Spirit Ascendancy (3 page)

“It wasn’t just her. You… they tried to dismiss you, but you wouldn’t go. You stayed with me.”

“I’m obligated to stay with you in any situation I have judged to be potentially dangerous. I was just doing my job,” he said, as though quoting from a Caomhnóir handbook.

“Damn it, Finn, I’m trying to thank you, but you’re making it really difficult. Can’t you just say ‘you’re welcome’ like a normal person?” I cried.

He paused, his hand clenched around a commemorative tea cup as though deciding whether or not he was going to chuck it at me. Instead he tossed it down into a nearby box and we both listened to it break before he said, stiffly, “You’re welcome.”

“There, see? Was that so hard?” I asked.

He ignored this, as I expected he would, so I gave up on further conversation and tried in vain to grope past my pain into unconsciousness. I couldn’t be sure whether I actually managed to drift off entirely, but the next thing I heard was Hannah’s voice.

“Well, it worked, thank goodness. She sent the Summoner back, so I know she got the message.”

“Anything else?” Finn asked.

“What do you mean, anything else?” Hannah asked.

“Did she send any news? About… anyone at Fairhaven?”

“No, she just sent the Summoner back. There was no reply.”

“Oh,” Finn said, and I could hear the frustration in his voice.

Something clicked. I sat up, my heart starting to thump.

“Jess, what are you doing up? You’re supposed to be sleeping,” she said, frowning with motherly concern.

I ignored the scolding. I was too busy lamenting what an idiot I was. I had somehow completely forgotten that Olivia was Finn’s sister, that he’d left her behind at Fairhaven.

“Finn, I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Sorry for what?” he asked.  He had cleared off a nearby wingchair and was now stooping to unlace his boots.

“I didn’t even think… your sister was back there,” I said, barely able to coax my voice above a whisper.

Hannah grimaced, and I could tell that she’d forgotten, too. “I’m sorry, Finn. I should have asked in my summons. I was so focused on making sure that Lucida knew where to find us that I didn’t even think to ask about anything else.”

“Olivia’s fine,” he said. He pulled off one boot and flung it aside. “I saw her in the entrance hall when we were leaving. I’m sure she got out. And when Lucida comes back, I’m sure that’s what she’ll tell us.” His tone dared me to contradict him. I didn’t. I couldn’t. The alternative was too horrible to consider. I laid back down in silence.

The terror and adrenaline of our escape had left little room in my mind to dwell on the reality of what we had left behind at Fairhaven, but now that we were safe, at least for the moment, my fear and guilt bubbled up through the cracks in my resolve, and I let it rise, choking me. What had there been for Lucida to return to? Was Fairhaven gone? Had they been able to contain the fire before it consumed the castle in its entirety, or had it been reduced to a smoking, hollowed out shell? I thought about all of the irreplaceable history it contained: the tapestries; the library; the archives; the relics. Though I had not grown up revering the culture they represented, I could appreciate their connection to me, and the fact that not a single one of them could ever be replaced.

But far more terrible was the idea that our escape could have cost someone in that castle his or her life. The fire had swelled so quickly; was it foolish to hope that everyone had made it out alive? I thought of Mackie, still weak from an attacking ghost, of Celeste and Siobhán and Fiona, fending off the spirits in the great hall, where the flames had begun. I thought of all my terrified classmates, huddled in their pajamas in the entrance hall, scattering like frightened birds at the command to flee. Had they done so? Could some of them have gone elsewhere, looking for friends and sisters, and been trapped inside? I knew the answer, and it made the nausea roil in my stomach. Suddenly, after feeling so glad to have Lucida gone, I ached for her to return with any news that might start to extinguish the new fire my guilt had lit within me.

“JUST… CAN YOU TRY TO sit her up? Wow, she really looks bad.”

“Have you had a look under those bandages since we got here?”

“I’m afraid to take them off.”

“Fair enough, but shouldn’t we be cleaning them, or something?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know the first thing about caring for burns.”

“Jess? Can you sit up? You need to take these pain meds. I dissolved them in this water, so you can just drink it.”

I felt a hand cradling the back of my head, and struggled to obey its pressure to sit up. I felt a glass pressed to my lips, cold water trickling down over my chin before I could force my muscles to remember how to swallow it. I spluttered and choked. It was bitter and gritty in my mouth.

“She feels really warm. Does she feel warm to you?”

Several hands pressed themselves to my cheeks. Every one of them felt like ice.

“She’s burning up. What should we do?”

“We’ll keep an eye on her. Those pills should help with the fever, too.”

“Shouldn’t we take her to a hospital or something?”

“Are you crazy? That’s way too risky. They know she’s injured. They’ll be scouting every hospital, clinic, and doctor’s office in the area. We’d be caught for sure.”

“But—”

“I said no!”

A few minutes later, or it could have been hours, or maybe several pain-wracked centuries, voices broke through to my consciousness again.

“We have no choice.”

“But—”

“Look at her, Hannah! She’s got some kind of infection or something. Nothing is keeping that fever down. If we don’t do it, she’s going to—”

“Don’t! Don’t even say that!”

“Well, then listen to me!”

“But she’d never agree to it!”

“She doesn’t need to. She’s in no state to make a decision anyway. It’s been three days. She’s dying, do you understand me? She’s dying, and you’re going to lose her unless we do this. Now are you going to set up the circle, or do I need to do it for you?”

Dying. Who was dying? The word had silenced the room as I struggled to understand what it meant.

“No. No, I’ll do it,” someone said. My sister. It was my sister.

I blacked out again, and when I came to, the voices around me had warped into dim, muffled sounds. I couldn’t feel past my pain and the strange, swimming feeling in my head to ask what they were talking about. I couldn’t remember where we were or what we were doing there. Who was talking? Why couldn’t I see? I thought I might have been moving, that someone might have been touching me, or carrying me. Or I could have been floating. Floating away. How nice it would be to float away.

I could hear chanting, and wished it could be music. Someone was holding my hand, very gently, but their touch lit it on fire. I cried out.

The chanting grew louder, and a familiar feeling flooded through me; a feeling of openness, of conductivity. My mind spun with images, thoughts and feelings I couldn’t control. Was I dying? Was I going crazy? Who was I?

As I grasped in the whirlwind for some sense of myself, slowly, very slowly, the cloudiness and confusion started to ebb away. My vision began to clear. I became aware of my body, which was lying on a musty-smelling floor. And even as my cognizance of the terrible pain in my arms sharpened, the pain itself began to dull, receding as though someone was draining it out of me. As the last dull throb of it pulsed away from my fingertips, the tumult of images flickered to a halt, and something inside me thudded closed, leaving me breathless, but entirely myself.

“Jess? Can you hear me?”

I opened my eyes. I was still lying on the floor, and five anxious faces were staring down at me. Gingerly, I sat up and looked around. We were in Lyle’s flat. The rug had been shoved into a heap in the corner, and a casting circle had been chalked onto the floorboards beneath.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“How are you feeling?” Hannah asked. Her face was streaked with tears.

“She should be feeling bloody fabulous,” Lucida said with a smug nod.

I considered this and realized that I did, indeed, feel pretty damn fantastic. I felt utterly refreshed, like I’d just woken up from the best nap of my life. My mind felt calm and sharp. I felt like I could have run a marathon or scaled a building. My body was pulsing with a boundless energy, shooting through my legs, coursing through my arms.

My arms.

I held my hands and forearms up in front of my face and gasped out loud. The formerly ravaged skin was flawlessly smooth, polished and glowing like it had just been buffed or airbrushed.

“What… I don’t understand! What happened to the burns?”

“Gone. Healed,” Lucida said.

“That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Savvy said, grabbing my hand to examine it for herself.

“But how? How did you do it?” I asked Lucida.

“I didn’t do it,” Lucida said, smiling.

I looked at Hannah, who had dropped her eyes to the floor.

“Hannah?”

“We had no choice, Jess. I knew you wouldn’t like it, but—”

“But what?”

“Aura flow. We used the aura flow from the Crossing to heal you.”

“Aura flow?” I asked blankly. Then my brain finally caught up. “Wait, wait. Are you talking about leeching?”

I looked from Hannah’s guilty expression to Lucida’s snide one, and in that moment felt my heart drop, leaden, somewhere into the region of my feet.

“Please, no. Please tell me you didn’t.”

“Of course we did,” Lucida said. “And before you start laying the guilt trip on your sister, you ought to know that she just saved your life.”

“You were really bad, Jess,” Savvy said quietly. “You should have seen your hands.”

“Your fever wouldn’t go down. Everything was infected, and you were completely delirious,” Hannah added.

“But why didn’t you just take me to a doctor?” I cried.

“And risk getting caught?” Hannah asked.

“Yes! You should have just taken the chance! Damn it, Hannah, it’s wrong and you know it!” I sprang to my feet, something I hadn’t been able to do in more than three days, and this realization only made me angrier.

“Oh, get off your high horse there, love. This kind of situation is exactly why leeching exists,” Lucida said. “Using the energy to save your life isn’t just about you. It’s about preserving the entire Gateway for the spirits who need it in the future.”

“You think I’m going to listen to you on this, the woman who uses ghosts like Botox injections?” I said, turning on her with a humorless laugh. “When have you ever cared whether a spirit made it all the way through to the other side, as long as you could smooth out a wrinkle or two?”

“Now, now, I think you’re underestimating my natural good looks,” Lucida said, pouting theatrically.

“And I think you’re underestimating how pissed off I am right now!” I shot back. I turned to Finn, who had retreated into a corner. “What about you? You’re supposed to be protecting the Gateway, right? Aren’t you always going on about the importance of your duty? How could you let them do this?”

I couldn’t really see his face, wrapped in a mask of shadows in the semi-darkness, but his voice when he spoke was brusque and harsh, as usual.

“It was the best decision to protect the Gateway,” he said. “It wasn’t only about saving you. If something happened to you, the Gateway would close, and the entire system would be out of balance again, just like when your mother invoked the Binding.”

I longed to spew a diatribe at him, but something was caught in my throat. I couldn’t separate it clearly from my anger in the moment, but it might have been the way in which he dismissed out of hand the idea that my own life would have been reason enough to make the decision. I wouldn’t really have expected anything less from him, but there was something about hearing it out loud that cut deeply.

“Great. That’s just great,” I said, ignoring the sting, “Well, I guess we’ll just forget about any of the ghosts that just crossed over. Screw them, right? If they’re trapped in the Aether, who cares, am I right? The cost of doing business.”

A shimmer out of the corner of my eye made me turn. Milo was there, and his mouth was half-open as though ready to speak. When he caught my eye, he snapped it shut again.

“You should just be glad you didn’t get too close, Milo.”

I sprung up, feeling like I could have scaled a wall or climbed a mountain with as much ease, and stalked toward the door, looking around as I did so for my jacket.

“Where are you going?” Hannah asked, her tone still wounded and tearful.

“For a walk. I need to clear my head,” I said.

“It’s not safe to be out, Jess,” Lucida said. “Someone might—”

“Stop talking. Your logic isn’t going to convince me of anything, not now, not ever,” I said. I abandoned the search for the jacket and opted instead for a dramatic exit. If I froze my ass off, so be it.

As I descended the stairs, I began to feel a panicked sort of claustrophobia close in around me. I picked up speed, taking the last flight at a run, and practically threw myself out the door and into the crisp London night. The fresh air hit my face like a cold ocean wave; it felt so good that I started to cry, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. I took off blindly down the street, but had gone barely two blocks when I became aware of the footsteps slapping the pavement behind me.

Great. This better not be some Necromancer thug or a Caomhnóir come to track me down. I don’t think I could handle Lucida being right about something so soon. I turned, my heart pounding in my chest.

Finn was following me, like an obnoxious guard dog. Ugh, I take it back, I’d rather be chased down by Necromancers.

“Leave me alone, Finn,” I gasped over my shoulder.

“No.”

“Just… go back to the flat.”

“Not happening.”

I ignored him, picking up my pace and retracing our route back to the river, stopping only when I’d grasped the cold metal of the railing in my hands, looking out over the water, inhaling the cool night air like I’d just resurfaced from a near-drowning. I could hardly believe the irony of how terrible I felt emotionally and how great I felt physically. My guilt made me want to fling myself into the Thames, but I knew I’d just be able to swim the entire length of it anyway, probably without even getting winded.

Finn hung back, giving me space, at least until I had calmed myself and let the beauty of the city lights on the water shine some perspective into me. There was nothing I could do. It was done. My only chance to make it right was to use my renewed health to get us out of this mess and make sure the Gateway, and everyone who crossed through it from now on, was protected.  When I turned to head back to the flat, I listened for the steady slap of Finn’s feet behind me on the pavement. When they fell into step with mine, they were much closer than I had expected.

“Jess, hold up a minute there,” he said.

Begrudgingly, I slowed down just enough for him to draw level with me.

“Look, I know why you’re angry, but take it easy on your sister, okay?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not saying it was a good thing to do. We all know that leeching is wrong. Or at least,” he screwed up his face, “most of us do. But there really was no choice. It was either that, or your sister sat back and watched you die.”

“We could have gone to a—”

“No, we couldn’t, so just stop saying that. Do you really want to get dragged back to Fairhaven after everything we went through to escape? Marion would have you thrown in the dungeons, or worse. And that’s nothing to what could happen if the Necromancers find us first, and I guarantee they will be looking in all the same places.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but my words had run dry. I had nothing and we both knew it.

“Don’t punish Hannah for the only choice she could make. You’re all she has left. Would you really want to leave her alone here in this mess? Hasn’t she lost enough?”

There was something about hearing it from Finn’s mouth; Finn, who barely admitted that he had feelings of his own, let alone that he could acknowledge other people’s. I shook my head, eyes filling with fresh tears. There was just so much guilt, I couldn’t contain it; guilt about the destruction back at Fairhaven, guilt about the spirits now possibly trapped forever between worlds, and now, guilt about the way I had just treated my sister for the unforgivable offense of saving my life. I would surely suffocate underneath the weight of it all.

I resisted the temptation to dissolve completely in misery; Finn already looked horribly uncomfortable at the sight of my crying, like I was doing something both utterly foreign and inherently distasteful. He looked like he might turn tail and run headlong from my unpredictable female hysteria at any second. So instead, I pulled myself together and walked back to the flat, Finn keeping several paces behind in case I decided to cry on him.

I pulled the door shut behind me. There’d been no hint of Lyle anywhere outside, an ominous sign that I didn’t want to consider the meaning of. The flat was dark and quiet. Savvy was sprawled asleep on the sofa, and Lucida has slunk off again into the night from whence she had come. In the half-light bleeding from the bedroom, I could see Hannah curled up against the headboard of Lyle’s bed, Milo right beside her. I could hear the quiet crooning of his voice, comforting her with words I could not make out. I let him continue. If I tried to talk to her now, when there was still so much anger running through my veins, I would only damage things further. Instead, I poked and prodded at Savvy’s back until she grumbled and slid over enough for me to cram myself onto the couch beside her. Then I closed my eyes and let the night and the sleep dull the knife-sharp emotions still stabbing away at my insides.