Musa shakes his head. “This isn’t a skirmish. And the Tribes don’t know. Some fey magic cloaks the Martials. The wights heard a few of the generals speaking. They plan to attack at the waxing moon.”

Three weeks from now. “You can warn them,” I say. “That’s time enough to send a message—”

“I will,” Musa says. “But skies know if they’ll trust it. Keris and the Nightbringer are too strong, Laia. The Tribes will fall. And she’ll move north—”

To Delphinium. To finish what she began in Antium. Musa moves off to speak to the Shrike. Near the deep purple sail, Darin’s smile flashes as he shows Tas the rigging. The world’s not only full of bad things, you know.

I wish I believed that.

 

* * *

«««

The days pass quickly, filled with fishing, training with the Shrike, and catching up with Darin, Musa, and Tas. When the sun sets, we marvel at the brilliant sheets of violet and pink and green that light up the northern skies.

By sunrise on the fifth day, we spot the far side of Fari Bay. The rocky coast is steep, and the towering treetops of an ancient forest appear, blue beneath a clear sky and rolling westward as far as the eye can see.

The Waiting Place.

Harper speaks with the Shrike while Musa and I listen to one of Tas’s stories. But we all fall silent at the sight of the wood. Whispers sound on the wind and a shiver ripples through me.

“You know”—Musa drops his voice so only I can hear—“if you could just get Elias to talk to you, he might let us across—”

“No.”

“It would save us nearly three weeks.”

“We’re not going through the Waiting Place, Musa,” I say. “You of all people understand what it means to have the love of your life turned into someone else. I don’t want to see him again. Ever.”

“Beekeeper.” The Shrike’s attention is fixed on the empty sea behind us. “Can we make this thing go any faster?”

I squint—but even in the moonlight, I see only whitecaps. Then an arrow cuts through the air, embedding itself in the wood of the tiller, inches from Musa’s hand. He curses and the Shrike pushes past him, draws her bow, and releases a volley of shots.

“Commandant’s men!” she says as a cluster of longboats comes into view behind us. “Take cover—aah!”

I hear the sick thump of steel embedding into flesh, and the Shrike staggers. I am up now, nocking and releasing arrows as fast as I can.

“Watch your left!” Musa snaps as more longboats appear to the south. And the north.

“Ideas?” I ask the Beekeeper as the boats close in. “Because I am running out of arrows.”

“One.” Musa glances at me, and then toward the trees of the Waiting Place. “But you won’t thank me for it.”

XI: The Soul Catcher

 

For a week after I kill Cain, I dream.

I stand upon a great, blackened field, flanked by familiar faces. Laia of Serra is to my left and Helene Aquilla to my right. Keris Veturia stands apart, her gray eyes fixed on something I cannot see. The Mother watches over them all. The scims in my hands gleam with blood.

Beyond us, a great, rabid maelstrom. It is a thousand colors, teeth and viscera and dripping claws. The storm reaches out, wraps a putrid hook around Laia.

Elias! she screams. Help me!

Helene reaches for Laia, but the maelstrom roars and swallows them both. When I look to Keris, she’s gone, replaced by a gray-eyed, blonde child who takes my hand.

“Once,” she whispers, “I was thus.”

Then she, too, is consumed by the maw, while I am dragged down into the earth, into a death that never ends.

I wake covered in sweat but shivering, like when the Commandant would make us run midnight drills in a Serran winter.

It’s still dark, but I stagger up, wash, and step outside into a dull drizzle. The mourning doves haven’t yet begun to croon. Dawn is far.

Passing the spirits is the work of mere hours. When I am done, the storm-dulled light brushes the tops of the trees. The Waiting Place stands oddly silent and my stomach drops at the thought of the day stretching ahead, with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company.

“Right,” I mutter to myself. “Jinn grove it is.”

I consider taking my scims. But I think of the dream and leave them. My attachment to the armlet is troubling enough. Yesterday, I thought I’d lost it. I tore the cabin apart looking for it, only to find it in my cloak.

Laia’s armlet, the voice within shouts. That’s why it matters to you. Because you loved her.

I streak to the jinn grove and leave the voice behind, making for the dead yew. The drizzle keeps me cool as I bring down the chain—left side, right, left side, right. But the action, while exhausting, offers no comfort.

Instead, I am reminded of Blackcliff—of laughing maniacally with Helene one winter when the Commandant ordered our cadet class to train in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Why are we laughing? I’d asked her at the time.

Because laughing makes it hurt less.

“Little one.”

When the Wisp speaks from the edges of the jinn grove, it is a relief. I drop the chain and go to her. There are only a half dozen or so ghosts who refuse to leave the Waiting Place. Most have been here a few weeks, and I know I will pass them on eventually.

But the ghost of my grandmother—whose name in life was Karinna—has been here for more than thirty years. I’ve searched for her many times since joining with Mauth. Each time, she evaded me, seeking solitude in the deepest reaches of the wood.

Now she curls around me like smoke, little more than a shiver in the air. “Have you seen my lovey?”

“I know your lovey,” I say, and her head jerks up. She solidifies completely for the first time since I’ve seen her, so clear that I catch my breath.

She looks just like my mother. Like Keris.

“Your lovey still lives, Karinna,” I say. “But in time, she too will die. She will pass easier if you are waiting for her on the other side.”

Karinna is all movement again, bolting away and back in the blink of an eye. “My lovey does not live,” she says. “My lovey died. But I cannot find her anywhere.”

“Why do you think she died, Karinna?” I sit on a nearby stump and let her come to me. When she is close enough, I reach out with Mauth’s magic to try to understand what she needs. This is the trickiest part of passing a ghost on. Get too close and they bolt. Not close enough, and they rage at you for misunderstanding them.