“Of what?” I asked, trying to steady my voice. I wished I had already lost my sense of touch, for then I wouldn’t have had to feel so overwhelmed with guilt, with sadness. Why hadn’t I noticed? All of the clues had been there, but I had missed them. I had been too wrapped up in Dante, in my own quest.
“Cardiomyopathy. A disease of the heart. The muscle is wasting away. It has been for years.”
That was why Monsieur had sent her with us, why she had been willing to come in the first place. “Tell me what to do.”
“You can’t do anything,” she said. “No one can. Eventually my heart will stop, though now it seems it might be sooner rather than later.”
While she spoke, Theo rifled through her bag until he found her tin. He sifted through the bottles and salves inside, measuring out five different kinds of pills. “These are the ones you normally take, right?” He took a bottle of water from his bag and offered it to her. “Take them.”
Anya gave him a weak smile. “You’ve been paying attention,” she said, and with some difficulty sat up, taking the water from Theo. “I never realized.”
“Neither did I,” Theo said, studying her. “What about the black pill?” he said, holding up the thin vial with a single tablet inside. “You said it was for emergencies.”
Anya shook her head. “Only the bad kind of emergencies,” she said. “If I’m in pain and want to end it.”
Her words startled Theo. He dropped the vial back in the tin, as though he no longer wanted to touch it. “I didn’t think anyone could surprise me,” he said softly. “But you always prove me wrong.”
Dante stared up at the mountains, where I could see the small figures of the Undead moving toward us. “Can you make it a little bit farther?” he said. “I can help you.”
Anya shook her head. “I can walk,” she said. With Theo’s help, she stood. “Though I have to go slower.”
We pressed onward until a vast frozen lake came into view: the first of the three circles that led to the final point. When Noah saw it, he stopped. His eyes lingered on the frozen ripples, which looked eerily similar to the ice he been pulled under at Gottfried. His bag slipped from his shoulder but he made no move to pick it up; his gaze was distant, as if he were staring back into the past.
Watching his shoulders curl forward and his hand tremble by his side, I wanted nothing more than to stand beside him and tell him that I would fix everything that I had done, that I would give him his life back. But I didn’t know if those were promises I could keep.
While Anya rested, I peered through the trees at the mountain in the distance. The Undead were closer; I could feel their wisps licking at my skin, beckoning me toward them. They looked like a group of dark silhouettes trailing behind us down the slope. Yet one by one, they began to vanish. I scanned the mountainside, wondering if they were splitting up and trying to surround us, when I saw something white dart through the snow in the distance, like a fist of wind and ice billowing toward one of the Undead boys. It knocked him off his feet and dragged him out of sight.
I squinted. What had I just seen? It happened so quickly that the other Undead didn’t notice.
After a moment, another Undead boy fell to the ground, and was pulled by some invisible force into the woods. A person, or a white specter of the woods? I thought back to each of the points, and how I’d kept seeing the white faces of girls watching me through the snow.
“The Keepers,” I whispered.
“What about them?” Eleanor said from behind me.
“They’re up there,” I said. “Taking the Undead.”
If Noah heard me, he didn’t let on. When he finally turned, he lowered his eyes to the ground so that we couldn’t see his face. He hefted his bag onto his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I glanced at Anya, who was leaning on Theo’s shoulder. “I’m ready,” she said.
The second lake was wider and deeper than the first, and covered in a thin layer of ice, through which I could see the water pressing against the surface. I felt the presence of the Undead fade behind us.
The sun was setting over the trees when we stumbled upon a sleepy mountain town. The snowy roofs of the houses blended so perfectly into the landscape that at first, I thought my eyes were betraying me. There was only one main street, laid with cobblestones, and so quiet it looked deserted. It was lined with wooden houses, their rooftops blanketed with white.
“Where is everyone?” Anya said.
One of the buildings bore a sign that read: boulangerie. We were back in France. Through the window, I caught a glimpse of a woman rolling out dough on a table. She stopped working when she saw me and watched us as we passed.
Dante looked up at the darkening sky. “We should stay here tonight,” he said.
I scanned the houses. Each door had a large metal knocker and was studded with iron rivets like the entrance of a fortress. They looked like they hadn’t been opened in decades. Rising over the houses stood a steeple topped with a metal cross. I followed it down to see a simple stone church. Dante must have seen it, too, for he nodded and walked toward it.
The church greeted us with the calmness of a place that hadn’t changed for centuries. It was modest in size, with bare wooden beams vaulted beneath the ceiling. The waning light shifted through dusty stained glass windows, though the colors looked monochrome to me.
We settled near the pulpit, gathering prayer candles for light. Anya nestled in by the front pew, her breathing thin and weak. She closed her eyes, trying to steady herself while Eleanor lit the candles one by one, their flames making our shadows stretch over the walls. Eleanor curled up beside me. Even Undead, her face was like a burst of sunshine, her rosy cheeks now pale but just as full, her blue eyes now faded but just as warm. Her ringlets were sheared off into a boy’s haircut. I wrapped a lock around my finger.
“It was the only way to blend in with the Undead boys,” she said, touching a curl by her ear. The length still seemed to startle her. “I wish you had been there.”
I shook my head. “What happened?”
Eleanor looked to Noah. “You should start,” she said. “It’s your story.”
He adjusted his glasses. They were the same pair he’d worn at St. Clément, though they seemed more fitting now; more mature. “I rose from the lake. Everything was bleary and dull. I was so cold. The last thing I remembered was being pulled under the ice by the Undead. And there I was, wet and cold, yet no one else was around me. I didn’t know what had happened or how much time had passed. I didn’t know I was dead.” He let out a breath, as if he still couldn’t believe it.
“I looked for you,” he said, gazing at me. “But the lawn was empty. At first I thought the Undead had taken you. Then I saw her.” He looked to Eleanor. “She found me.”
“I saw everything,” Eleanor said. “I saw the Undead pull him into the lake; I saw them chase you in the woods, the Monitors following them. But I didn’t know what happened after that. I thought the Undead might have taken you. But there was nothing I could do alone. So I waited, watching the lake. All of the professors had gone to track down the Liberum, leaving us in the care of the school groundskeepers. I figured they would come back for Noah in a day or two, but no one did. It was too chaotic; they each must have thought that someone else was tending to him. I wanted to help him. Every day I watched the lake from my bedroom window, but I was too afraid to fish him out. If I got caught, I could be buried. So I waited. Nine days passed. On the tenth day, I went outside. After he got over the shock of how everything looked and felt—the muted colors, the dullness of the smells and sounds...” She let her voice trail off, as if she were trying to remember what the world had been like before, too. “I told him everything.”
Noah stared at the floor. “I thought she had made a huge mistake.”
Eleanor swallowed. “But I hadn’t.”
My dreams of Noah hadn’t been true, I realized. They had been a creation of my guilt, of my imagination. All that time, Eleanor had been with him. She had helped him. The thought put me at ease.
“We tried to figure out what to do,” Eleanor continued. “We could stay at Gottfried, where Noah could be taken care of for the remainder of his time on earth, but I already knew what that existence was like. It was bleak and empty, with nothing separating one day from the next. We were all wasting away. And then Noah told me about the chest. I knew then that there was only one thing to do. Leave.”
“That’s when we got the note,” Theo said.
“A note?” I said. “From whom?”
“A man named Monsieur,” Eleanor said. “He told us that we didn’t know him but he knew us. He instructed us to go to the Liberum and join them. That they would help us find you. He told us where they were headed, and where we could find their camp. So we went.”
“You joined the Liberum?” Theo said with a laugh. “What, did you just walk up to them in their camp and ask if you could join them?”
“Yes,” Noah said, his face grave. “After we cut her hair,” he said, nodding to Eleanor. “The Liberum only use boys. We had to make her blend in. Finding them was the hardest part. I can’t sense the Undead anymore like I used to be able to.” He let eyes drift to the shovel by my feet. “We searched the woods for days, looking for their tracks in the snow. I was ready to give up. We couldn’t just wander around the East Coast for weeks, hoping to stumble across the Liberum. After all, the Monitors were roaming the woods, too. What if they found us first? Then Eleanor had an idea.”
“I decided that we had to find the Monitors,” Eleanor said. “They would be easier to locate; they have to sleep and eat; they can’t just stay outside all day. They leave more of a trail. I thought if we found them, the Undead couldn’t be far away.”
“We don’t have to sleep or eat, and we don’t get tired, so it was easy to catch up to them. We traveled all night and all day, walking through the woods. We searched all of the inns and bed-and-breakfasts until we found them,” Noah said. “And just like Eleanor predicted, the Undead camp was there, too, just a few miles into the woods.”
“We tried to think of a good strategy,” Eleanor continued, “but there really isn’t any great way to approach the Liberum. So in the end, we took our chances and walked in.”
“They could have buried you,” Anya said, her face aghast.
Eleanor hung her head. “When you’re like this,” she said, gazing down at her pale skin, “risks don’t seem as risky.”
“The Undead boys seized us before we even made it into the camp. They dragged us in and brought us before the Liberum,” Noah said. “I told them we used to be Monitors. That we knew everything about how the Monitors worked and thought; that we could help them, if they would only let us. I told them I was an outcast. I could never return to the Monitoring community. They would put me to death. I still believe that.” Noah paused and looked at me. “All the while I was looking for you, wondering if you were somewhere in their camp.
“They said nothing while they listened to us. When we finished, they left to confer. A few hours later, they returned, telling us we could join. They needed us.”
“Why?” Anya said.
Noah tilted his head and gave her a funny look, as though the answer was obvious. “To get to all of you. To find the chest.”
“It was you that night in Bavaria,” I realized. “Both of you. That’s why the Undead didn’t surround me. Because you were guiding them away.”
Eleanor nodded. “We didn’t want them to take any of you,” she said. “But we knew we couldn’t prevent that without blowing our cover. So we led them toward Dante.”
“As an Undead, we knew he was the best one for the Liberum to claim,” Noah said, though his voice was so cold that I wondered if part of him liked the idea of separating Dante from me. “They wouldn’t be able to take his soul.”
Still, I had to admit that he was right. I thought back to the night at the castle in Germany, of how I had run out to find Noah disappearing into the night.
“I was looking for you,” Noah said. His eyes darted to Dante.
“The Liberum wouldn’t let me go on any of the night raids,” Dante said. “They left me under the watch of a group of Undead while we hiked up to the refuge. I asked them to find you. I wanted to make sure you were still here, and that someone was protecting you if the Liberum came.”
I remembered the voice I’d heard in Widow’s Pass.
Was
she there? Was she safe?
I’d heard Dante say to an Undead boy. I realized then that Dante hadn’t been consorting with the Liberum or the Undead boys. All that time, he’d been talking to Eleanor and Noah. I turned to Dante. “I heard you speaking to them,” I said. “I heard your voice echo off the walls of Widow’s Pass.”
“We were planning to find you,” Eleanor said. “We were trying to steal the chest back from the Liberum.”
They’d done so much for me, and I hadn’t even known it. “I—I don’t know what to say. You put yourselves in so much danger for me.” I looked up at Noah. “I don’t deserve it.”
Eleanor shifted her weight. “We didn’t just come for you,” she said. “We came because we want to find the Netherworld, too.”
W
HEN THE CANDLES HAD DRIPPED DOWN
to stumps, Noah made his way to the stairwell that led up to the bell tower. Just before he disappeared into the corridor, he met my eye.
Follow me
, he seemed to say.
“I—I have to go,” I said to Dante.
He hesitated, as though he had known this moment would come. “Then go.”
I tiptoed after Noah, climbing the winding staircase, his presence coaxing my feet forward, cold and still like the first breath of winter. He stood by the stone barricade, his back turned to me as he gazed at the alpine view that stretched out before us, his outline dark against the night sky.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Noah said nothing. He didn’t even move.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He turned. “Sorry for what?”
“It’s my fault, what you are,” I said. “If it weren’t for me you’d be alive.”
He studied me, his face void of any warmth. “You don’t like what you see. You’re afraid of what I am now.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not. I just—”
“Liked me better as a human,” Noah said, his face betraying the smallest hint of sadness. “But not enough to stay and find me.”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “Dante—he took me away. I couldn’t go back; the Monitors were there.”
“You could have,” Noah said, his face softening. “But you chose Dante over me.”
I shrank back. He was right.
“And yet, I still choose you,” Noah said. “All those days I spent wandering the woods, all the nights I couldn’t sleep when I stayed up thinking about my parents and sister, about our house in Montreal and how I could never return there again—the only thought that gave me hope was you. I can never see my family again. I can never be a Monitor, nor can I go back to St. Clément or even to Montreal, with all the High Court there. All of my training, all of the hopes I’d had before are gone. I can’t feel cold or warmth. I can’t taste food, nor can I smell the air around me, nor can I hear the softness of your voice, and yet every time I try to remember the feeling of happiness, my mind drifts to you.”
I had been prepared for Noah to be angry, but I hadn’t been ready for this.
“I helped him,” Noah said, glancing at Dante. “I helped him for you. Because I knew it was what you would have wanted. I came to you in the night at the castle in Bavaria; I watched over you. I wanted you to be safe. And when the Liberum attacked, I protected you.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “If I had I would have—”
“You would have what?” he asked.
I waited for him to continue, but he said nothing. “I—I don’t know.”
My admission struck a silence between us. Noah understood then that nothing he could have done would have changed this outcome.
“I gave up my life for you once,” Noah said. “I would do it again. Everything I’ve been doing is for you.”
“Why?” I asked. “I have nothing to give you. My soul is just as parched as yours.”
“It’s not,” Noah said. “You make me feel alive. As alive as I can be. I won’t ask you to come to the Netherworld with me; I would never have asked you to give up your life to help me find mine. I just ask that you wait for me. When I take a new soul, I’ll find you. We can pick up our lives where we left off.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“Choose me.”
The problem was that I didn’t want to continue this life. I wanted to start a new one. There was nothing left for me here—no beauty, no sadness, no hatred—just a steady numbness. My parents were gone, as was my grandfather; all of my friends were either living normal sunny lives or wallowing as Undead, and as a Monitor, I would eventually be tasked with ending their lives, a calling I never wanted in the first place. I couldn’t help but feel like I had one foot in the underworld and one foot on earth. How could a person go on living like that?
Although I couldn’t remember the scent of Dante’s hair or the taste of his skin or the sound of his voice as he whispered to me while I fell asleep, I knew that every part of him was imprinted on my soul, breathing life into my past, my present, my future. He was the only person who made me feel alive. Who made me want to be alive.
I inched away from Noah. “Dante never asked me to give up my life for him. I wanted to. Without him, there’s nothing here for me,” I said, my voice cracking. “He
is
my life.”
My words struck him. He moved his fingers, as though he wanted to reach out and touch me, though he held himself back. “And you are mine.”
Though I knew he meant what he said, his words were void of emotion. His coldness frightened me. This wasn’t the same Noah who had run into me with his bicycle in Montreal, his crooked smile making me melt; or the Noah who had stacked my arms full of food at the grocery store, making me laugh for the first time in months; or the Noah who had brought me to his childhood bedroom, where I’d sat on his twin bed and tried to imagine what my life would be like if I chose to spend it with him. This Noah frightened me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t give you what you want.”
Noah let his hands drop to his sides. “No,” he said, his voice dead. “I am.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t mean it like that—”
But he cut me off. “You want to leave,” he said. “So go. Go!”
I backed down the stairs.
Dante was waiting for me in the front pew. I ran to him, trying to will my hands to stop trembling. “My answer is you,” I said. “It’s always been you.”
He eyes drifted to the stairway, wondering what had shaken me so, but he didn’t ask any questions. “And mine, you,” he said. “Come on.”
He led me to the back of the church, where he pulled me into the shadows. But as he reached for my hand, I noticed something strange.
The skin on his wrist looked different, as if it belonged to man twenty years older. It looked so pale that I could almost see the veins running beneath it. Dante must have seen me staring. He pulled his arm back into the shadows.
“What did they do to you?”
Dante curled his fingers, studying them. “They dragged me into the woods, where they wrapped my arms and legs with gauze. The nine Brothers surrounded me. They asked me questions about the chest and the Netherworld, about the Monitors. They told me that if I didn’t help them find the next point on the map, they would find you and take your soul.”
He lowered his eyes to the ground. “For days I tried to escape, but it was no use. The gauze had made my hands and legs so weak that I could barely move them. All I could do was think of you.”
I took his hands in mine, tracing my fingers along the insides of his wrists. “How did you get away?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I don’t know how much time passed before they came back, but when they did they set up camp nearby. I could hear the Undead boys talking through the trees. I listened for your name; it was all I could think of. Had they found you? Had they taken your soul?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Then, one night, two of the Undead boys approached me. They were some of the oldest Undead in the army. So tall. I thought they had been sent to burn me. But instead, they turned out to be Noah and Eleanor.”
He glanced back to the front of the church where I could hear Eleanor whispering. “They told me that you were still alive. I felt like they had given me my life back. They watched over you. They helped me plan my escape and steal back the chest from the Liberum. I owe them everything.”
I shrank back against the wall, feeling the dust stick to my fingertips. “Not everything,” I said.
Dante leaned his forehead against mine, his breath tickling my lips. Then he slid his hand around my waist and inched back toward the pews until I could see the last of the candlelight dance across the angles of his face. He lowered me onto the bench, the wood creaking beneath us as he traced his hand up the back of my thigh.
I felt the warmth blossom beneath my skin. My chest felt hot and flushed. His hands grasped at my clothes, sliding beneath the layers of fabric until I felt his cool touch graze my skin. My body moved without me, my neck arching back, my legs wrapping around him as he pulled me to the floor beneath the pews. I felt the cold stone against my skin, the weight of Dante pressing me deep into the ground.
His breath was thick and cold as it beat against my neck. I felt his hand tangle itself in my hair, coaxing my head back as he kissed my collarbone, the nape of my neck, my chest.
Theo murmured in his sleep from the front of the church, but I didn’t care if I woke him.
“Make me feel something,” I said. “Please.”
Dante’s eyes were barely visible beneath the cloud of gray. Slowly, he unbuttoned my cardigan. The cool air of the church lapped at my chest as he peeled my clothes off of me, first my sweater, then my shirt, his fingers sending a shiver up my skin as he counted each of my ribs. My lips trembled as I grasped at his shirt, twisting it over his head until all I could see was the pale curvature of his chest expanding and contracting in the darkness.
I pulled at his sides, kissing the muscles in his arms, his shoulders; I pressed my hands into his shoulder blades as if I were trying to rip them apart. His lips flitted over my skin, sending a prickle of cold up my back. Everything within me ached for him.
My eyes drifted over the vaulted ceilings of the church, at the chipped paintings adorning the stone. Images of burial and the afterlife, of angels ascending into the clouds. Everyone had to face death one day. I ran my hand through Dante’s hair as if it were the last time I would ever touch him, as if it were the last day of our lives.
“I choose you,” I whispered. “I choose you.”
He hovered over my mouth, the tendrils of his breath tickling my lips. A part of me wanted to press my mouth to his, to try and taste the salt on his tongue as it melted into mine. But Dante tightened above me, his grasp strong around my hands to hold me back. “We’re almost there,” he said.
I collapsed back against the dusty floor. Dante lowered himself to the ground beside me and wrapped his sweater around my shoulders. I rested my hand on his chest and felt the vibrations of his heartbeat. Its rhythm had grown even more irregular. It lagged behind as if it were tired, then sped up in an attempt at recovery. What I didn’t want to admit was that my heart was slowing, too. I’d noticed it over the past few days, the occasional palpitation in my chest. I closed my eyes and counted along with his heart.
One, two,
three—one—one, two—one
. Mine skipped in tandem, filling in the beats his heart missed, until I fell asleep, our bodies rising and falling as one.
I woke to the sound of paper slipping beneath the door. The morning sun shone through the stained glass windows, dimpling the floor in light, and though I imagined it was beautiful, all I could see were the scuffed panels of glass, their colors monotone. The candles had all burned out, their wax in hardened puddles on the floor. Dante sat beside me, turning the small black box over in his hands.
“Did you hear that?” I said.
“Hear what?” he said.
I ran to the entrance of the church, where an envelope lay halfway beneath the door. I swung it open, letting the sun spill inside. Monsieur had been here just moments before, I could feel it; though when I looked in either direction, the street was empty.
It had been so long since we’d heard from Monsieur that I almost wondered if it was a fake. But the paper and the handwriting were perfect, exactly the same as in the letters before. I ripped it open.
Dear Ms. Winters,
You have their protection. Show it to them.
Sincerely,
Monsieur
“Whose protection?” I asked, but before Dante could respond, a chill descended over the church. I pressed my finger to his lips and froze. A dark cloak swept past the windows, blocking out the light. The Liberum.
The others stirred in the front of the church. They must have felt it, too, for they grasped their shovels. Theo rubbed his eyes and peered out the window. “The Brothers are here,” he said. “Three are heading toward the front door. Two to the back.” The door rattled, punctuating his sentence.
Anya swallowed, supporting herself on a pew. “Is there any other way out?”
“No,” said Theo. “I’ve already checked.”
I peered through the window, feeling the long wisps of the Liberum curl toward me. A black cloak swept past the panes, its shape warped by the uneven glass. The remaining Undead boys followed, surrounding the church.
“We’ll have to face them,” Theo said. Gripping his Spade, he turned to Anya. “You stay inside. I’ll take the front.” He nodded to Dante, Eleanor, and me. “You take the back.”
“Where’s Noah?” Eleanor said.
I scanned the church. I didn’t see him anywhere. Before I could answer, one of the Undead fell to the ground. A thrash of legs, a muffled scream. Then a wave of long pale hair swept past the window.
“What was that?” Anya asked.
“The Keepers,” I said.
One by one, the Undead on the other side of the window fell, and were dragged through the dirt and snow, pulled by something soundless, faceless.
Eleanor inched back. “Noah?” she called, his name echoing off the ceilings like a voice of a ghost. “Noah?”
As she repeated it, a terrible feeling crept over me. Had he left because of what I’d said?
Outside, everything grew still. Dante inched toward the door, ready to turn the knob, when a cry stopped him.
I lowered my shovel and ran toward Eleanor’s voice. I found her standing in a doorway that led down into a cellar, her body trembling.
No
, I begged, inching closer. This couldn’t be happening again. I already knew what I would find, and yet I still hoped to find an empty hallway. The light from the windows shone into the stairwell, illuminating an arm, its skin turning gray. The bottom of the stairs was dark.
Everything inside me collapsed. He had put himself to rest. I backed away, my hands muffling my sob. This had happened because of me.
I heard footsteps behind me. “Get him out!” Dante said. Theo ran down the stairs and dragged Noah back aboveground. His body was limp, his face hollow with death. I turned away, unable to look any longer. Dante and Theo carried him through the church, bursting through the front doors and into the sunlight.