Sophie shot up the stairs and through the arched doors.
Enough. She could pull it back now. Charlotte strained, reeling the magic back. The darkness buckled inside her, fighting to stay unleashed. So strong, so overpowering. Her hold on her power slipped a little, then a little more. It was if she were caught in the current of a violent river that pushed her back, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force her way against the flow.
She had become an abomination. The magic streamed out of her like a black storm, and she was powerless to stop it. As if in a dream, bodies were falling around her, slowly and softly, like wilted flowers. The dark river inside her rose, the furious current creeping higher and higher.
Oh, Richard . . . It had all gone wrong. It had gone so, so wrong. She was crying, the tears rolling down her cheeks. I’m so sorry, love. I’m so, so sorry. You were all I wanted. You were all I hoped for. I’m sorry.
She shouldn’t have pushed him away last night. She should’ve invited him in, to love and be loved one last time.
The current inside her swelled, and she drowned.
RICHARD ran through the hallways, the walls a smudged blur. Ahead, Sophie dashed through the arched entrance, her face wet with tears.
“She’s gone!”
“What?”
“Charlotte’s gone, she’s gone!”
He pulled away from her, but she grabbed onto his clothes, dragging him away from the arch. “No, Richard, no! No, you’ll die. No! Don’t go! She said for you not to go!”
He hugged her to him, kissed her hair, and pushed free.
“Richard,” she screamed.
He burst into the sunlight.
Charlotte stood in the middle of the garden. Her magic raged, striking down the Hand’s agents, the black streams boiling, twisting, like a terrifying storm. The Hand’s freaks tried to run, but the magic bit them again and again. Some crawled, other lay unmoving, little more than desiccated husks, and some were decomposing.
Charlotte turned, and he saw her eyes. They were solid black.
The flowers by her feet withered. The blight ran from her, spreading through the garden. Roses died, rotting at the root. The last of the Hand’s monsters swayed and fell.
She had become what she always feared. She had turned into a living death.
He had to get to her. He had to reach her.
The flowers by the stone steps on which he stood withered. He stepped on to their dried corpses and walked across the garden.
The darkness streamed to him. It cloaked him. He felt its deadly cold sting.
“I love you, Charlotte.”
Ten feet separated him from her.
His body buckled. It felt like he was being turned inside out.
Eight feet. The bones of his legs melted into agony.
“I love you. Don’t leave me.”
Three steps.
His heart was beating too fast, each contraction slicing him as if someone were stabbing shards of glass straight into his aorta.
He dropped his sword—his fingers couldn’t hold it—and closed his arms around her. “My love, my light . . . Don’t leave me.”
She stood submerged within the black current of the magic river. The red pockets of magical essence washed over her one by one, glowing weakly, and she absorbed them in a cascade of euphoria.
No thoughts. No worries. Just freedom and bliss.
Another wash of red splashed against her. She tasted it and recoiled. It tasted too familiar. She hadn’t taken it. It was freely given, but everything in her rebelled against consuming it. How could this be?
She forced herself to sample the essence, letting it permeate her. It streamed along her, coursing through her, so unbelievably delicious. Wrong. It was wrong. Her magic shrank from it.
She strained, trying to identify it. There had to be a reason.
Richard!
He was Richard.
She heard a voice from a great distance. It cloaked her, separating her for a brief second from the darkness.
My love, my light . . . Don’t leave me.
She was killing him. She was draining his life, drop by precious drop.
No! No, she didn’t want it. Take it back! Take it all back!
She tried to reverse the flow and send life back into him, but the current gripped her, smothering her, trying to banish reason. She felt herself drowning and fought against it with everything she had.
No! I am the Healer. You’re part of me. You are part of me. You will obey me.
Pain flooded her, the current hammering against her body. Hundreds of pinpoint needles pierced her, burning her. The agony overwhelmed her, and she melted into blinding pain.
If she gave up now, Richard would die.
Charlotte ripped through the pain. A golden glow coated her. The current of the dark river shrank from it.
You will obey.
The pain was excruciating. She screamed, although she had no voice. The glow shot from her, igniting the river into a radiant gold. Her magic boiled.
The darkness fell apart. She saw Richard’s prone body in the dead grass and dropped to her knees next to him.
Don’t die. Please, don’t die.
She pushed, but no magic came. There was nothing left of it, neither light nor darkness.
Richard was barely breathing.
She strained, trying to pull on that roiling gold. The magic buckled inside her, threatening to rip her apart, but would not obey. Pain exploded inside her in excruciating bursts of agony. Charlotte tasted blood in her mouth.
Tiny specks of blood formed on her skin, coming out of her pores. Finally her voice obeyed, and she screamed, the pain streaming out of her. It felt like she was dying. She almost wanted to die just to end the agony, but she had to save him.
Obey me. Work. You will work.
Something broke inside her.
Her magic burst out of her, the gold so potent, it lifted him above the ground. Her power bound them into one. Everything she had taken, every life she had stolen, all of it went into Richard. She drenched him in the healing gold, again and again, hoping against hope that he would live.
Come back to me. Come back to me, love.
It felt like her body was melting. She had to hold on. She had to heal him.
“Come back to me. I love you so much.”
He opened his eyes.
She didn’t believe it. It was a trick.
He raised his hand. His fingers touched her lips. “I love you, too.” He pushed from the ground and sat up.
She collapsed on his chest and surrendered to the pain.
RICHARD sat by the heavy wooden doors. Behind them, the healers of Ganer College worked on Charlotte. He’d thought she had fallen asleep from exhaustion. It took him five precious hours to realize she couldn’t wake up. He’d loaded her into a phaeton and drove at a breakneck speed to Ganer College. He walked through the gates, carrying her, and people came and took her away from him. He followed them through the labyrinth of hallways and stairs to this corridor and this room, where they shut the doors in his face, and he’d been sitting here for hours, not knowing whether she would live or die. A man had brought him a platter of food at some point, but he felt no need to eat. He got up a few times to relieve himself in the bathroom two doors down.
He was so monumentally angry.
The two of them had done so much, they had sacrificed so much, and after all of that, now she would die. He wanted to rage and punch the walls at the unfairness of it, but instead he had to sit still. He tried picturing going home without her and couldn’t.