This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(79)

I’d backed up as far as I could. Unable to carry Marie with me any farther and unable to leave her, I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to get away from whatever this creature was that was slowly pulling itself from the ground.

In the pitch-black night, with only the moon and the bioluminescent glow of foxfire lighting the space around us, I watched in a state of utter shock as a broad-shouldered man emerged from the remnants of the mound and pulled himself up to a standing position.

His bones were visible through swaths of ragged skin that knitted themselves together at his shoulders, hips, and neck. The man’s chest heaved as his body mended itself. He tipped his head back, breathed deep, then leveled his eyes and stared directly at me.

“Where am I?” he asked.

My hands flew to my ears, an involuntary reflex in response to the sound of his voice. It was like Hecate’s, a chorus of voices all in one, wrapped in an echo and impossibly loud.

The man pressed his fingertips to his lips. He shifted where he stood. “Where is my sister?” He stretched his arms and looked at them as if they didn’t belong to him.

“Who are you?” Circe asked. Her voice sounded small and hollow compared to his. How she’d found the courage to speak was beyond me, but the man turned to her and spoke gently.

“Absyrtus.”

Circe’s eyes widened in the dark. We hadn’t failed after all. We did the thing that had never been done. We had resurrected Medea’s beloved brother, Absyrtus, and he stood before us.

“My sister,” he said. Something like fear invaded his voice. He looked around the enclosure as if he expected to see someone there.

It was my turn to find a way to suspend my own disbelief about what was happening. “Medea,” I said quietly.

The man took two halting steps and then, finding his balance, swept over and crouched in front of me. He rivaled Hecate in height, and his hands seemed massive compared to hers. His eyes were kind as they stared down at me.

“Yes,” he said. He reached out and grasped my arm, and it took everything I had not to scream. His hand was big enough for his thumb to loop over my shoulder while his little finger cradled the crook of my elbow. He stared into my face. “Where is she?”

I glanced to the place where we’d found Medea’s grave. Absyrtus rose and walked to the spot, where he fell to his knees and held his face in his hands.

“She’s been gone a very long time?” he asked without turning around.

“Yes,” I managed to say.

He heaved a sigh, and his shoulders rolled forward. “She has returned to the dirt and I am risen from it.” He looked at the stars twinkling against the midnight sky. “Mother.”

The ground shook with the violence of an earthquake. The stone wall behind me split right up the middle, and pebbles rained down on me as I covered Marie’s body with my own. A tangle of Devil’s Pet covered me like a blanket, shielding me from the rain of rocks and debris.

A low hum emanated from the far end of the garden. A great black abyss grew out of the darkness, like the widening of a hideous mouth, and from it stepped a giant black dog. Its yellow eyes glinted in the darkness as it stalked out of the hole that now danced with the light of a roaring fire.

A familiar figure emerged from the void.

Hecate. The mother of us all.

Her gaze swept over me. A small smile danced across her lips but faded as she eyed Marie. She looked to Circe who, despite her grief, seemed to be in a state of utter shock at seeing Hecate in the flesh.

Absyrtus walked toward his mother as if he were wading through water, like he couldn’t get his body to work in the way he needed it to. She approached him just as slowly, with caution, a look of disbelief stretched over her perfect face. As they met in the middle of the garden she reached out and, cupping the back of his head, brought his face to her chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and they held each other, murmuring private things into the night air. When they broke free from each other, Hecate removed her outer cloak and wrapped it around her son before approaching me.

Her face was damp with tears as she loomed over me. “You’ve come to do this impossible task. Something I myself could not have done, and you have succeeded.”

“Have I?” I asked as I gazed down at Marie.

Absyrtus stood at his mother’s side. “You have,” he said gently. “I dwelled in the nothingness so long I thought I had become a part of it for all time.” He crouched down and touched Marie’s forehead.

She took a breath.

A ragged cry, made of sorrow and hope, broke from my chest.

“Marie.” I couldn’t find any more words to say. Her eyes remained closed, but she stirred, and relief flooded through me. “Wait,” I said. “What about Persephone?”

Absyrtus followed my gaze. Hecate put her hand on his arm. They exchanged glances and he nodded. He walked to Persephone and picked her up, cradling her against his chest.

I gently transferred Marie’s weight to a bed of black ivy that had bloomed around us and stood in front of Hecate. “You can let her come back, too?” I looked to Absyrtus. “You can bring Persephone back, can’t you?”

Hecate cupped my face in her hands. “She came to this sacrifice willingly.”

Circe stumbled over to me and fell to her knees in front of Hecate.