“Don’t ask this of me, Arien. I can’t tell you.”
“If I’d been stronger … if my magic had worked, you wouldn’t have done this.”
“No.” I reach out to him again. “I chose this. I wanted this. None of it was your fault.”
“Leta, the magic he’s given you, it’s not safe.”
I laugh darkly. “Arien, my love, none of this is safe. You know that.”
“Whatever happens at the next ritual,” Clover says carefully, “if it’s us or you—”
“There’s no if. It has to be me. On the next full moon, I’ll cast the spell alone, and it will work. I have to do this on my own.”
“No,” Arien says. “You don’t.”
“They’re right.” Florence fixes us all with a long, hard stare. “Honestly. You’ve reached new heights for how much trouble you can get into on a single day.”
She pulls out a chair and sits down beside me, putting her arm around my shoulders. Longing spreads through me at the gesture. It’s like I’ve heard a sound echoed across a far distance. The shape of a caress that was once imprinted on my bones and is now gone. If I’ve ever felt this before—from my mother or father—that’s one of the memories I’ve given up.
My eyes start to sting, and I blink very quickly.
“Listen.” I roll back my sleeve and bare the new, sunburst-shaped sigil. “The whole reason I bargained with the Lord Under is so that no one else need risk themselves.”
Clover rolls her eyes. “You’re even worse than Rowan.”
“An even match, I think.” Florence smiles sadly. She puts her hand over mine, covering the crescent scar. “I’ve watched him tear himself to pieces to protect everyone while he tried to mend this. I knew it was hurting him, but he wouldn’t let me close. He kept it all to himself. I could have pushed him, but I—I didn’t. I kept back. I let him stay alone. And I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell her. “He doesn’t exactly make it easy to help him.”
Arien snorts out a derisive laugh. “Sounds familiar.” He leans his elbows against the table and takes a measured breath. “Leta, just because you can do this alone doesn’t mean you have to be alone when you do it.”
“If you came with me, if anything happened…” I shake my head, remembering Arien caught and pulled beneath the earth at the last ritual. “I can keep you safe now. I’ve paid dearly for it. So please, just let me.”
I get to my feet and go over to the door. It’s closed, when usually we leave it open to let in the air. And the window is shuttered, too.
I go out into the yard, and as I stand on the path with the warmth of heated stone under my feet, I look out over the estate.
It’s ruined.
The space beneath the jacaranda tree where we fought and quieted the Corruption is torn through the center. There’s a trench of blackened earth. Thick tendrils of mud snare around the trunk, and the branches are now bare of leaves. They twist against the sky like desperate, grasping hands.
The altar is all dark. The wooden frame is caked with earth. Swaths of black cover the icon, with only a slice of the Lady’s upturned face visible between the darkness. Her single eye looks up at the skeletal branches above.
I take a halting step forward and go over to the charred remnants of the sigil. This isn’t at all like the ink-dark lake or the blackened shore. This is a whole world made silent. Everything is cold and black and still. There’s no wind. No sound of grass or leaves, no call of birds.
And this wasn’t the only place touched by the Corruption.
I follow the curved path. The ground is still churned, cold and wet under my bare feet. I pick my way carefully across the uneven ground, through tall banks of overgrown grasses, now dead. When I reach my garden, I stop, put one hand on the cold iron of the gate, and look inside. I can’t move any farther.
I made this locked-up place beautiful and alive with my magic. Grew fruit and leaves and flowers. It was never dead, only half-forgotten and half-asleep. But now the brambles are blackened tangles. A tree has fallen across the wildflower lawn, the roots upturned and sharp against the sky. The whole garden is gray and skeletal and empty. The leaves, the fruit, the flowers … they’re all gone.
I sink down in the archway and lean against the ashen remnants of the star jasmine vines. I thought I knew the limits of the Corruption’s horror. But this hits me with a visceral, bone-deep fear.