in disappointment. It spreads its massive wings and lifts from the ground with a rush of wind.

“No!” Phipps cries as it circles above us. When the monster dives toward him and roars, Phipps clutches his heart and screams, “Have mercy!” And then his eyes roll back in his head and his mouth slackens. His body crumples onto Soraya’s, and I know that he has joined his wife in death.

Osbert scampers over and drenches my face with kisses. He kisses O’Neill until he awakens from his faint. And then our pet wyvern unfolds his wings and takes flight, following his fellow wyvern into the night with a happy waggling of his barbed tail.

I sink to the ground beside O’Neill, and he lays his head in my lap. “My brave Clara,” he says.

I do not feel brave. I feel a hundred years old and very, very tired—yet wide awake with worry. My mermaid sister sits in a shallow bucket, growing weaker by the minute, and O’Neill has been shot and can barely stand.

The smell of burnt wood and cloth and singed metal lurks about us as the wagons’ contents smolder and crackle. The smoke forms wispy clouds above us, obscuring the stars and dimming the moonlight.

“The horses,” O’Neill says. “I tethered them over there.” He points to the east. “Just beyond that hill, in a patch of grass. If you bring them, we can leave this place. We can finally take the road to the sea.” He speaks boldly, but his forehead is creased with pain.

“Yes,” I say. “But first I must tend to your wounds.”

With unsteady fingers, I unbutton his shirt and peel the blood-soaked fabric from his skin. “I need more light,” I say. “I cannot see the wound properly.” All I can see is dark blood oozing steadily from a hole in his chest. “Can you move closer to the fire?”

“If you will help me,” he says. His breathing is not right. Too much blood dampens my dress as I help him stumble to the fireside.

I kneel beside him. The firelight shows me what I do not wish to see. Far too much blood. His color is wrong, his breathing ragged.

“The bullet passed through, did it not?” he says.

“Yes,” I say.

“Yet I do not think I will live to see the sunrise, Clara,” he says. He grips my hand.

“You will,” I say.

“I must tell you some things before I go.”

“You are not going,” I say. I pull the dagger from my pocket and unsheathe it. “What it cuts, it mends,” I say, repeating Mrs. Smith’s words.

“It is a healing blade? I did not recognize it before. You must use it on Maren, not me,” O’Neill says. His skin is gray now, as gray as a corpse’s. “Make her a girl again. Save her for my sake. Keep my promise for me.”

“The blade can only be used once,” I say.

“Please, Clara. If you love me at all—if you love Maren, let her be the one to live.”