Chapter Nineteen
Theodore
By the time Marcella returns, shadows stretch and yawn across the furniture in Cora’s living room. I’ve spent hours sending lapping waves of energy towards the rocking chair pressed against the far window, trying to time the creaks with Rose’s exhales. I’m successful about half of the time.
It’s lucky that I’m practiced in entertaining myself with nothing more than my own sour thoughts. Luckier still that Marcella left when she did so those thoughts don’t turn rancid. Her loyalty to Azmaveth is fed only by convenience, and her loyalty to me by misplaced faith. I can’t help her find vengeance, even if she admitted to seeking it. Even if she confessed that her posturing about independence from tyranny is a cover for her quest to avenge her lover. I’d respect her more if she said it aloud, but she’s not asking for my respect. She’s asking, just as my mother is asking, for my obedience.
I know little of Tomas except that Morrigan killed him shortly before Marcella arrived at Az’s house, and that Marcella loved him. It’s a familiar story, one I’ve lived— am living. If I didn’t spare Anya more than the occasional greeting, she would still be alive. She’d be laboring over a gas stove, sweat on her brow, alight in the way she only ever was when she was crafting a meal that would make Az dab at the corner of his mouth with a cloth napkin and hum in appreciation. He never thanked her, not once. I’m sure I did, but I can’t remember now.
Marcella told me that Liam is safe, and I have no choice but to believe her. It’d be easy to track down his new guardians, his grandparents, and peek in through the window. To order patrols around their neighborhood, to knock on his front door and demand he’s brought here— but here is no place for a child, and we’ll be stretched thin enough as it is, and if I can only focus on one human to keep alive, my choice has been made.
I’m practiced in leaving people behind, too. Letting them go, though, is an atrophied muscle if it’s a muscle I possess.
I don’t often think of my parents, or I try not to. The humans who raised me when I thought I was human were not unkind. Their faces are grins smudged by time, swabs of color surrounding a fire in a one-bedroom house. We were poor farmers and better thieves. We were alive, and we were bad at staying alive, but we piled wood onto the embers and kept warm as best we could. They were the first victims of Morrigan’s greed and my folly, and they didn’t even die by her hand. In having the power to prevent their deaths and choosing not to, she might as well have slit their throats herself.
The snap of the front door opening covers Rosalie’s next breath. I’m on my feet before I realize what has stolen my attention: two flickers of energy coming in from the cold, not one.
“Don’t freak out,” Marcella says, dipping inside and shuffling behind me— placing herself between me and the room where Rosalie sleeps, I absently realize. I have little time to ruminate on that, however, because the man she brought with her slides to a knee.
“Get up,” I say, keeping my tone even but barely. “Turn around. Go home.”
From a safe distance behind me, Marcella explains, “He was poking around at the manor. Az didn’t see him, but your chauffeur did. He trembled like a wet cat when he flagged me down to let me know.”
If we didn’t have an audience, I’d bury my fingers in his hair. I’d pull until he looked at me. I’d let him beg for my forgiveness, knowing it’s already been granted. A sigh sneaks from my lips. “Stand up, Elias. We’re not doing this.”
He does, fiddling with his glasses as he raises his eyes to mine. It used to startle me, time passing without leaving its mark on our skin. We could’ve been standing in an encampment, sizing each other up for no reason other than self-preservation. The bite of cold through the still-open front door could’ve been the same wind that brought him to me in the first place. I ask, “Does my mother know you’re here?”
“No,” he says. I’m too familiar with his tells to accuse him of lying. “Gemma is missing. I thought—”
“You thought she’d come here?”
Marcella interjects, “He thinks you killed her.”
He doesn’t, or he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does. “Not yet,” I mutter, fooling nobody. “She was with Uriel.”
“Uriel returned,” Elias says. “She didn’t.”
“So she’s on another errand for my mother.”
Elias frowns. “Maybe.”
“And if she’s not,” I glance over my shoulder to find Marcella inspecting the rocking chair like she could unwind the sparks I’ve seared into the wood, “you can’t stay here. If both of you disappear, who do you think Morrigan will blame?”
He hesitates. “You already have her attention, my prince. The situation at home is escalating. Mortae are being culled by the batch. She’s consolidating power, and I worry that—”
“That I’m to blame.”
“I didn’t say that.” He flicks his eyes over my shoulder towards the bedroom door. “Are you?”
“Am I responsible?”
“Are you consolidating power?”
Marcella speaks before I can find a scathing enough reply. “Unfortunately not. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
A grin, familiar in the tender way it stretches his cheeks, colors Elias’ voice. “I can try, but I’ve never been successful before.” He blinks, and the weariness that shadows his eyes makes him look less like the man I knew and more like the man I led him to be. “Why involve the girl?”
Offering him an explanation would require me to have one. Instead, I settle for something he might be able to delude himself into accepting. “She reminds me of you sometimes.”
Affection fires in the brown of his eyes, but before the lie can settle, Marcella says, “He killed her best friend.”
“Keep your voice down,” I hiss in a whisper, whirling to her. She only shrugs and goes back to fussing with the chair.
A hand on my shoulder pulls me back to Elias. “You haven’t told her,” he hums.
“Not yet.”
He squeezes and then releases me. “And I was worried I wouldn’t recognize you.”
It’s close enough to an insult that I lean into the glancing blow. Elias doesn’t push, but he doesn’t fold, either. I walked beside him longer than I’ve missed him, but I’ve missed him for so long that missing him has become a physiological affliction like thirst or fatigue. I’m more myself when he’s near me, which is to say I’m more uncertain.
Elias sketches a bow, a peace offering that I’m too willing to accept. I rub at my eyes and find my way back to the couch, landing with such force that the throw pillows jump, and don't invite nor dissuade him from following suit. He settles with his back against the arm of the couch, angled towards me with his legs crossed and a brow raised.
“Tame your face,” I say. “You’re out of practice.” Marcella is still fussing with the rocking chair, so I catch her attention with a scowl. “Are your people in place?”
“Not all,” she groans, tracing her nail over the arm of the wood as she sits, kicking her feet to set the chair into motion. I must’ve made a face because she adds, “You get to wrangle the masses next time. Half of them are stone-hearted anarchists who want nothing more than to set the world alight. The other half are cultists convinced you’re Christ reborn.”
“Which party are you?”
She drums her fingers on her thigh. “I’ve seen you eat peanut butter out of a jar with a teaspoon. I’m my own party.”
Elias says, “Perhaps a demonstration would satisfy them?”
“A demonstration?” I ask.
“Water into wine,” Marcella muses. “Curing the blind. Proof of the messiah and all.” I frown. “A speech, Theodore. God, you are dense.”
Before I can protest, the bedroom door squeaks open. Slippered footsteps pad into the hallway. Elias, the well-mannered creature that he is, pushes to his feet. Marcella leans her head back, craning her neck to look at Rosalie. “Good! You’re awake. I don’t suppose your public speaking skills are better than his?”
Rosalie squints and says nothing, proving her point.
I clear my throat. “Did we wake you?”
“No.” She fusses with her sweater— my sweater, I realize with a swell of animal pride— and curls her fingers into the sleeve. It’s been a while since I’ve tinkered with the ancient heater, but if she’s staying, I’ll make a point to get it running again. Her eyes, still heavy with sleep, catch on Elias before they blink away. She rocks back on her heels, folding her arms over her stomach. “What’s going on?”
"Elias decided to pay us a visit," I say, working to keep my tone even.
He dips at the waist with his hands tucked behind his back, keeping his chin raised to watch her stiffen.
Rose says, "You worked for his mother."
"We all did, for a time." Elias unfolds, glancing at me with the lightest of reprimands. "I'm surprised he told you about me."
In my peripheral, I catch Marcella tightening her lips to swallow a laugh. Rose’s attention flicks to me, not quite accusatory but damn close. “He didn’t tell me much.”
“We’re on even ground, then. He’s told me nothing about you.”
Furious pink lights her cheeks, but she doesn’t take the bait. Instead, she shuffles to the couch and sits next to me, tucking her legs below her. “Is your other companion coming, too?”
Elias follows her lead, settling on the couch with his thigh pressed against mine. “Excellent question. Is Gemma coming?”
I wince in the same moment that Rose’s arms tighten around her torso. “Gemma?”
“She tried to kill her,” Marcella offers.
“No, she didn’t,” Rose says. “She was there, but she didn’t do anything.”
Elias shoots me a look that lands somewhere between pity and I told you so. “When was this?”
“This morning,” I murmur.
“Where?”
“Sit down, Elias.”
Because he’s standing, running his palms over his thighs, looking all the world like he’ll start running if I give him leave. “I’m going to find her.”
I could ask him to stay. I could reach for him and pull him back down, and maybe he wants me to. Or maybe this is a test, a ploy to drive any reaction from me, an attempt at my authority. How often has he asked me to stay? How often have I refused him? “Fine. If you find her, bring her to me.”
His hesitation is slight, but I mark it. “Of course, my prince.” He turns to Rose. “Good luck. I sincerely hope… Well. I’ll see you again.”
Once he leaves, silence settles between Rosalie’s quick exhales. Marcella sets her chair rocking again to break it, a rhythmic squeaking that makes me grind me teeth. Beside me, Rose's face is pinched with thoughtful quiet. I start to sift through her thoughts before recalling her request from earlier and folding my hands in my lap. “Questions, petal?”
She shifts, frowning. “What’s this about a speech?”
“Apparently,” Marcella grumbles, “when you tell people that salvation is nigh, they want proof.”
I say, “Your word isn’t proof enough?”
To which she takes obvious offense. “They need to fear you more than they need to trust me. They all remember you as you were,” she glances pointedly at Rosalie, “before.”
"And I’m different now?”
“They need to believe you’re different now, or else they’ll jump ship and there goes our prayer circle for this one.” She jabs a thumb at Rosalie.
The dying light of day paints timid shadows over Rose’s cheeks, accentuating the valleys of her cheekbones, fuller than they were when we first met but still too gaunt. Her jaw is tense, teeth grinding almost audibly. The sleeves of my sweater are wound in her lap. I stop myself just short of reaching for her hand so that she stops kneading her fingers.
“Will Elias be there?” she asks.
Marcella shrugs, though the question isn’t aimed at her. “Can we trust him?”
In another life, I would’ve taken offense at the question. It would’ve been like asking after the sunrise when the moon was out. Of course, I’d say, and it’s what I should say, but the bruises peppering Rosalie’s neck give me pause. I’d trust Elias with my life, but with hers? “The only people I trust are in this room. Everyone else should be considered compromised.”
“Even Az,” Marcella says, flat.
“Especially Az.”
She inhales, but a glance at Rose tucks the argument behind her teeth. “You’re coming too, Petunia.”
Rosalie raises her thumb to her mouth, gnawing on the skin around her nail. “Am I allowed to say no?”
I recognize the petulant whine in her voice, the tremor, the frustration of being told instead of asked. I take in the slouch of her shoulders and the finger-combed wave of her hair. She needs rest and food and sunshine, not to be paraded before creatures who would just as quickly shove her to the ground as help her up. “We can run,” I murmur. “I’ll take you anywhere you want. We don’t have to do this.”
Marcella, to her credit, doesn’t sigh. She leans forward, pulling the chair’s crested bottom to its tip. “Run now, and you’ll be running forever— or at least until your body starts to decay, because his won’t. Look at me, Rosalie.”
She does, lowering her hand to her lap.
“You’re with us now. Whether you were given enough information to make an informed decision,” she levels a glare at me, “is no longer relevant. You will be hunted for the rest of your life, even if you leave. Even if you never speak to us again, they will find you, and they will kill you. Because he cares for you, they will kill you. It doesn’t matter if you return his affection.” I open my mouth, but she’s done listening. “It doesn’t. And it’s not fair. I know that it’s not fair.” Her voice softens in a way I’ve never heard, not even when she’s pulled me from the depths of my own helplessness. “You’ve done nothing wrong, and you’re going to be punished anyway. I’m asking you to fight back— to help us fight back.”
When Rosalie finally looks at me, her decision is set. That could’ve been the look that made Andrew fall for her, the way he reaches for it, swelling inside me like a wave undeterred by the shore it approaches.
“Anywhere,” I say again, and it sounds more like a plea than an offer.
She tugs the sleeves of her sweater over her knuckles and turns back to Marcella. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
Rosalie listened as Marcella described the plan, wordless but attentive. A rally of sorts, a gathering of forty or so rebels, as many as she could gather in the little time she had.
“Forty,” I repeated.
“It’s not everyone,” she shrugged, “but word will spread.”
To allies and others, but I didn’t say as much. Didn’t need to, from the way she cocked her head and continued speaking, low and quick, “Both of us need to attend, and leaving you alone isn’t an option.”
Rose nodded, wringing her hands in her lap and raising her chin. Marcella left not long after, claiming that she was off to scout the building where the meeting would take place. The show of bravery has since drained from Rose, leaving her bundled on the couch with her head tilted back, exposing the finger-shaped bruises on her neck. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, and patience is a virtue that I possess in abundance, but the lapping of her thoughts against my skin makes me jittery. I fetch a coin from my pocket and set it spinning on the coffee table, keeping it upright with tiny bursts of air, an outlet not unlike leaving a faucet running so that the pipes don’t freeze.
She watches it spin without moving her head. “I’m not angry with you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Copper hums against wood, a soothing trickle of noise below my voice. “What makes you think I’m worried?”
She sits up and reaches for me, tapping where my neck meets my shoulder with one finger. “The muscle here goes tense when you’re anxious.” She leaves her finger on my skin, a ghost of a touch. “Elias noticed, too. That’s why he left.”
I let the coin fall flat, catching her hand and bringing her knuckles to my lips. “He left,” I murmur against her skin, “because he was given a mission.”
“He gave himself a mission,” she counters, inching closer to me, “because he was making you uncomfortable.”
“Was he making you uncomfortable?” I flip her palm and let my breath fog over the sensitive skin of her wrist, relishing the small sigh it draws from her.
She considers as I push her sleeve, nipping my way up the inside of her forearm. “He’s pretty.”
“Is he?” I murmur, distracted by the way her skin heats under the pad of my thumb. “I haven’t noticed.”
“When you say companion—”
“Yes.” I pause, raising my eyes to hers. “Is that okay?”
“What if it isn’t?” But the way the last word falls, an exhale like a muted chuckle— she’s teasing. I press my lips to the meat of her palm, and she curls her fingers around the curve of my cheek.
“Then I’ll spend a lifetime making it up to you,” I say, muffled by her hand. “Your lifetime, preferably.”
She laughs like she’s stolen the sun and tucked it into her chest, like she’s the last pillar of warmth in the otherwise frigid house. “Save the charm for tomorrow. It’s not me you need to convince to stick around.”
I relinquish her hand, sighing. “I meant what I said. I’ll take you anywhere.”
To the farthest star, I don’t say.
Her lips thin. “Marcella’s right. We can’t outrun Death.”
“We can. I’ve been doing it for centuries.”
It’s a lie, not even a clever one, but it could be true tonight. With her fluttering pulse inches from my fingertips, her breath shared between us, the ugliness tucked between the cushions, it could be true. I could make it true, if only she’d— “Tell me you want to go.”
“Theo,” she exhales, tucking herself against my shoulder. My arm curls around her on instinct, tracing circles on her spine. It’s not the answer I want, but I so rarely get what I want. My argument dies in my throat when the crown of her head nudges my neck.
She doesn’t know what she’s asking of me— why she’s asking it of me, but how can I tell her? How can I even begin to unravel the web that has consumed us both?
Tomorrow, I tell myself. I’ll be honest with her tomorrow. But I’ve run out of clever lies, and the sun rises quick.
The rumble of a car rouses us. I've spent the night straight-backed and dozing with Rosalie's hair fanned over my thighs, my hand glued to the dip of her waist. Her muscles quiver as she stretches and yawns awake, blinking first at the light christening the hardwood and then at me. I give into the temptation to smooth her frown with my thumb.
"It's just Marcella," I whisper. "You can go back to sleep. We're in no rush."
She looks for a moment like she'll accept the offer but sits up, rubbing at her dream-swollen eyes. "Bit of a rush," she says, the words drowsy and slurred.
"I'm not known for my punctuality. Take your time." I skim my fingers over her clothed back, her shoulder blade, catching on the bandage underneath. She doesn’t wince, not fully, but her muscles lock enough for me to ask, “Are you in pain?”
“I’m fine.” She slides away from my touch and kicks out her legs before standing. “What does one wear to meet a group of grim reapers?”
“Nothing formal,” I say absently, tracking the roll of her shoulders as she glides into the hallway. “Their attention won’t be on you at all, if I can help it.” I raise my voice so it carries into the bedroom she’s disappeared into. “Rosalie—”
“I’m fine,” she calls back over the swish of clothing being discarded.
I run my tongue along the backs of my teeth, trying for patience. Twelve seconds are all I can manage before I'm on my feet, shuffling after her. Pressing my back against the wall next to the open door, I say, "You wouldn't heal that fast. It's been a while since I've been human, but I was once—"
"Seriously?"
I dip my head and curl around the corner. She’s clutching a lacy black camisole in her fist, barely any fabric at all. “It’s this or sweatpants! I know Marcella didn’t have a ton of time to gather my things, but come on.”
A chuckle creeps up my throat, encouraged by the pink rushing her cheeks and halted by the narrowing of her eyes. My sweater dwarfs her arms as she tosses the garment on the floor.
I nod to the dresser, schooling my face so she doesn’t think I’m mocking her. I might be mocking her. Doesn’t matter what she wears. She could show up naked and the only curious stares she’d get would be due to her beating heart, not her wardrobe. “You can borrow something of mine if you’d like.”
“And what sort of message would that send?”
“That you have good taste.” I lean against the door frame and cross my arms. “What’s really bothering you, petal?”
Her answer is buried in the drop of her shoulders, the blink and furrow, the hesitation. By the time she speaks, I’ve already sorted through her thoughts and sucked marrow from bone, but I wait. Because I’m polite.
"You think this is a bad idea,” she says.
“I think,” the corner of the door frame bites into the back of my head, “we no longer have the luxury of good ideas. I think what Marcella offers benefits her more than— us, but it does benefit us. I think…” I snap my mouth shut before the admission can escape, tracing the swells of green in the hazel of her eyes. That I would do much worse to keep her safe isn’t a secret, or at least one I’m not interested in protecting. There are other secrets, ones with longer fuses. “You should dress warm. It might storm later.”
The front door pops open, bringing with it a howl of wind that punctuates my prediction. Rose jolts at the noise and flushes red when she notices me notice her flinch. I roll my head towards the intruder, finding Marcella over my shoulder. She has her hip pressed against the back of the couch, peering down the hallway with her arms crossed.
Give us a minute, I shoot to her. Even in my mind, it sounds like a groan.
She scowls and pushes off the couch, disappearing into the kitchen. Move your ass.
Rose says, “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
I ready a quip, but it dies on my tongue when I face her, pinched-faced and red-cheeked. She turns away from me and pulls my sweater over her head in a smooth motion. I study the knobs of her spine and the valleys between, more prominent in the way she's slouched as she moves to the wardrobe and shuffles through her options. The bandage on her shoulder is still secure, a slash of white that covers the blistering skin beneath.
Heat isn't an element I'm proficient in yet. I much prefer the soothing hiss of wind or the cool rise of water, but for Uriel, I'll learn. An eye for an eye may not be wise, but I'll go blind as long as he suffers, too.
The building that Marcella brings us to has been standing for as long as I've been in the city. Tall and red-bricked, it used to function as a factory before it was repurposed as a hotel. Now it sits empty, a fossil of a more prosperous time— a ghost itself housing ghosts. Rain-rotted wood is nailed to the first and second story windows in an unsuccessful attempt to thwart human squatters. There aren't any inside now, though it would be a fine respite from the bite of wind that raises goose flesh on Rosalie's arms. I decide not to linger on what Marcella must've done to drive the humans out.
I lay my hand on the brick and imagine decades of history trembling beneath my palm. Like me, the building is a vessel, touched by time but standing in spite of it, used in ways it didn't intend to be used— or maybe this was the plan all along: shelter, utility, protection. "This is your meeting space?"
Marcella flips her hair over her shoulder. "I apologize, Your Highness, I couldn't book The Comitium on such short notice."
"There weren't any non-condemned venues available?"
"A collapsed ceiling and a little mold is the least of our problems. It's not like we can…" She slides her eyes to Rosalie. "It's safe enough."
Rose shifts her weight to her heels and curls her hands into fists. Her apprehension sits like a thin film on the back of my tongue, steadier than fear and far less volatile. I lick at it like I can draw it into myself and steel her nerves the way I can’t tame my own. Her bravery is contagious, so I stop myself from taking her hand, instead looking to Marcella.
“I’ve got her,” Marcella says before I can think the command. “On my death, I swear it.”
I square my shoulders and set my face into the cool mask that is expected of me-- the face of my mother, as much as I hate to admit it. If her surety is an illusion, it’s less permeable than mine. A glance at Rosalie would shatter my resolve, so I shove the door open without one.
The conversations echoing against concrete walls die when we enter. Even though it’s still late morning, the boarded windows offer little natural light, struggling against the fluorescents buzzing far overhead. Remnants of the humans who used this space for shelter litter the floor. I kick at an empty glass bottle and move further in. Forty heads turn to study us. I recognize some of them from my time with my mother, dressed in filthy and outdated clothes that are worn in ways their faces aren’t. More are clad in modern clothing and accents, wearing expressions absent of the recognition and veiled disgust that twists the mouths of the others.
Az isn’t here. I didn’t expect him to be— his loyalty to our creator is the reason he was allowed to house me in the first place— but hope is a difficult beast to tame.
The crowd parts as I wade through. Some don’t bother to hide their disdain for me and my party. Some look on us as if we’re gods walking among men. I flick off their stares with a dismissive glance, counting the footsteps towards the makeshift dais. My throne is a turned-over milk crate, my stage a molding wooden pallet. Uriel would laugh himself hoarse if he were here. Spare no expense, Prince of Rot.
My measured footsteps smacking against concrete halt before a lean, dark-haired woman with her head tipped down. I’ve seen her meandering through my mother's camp and later the motel, but we’ve never had a conversation— at least not a two-sided one. “Fiona.”
“Yes.” She doesn’t raise her eyes, a sign of respect or deception. Marcella would have me believe the former, but Marcella would have me believe a lot of things.
I struggle the anger from my voice. “You broke a glass over my head.”
“Yes.”
Marcella murmurs something to Rose, too low for me to hear..
“You couldn’t stain my skin with blood so you did with wine.”
“Yes.” She says this with no remorse, but her head is bowed. The implication is clear enough: I’m not her first choice, but her only choice. In that, at least, I sympathize with her.
“Are you asking for my forgiveness?”
“Or your revenge, if you’d be more willing. But I know you, Blood of the First, and you are not your mother.”
The answering silence crackles with electricity as the crowd searches for my reaction. The simplest solution would be to challenge her assertion, to kill that which is already dead, to pillage the essence of her and those she’s pillaged in an endless cycle of greed and violence. I could do it easily, and she’s offering— but she’s right. It’s what Morrigan would do, and I’m not Morrigan.
When I turn from her and continue towards the rotted wood that will serve as my stage, a familiar set of footsteps matches my pace. I know who it is, but I look anyway. His glasses are crooked. If we didn’t have an audience, I’d adjust them.
“Did you find her?” I ask, quiet enough that only the nearest Mortae can hear.
Elias says, “Not yet,” and doesn’t turn towards me.
Gemma can take care of herself. It’s what she does— what she has done, at my expense. If I’m worried at all, it’s a residual feeling and easily ignored. The comfort Elias’ presence brings is just as vestigial. Still, I brush the back of my hand against his as we walk, my fingers sliding between his for only an instant. A thousand times, he’s walked beside me in this crowd, and a thousand times, he hasn’t faltered. If I sent him away now, he wouldn’t dare deny me. Is this not why I’ve come here? To keep him? To keep all of them?
I leave him and step up onto the pallet. It whines under my weight, a sound not unlike the one building in my own chest. The souls I’ve consumed prickle beneath my skin as I face the crowd as if sensing the amount of power in this room and urging me to take more. One overwhelms the others: the man who killed me. Are you hungry, boy?
Rosalie stands beside Marcella near the back of the crowd with her hands curled into fists at her sides, nails leaving angry red marks on the meat of her palm. She opted for a thin white button-up beneath a tan sweater vest, mine, and lint-flecked leggings, hers. My attention draws glances as they weigh my affection for her against the draw of a living soul. Though she might not know it, she’s the most powerful person in the room. They want her, and they can’t have her. I want her— I have her, and I’m going to keep her.
Marcella slides closer, but her expression doesn’t shift. The implication is clear enough that they look away.
I don’t raise my voice, but the whispers quiet when I speak. “I’m not here to give you orders. You have your orders.”
My eyes find Elias, still standing with his toes against the pallet turned stage turned altar. He cocks his head, so I continue, “I’m not here to lead you. You have your leader.”
Marcella raises her chin. Nobody is looking at her except for me.
“So what, exactly, do you need from me?”
The wind whips against the boarded up windows. Rain beats against the sidewalk outside, muffled by the brick walls. A Mortae near the front, a man I don’t recognize, bald and baby-faced and eager, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Again, louder, I ask, “What do you need?”
A crack of thunder splits the silence and dissolves into murmured answers that aren’t meant for me. Lightning slips through the holes in the boards of the windows, illuminating the space for a blink before the ancient fluorescents and a blanket of breathless dark is cast over us. The energy roils and spits within me, more insatiable than it has ever been before like the lightning struck me directly, like I’m nothing but a conduit for the memories I’ve consumed. I’ve stuffed them down and down, wrangled and tamed and subdued them, and I—
I have been hungry. I am hungry.
Energy slips from my skin, sending skittering tendrils of light along the floor to caress ankles and calves. One of them shoots towards Rosalie, brushing the back of her knee. I feel it on my fingertips, the grit of her pants, the gasp it draws from her. She touches the rope of light with one finger. Marcella puts her hand on Rose’s shoulder and whispers something that makes her turn away.
When I look back at the crowd, lit only by my power, I find more gasps among them. Quietly, drawing their attention like breath, I say, “You need a god.”
It starts slowly. First Elias, then the few gathered nearest the dais. Like a wave crashing against rocks, the Mortae who once jeered and spat and swung at me sink to a knee and dip their heads. The oldest among them roll their cheeks against their necks to offer me their throats. Even Marcella, huddled near the entrance with her hand on Rosalie’s shoulder, dips her head, peeking up to offer a wink. Rose still has her back to me, but her hands are relaxed now, smoothing down the front of her leggings.
Before I can start to pick through the torrent of energy to find her thoughts, a flicker near me catches my attention— not my light. The baby-faced Mortae I lingered on earlier is sitting back on his heels with his face tilted towards the ceiling and his eyes closed. His lips move silently, too quick for me to read. The light originates in the center of his chest and grows with each of my blinks. I swallow but keep my face otherwise impassive as it engulfs his torso and crawls up his neck, louder with every swell until I’m certain the entire room can hear it but they can’t because it’s not coming for them, and even if it was, they wouldn’t be able to hold it, not like I can. A curse, most definitely, and one I’ve tried to ignore and deny until it was forced upon me.
Nobody is forcing me now. Elias won’t rush the stage to hold me in place, and if I fall, he won’t scoop me into his arms and tend to me. If I had a choice, if I ever had a choice, I would leave. I’d sink into the shadows like a mole hiding from a storm, and I would only emerge when the abandoned building was once again abandoned.
Rosalie still hasn’t turned around. She won’t look at me, and I’m doing this for her— but that confession is a touch too close to blame.
I close my eyes as the man erupts into a chorus of souls funneling into me, slamming against the wall of my skin like a battering ram seeking entrance. It doesn’t hurt, though I feel like it should. Young as he was, a mere sixty post-mortem years to my three centuries, he’s been busy. Hundreds of souls pour into me.
They’re so damn loud.
This time, I keep my feet. Blinking away spots of white, I open my eyes to find three neat piles of clothes where there had been people, one near the front, another pressed against the wall, and the third spitting distance from Marcella and Rosalie. With her back turned, would she have heard the screams? Could anyone hear them besides me?
Marcella is still keeping up her end of the bargain with her hand firm on Rose’s shoulder, so I catch her eye and send her a quiet, Thank you.
She nods, a movement so small that nobody else would notice even if their gazes weren’t still trained on the concrete floor. Marcella shoots back, Are you going to let them stand?
I wave my hand dismissively, and the fluorescents sputter back to life. Like I’ve watched my mother do a thousand times before, I slide backwards and settle onto the milk crate that serves as my throne, spreading my knees wide and dipping to rest my elbows on them. Heads raise tentatively as the crowd looks up, checking for clearance. When I don’t stop them, they rise as slowly as they knelt. I work to keep my expression impassive, regarding them as I would a passing insect, deciding whether I should let it fly on or squash it.
Elias is the first to reach my side. I’d make room for him on this crate if it wouldn’t diminish the display that has earned me new residents in my chest. I’d pull him into my lap and hide my face in his hair if it would benefit either of us more than it would hurt.
When he stops next to me, his fingers twitch like they’re trying to find my shoulder and settle instead for the hem of his own shirt. He whispers, “Alright, my prince?”
The insects descend on us before I can give him an answer.