Echo North(56)

Hal’s face.

What if I lit the lamp and broke his curse?

What if I lit the lamp and imprisoned him further?

It was impossible to know, but I needed to know it.

What was I supposed to do?

The clock behind the black door was ticking.

Time was almost up.



I WENT BACK TO THE library, shrugging out of my cloak and slinging it across one of the couches. I was desperate to speak with Hal and stepped into a book-mirror at random, hoping he would come to me.

I found myself hurtled along on a sea voyage to find a lost kingdom and a mythical prince. I let the story carry me, leaning over the ship’s railing and drinking in the salty air, listening to the haunting cries of the sea-wisps—strange creatures that appeared to be a cross between fire and mist. They swirled about in the sky above the ship, sparking orange or blue or rose-blush pink.

Hal didn’t come.

I waited for several book-days, through raging storms and an attack by an opalescent sea-dragon. The ship landed on an island in the eye of another storm, and as the crew and I and a brave red-headed farmer’s daughter stepped onto the shore, the East and West and South Winds came and drew the whole island up into the sky. They seemed younger than before, fierce and full of anger, and they didn’t seem to know me.

Still no Hal. I climbed the mountain in the center of the island with the farmer’s daughter, up to a crumbling old castle where the mythical prince had been imprisoned for centuries.

I half expected the prince to turn out to be Hal, but he was a wizened old man with white hair and sapphires studded into his skin. The farmer’s daughter turned him young with a kiss.

I walked away from them to the edge of the island, peering down, down, down through the clouds at the sea far below.

What was I supposed to do?

Should I light the lamp?

Should I not light the lamp?

“Echo! I was hoping to see you again before your year was up.”

I blinked and saw Mokosh coming toward me, riding on one of the sea-wisps, which she’d harnessed with ice and moonbeams. The wisp was the same violet color as Mokosh’s eyes and had curls of fiery hair.

“Have you found out how to free him?” she asked, reining in the sea-wisp so it hovered mere inches from where I stood. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

I thought of the clock, winding down behind the obsidian door. I thought of the lamp on the bedside table, of human fingers, tangled with mine in the dark. “I don’t want to get it wrong.”

The sea-wisp hummed with energy and music, and Mokosh regarded me with pity. “So you will do nothing? What about the lamp?”

I looked at her sharply, a sudden horrible suspicion darting into my mind. “Are you the Queen of the Wood?”

She shook her head. “I am not. But I know her.”

“Hal says she always lies.”

“He is wrong. She speaks only the truth.” The wind teased a strand of Mokosh’s silver hair out of its braid. It blew about her face like a tendril of spider silk. “What did she tell you to do?”

“The one thing I can’t do.”

“Then you have your answer. Light the lamp. Set him free.”

The violet sea-wisp opened its strange mouth and started singing. I felt the light print of rain on my shoulders.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

Mokosh stroked the sea-wisp’s neck, and her hand sunk through it. I didn’t understand how she was sitting on the wisp at all. “One who cares for Hal as you do. One who would see him free.”

I tried to ignore my wrench of jealousy, and failed.

“I will speak plainly to you, Echo. You are the only one who can help him. To succeed or to fail—it is in your hands. But if you fail, know this—you will regret it forever. And this time there will be no going back.”

Tears pressed hard against my throat. “I can’t lose him.”

“Then you know what to do.”

“But I can’t.”

“Echo.” Mokosh put her hands on my shoulders, and somehow the weight gave me comfort. “Don’t fail him. Don’t fail yourself. Only you can do this. I have faith in you.”

The sea-wisp sang one last keening note.

“Do what you know you must,” said Mokosh. “Farewell.” And then she tugged on the sea-wisp’s reins and they both swirled away into the sky.

I told the library to take me home.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I DON’T KNOW QUITE WHEN I decided. Maybe watching the wolf who was Hal destroy the room behind the obsidian door. Maybe listening to Mokosh’s words to me on the floating island. Maybe even the day before, stitching up the wound in the wolf’s chest I had made with my own sword.

There is one thing you must not do, one rule you must not break.

I scrubbed the tears from my face and swept out of the library. I went back to my bedroom, shut and latched the door behind me.

You must break it.

“Matches, if you please, House.” They appeared on the nightstand. I curled my fingers around the packet, and shoved it deep in my pocket.

That will nullify the enchantment.

I had to force my next request past the lump in my throat: “And oil for the lamp.”

The lamp filled with oil.