Endless Water, Starless Sky

  And still he builds, endlessly clever and devising, surrounded by all the clever souls who think they can devise a way to rule death; and Death, when she visits him, laughs.

  The vision released Juliet at the same moment that the building shuddered again. She staggered, then fell to her knees. Despair was like a heavy weight in her heart. Because she had seen what happened to the brave, and now she had seen what happened to the clever.

  She had trusted in her own bravery. She had trusted in Runajo’s cleverness. If neither could save her—

  “Juliet!” called her father. “Juliet, listen to me!”

  Her head ached. Slowly, she turned to look at him.

  “Yes, Father?”

  “Stand up. You’re a child of mine. Guard my house with pride. Stay.”

  He still did not turn to look at her. But he wanted her. He wanted her, and in his voice was the promise of meaning and purpose.

  She had believed in that promise so long. And what else did she have any hope of? If she tried to challenge Death, only ruin would follow.

  Her hands felt stiff and heavy. Juliet looked down, and saw paper-thin traceries of stone winding around her fingers. She flexed them, and the stone crumbled. But she could still feel the heavy weight of obedience at the pit of her stomach, dragging at her like an iron weight.

  Stay. It was like a voice in her ears, like a drug in her veins. Stay with him. Obey.

  But she had made her own promise.

  Slowly, painfully, she turned to the reaper.

  “Is Death on the other side of this plain?” she asked.

  “For you, she is,” said the reaper.

  “If this plain is as wide as thought,” said Juliet, “how can I get across it?”

  “How did you come to this land?” asked the reaper.

  “I sank into the water,” said Juliet. Then she looked at the window and started to understand. “I fell,” she said, more softly. “It felt like I was falling forever.”

  The reaper smiled. “You will need to fall much farther still, to speak with Death,” it said, and vanished.

  Juliet remembered buildings crushed to rubble against the heartless plain, and she was afraid. But here in the land of the dead, she could hardly die more.

  Slowly, she walked forward. She thought of Tybalt, whom she loved. She had not loved her father in a long time, but she was his daughter still.

  “Father,” she said dutifully, “this is not the place for you.”

  He sighed—the spare, dry sound that made her shudder as a child.

  “You are only a Juliet,” he said. “What would you—”

  “Look at me,” she demanded, stepping in front of him.

  And her breath stopped.

  His eyes had turned to pure white stone. Dust hung on his mouth and his fingers; he stood on bare feet, and they too were made of stone.

  Her stomach twisted with something sick and unfamiliar. She realized it was pity.

  “Don’t try to distract me,” said her father, twisting his hands. The building jolted and started to slide in another direction. “Be quiet and do as you’re told.”

  She wanted to stay, and the wanting took her breath away. She didn’t think it was just the power of this place.

  If she stayed, if she knelt beside him and let stone crust over her fingers and eyes and face, if she begged and pleaded for a thousand years, perhaps he would listen. Perhaps she could save him.

  She wished that she could.

  But there were too many people waiting for her, relying on her. She couldn’t throw herself away and become a statue just to save her father.

  It was a calculating thought. Runajo would approve. In another world, where her father was a better man, perhaps he would too.

  “Father,” she said. “I’m sorry that I killed you. I wish I could have obeyed you.”

  She backed up until she felt the edge of the windowsill against the base of her spine. Her father stared past her with colorless eyes, saw the chaotic surge of the city. But not her.

  “I did love you once,” she said, and then she flung herself backward, out the window.

  She fell.

  For one instant, she feared that she guessed wrong. But then she was falling still, and falling, down into darkness.

  When the crash came, it hurt as if it was splitting all her bones apart. But when she raised her face from the ground, the city was gone.

  34

  ROMEO HAD LIVED HIS WHOLE life expecting that death would be nothing but darkness and forgetting.

  Even when he spilled his blood, and took the Little Lady’s hand, and saw the land of the dead open around them—he more than half expected that all he would know was a swift, eternal silence.

  As he and the Little Lady sank down into the dark waters, he had thought, Juliet, because he wanted it to be his last thought.

  But as they sank, he remembered her, and then his feet landed on solid ground, and he loved and remembered her still.

  He was Romeo still.

  He looked about him, and wondered, Did we succeed?

  There was nothing in the gentle, flowering slope to tell him yes or no. He could not even feel sure if he was dead: he felt the blood pulse in his throat, the breath move in his lungs. Was that an illusion? Was he so different from all the other dead, having walked here without dying?

  He turned to the Little Lady. She had dropped his hand; she was looking about the landscape, her chin lifted, her face half smiling and alive, as it had never been before.

  “Did we do it?” he asked. “Did we end the Ruining?”

  She shrugged gracefully. “I do not know.”

  “But—you knew this would help, so surely—”

  “It is no more concern of mine,” said the Little Lady. “I am dead. I have only one purpose now.”

  And she strode away from him, down the slope.

  After a moment, Romeo followed her. He had no idea where else to go. He had no idea what he should do.

  He had planned, many times and in many different ways, to sacrifice himself. He had never thought what might come after.

  And he was not sure that his sacrifice was done. If more was required for him to save Viyara—to save Juliet—then he had to know, and following the Little Lady seemed the likeliest way for him to find out.

  So together they walked down the slope for what seemed like hours. They were not always completely alone—Romeo saw other shadowy figures walking down the slope, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes by the dozen. But they were always far away; Romeo could not make out their features clearly, and their voices were no more than a mutter on the soft breeze.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” Romeo asked finally.

  “I know the one my heart loves,” said the Little Lady.

  Romeo’s own heart suddenly pounded against his ribs.

  “Makari?” he said, halting. “You killed him.”

  “I loved him,” said the Little Lady, not pausing in her slow, graceful stride.

  After a moment, Romeo started walking again. “Was it . . . meant to be a kindness, when you killed him?”

  The Little Lady looked over her shoulder, and in her face there was an echo of Juliet’s exquisite scorn. “I was the Juliet. To punish him was my duty and my joy.” She shrugged. “And I wanted him with me, when I rested. I am that selfish still.”

  She turned away from him. Romeo stared at the back of her shoulders and imagined his Juliet bereft of friends, bereft of comfort or joy or a lover who could love her people.

  He thought, I cannot blame her, and he followed her.

  The slope seemed to go on forever. But then the moss began to dry out; the vines grew sparser, and the flowers wilted. At the same time, the slope began to ease, until at last they were walking on flat, raw earth. But the little sparks of light drifting through the air remained, the only thing in the world besides them, and the ground, and the starless sky.

  Then Romeo saw shadows, outlined against the glo
w of the lights. A moment later, they drew closer—the lights shifted—

  And he stopped, his heart thudding in fear and wonder.

  Before them stood—no, floated, their toes barely a handspan off the ground—a line of reapers, their eyes closed, their huge wings beating the air with dreamlike slowness.

  Dark, crow-like beaks. Long, pale fingers tipped in claws. Romeo knew them from stories that he had never believed. Juliet had told him that she had faced them, and he had believed her—but he had still never imagined that he would see any himself.

  The Little Lady continued to walk peacefully toward them.

  Juliet had told him of how ruthlessly the reapers desired to kill.

  Romeo lunged forward and grabbed the Little Lady’s arm. “Wait,” he whispered, shoving himself in front of her. “They might—”

  The reaper before them opened its eyes. They glowed bright gold.

  “We have no need to kill the dead,” it said in a low, sweet voice.

  “We do not kill in the world above,” said another reaper, opening its eyes.

  “Except those that have refused death,” said a third.

  “Or when the necromancers force us,” said a fourth.

  And more eyes opened, more and more, a line of glowing eyes stretching endlessly in either direction.

  Romeo didn’t dare move. He hardly dared breathe. And yet, as he stared up into the faces of the reapers, he couldn’t see them as monsters. They looked like Juliet once had, the first time he saw her: alien and perilous and lovely.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “We guard the ruination of our kingdom,” said the reaper before him.

  “The rot must be prevented from spreading,” said another.

  “We have at last made the great ruiner captive in it—”

  “But we cannot pry loose the souls he has taken.”

  “Until what is lost returns.”

  “Until his sin returns.”

  “I am here,” said the Little Lady, pushing Romeo aside.

  There was a vast rustling among their wings as all the reapers turned to look.

  “I am his dearest sin,” said the Little Lady, “and I seek him, for my heart loves him. Let me pass.”

  Slowly, reverently, the reaper bowed to her, wings crossing over its head; then the wings were a puff of smoke and then it was gone. The other reapers vanished likewise.

  Before them lay a plain of boiling mud: a bubbling, gray-brown ocean studded with white stones. Before them, the stones grew close enough together to form a twisting road. Clouds of white mist drifted across the surface.

  The Little Lady strode forward. With every step she looked more determined, more alive.

  Romeo followed. He feared the ocean of mud as he had not feared the reapers. He kept thinking he saw an ominous pattern in the bubbles and ripples. The soft muttering of the ocean was like a thousand secret, resentful voices.

  But he kept walking forward, because Makari was here. Makari, and some of the souls he had raised—and Romeo wanted to think that they had freed Paris from him completely, but if not—

  “He is here,” said the Little Lady, and knelt.

  Romeo halted suddenly, looking around. He nearly said, Where?

  But then he saw.

  The mud before them was alive. It seethed with swimming, writhing figures just below the surface, and with those who broke the surface, but who were coated still with the gray-brown slick and so looked like part of it.

  At first Romeo thought it was a simple chaos of writhing figures, but then he realized: the disturbance had a center. The swimmers clustered around one person, who could not swim, but whom they held up, so that his mouth could break the surface and gasp air.

  Makari.

  Even with his face half submerged and slicked with mud, Romeo recognized him. How could he not? He had known Makari since he was ten years old. Makari had been more than father, more than brother to him. Makari had been everything to him, and then everything except Runajo, and then everything except Runajo and Juliet and Paris—

  But he was still half the world to Romeo, and dearer than his own soul.

  And yet he was upheld by the suffering of his slaves. Romeo felt sick as he looked at the swimmers. He couldn’t make out any of their faces; it felt like they had no faces, no identities left but their obedience.

  “It is righteous,” said the Little Lady. “He deserves to suffer.”

  “His victims don’t,” said Romeo. “Can we help them?”

  “You can do nothing,” said the Little Lady.

  That had always been true. But Romeo couldn’t help stepping closer to the horrifying tangle of bodies in the muck. He could do nothing to help them, and yet it felt wrong to look away. He could at least try to see their faces.

  And then his heart banged against his ribs as he recognized one of those faces.

  He called out, “Paris!”

  It was only after those eyes turned to him, only after he realized Paris was here with him, that Romeo truly felt ready to destroy Makari.

  Because Makari was half the world and dearer than his own soul, but Paris was one-half of his heart, and in the moment their eyes met, Romeo knew that he would do anything, anything, to set him free.

  “Paris!” Romeo called again. “Can you hear me?”

  But his heart was cold within him, because he remembered what had happened when they dueled, when he had begged Paris to remember him, and all the love and friendship in his heart were not enough.

  Then Paris turned to look at him.

  Paris looked, and in the next moment Romeo was kneeling at the edge of the path, reaching out his hand, and Paris grabbed it.

  Romeo hauled him up onto the path. Paris fell to his knees, gasping and coughing for breath. The mud that had coated him was already dry, falling off him in flakes and clouds of dust. When he stopped coughing and looked up, his face was already clean.

  “Romeo,” he said, sounding dazed, and then Romeo pulled him into a hug.

  “I’m sorry,” said Paris. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be here—you shouldn’t have to save me—”

  “You’re my friend,” said Romeo. “I will always try to save you. And you brought the Little Lady back. You saved us all.”

  He supposed he still didn’t know that bringing her into the land of the dead had ended the Ruining. But he had to have faith it would.

  “But you’re dead,” said Paris.

  “Yes,” said Romeo, his heart twisting with grief. He had no idea how much time had passed, or if time even meant anything in this world. But surely Juliet had found his letter by now. He hoped that the world around her had changed, that she had seen the Ruining ended, but he knew that right now she was abandoned.

  She was strong enough to bear the grief, he was certain of it. But he hadn’t ever wanted to make her feel it.

  “I didn’t die for you,” he told Paris, looking straight into his eyes so he could see that Romeo was telling the truth. “I died to end the Ruining, and to keep Juliet from being the one to sacrifice herself.”

  “How?” asked Paris.

  “The Little Lady,” said Romeo, looking over Paris’s shoulder at her.

  And then he saw that she was no longer still; she was rescuing the other people who were trapped with Makari.

  “I am your master’s lady,” she called to each one. “Come.”

  One by one, they came to her. They crawled up out of the mud, and she said to each, “I set you free.” One by one, they shuddered, and the mud fell from their bodies, and they walked away. Until at last there was only a single trapped soul left holding up Makari in the boiling mud.

  The Little Lady settled back on her heels. “If I call the last one,” she said, “he will leave my beloved to drown.”

  “Can he drown?” Romeo asked doubtfully.

  “No,” said the Little Lady, “but he will sink for a very long time.”

  Even now, Romeo’s stomach turned at the tho
ught. But Makari deserved worse than this. Whatever last soul he had trapped with him deserved better.

  He thought that, and then he realized: the Little Lady knew Makari’s evil better than he did. And yet she hesitated. Perhaps because she longed for a way to love him still, as Romeo had once longed to love a Catresou girl.

  “Can we pull him out?” asked Paris.

  The Little Lady looked up at him. “You would do that?”

  Paris stared down at the boiling mud, at Makari’s gaping, helpless mouth, and the nameless creature who held him above the surface.

  “I hate him,” said Paris. “But I am Catresou. It is our duty to give rest to the dead. And Romeo loves him.”

  No, Romeo wanted to say. You owe me nothing. I owe you everything.

  But Paris didn’t hesitate. He knelt down and grasped Makari’s wrist.

  At the same time, the Little Lady seized Makari’s last servant. She pulled him out, and said, “I set you free.” But Romeo hardly noticed. He was staring at Makari as Paris hauled him onto solid ground.

  Makari did not spare a moment for either of them. His gaze was all on the Little Lady as the mud fell away from his face.

  “You are here,” he whispered.

  The Little Lady stood, setting her shoulders back. “Despite your commands.”

  “I loved you,” said Makari.

  “You commanded me to live,” she said.

  The grief on Makari’s face was so terrible, Romeo could almost forgive all his crimes.

  “I did,” said Makari. “I regret it. And I have spent so many years seeking to undo the harm I did to you.”

  Romeo wanted to say: What of the harm you did to Paris? To all the world? To Juliet?

  He wanted to demand, What of the harm you did to me? But the words withered in his throat, because Makari was staring at the Little Lady as if she were all the world, and Romeo knew his words didn’t matter anymore.

  “You undid my death and you condemned me to torment,” said the Little Lady. “And you destroyed all that I loved.”

  Makari laughed bitterly. “What did you ever love, but the masters who used you as a slave?”