The Nevernight Chronicle

‘Please,’ she whispered.

The Hearthless boy breathed deep, as if he were about to speak. All the air around him seemed to hush, the whispering stone faces and writhing stone hands at last falling still. His saltlocks swayed like dreaming vipers, the tattered edge of his robe danced in a wind that touched only him.

‘I FELT THE BLADE.’ Tric glanced at Ashlinn. ‘WHEN SHE SLIPPED IT INTO MY CHEST. I FELT THE WIND AS SHE PUSHED ME OFF THE SKY ALTAR, DOWN INTO THE BLACK BEYOND THE QUIET MOUNTAIN. BUT I DIDN’T FEEL THE GROUND.’

Mia sensed Ashlinn beside her, shivering as her lover reached down and took hold of her hand. She realized she couldn’t feel her fingers for the chill in the air. The very world seemed to hold its breath.

‘I WOKE IN A PLACE WITH NO COLOUR,’ Tric continued. ‘BUT IN THE DISTANCE AHEAD, I SAW A FLICKERING FLAME. A HEARTH. I KNEW I’D BE SAFE THERE. I COULD FEEL ITS WARMTH, LIKE A LOVER’S HANDS ON MY SKIN.’ The wraith shook his head. ‘BUT AS I TOOK MY FIRST STEP TOWARDS IT, I HEARD A VOICE BEHIND ME, AS IF FROM FAR AWAY.’

‘What did it say?’ Mia heard herself whisper.

‘THE MANY WERE ONE,’ Tric replied. ‘AND WILL BE AGAIN; ONE BENEATH THE THREE, TO RAISE THE FOUR, FREE THE FIRST, BLIND THE SECOND AND THE THIRD.’

O, Mother, blackest Mother, what have I become?

Mia felt her belly flip, remembering the book that Chronicler Aelius had given her during her tutelage in the Red Church. She’d asked the old man for a tome about the darkin, and he’d returned with a beaten, leather-bound diary.

‘Cleo’s journal,’ she said. ‘Those were her words.’

‘NO,’ the deadboy replied. ‘THEY’RE NIAH’S. SHE SANG THEM TO ME IN THE DARK, THE MUSIC OF HER PROMISES DROWNING OUT THE LIGHT OF THAT TINY HEARTH AND ALL DESIRE TO SIT BESIDE IT. AND WHEN HER LULLABY WAS DONE, THE MOTHER SHOWED ME A PATH, ACROSS THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS. AND THROUGH COLD SO FIERCE IT BURNED, THROUGH A BLACK SO BLEAK IT ALMOST SWALLOWED ME WHOLE, I CLAWED MY WAY BACK.’

Tric pulled up the sleeves of his robe, and Mia saw his hands and forearms were black, spattered, as if he’d dipped his arms in ink all the way to the elbows.

‘AND I BECAME.’

‘Became what?’

‘HER GIFT TO YOU,’ he replied. ‘HER GUIDE.’

Mia simply shook her head in question.

‘YOU’RE LOST,’ Tric said. ‘IT’S AS I ONCE TOLD YOU. YOUR VENGEANCE IS AS THE SUNS, MIA. IT SERVES ONLY TO BLIND YOU.’

Mia swallowed, finishing the words he’d spoken to her in the Galante necropolis.

‘Seek the Crown of the Moon.’

‘… The Crown of the Moon?’ Ashlinn breathed.

Mia turned to the girl beside her, hearing the strange note in her voice.

‘That means something to you?’

Ashlinn’s eyes were still fixed on Tric. She looked as incredulous as Mia felt.

‘… Ash?’

Ashlinn blinked, focusing on Mia’s face.

‘The map,’ she said. ‘The one Duomo hired me to find.’

Mia swallowed, remembering the first time she’d fallen into Ashlinn’s bed. The sweet kisses and cigarillo smoke afterwards, long red hair parting to reveal the intricate inkwerk on her lover’s back. Ashlinn had been hired by Cardinal Duomo to retrieve a map from a ruin on the coast of Old Ashkah. But fearing betrayal, she’d had the map branded on her skin with arkemical ink that would fade in the event of her death – the same kind that was used in the slave brand on Mia’s cheek. In all the chaos leading up to the magni, they’d never truly found time to discuss it.

‘Duomo believed it led to a weapon,’ Ashlinn said softly. ‘A magik that would undo the Church. Scaeva and the Ministry must have believed it, too, or they’d never have sent you to steal it back, Mia. I don’t know the truth of it. But I do know the map leads to a place deep in the Ashkahi wastes. A place called the Crown of the Moon.’

‘WHERE YOU MUST GO,’ Tric said.

‘Why?’ Mia demanded. ‘What the ’byss is this Moon? And why do I give a beggar’s cuss about its fucking crown?’

‘YOU ARE THE MOTHER’S CHOSEN,’ Tric replied.

‘O, bollocks,’ Mia snapped. ‘If I’m chosen of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, why am I running for my life from her own damned assassins? If I’m so la-dee-fucking-da, why have I lived up to my neck in blood and shit for the past eight years?’

‘THE RED CHURCH HAS LOST ITS WAY,’ Tric replied. ‘AND THE MOTHER IS VERY FAR FROM HERE, MIA. BUT SHE HAS DONE WHAT SHE CAN TO SET YOU ON YOUR PATH. SHE SENT YOU SALVATION AS A CHILD THROUGH MERCURIO. SHE SENT YOU CLEO’S JOURNAL THROUGH AELIUS. SHE SENT YOU THE MAP THROUGH …’ Tric’s eyes flashed as he glanced at Ashlinn. ‘… HER. SHE SENT YOU ME. YOU CAN’T IMAGINE THE STRUGGLE IT TOOK TO INFLUENCE THIS WORLD FROM WITHIN THE WALLS OF HER PRISON. BUT STILL, IN WHAT TINY WAY SHE CAN, SHE’S GIVEN YOU ALL THE AID SHE MAY.’

‘But why?’ Mia demanded. ‘Why me?’

Tric steepled his black fingers at his lips, staring for long, silent moments.

‘IN THE BEGINNING, NIAH AND AA’S MARRIAGE WAS A HAPPY ONE,’ he finally said. ‘THE LIGHT AND THE NIGHT SHARED RULE OF THE SKY EQUALLY, MAKING LOVE AT DAWN AND DUSK. FEARING A RIVAL, AA COMMANDED NIAH BEAR HIM NO SONS, AND DUTIFULLY, SHE GAVE HIM FOUR DAUGHTERS – THE LADIES OF FIRE, EARTH, OCEAN, AND STORMS. BUT IN THE LONG, COLD HOURS OF DARKNESS, NIAH MISSED HER HUSBAND. AND TO EASE HER LONELINESS, SHE BROUGHT A BOYCHILD INTO THE WORLD.’

Tric looked to the pool of darkness at his back, sorrow in his voice.

‘THE NIGHT NAMED HER SON ANAIS.’

‘And Aa banished Niah from the sky for her crime,’ Mia said, her temper fraying. ‘This is children’s lore, everyone knows it. What’s it to do with me?’

Tric pointed one finger to the pool, the smooth black surface mirroring the ceiling above as if it were glass. And reflected in it, she could see a pale orb, hanging in the dark like smoke.

‘IN THE EMPIRE OF OLD ASHKAH, THEY KNEW ANAIS BY ANOTHER NAME.’

Mia looked at the glowing orb – the same she’d seen in the moment she slew Furian in Godsgrave Arena – and felt her shadow grow darker still.

‘The Moon,’ she realized.

Tric nodded. ‘HE WAS THE EATER OF FEAR. THE DAY IN THE DARKNESS. HE REFLECTED HIS FATHER’S LIGHT AND BRIGHTENED HIS MOTHER’S NIGHT. IN THE EMPIRE OF OLD ASHKAH, HE TAUGHT THE FIRST SORCERII THE ARTS ARCANE. A GOD OF MAGIK AND WISDOM AND HARMONY, WORSHIPPED ABOVE ALL OTHERS. NO SHADOW WITHOUT LIGHT, EVER DAY FOLLOWS NIGHT, BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE …’

‘There is grey …,’ Mia murmured.

‘HE WAS THE BALANCE BETWEEN NIGHT AND DAY. THE PRINCE OF DAWN AND DUSK. AND FEARING HIS GROWING POWER, THE EVERSEEING RESOLVED TO SLAY HIS ONLY SON.’

The stone reliefs began moving again as Tric spoke. Graven hands shifting to cover sightless eyes. Mouths widening in horror. The orb in the pool shifted, became a sharp, crescent shape, dripping blood. In the back of her mind, Mia swore she could hear other voices. Thousands of them, just beyond the edge of hearing.

And they were screaming.

‘AA STRUCK WHILE ANAIS SLEPT,’ Tric continued. ‘HE CUT OFF HIS SON’S HEAD AND HURLED HIS BODY FROM THE HEAVENS. ANAIS’S CORPSE PLUMMETED TO THE EARTH, TEARING THE LAND ASUNDER AND THROWING ALL THE WORLD INTO CHAOS. THE ASHKAHI EMPIRE IN THE EAST WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED. AND WHERE HIS SON’S BODY LAY IN THE WEST, AA COMMANDED HIS FAITHFUL TO BUILD A TEMPLE TO HIS GLORY. THAT TEMPLE BECAME A CITY, AND THAT CITY BECAME THE NEW HEART OF HIS FAITH.’

‘The Ribs.’ Ash glanced at the gravebone blade at her waist. ‘The Spine.’

‘This whole place …’ Mia realized, looking around them.

Tric nodded. ‘A GOD’S GRAVE.’

Heart hammering, mouth dry, Mia pictured the illustration she’d found at the end of Cleo’s journal – a map of Itreya before the rise of the Republic. The bay of Godsgrave had been missing entirely, a peninsula filling the Sea of Silence where the Itreyan capital now stood. And in that spot, three words had been scribed in blood-red ink.

‘Here he fell …’ she whispered.

‘HERE HE FELL.’ Tric nodded. ‘BUT GODS DON’T DIE SO EASILY. AND THE MOTHER KEEPS ONLY WHAT SHE NEEDS. ANAIS’S SOUL WASN’T EXTINGUISHED.’

Tric drew a long, slow breath, as if before a deep plunge.

‘IT WAS SHATTERED.’

His bottomless eyes were fixed upon Mia’s.

‘SOME PIECES POOLED HERE, IN THE HOLLOWS BENEATH THIS CITY’S SKIN. THE PART OF HIM THAT RAGED. THAT HATED. THAT WISHED ONLY FOR IT ALL TO END, JUST AS HE HAD.’ The wraith glanced at Mister Kindly and Eclipse, now watching him with their not-eyes. ‘IN TIME, OTHER SHARDS GAINED A SEEMING OF THEIR OWN, CRAWLING FROM THE MIRE BENEATH HIS GRAVE. CUT OFF FROM WHAT THEY’D BEEN, AND KNOWING NOT WHAT THEY WERE, THEY SOUGHT OTHERS LIKE THEM. FEASTING ON FEAR AS ANAIS HAD ONCE DONE, AND TAKING WHATEVER SHAPES AND MANNERISMS THOSE THEY RODE FOUND COMFORT IN.’

‘Daemons,’ Mia said. ‘Passengers.’

Those pitch-black eyes returned to the girl’s. ‘AND LASTLY, THE LARGEST FRAGMENTS OF THE WHOLE, THE PARTS WHICH WERE STRONGEST, FOUND THEIR WAY …’

‘… People,’ Ash breathed.

‘Darkin,’ Mia said.

Tric nodded. ‘BUT AT THE HEART OF YOU – DAEMONS OR DARKIN – YOU ARE ALL THE SAME. SEARCHING FOR THE MISSING PIECES OF YOURSELF. SEEKING TO BECOME WHOLE AGAIN. THE SCATTERED PIECES OF A SHATTERED GOD.’

Eclipse scoffed. ‘… THIS IS MADNESS …’

‘… i mean to cause no one alarm, but i concur with the mongrel …’

‘LOOK AT YOUR SHADOW, MIA,’ Tric said. ‘WHAT DO YOU SEE?’

Mia looked to the darkness at her feet. It was still stretching out towards that pool of black blood, just as Jonnen’s was. But even with her passengers sitting on the shore across from her, it was still …

‘Dark enough for two,’ she said.

‘SO IT WAS WITH CLEO,’ Tric said. ‘SHE ALSO LEARNED THE TRUTH OF WHAT SHE WAS. CHOSEN BY THE MOTHER, SHE JOURNEYED ACROSS THE LANDS OF ITREYA, SEEKING TO UNITE THE SHATTERED PIECES OF ANAIS’S SOUL. SHE GATHERED A LEGION OF PASSENGERS TO HER SIDE. SEEKING OTHERS LIKE HER AND—’

‘Eating them,’ Mia said, recalling the journal.

‘TAKING THE SHARDS OF HIS ESSENCE INTO HERSELF.’

Mia frowned. ‘So the fragment that was inside Furian …’

‘IS NOW PART OF YOU. IN SLAYING HIM WITH YOUR OWN HAND, YOU’VE CLAIMED IT AS YOURS. MERGING TWO INTO A LARGER WHOLE. THE MANY WERE ONE. AND WILL BE AGAIN.’

‘But Lord Cassius died right in front of me. I didn’t feel any stronger.’

‘CASSIUS WASN’T SLAIN BY A DARKIN. THE FRAGMENT IN HIM WAS LOST FOREVER. EVENTUALLY, EVEN GODS CAN DIE.’

Mia’s pulse was thumping in her veins, her belly a roiling slick of ice. She could feel the malice emanating from that blackened pool, the fury in the air around her. She understood it now, at last. It was the same fury she’d reached out and touched during the truedark massacre, the night she’d first truly wielded the power within her. Tearing the Philosopher’s Stone to pieces. Storming the Basilica Grande and destroying the grand statue of Aa outside it. Embracing the black and bitter rage in this city’s bones.

It was the rage of a child, betrayed by the one who should have loved it most.

The rage of a son, by his father slain.

The deadboy’s bottomless eyes bored into her own.

‘Cleo’s journal … she spoke of a child inside her,’ Mia said.

‘… SHE WAS A LUNATIC, MIA …’ Eclipse growled.

‘This whole tale sounds like lunacy,’ she breathed.

‘NO,’ Tric replied. ‘IT’S—’

‘… destiny …?’ Mister Kindly scoffed.

Tric turned bottomless eyes on the shadowcat.

‘IF SHE HAS COURAGE ENOUGH TO SEIZE IT.’

‘… this is the darkest shade of nonsense …’

Eclipse concurred with a sneer.

‘… YOU HONESTLY WISH ME TO BELIEVE THIS IDIOT MOGGY IS A GOD …?’

‘ANAIS’S SOUL SHATTERED INTO HUNDREDS OF FRAGMENTS. YOU’RE NO MORE GODLIKE THAN A DROP OF WATER IS THE OCEAN. BUT YOU MUST FEEL YOU’RE ALL BOUND TO EACH OTHER? DON’T YOU SENSE YOU ARE … INCOMPLETE?’

Mia knew what the Hearthless boy was talking about. The sickness and hunger she’d always felt around Cassius, Furian, now Jonnen. She never felt as whole as when Mister Kindly and Eclipse walked in her shadow. And she felt stronger than ever since Furian had died at her hands.

But still, it seemed sheer madness – this talk of fragmented gods and shattered souls, of restoring the balance between light and dark.

‘YOU MUST MAKE WHOLE WHAT WAS BROKEN, MIA. YOU MUST RETURN MAGIK TO THE WORLD. RESTORE THE BALANCE BETWEEN NIGHT AND DAY, LIKE IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. LIKE IT WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE. ONE SUN. ONE NIGHT. ONE MOON.’

She motioned to the blackened pool. ‘If it’s pieces of him I’m supposed to seek, that seems a good place to start.’

‘NO,’ Tric said. ‘THIS IS ANAIS’S FURY. THIS IS HIS RAGE. THE PART OF HIM THAT HAS LAIN IN THE DARK AND FESTERED, THAT WANTS ONLY TO DESTROY. YOU MUST REMAKE THE WORLD, MIA. NOT UNDO IT. THIS IS YOUR PURPOSE.’

Mia’s eyes narrowed. ‘My purpose was avenging my familia. It was killing Remus, Duomo, and Scaeva. And I’ve done that, after living neck-deep in blood and shit for eight fucking years. No thanks to your precious Mother.’

‘Mia …’ Ashlinn murmured.

‘The Red Church captured Mercurio, Tric. Maw knows what they want with him, but he’s in their hands. They probably know he helped me murder Scaeva. I have to—’

‘Mia,’ Ashlinn said.

She turned to her lover, saw fear swimming in that beautiful blue.

‘What is it?’ Mia asked.

‘I have to tell you something,’ Ash said. ‘About Scaeva.’

‘So tell me?’

‘… You should sit down.’

‘Are you jesting?’ Mia scoffed. ‘Spit it out, Ashlinn.’

The Vaanian girl chewed her lip. Drew a deep and shivering breath.

‘He lives.’

Jonnen’s eyes grew wide, his little mouth hanging open. Mia felt her heart skip a beat, an awful dread turning her gut colder than the deadboy behind her.

‘What are you talking about?’ Mia hissed. ‘I put a gravebone blade right through his ribs. I cut his fucking heart in two!’

Ash shook her head. ‘He was a double, Mia. An actor, fleshcrafted by Weaver Marielle to look like Scaeva. The consul was in league with the Red Church, and they knew our plan to win the magni all along. They wanted you to kill Duomo. Scaeva’s going to use the cardinal’s public murder as an excuse to exercise permanent emergency powers, claim the title of imperator, become king of Itreya in all but name.’

Mia’s head was swimming. Heart racing. Skin filmed with icy sweat.

Could it be true?

Could he have seen her coming?

Could she have been so blind?

Her legs felt weak. Dizzy from exhaustion, loss of blood, Solis’s toxin still lingering in her veins. She glanced to Jonnen, saw the boy looking at her with triumph in his black eyes. She’d been so careful. So certain. She could remember the elation as her blade parted Scaeva’s chest, the maddening joy as his blood splashed across her chin and lips, warm and thick and lovely red.

‘O, Goddess …’

She blinked at Ashlinn, searching desperately for the lie, the ruse.

‘How do you know this?’

‘Scaeva told me. When they ambushed me in the chapel. And Mia … he told me something else besides.’ Ash swallowed thickly, her voice shaking. ‘But I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to give it voice, knowing what it will do to you.’

‘I thought it was finished …’ Mia could feel bitter tears brimming in her eyes. Too tired and hurt to push them back anymore. ‘Eight f-fucking years, and I … I actually let myself believe it was done.’

She sank to her knees on a sea of screaming faces, tempted just to start screaming along with them.

‘What could be worse than that?’

‘O, Goddess, forgive me …’

Ashlinn sank down on the stone beside her. Taking Mia’s hands in her own, she took a deep, trembling breath.

‘Mia …’

Ash shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks.

‘Mia … he’s your father.’

CHAPTER 6

IMPERATOR

Mia sat on a black shoreline, a war of three colours in her head.

The first was the red of blood. The red of rage. She felt it curl her hands to fists. Fill her to brimming, toe to crown. Spitting curses and fire and stomping about on those anguished stone faces. It was bliss to give in to it for a while, embracing the temper she was so notorious for. At least she knew where it came from now. Swimming in the air about her, the city above her, changing the architecture beneath her skin.

All her life.

The rage of a god laid low.

The second was cool steel grey. Suspicion, slipping into her belly like a knife, cold and hard. There was a moment where she prayed it was all a trick – manipulation from a man who’d always proved himself three steps ahead. But in her darkest depths, it all rang true. The way Scaeva had looked at her that turn in her mother’s apartments. That turn he’d stretched out his hand and taken her whole world away. The gleam in his eyes as he’d looked down at her and smiled, dark as bruises.

‘Would you like to know what keeps me warm at night, little one?’

And so fury killed suspicion. Drowned it beneath a scarlet flood.

But after suspicion’s cool grey had come sorrow. Black as storm clouds. Turning her curses to sobs and her fury to tears. She’d slumped down on that voiceless, howling shore and cried. Like a child. Like a fucking babe. Letting her grief, her horror, her anguish spill up out of her lips and down her cheeks until her eyes were red as blood and her throat aching and raw.

Darius Corvere. Justicus of the Luminatii. Leader of the Kingmaker Rebellion. The man who’d given her puzzles for Great Tithe gifts, who’d read her tales before bedtime, whose stubble had tickled her cheeks when he kissed her goodnight. The man who’d propped her little feet upon his own and whisked her about that shining ballroom.

‘I love you, Mia.’

‘I love you, too.’

‘Promise you’ll remember. No matter what comes.’

The man she’d adored, the man she’d grieved, the man she’d devoted the last eight years of her life to avenging. The man she’d called Father.

Nothing close.

Ashlinn sat behind her as she wept, gentle arms about her waist, forehead pressed cool and smooth against her back. Mister Kindly and Eclipse sat close by, watching silently. Jonnen looked at her with a newfound confusion glittering in those bottomless eyes. Black as crow’s feathers. Black as truedark.

Just like Scaeva’s.

Just like mine.

‘His wife can’t have children,’ Ashlinn murmured, her voice thick with grief. ‘Scaeva, I mean. I suppose that’s why he took Jonnen … afterwards …’

‘All good kings need sons,’ Mia whispered. ‘Daughters, not so much.’

‘I’m sorry, love.’ Ash took her hand, pressed Mia’s scabbed and bleeding knuckles to her lips. ‘Black Mother, I’m so sorry.’

Eclipse drifted closer, wrapping her translucent body around Mia’s waist and resting her head in the girl’s lap. Mister Kindly lay across her shoulders, entwined in her hair, tail curled protectively across her chest. Mia drew comfort from their smoky chill, the whisper-light feel of their bodies against hers, Ash’s arms around her. But her eyes were soon drawn back to that black pool before them, the copper stink of blood hanging heavy in the air. She looked down at her empty hands again, the passengers beside her, the shadow beneath her, darker than it had ever been.

The many were one.

And will be again?

She looked to the silent Hearthless boy standing before her. His black eyes were fixed on Ashlinn. On their fingers entwined. She remembered those eyes had been hazel once. That those fingers had touched her in places no one ever had.

His revelation still rang in her ears. The weight of the truth she’d sought all these years, now ill-fitting and crooked upon her shoulders. Part of her still found it impossible to believe – even with the memory of the truedark massacre singing in her head, the power and fury she’d wielded so effortlessly, shadows cutting like swords in her outstretched hands. She’d killed so many men, giving in to the rage that had sustained her through all the years and all the miles and all the sleepless nevernights.

It was creeping back into her now, slipping out towards her from that pool. Toxic. Narcotic. Smothering sorrow’s black beneath waves of familiar, comforting red.

If she was angry, she didn’t need to think.

If she was angry, she could simply act.

Hunt.

Stab.

Kill.

That bastard. The spider at the centre of this whole rotten fucking web. The man who’d sentenced her mother to die in the Philosopher’s Stone, who’d ordered her drowned, who’d used her to rid himself of his rivals, and at last, put himself within arm’s reach of his bloody throne. The man who’d manipulated her from afar all these years, pushing her, twisting her, turning her into …

She looked down at her trembling, open hands.

Into this.

So she gave in to the rage. Let it choke the grief inside her. And into the dark, she whispered, ‘If a killer is what he wants, a killer is what he’ll get.’

Ash blinked. ‘What?’

Mia stood with a wince. Stretched out her hand.

‘Give me the sword, Ash.’

Ashlinn looked down at the longblade at her waist. She’d recovered it from Mia’s chambers in the Godsgrave chapel. It was gravebone, sharp as sunslight, its hilt carved like a crow in flight. The sword had once belonged to Darius Corvere, taken from his study in Crow’s Nest by Marcus Remus. Mia had killed Remus in turn – cut his throat in a dusty shithole on the coast of Ashkah, and claimed the blade as her own.

Avenging her father, or so she thought.

‘I love you, Mia.’

‘I love you, too.’

‘Give it to me,’ Mia said.

‘Why?’ Ash asked.

‘Because it’s mine.’

‘Mia …’ Ashlinn rose to her feet, caution and care turning her voice to velvet. ‘Mia, whatever you’re thinking … you’re exhausted. You’re wounded. What Tric just told us … it can’t be easy to—’

‘Give me the fucking sword, Ashlinn!’ Mia shouted.

The shadows flared, the darkness ringing in her voice and turning it to hollow iron. The darkness twisted about her feet, mad patterns and shapes, strobing black. The red-amber eyes of the crow on the hilt twinkled in the ghostly light. The pool behind her rippled, as if kissed by the smallest stone.

Ashlinn went pale beneath her freckles. Mia saw she was actually trembling. But she still stood her ground. Gritted her teeth and curled her hands into fists to stop the shakes. Standing up to Mia like nobody else ever dared.

‘No,’ she replied.

Mia growled. ‘Ash, I’m warning you …’

‘Warn me all you like,’ Ash said, taking a deep breath. ‘I know you’re angry. I know you’re hurt. But you need to think.’ She waved at the dark behind and below Mia. ‘Away from this cursed pool. With the blood washed off your skin and a cigarillo in your hand and a nevernight’s sleep between you and all this shit.’

Mia scowled, but the iron in her stare wavered.

‘Give me my sword, Ashlinn.’

The girl reached out and ran one gentle hand down the cruel scar on Mia’s cheek. Along the bow of her lips. The look in her eyes melted Mia’s heart.

‘I love you, Mia,’ Ash said. ‘Even the part of you that frightens me. But you’ve been hurt enough for one turn. I’ll not see you hurt again.’

Tears welled in Mia’s eyes. Black rising from beneath the red. The walls loomed about her, ready to come crashing down. Her hands fluttered at her sides as if she were desperate for an embrace, but too torn to beg for one. With a murmur of pity, a glance to the Hearthless boy watching them, Ashlinn stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Mia. She kissed her brow, pulled her in tight, Mia sinking into her arms.