Cruel Beauty

  I blinked. Memory flickered at the edge of my mind: something about a fire, no, a face lit by lamplight—an angry voice—

  Then it was gone, and maybe it had been nothing, just a half-remembered dream. And there was no dream that could change what I had to do. As the Kindly Ones had said, while Ignifex had power, Shade was helpless. And Shade was the only one who could save Arcadia.

  Grimacing, I stepped to the threshold again. The Children of Typhon waited just a breath away, quivering with anticipation but not attempting to trespass.

  Because they knew. They knew I had the ring, and they knew I was preparing them a victim who would last forever.

  I reached into the darkness with my right hand. Shadow burned and swirled around my fingers, across my palm. I clenched my teeth, bearing it. After a few moments, my hand still burned and my heart still thudded, but I was no longer quite so dizzy with pain.

  “Come to me,” I whispered, and the Children of Typhon pooled in my hands, twisting and shrinking into a tiny seed of darkness, like the pearl at the heart of Pandora’s jar. I closed my fist.

  There was still darkness beyond the door, but it was no longer terrible: it was an absence of light and no more.

  I turned back to Shade. “Follow me,” I said. My voice seemed very cold and far away.

  “That is all I can do,” he said, and again there was that trace of a smile.

  With him following silently, I strode back down the hallway. When I came to the door at the other end, I paused and thought of Ignifex. When I imagined his face, my hand throbbed with pain; it felt like the Children of Typhon were trying to claw their way out and devour him.

  “Soon,” I muttered at them, laying my free hand on the door handle. Now the thought of my mission only made me feel empty and determined. The cold burn in my hand seemed to have taken away my grief.

  Take me to Ignifex, I thought at the door, and pushed it open.

  I stepped into my bedroom.

  It did not surprise me that he had stayed there in my absence. The racks of burning candles were also as expected. What stopped me on the threshold with shock was the state of the room. Drifts of paper covered the floor: page after half-burned page ripped from the books in library. The silver wallpaper was covered in scribbled charcoal notes. At the foot of my bed crouched Ignifex, shuffling anxiously through the papers.

  “What are you doing?” I breathed, and I didn’t have to pretend the bewilderment in my voice.

  His head snapped up. “Nyx,” he said, blinking hard. His pupils were hugely dilated. “While you were gone, I started . . . What the Kindly Ones said through you. They said, ‘The name of the light is in the darkness.’ I swore to your mother’s grave that I would try. So I stayed up all night. Almost in darkness. And I almost, I almost remember the voice.” His voice was a wandering, lost thing. “There’s a way to save us. If I can just remember.”

  I felt like a cobweb strung across the doorway, trembling in the draft and about to tear if I moved. If I had just waited one more day, tried one ounce harder in all the days before, maybe he would have dared the darkness and already remembered. Maybe he would have found a way to save us all. But now I was oath bound to destroy him.

  Maybe he would have just remembered that there was no way to save Arcadia but his destruction. Whatever the truth, it didn’t matter anymore.

  He stood, swaying slightly, and then he finally noticed Shade standing behind me.

  “What—” he started, but his voice had torn me free. I was across the room in two strides and then I stopped his mouth with a kiss. I locked my arms around him; I felt his shoulder blades and the slight ridge of his spine, and the solid reality of what I was about to destroy nearly undid me.

  But if I didn’t destroy him, the last prince would never be whole again. Nobody would save Arcadia. And I had sworn an oath to my sister.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and he went still beneath my hands as if he knew. Then I said loudly, “Break his power,” as I opened my hand.

  The Children of Typhon rushed out between my fingers. I clung to him—to hold him down or share his fate, I wasn’t sure—but the shadows slid between our bodies, icy cold, as they wrapped around him. Then they began to drag him away. My grip broke; I scrabbled for purchase and managed for one moment to grasp his wrist—and his hand clutched my wrist in return, his eyes wide with fear—then they ripped him away and slammed him against the wall. My legs gave way, and I collapsed to the floor. It was several heartbeats before I could gather enough strength to look up.

  The shadows held Ignifex against the wall; they writhed and clawed at him with a thousand tiny fingers. His whole left side was gone, the ragged edge not bleeding but shredded into mist.

  Impossibly, he was still alive. And he smiled the wild, vicious smile that had made me fall in love.

  “One half of power for one half of your knowledge,” he said to Shade. “Not such a bad bargain. At least now I understand why you coveted my wives.” He held out his remaining hand. “Take my hand. End this. And all my wives will be yours.”

  As Shade stepped forward, left hand reaching, his right side melted into the air. He was smiling exactly the same smile.

  “Wait,” I said, trying to stand, because this wasn’t right. I was still dazed, but I could tell that something was wrong. Shade was supposed to regain what had been stolen from him. He wasn’t supposed to lose one half of his body. He wasn’t supposed to gain my husband’s smile.

  Their hands touched, fingertip to fingertip, and every candle in the room flared up. Then their fingers locked down to clasp their hands together. Light exploded through the room.

  And I remembered the last vision that Shade had shown me in the Heart of Fire, the vision that had broken my heart until I forgot it again.

  Once more I saw the hallway of the ancient palace, but this time it was night. One lamp burned on the wall, and in that flickering light I saw the last prince fall to his knees before the box.

  “O Kindly Ones,” he gritted out. “O Gentle Folk of Air and Blood. O Lords of Tricks and Justice. Come to my aid.”

  The silence stretched on and on, broken only by his ragged breathing, but he waited. Until a breeze swirled through the hallway, ruffling his hair and whispering against the stones, and on the breeze floated a thousand pinpricks of light, and the light was laughing.

  Then the lights clustered, coalesced, and formed into the shape of a woman. Her hair was made of moonlight, her eyes of fire; she was lovely and terrible as a lightning bolt.

  “So you are the latest heir of Claudius,” she said. “Do you appreciate the gift we granted to your family? The wondrous protection granted to any worthy king?”

  He stood proudly and faced her, his mouth set in a grim line.

  “But you aren’t a worthy prince, are you?” She stroked one finger down the side of his face. “Is that why you called me?”

  He let out a deep breath, the pride melting from his face, and then he said softly, “Please. Take the hatred out of my heart. I’ll pay any price, so long as Arcadia stays safe and I don’t have to end up alone in that box.”

  The lady smiled and cupped his chin. “Of course,” she said. “Are we not the givers of gifts? You shall open the box tonight but not end up alone in it, and all the days of your life, you shall rule an Arcadia that will never be invaded. Only know this: after tonight, you must never again open the box, or all the bargain shall be undone. Time itself will unwind back to this moment, and you shall be locked with the shadows forever, as if you had never called us.”

  He nodded. “I won’t open it again. No matter what.”

  “Then kiss me,” she said, “and the bargain is sealed.”

  He kissed her quickly and fiercely. She laughed and said, “Open the box, my prince.”

  Slowly, he stepped to the table, unlatched the box, and lifted the lid.

  Shadows boiled out of the box: the ten thousand Children of Typhon. And they were singing:

  Nine
for the kings that ruled your house,

  They are now betrayed, oh.

  More and more and more streamed out, like an endless river of darkness; they skittered across the walls and pillars, leaving tiny claw marks, and their high little voices were a fistful of claws in my ears.

  “No!” the prince shouted, but the lady caught him by the shoulders and held him.

  “This is your wish, my prince. We must fulfill it.”

  He fought against her, but she was unmovable. And she held him as screams echoed throughout the castle, as the floor and pillars shook, as flames appeared at the end of the hallway. Stones fell from the ceiling about them, shattering the marble floor. One pillar crashed to the ground and then another.

  Earlier he had screamed and struggled. Now the prince knelt quietly, his eyes wide and unseeing as his castle fell around him. Suddenly there was a great roar that just as suddenly cut off, as if the silence were a wall that had dropped down, and I knew that Arcadia was now inside the box, and the parchment sky curved over the land.

  The lady smiled down at him and said, “No one shall ever conquer Arcadia, and you shall never be alone in the box. Are we not kind?” She cupped his face again. “And now I shall take all the hatred out of your heart.”

  Then she clenched her hands and pulled them apart. And she pulled him apart too: a shadowy, shifting form collapsed to the floor, his face a blur but his eyes bright blue; it was Shade. And standing above him now was Ignifex, red-eyed and smiling the smile that I remembered.

  I woke.

  And I finally knew the truth.

  Ignifex had told me, I realized as I surged to my feet. The Kindly Ones always left the answer at the edges. I had grown up hearing the story of Nanny-Anna, who killed her love because she thought it would save him. I’d always thought her a fool for listening to Tom-a-Lone’s jealous mother: surely she’d known that Brigit meant nothing good for her. Surely she’d known that even a goddess could not betray her love and escape vengeance.

  But maybe she’d thought she was saving her world.

  And just like her, I’d betrayed my love to captivity. Alone in all the darkness.

  The room looked as if it had been ransacked by wolves, every piece of furniture broken, the pillow and curtains shredded. The candles were all burnt out, the walls charred and covered in soot. Ignifex and Shade were both gone.

  I bolted to the door. I knew where they—where he was going.

  I grabbed the door handle and thought, Bring me to the round room. But when I opened the door, I saw instead the great ballroom, the Heart of Water—and though I knew it must be morning by now, it was full of water and lights. I charged forward, but as soon as my foot touched the water, it surged and rippled. I staggered and fell; then a wave crashed down on me, pushing me underwater.

  I struggled, trying to surface, but the water held me down as if it was a living thing determined to kill me—and maybe it was, or near enough. The house was the greatest Hermetic working ever made, and willful at the best of times. Now that it was about to be unmade, it must be going mad.

  The only way to escape its Heart of Water was to nullify the heart’s power.

  I remembered sitting with Father in his study, tracing out the sigils together with pen and ink. The first time I got it right with my eyes shut, he had actually nodded at me in serene approval, and I had smiled to myself for hours—because in those early days, I had still believed I could earn his affection.

  I raised my hands. Slowly, carefully, I started to trace the nullifying sigil into the water. As my fingers moved, the water rippled and stilled; then I saw that I was leaving behind glimmering trails. My lungs ached and burned, but I made myself move slowly because I could not get this wrong.

  My fingers met, completing the sigil. The glimmering lines flared blinding bright; then the water was gone and I fell with a thump onto the dry ballroom floor.

  For a few moments I could only gasp desperately for breath; then I leapt to my feet and ran forward. Everything was out of order: next was the greenhouse, then a hallway that was nowhere near to either room. Then the grand staircase, but the walls around it were riddled with cracks, and as I charged up the steps, they crumbled to dust behind me. I barely made it to the top in time, and I burst through the nearest door without even pausing to look.

  And I was in the round room, but the parchment dome was gone. Above, there was only empty darkness; a chill wind blew from the void, reminding me that I was still soaked through. At the center of the room sat Arcadia; a little leftover light glimmered around it, and it looked very small and fragile.

  At the opposite end of the room stood Ignifex, his coat shredded, cradling the box in his hands.

  No. His eyes were blue and human. It was the last prince who now stared at me across the room, his face pale and still.

  “Nyx,” he breathed, then flung up a hand. Shadows seized me and pinned me to the wall by my wrists.

  “No!” I shouted. “You can’t open the box—you’ll be locked in there forever—”

  “Because my bargain will be undone, and all Arcadia will go free. No one else will ever be devoured by the Children of Typhon. You wanted that, right?” He walked toward me slowly. “Once upon a time, I wanted that too. I have to want it again.” His voice was soft and sad like Shade’s, but then he cracked a smile that was purely Ignifex. “Or die trying.”

  He was before me now, the box still in his hands.

  “But you won’t die,” I whispered.

  “And once time is unwound, neither will your mother.” Still that soft, sad, implacable voice.

  “Then I won’t be born.”

  “I saw your father when he was desperate.” That smile again. “I’m sure he’ll think of something. Maybe it will be a better plan this time.”

  In an Arcadia that had never been sundered, never ruled by a Gentle Lord or ravaged by demons, my mother and Damocles and a thousand other people would be alive. Maybe Astraia and I would be too, and if we were, then surely we would love each other without bitterness. It would be every one of my childhood dreams come true. But—

  “I won’t even remember you,” I whispered.

  “I know,” he said, leaning forward over the box. He slid a hand up my cheek, clenched his fingers into my hair, and kissed me.

  It was an awkward, desperate kiss; he pulled on my hair ’til it hurt, my arms ached from being pinned to the wall, and my heart banged against my ribs as much in fear as desire. But it was the last time I would feel his fingers in my hair, his lips against mine, and I kissed him back like he was my only hope of breathing.

  Then he stepped away from me again. And I couldn’t stop him.

  “Thank you,” he said, “for trying to save me.”

  “Wait!” I snapped. “You said, they said, if I guess your name then you’re free. Right?”

  He took another step back. “I threw away my name when I made that bargain. Nobody can ever find it again.”

  I remembered the tattered manuscripts in the library. Every name had been burnt out of them.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I whispered. “I know you.” He flipped the box open. Light streamed out, and I screamed, “I know you!” as the light filled every corner of the room.

  Then there was darkness.

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  23

  I tried. As the darkness closed over me, I fought to remember the name of my husband.

  I fought to remember the name of someone I had loved. I fought to remember—

  What?

  I was alone, and I had no hands to clench around my memories. I had no memories, no name, only the knowledge (deeper and colder than any darkness) that I had lost what I loved more than life.

  And then I forgot I had lost it.

  Time unwound. Prices were unpaid.

  The world changed.

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CORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  24

  I woke up crying.

  Not sobbing, as if my heart were newly broken. I lay on my back and gasped the quiet, hopeless tears of absolute certainty. I felt like I was afloat on an ocean of endless grief. A memory of my dream flickered through my head: I had been underwater, struggling to swim—no, I had been lost among shadows—there had been a pale face, or maybe a bird—

  “Nyx. What’s wrong?” Astraia’s voice shattered the memories. She stood by my bed, eyebrows drawn together with concern. The pale blue light of early morning glinted on her hair and glimmered through the gauzy ruffles of her white nightgown.

  “Nothing.” I sat up, rubbing my eyes, ashamed that she had caught me crying. I did not deserve compassion, from her of all people—

  No. That thought was from the dream, and as soon as I recognized it, then it was gone. I tried to remember, but the images were lost. The feelings, too, were sliding away between my fingers; I knew I had been utterly desolate, but now I only remembered the concept of the feeling: like looking at snow through the window, instead of shivering in the icy wind.

  “Nyx?”

  I shook my head. “Just a dream.”

  Her mouth puckered sympathetically. “I don’t like today either.”

  With a huff, I got out of bed. “It’s not today,” I said. A bird chirped outside the window, and I twitched. Usually I loved bird-song, but today the noise scraped across my skin. “You’re the one who cries at the graveyard. I just had a dream.”

  Astraia wavered back from me. “You’re not upset about tonight.”

  I threw open the curtains, squinting at the morning sunlight that cut across my face. “No,” I said.

  She caught me from behind in a wild embrace. “Good,” she said in my ear. “Because I wouldn’t let you get out of it. You’re getting married tonight, come fire or water.”