Illusions of Fate (28 page)
“I wouldn’t let him.”
“Think of all the pain you could have avoided if you hadn’t chosen him. But I’m in a forgiving mood. I may yet take away your memories and let you fall in love with me.” His smile cuts through the night, blacker and colder. “And then I’ll give them back and let you lose Finn all over again. Over, and over, and over, for the rest of your life, as punishment for choosing him.”
He takes off his hat, pouring water out of the brim, and then puts it back on his head. “Now then. My book. Hand it over like a good rabbit, and I won’t destroy Melei.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t let soldiers kill the people who stepped aside and let our entire culture be stomped underfoot? I wouldn’t let them harm the people who let a visiting noble rape and abandon my mother? I wouldn’t let them destroy the people so infuriatingly weak they cannot even take care of their own? I would. I will. Give me the book.”
I look into his eyes, a dead black that reflect no light, not even a flash from the lantern. “You threatened everyone that I love. You killed my bird. And you took Finn from me.”
I drop the book on the ground, raise the lantern, and smash it down. The glass shatters, spilling kerosene, which immediately catches fire. The whole book is consumed.
“No!” Kelen screams, shoving me aside. He stomps on the flames but the oil won’t be smothered, the choking harsh scent of the smoke overpowering the wet earth around us.
Cursing desperately, Kelen reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of sugar. He whispers a word and flings the sugar outward. It hits the book and the flames eat higher.
An inarticulate howl of rage tears from Kelen’s lips. He throws both hands in the air and screams a single word, releasing all his power, trying to turn flame into water using a stored-up spell.
One of the spells I changed in Sir Bird’s book.
The rain pouring down ignites in droplets of fire, and as they connect with more water, the magic spreads. The puddles around us shoot up in crackling, hungry flames, and Kelen’s sodden clothes turn into an inferno.
He screams, dropping to the ground and rolling, but the water around him lights on fire, fire and more fire, devouring him alive, a bright and burning beacon in the night.
My umbrella catches, and I throw it to the side, the wet hem of my skirt igniting. I turn in a desperate circle, but there is nowhere to run. I am surrounded by flames and will meet the same fate as Kelen.
A spurt flares up next to me, and I cringe back, bracing myself for the burn, when darkness rises in front of me like a shield, blocking the flames. I gasp as Finn’s shadow wraps itself around me, covering me with the cold pins-and-needles sensation.
If Finn is dead, how can his shadow still protect me?
I run from the flames, my skirts smoldering beneath Finn’s shadow, and do not stop until I am well out of the fire’s range. I kick off my outer skirt, and then look down at where an extra layer of shadow lies on my skin.
“Thank you,” I whisper, but the shadow dissolves as I watch. I grasp at it, desperate to keep it—
him
—here with me, but I cannot hold on to anything.
The flames eat higher, the sizzling and popping of water meeting heat a discordant night chorus. I sit on the ground and watch. Another Melenese custom we were forced to abandon was the funeral pyre. Kelen does not deserve the last rites of a warrior. But I think he deserves this death.
I won.
And I lost.
And I cannot find it in me to feel anything but dead. That is one of the words for love I forgot. The word that means a connection so strong that when your love dies, your body goes on but your soul sinks into the ground after them.
I stay there as the local constables come and put out the flames. I stay there as Eleanor rushes out with a blanket to wrap around my shoulders while I numbly repeat my statement that Lord Downpike perished in flames of his own making in an effort to cover up his crimes. I stay there until morning when the sun breaks through the clouds, and I can see—once and for all—that I have only one shadow.
“BUT WHY A SCHOOL IN GALLEN? SURELY THE ONE
here will have you back.” Eleanor’s voice has a distinct note of whine in it.
I set down my pen from where I am writing a letter to Mama about my plans to attend school in the capital of Gallen. I have suggested that, as she no longer has payments from Milton Miller—a man I have not been able to spare tears for, though I do not think he deserved to die—she ought to come live with me and give me the chance to take care of her as she always took such excellent care of me. I hope she accepts. I would like to build a new relationship with her as an adult.
I feel very old these days.
I shake my head at Eleanor. “Gallen is much more liberal in their acceptance of women scholars. I haven’t the energy to fight that battle here anymore. You should join me. I hear there is drama to be had where Gallen men are involved.”
She laughs and sits on the desk next to my letter. “I already cannot keep up with all of the invitations for visits and tea times. Everyone wants to hear about Lord Downpike’s secret, evil plots. I never thought I would say this, but I think I am tired of being Avebury’s most prestigious gossip.”
“Spirits’ blessings.” I smile but avoid her eyes. It feels false letting her spread details of Lord Downpike’s death when I know that the real one died years ago. I wonder often whether I did the right thing in concealing Kelen’s role in it all. But I wanted Melei left out of this entirely. It was never our fight, though Kelen and I managed to become the central figures.
Perhaps it was selfish, but I cannot bear to have my country sullied by one crazed man’s actions. Lord Downpike was already a murderer, after all. Kelen’s secrets died with him, and that must be good enough for me. I saved Melei, and I probably saved Albion and the continental countries as well. But I did not manage to save the person that made the world shine for me.
Eleanor must see the shift in my expression, because she puts a hand on my shoulder. “Finn’s memorial was well-attended. The prime minister himself came, along with the Saxxone ambassador. It was a nice ceremony.”
I close my eyes and nod. “I would not have entrusted it to anyone else. I’m certain you did beautifully by it. I’m sorry I didn’t come, but I find . . . well, there is so much packing and planning to be done, and I knew none of his friends, anyway, and . . .”
“It’s all right, Jessamin.” She hugs me. The doorbell rings and she stands. “That will be Ernest.”
“Please give him my thanks once again. For trying to help with getting Finn to the prime minister.”
“I will. As for me, I’m ready for tea. A tea all alone where I do not have to regale anyone with my lurid tales of intrigue and heroism.” She pauses. “I will miss this house. It’ll be lonely returning to my big, empty place without you. I think I’ll convince you to live with me yet. I’m very persuasive.”
I wave my hand with a small smile. She walks out, closing the door softly behind her.
I pick up my things and move to another chair, away from the square of late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the library window. I spent the last two weeks staring at my shadow, willing it to be more than just mine, willing it to show me some hint, any hint of Finn. I drove myself near mad with grief, and after spending his memorial yesterday standing by the window staring at my shadow until I could not see anymore, I vowed never to watch for it again.
Last night I dreamt of the tree-arched path of Fate. It was dark, and I was alone, and I did not know how to move forward anymore. Even now the pain of missing him threatens to well up and drown me. But I will not dishonor his memory by devoting my life to mourning him. He wouldn’t approve, and it would go against the things I think he loved about me.
I wish I had told him everything I loved about him.
Love
about him. I can hold on to those, at least. I twist the heavy gold ring on my hand. I took the glove off yesterday, when the last of the sensations had finally faded. Another gift from Finn I will keep forever—my hand whole and unblemished, with his ring on my index finger.
I hear the door open again behind me. “Honestly, Eleanor, I will not move in with you. You’re welcome to come to Gallen. I’m certain we could find something for you to study.”
A voice that is not Eleanor’s answers me. “I plan on studying history scholars, actually.”
All the grief I have neatly packed and stored in the shadows of my soul springs up, rising into my throat and choking me. I stand, unable to turn, unable to draw a breath for fear of being mistaken, my eyes glued to the floor. A fine pair of shoes enters the narrow range of my vision.
They cast no shadow.
“You’re dead,” I whisper, still not daring to look up.
“Nearly,” Finn answers, his voice the soft song of my dreams. I look up, barely able to see him through tears. He’s thinner, with the pale and drawn look of someone who has been sick for a long time but is on the mend. “It’s a tricky thing, trying to use a transport spell stored in your body while being pulled down a river bleeding to death. You will have to excuse me for getting lost and taking so long to get back to you.”
“I will excuse no such thing.” I throw my arms around his neck and bury my face in his shoulder. “You are not excused, you will never be excused, and you will spend the rest of your life making it up to me.”
He laughs. “I had planned on nothing less.”
My lips meet his, and I do not resign myself to this fate. I claim it as my own. Forever.
FIRST, ALWAYS, THANKS GO TO NOAH. MY SHADOW
may stay put, but my heart couldn’t help but jump to you. Thanks for treasuring it.
Elena, Jonah, and Ezra, you create magic simply by existing, and I’m so grateful to have you in my life.
Michelle Wolfson, there is no one I’d rather build a career with. Thanks for always being there for me.
Erica Sussman, you deserve endless credit for never knowing what I’m going to give you next, but always knowing just what to do with it.
Natalie Whipple and Stephanie Perkins, you always enable my crazy in the best possible ways. What would I do without you? (Don’t answer that. It’s a post-apocalyptic scenario and you know I don’t like those kinds of stories.)
The team at HarperTeen—Christina Colangelo, Casey McIntyre, Stephanie Stein, Michelle Taormina, Alison Donalty, Jessica Berg—you are all a joy to work with, and I’m so grateful for your collective talents.
Mom and Dad, thanks for giving me the books that supplied the magic junior high and high school were, shockingly enough, lacking.
Erin White Goodsell, without you my teenage years would have entirely missed an awareness of feminism and post-colonialism. And Lindsey White Bench, thank you for weirding out your husband by crushing so hard on Finn. It was the encouragement I needed. Lauren White Hansen and Matt White, guess you both should have done something more remarkable to make it into this acknowledgments section. (Wait, guess you did anyway.)
Special thanks to Jane Austen, Susanna Clarke, Diana Wynne Jones, and Hayao Miyazaki for telling stories that inspire me.
Finally, to my readers. You are exceptional. Never let anyone make you feel like you aren’t enough.
