Echo North(58)

Did he know what I was planning to do? Would he stop me if he did?

“Good night, Wolf,” I whispered into the darkness.

“Good night, Echo,” he said.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I LISTENED TO HIM BREATHE BESIDE me, quieting my own breaths, trying to quiet my heart. The compass-watch ticked away the minutes against my breastbone and I waited, the packet of matches pressing sharp against my palm.

His breathing evened out, after a long, long while. I felt sure he was asleep, but still I waited, doubting my resolve.

At last, when the night was half spent and I couldn’t wait any longer, I reached quietly for the lamp on the bedside table.

I freed a match from the packet, and struck it. There was a flare of light and a smell of sulphur, and I lit the lamp with trembling hands, then shook the match out.

My heart was a tumult in my ears. I could barely breathe.

But I turned in the bed, and lifted the lamp to illuminate who lay beside me.

A little cry escaped my lips, and the hand holding the lamp shook.

It was Hal, lying there. He slept deeply, his face pressed into the pillow, his eyes shut tight. He looked different than he had in the books, lines in his face and threads of silver in his hair, but he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I wanted to set down the lamp, crawl into his arms and fall asleep with my head tucked under his chin. But I didn’t, just watched him, the lamp quivering in my hand.

Hal shifted in his sleep, and the movement startled me. The lamp wavered, and, shining like a spot of amber, a drop of oil spilled onto his cheek.

For half an instant, nothing happened, and then Hal jerked awake, a cry of pain on his lips. His eyes roved wild around the room, and fixed in horror on my face.

“Echo,” he gasped, his voice high and hoarse. “Echo, what have you done?”

The room began to shake.

I dropped the lamp.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

FLAMES LEAPT UP FROM THE FALLEN lamp. The house shook. The world shook.

“Listen to me,” said Hal. “Listen to me. She’s coming, Echo. She’s coming to take me and you must leave this place. As fast as you can, do you hear me? Run. Run through the wood to your father’s house and don’t look back.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and I stared at him, shaking as violently as the house. “Hal, I thought—Hal—”

“Promise me. Echo, you have to promise me you’ll run, that you won’t try and find me. Not this time.”

The flames crawled higher, casting wild shadows on Hal’s face. Fear seared through me. “But what about you?” I cried over the noise of the house. “I wanted to save you!”

“You have.”

He clung to me as the house wheeled roaring around us, and then all at once a spot of snow touched my cheek and a coldness deep as death crept into my bones.

Hal released me. The house was gone—we stood in the snow below a high hill, the lamp somehow still beside us, spitting flames into the dark.

And then I realized we weren’t alone. Enormous black wolves were coming toward us, their eyes glowing red, their teeth flashing sharp in the firelight. Foam dripped from their mouths.

Hal’s eyes met mine. He stood in the snow in only his shirtsleeves, shuddering with cold.

I had chosen wrong.

I had betrayed him.

“The Wolf Queen has claimed me.” His words sounded hollow, his voice not quite his own. “She enchanted me.”

I whispered, “And if I hadn’t lit the lamp?”

“I would have been free, but Echo, that doesn’t matter—”

“Where is she taking you? How can I save you?”

The wolves drew closer. They wore silver collars around their necks, and their cruel muzzles were studded with jewels that glittered in the light from the burning lamp.

“Hal, please. Where is she taking you?”

Pain stretched across his forehead, snowflakes catching on his eyelashes. “She rules in a place where the mountain meets the sky, and the trees are hung with stars.”

“What does that mean?”

The wolves drew closer.

“Echo, you have to run. You have to run far from here!”

“Hal!” I grabbed his sleeve.

But two of the wolves seized Hal’s arms in their huge jaws. They ripped him away from me.

“HAL!”

He looked into my face, his eyes wet. “North, ever north. But Echo don’t come after me. Promise me you won’t. This isn’t what you think, and I couldn’t bear it if—”

I blinked and he was gone, no trace of him or the wolves but the lamp burning bright, oil seeping like blood into the snow.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

SO I LOST HIM TO THE snow and the ice and the wolves. I lost him to the wind and the dark. I lost him to a flare of lamplight and a spot of oil.

I lost him, and it was all my fault.

I dropped to my knees, screaming his name into the dark. Shame raged inside of me.

He was gone, he was gone, he was gone.

I wept as I knelt in the snow, the cold and damp creeping through my thin nightgown and soaking me to the bone. My tears turned to ice.

But no amount of regret could erase what I had done, could bring him back to me.