“Someone had to eat it.” Matthew shrugged, as if embarrassed, but his expression went bleak. “You were still breathing. That’s the only reason we didn’t give up. But Allie wasn’t breathing, Liza, and her heart wasn’t beating. Caleb kept her body from decay, just in case, but none of us really believed—” Matthew grasped my wrist, where stone gave way to flesh. “I thought I’d lost you.”
He almost had lost me. If I’d sent Rhianne away and set the shadows free, he would have lost me. If Elin hadn’t done whatever it was she’d done, he’d have lost me even after I returned. I tucked a strand of hair back into his ponytail. Around us, I saw patches of gray forest that hadn’t been there before. Elin had surely warned Caleb about the border protections by now. The rest of us needed to get back to Karin.
A few evening crickets began to chirr. Matthew shoved a piece of dried deer meat into my hands. I chewed mechanically, barely tasting it. It was Rhianne we needed to get back to. We had to make her tree let go, or the crumbling would go on and on.
Elin continued staring at her hands. Allie kept crying. Caleb made calming sounds as he ran his hands over her. I tried to meet Allie’s eyes; she flinched and turned away. “Sorry,” she whispered, to Caleb, not to me. “But it hurts so much.”
Caleb had healed Allie, hadn’t he? He glanced at me. “Liza. I need to know. How far did you go to find her?”
Beyond the crossroads, the setting sun lit the edges of the autumn leaves with fire. “To the tree.” I reached for Matthew with my good hand, drawing him close. I needed warmth, light, life. I needed to know I’d gone far enough to save her.
“Hurts.” Allie’s tears turned to shuddering sobs. I’d never seen her cry like this. “Make it— Can you make it stop, Caleb?” The fading light made her shadow seem too thin, as if some strand had been left out of its weaving.
“What tree?” Caleb asked me.
“Rhianne’s tree,” I said.
Elin dropped her hands into her lap. “That,” she said flatly, “is impossible. We’re not even sure the First Tree’s roots reach that far.”
“I think we’re sure now.” Caleb lifted a rock—more flint—and struck it against the ground. A chip of stone flaked away, and he sliced it across his thumb, drawing blood. “Heal this,” he told Allie.
Allie swallowed and reached for his hand. Their fingers touched, and then she jerked back as if burned, burying her head in her hands. “I can’t. It’s gone.”
What was gone? Her magic? Magic couldn’t just be gone.
Caleb’s face was pale in the fading light. “That is where the pain comes from. You were too far into death when Liza found you. She brought as much of you back as she could, but she couldn’t bring back everything. Our magic and our names are the first things we lose.”
The night was growing cold. Matthew piled kindling for a fire. I should have helped him, but I kept staring at Caleb and Allie. Elin did the same.
“I knew it was too late. I knew, but Liza—” Allie looked at me, looked away.
I hadn’t been strong enough. I’d failed her after all.
“Can you fix it, Caleb?” Allie’s voice seemed as thin as her shadow.
Caleb’s silver gaze grew distant. “There is a thing that may help. But it is not an easy thing. And you will not thank me for it, not for a long time.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.” Allie’s eyes glistened in the dimness. “You know I’m not. I just need to know it won’t be forever, that’s all.”
“I can offer you sleep, to start with,” Caleb said. “If you will accept it.”
“Yes.” Allie nodded vigorously. “Please.”
Pain flashed across Caleb’s face. Matthew’s flint sparked. Tinder caught, smoldered. Caleb put his hands gently to Allie’s temples, and Allie lay back on the stones with a sigh.
Light flashed beneath his hands. Allie shuddered, then smiled, like a child dosed with whiskey against pain. “Oh, that’s better. I can still feel it, but I don’t care so much.” She closed her eyes. We waited while Matthew fed small sticks to the fire and Allie’s breath began to slow into sleep.
Her breath sped up again, grew uneven. She squeezed her eyes shut more tightly, and tears leaked from them. “Not enough.” Her voice rasped. Caleb frowned and put his hands to her chest. Allie bolted upright, screaming. “Too much! Too much is missing! I can’t—” She shuddered violently. Caleb grasped her shoulders, trying to still her.
She fought him, convulsing in his hold. My heart pounded. Matthew moved to my side, but I barely noticed. I needed to do something, anything. I couldn’t lose Allie now.
Light flowed like a blanket from Caleb’s hands, wrapping around her. Allie went limp as the light faded, but she didn’t stop screaming. “I can’t! So empty—send me back, Caleb. There’s not enough of me left. You have to send me back!”
Caleb laid her gently on the stones. Her motionless body was at odds with her cries. Caleb must have frozen her limbs. He’d fix this. He had to fix this. My chest hurt, as if a piece of me were missing, too. Allie never should have killed that owl, not for me.
“I will make this right,” Caleb whispered. “You have my word.”
Matthew’s fire wasn’t enough to keep away the chill. “How will you make it right?” I demanded. “By healing her or killing her?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Allie whimpered.
Matthew shivered, though he was nearer the fire than me. “It does matter,” he said.
“Without the magic, there’s nothing left.” Allie’s cries gave way to ragged wheezing.
“Breathe, Allison.” Caleb pushed Allie’s hair back from her face. “As I taught you. You can breathe through this.”
Allie shut her eyes, as if breathing took work. The flow of air in and out of her chest deepened. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“You can, and you will.” Caleb moved her arms to her sides. “You are more than your magic. You always have been. You always will be.”
Allie continued to take ragged breaths. Her eyes remained shut against pain I could not see. She wouldn’t have been in pain if I’d let go her hand.
Caleb turned to me. “If this does not go as expected, Liza, there must be no calling of anyone back from the dead. Not this time.”
A wind picked up, blowing smoke toward us. “Was I wrong to bring her back?”
“I do not know.” The smoke drifted past Caleb’s face, obscuring his expression. “I only know I’d have done the same, had I your power. But I need your word you will not use that power now, no matter what happens. I know it is a hard thing I ask. I do not ask it lightly.”
He wanted me to let Allie go if he couldn’t save her. He wanted me to promise not to call her back again. Smoke made my eyes sting. I’d done all I could. I would have to trust Caleb to do all he could in turn and to know when nothing more could be done. “You have my word. I will not use my summoning here.” I swallowed. “Do we need to take away her seed?” If Caleb failed, would it be better to let Allie go with her name or without it?
“One of your quia seeds?” Caleb asked. The wind shifted, taking the smoke away.
I nodded and drew a seed from my pocket to show him. “Allie has one, too. With the seeds, we were able to hold on to our names in the gray.”
Caleb took the seed in his hands, and I saw a strange sort of hope in his eyes. “Allison. You carry a seed as well. Do you wish to keep it?”
Allie’s eyes took a moment to focus on him. “Yes. Please.” There was blood on her lip. She’d been biting it.
“You have others?” Caleb asked me. I nodded—there were two more in my pocket—and Caleb said, “May I keep this one, then? To study as I may?”
“Of course.” Could he feel the life in it as Allie could?
“Elianna has told me much of what happened in Faerie.” Caleb gave his niece a long look. She returned it, and I couldn’t read what passed between them. “She has also told me why I cannot return there. I know well enough I ought to tel
l you not to return, either, but I’ll not deny I’m glad you can go where I cannot. If I can restore Allison’s magic to her, she should be able to render my sister senseless long enough to get her free, if only she can get close enough.”
“Like you did,” I said. In my vision, Caleb had used his magic to make Karin fall unconscious. Matthew piled thicker branches on the fire. Orange flames licked the night.
“Like I did,” Caleb agreed. He slipped the seed into his pocket. “One more thing I can give to you: Nysraneth’s name.” Something dark crossed his face. “In abusing my student, my father has forfeited all right for me to hold that name safe.”
Allie bit her lip harder, making it bleed more freely. Caleb put his hands to her chest. “You are Allison. You are my student. I will not leave you like this.”
The crickets chirred, loud in the night. I reached for Matthew’s hand, hoping, afraid to hope. Elin bunched her hands in the skirt of her dress.
Light sparked beneath Caleb’s hands, green-gold, restless as summer lightning. I felt its heat against my skin, nothing like the silver chill of most magic. This was the warmth of dawn, of sunlight, of life.
Elin made a sharp sound. The green-gold light spread through Allie’s body, like spilled water through parched soil. Bone shone through skin, everything about her turned to light. Her breathing steadied, and a smile crossed her face, the first smile I’d seen from her since we returned from Faerie.
Caleb’s arms stiffened against her, and he smiled, too, but there was sorrow in it. “Forgive me, Tara.”
What? Why—
Allie’s eyes shot open. “Caleb, no!”
He crumpled on top of her, and his shadow flickered out.
Chapter 14
“Smoke and ash,” Elin hissed. Matthew and I rolled Caleb over, Allie putting her hands to his chest as Matthew felt for a pulse. I knew from both their faces—from the way Caleb’s silver eyes stared up at the night sky, from the way my own eyes saw no shadow within him—what they found.
Kaylen! His name stuck in my throat. You have my word, I’d said. I will not use my summoning here. It wasn’t Allie he’d been afraid I’d call back from the dead. It was himself. My heart pounded, like a wild thing trying to get free. Of course I had to call him back. Yet my promise bound me. I couldn’t get his name past my lips. “He knew,” I whispered. “He knew this would happen.”
“Of course he knew.” Elin’s voice was rough as coarse-spun wool. “My people do not do things by accident as yours do. I do not understand this sacrifice, but I will not have you diminish it by deeming it a mistake.”
The fire was burning down, leaving behind a cold, cloudless night, but no one moved to feed it. I was cold, too, cold and numb. Matthew clutched the leaf he wore. It crumbled to silver dust in his hand. Caleb was truly gone, beyond the reach of any of our magics.
Allie’s hands remained on his chest. “You never asked, Caleb. If I wanted this! You’re the one who taught me you’re always supposed to ask.” She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. “Why doesn’t anyone ever ask?”
My throat hurt. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find words again. “I’m—” I couldn’t tell Allie I was sorry she wasn’t dead. I reached for her instead.
She jerked away, staggering to her feet. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I was on my feet, too. Beside me, Matthew quietly closed Caleb’s eyes, getting silver dust on the healer’s lids. There was more dust on Matthew’s sweater and hands. It shimmered like starlight in the growing dark.
Allie’s eyes were wild. She whirled from us and fled, across the stone and into the forest. Matthew and I exchanged a glance and ran after her. A ragweed shadow snaked out from among the trees to wrap around Allie’s thigh. She fell to the forest floor.
“Go away!” I hissed at the shadow, and it withdrew. I knelt to press my hands to Allie’s leg. It was sticky with blood.
“Leave me alone!” Allie shoved my hands away. “You never know when to leave anything alone!”
Matthew lifted his head, as if at some scent. Something stale drifted toward us. Just behind Allie, dust trickled from a poplar tree to the forest floor. Behind it, a patch of darkness crept toward us.
“Allie.” I whispered my warning.
“Don’t talk to me!”
“You need to come back with us, Allie. The crumbling—”
“I don’t care!” Allie beat the dirt like a much younger child. “If the crumbling takes me, everything will be over, like it’s supposed to be, and even you won’t be able to change that.”
Another trickle of dust. I wanted to hit and kick and scream at things, too, but we couldn’t afford that, not now.
Matthew knelt to touch Allie’s shoulder. “Dying won’t bring him back.”
Allie didn’t push him away, not like she had me. “I know that, I do, but—” She looked up at him, eyes bright.
Matthew reached out his hand, and Allie took it. “This will never be right,” she said. “Never, never, never.”
“I know.” Matthew led her back to where Caleb lay, but I just kept staring into the forest. If I’d noticed the owl sooner—if I’d fought Nys off better—if I’d called Allie back sooner—I watched as the branches of the poplar crumbled away, one by one, and color drained out of the world. Behind me, I heard Allie’s sobs, heard Matthew making shushing sounds, but that seemed far away, nothing to do with me.
Forgive me, Tara. The darkness sank down into the soil, leaving behind a bare trunk, but color did not return to the world. The last of the sun was gone. How could I ever tell Mom about this?
There’d be no one to help her if anything went wrong with the baby now.
I returned to the others. Of course I did. I could no more let the crumbling take me than the rest of them, if I had a choice.
Matthew had bound Allie’s leg where the ragweed shadow had touched her. She ran a finger along his cheek as she chewed on some dried meat. Silver light traced the ragged cut there, and then the cut was gone. “It’s back. My magic. It’s back, and I’m fine, and—” She looked back to Caleb. “What did you do?”
“He gave you his magic.” Elin knelt at Caleb’s feet, not moving. By the dying firelight, her face and Caleb’s looked equally pale. Once before, Caleb had nearly died of a healing, but I’d called him back. Calling him back had been right then. How could it have become so wrong, so fast?
“It is a thing we can do.” Elin’s voice was hard and pitiless. “To share our power. You should know that, Liza. My mother shared her magic with you when you called back spring. It is meant to be a brief thing: a loaning of magic, not a gift. If Kaylen and Allie’s magics weren’t the same, he never could have given his power away so completely.”
Matthew blew on the fire. Red coals glowed, returned to gray. “Come here,” I whispered to the fire, but it didn’t listen to me. I could no more call heat from coals than I could call Caleb’s cold body to life. What was the point of my magic if it couldn’t bring back those I cared for? Only Rhianne’s magic could hold back death—but that was wrong, too, so wrong.
A soft sound escaped my lips. Matthew abandoned the fire to grab my wrists. “Liza. You know this isn’t your fault, don’t you?”
“Tell Allie that. Tell Caleb.” I knew no such thing.
Matthew tightened his grip on flesh and stone. “Blame the owl. Blame radiation poisoning. Blame—” He glanced at Elin. She looked right back, no apology there. “Blame the goddamn War if you have to. Just don’t—don’t—” Matthew leaned his head on my shoulder. He was trembling. So was I. His face brushed the side of my neck. “It’s awful,” he said. “That’s all.”
“That is not all.” Elin stood as we pulled apart, anger in her every movement. “It is Liza’s fault. It is all your faults. You die so easily, so soon—in a season you will all be gone, and this death will be for nothing. That one of us should die for one of you—nothing can make that right.”
“That’s not what Caleb thought.” Allie?
??s voice was strangely calm, as if she’d yelled herself out. “He never believed we were worth less because we were human.” She reached into Caleb’s pocket and drew out the quia seed he’d taken from me. I saw no shadow in the seed, felt no green life within it, though the seeds in my pocket and Allie’s still lived.
“Dead.” Allie flung the empty seed away. She bent over Caleb, tangled hair hiding her face. “If you have to be trapped,” she whispered to him, “I hope you at least get to keep your name.”
Matthew blew on the fire again, but this time no light came to the coals. I shivered. Caleb would be trapped by Rhianne’s tree as surely as we had been. Wherever he was supposed to go next, he would no more be able to get there than Allie had.
“I would never have woven your shadows back into this world,” Elin whispered, “had I known it would come to this.”
Was that what Elin had done? The thought was a distant one. Matthew stirred the fire with a dead branch, but the coals remained dead. How could a fire die so fast? Matthew stopped stirring abruptly as I caught a scent beneath that of the smoke, the scent of something stagnant and old. Matthew lifted the branch, and half of it crumbled away, back into the fire. He dropped the wood. It wasn’t burning that had put this fire out.
The crickets had fallen silent. We both took a few steps back, toward Elin and Allie and Caleb. The stagnant scent came from behind us, too. Up above, the black sky held no stars. It was too dark; I couldn’t tell how near the crumbling was. I could only smell it. The wind shifted, and I caught it from a third direction, too. “We need light.”
“You truly cannot see.” Elin turned in a slow circle. “Your people have always seen less well than mine. Let me make it easy for you, then. We are surrounded. There is no way out.”
Chapter 15
I strained to see into the dark. Were there fewer trees at the edge of the clearing than before? I couldn’t tell. I slammed my flesh fist into my stone one, breaking skin. Allie shuddered as I held out my stinging knuckles. “Can you heal this?”