The executioner pulled the lever. The trap door fell. Rangar plunged downward. Bryn gripped the carriage door handle with white knuckles—
The rope went taut, but Rangar’s body convulsed—he was choking, but he hadn’t snapped his neck.
“Ana somna mortinya,”she whispered quickly.
His body stilled at once.
It all happened fast. He hung at the end of the rope, looking for all the world like a cadaver, red-faced and utterly without breath.
The crowd cheered.
Bryn buried her face in her hands, unable to look at the boy swinging at the rope's end, terrified her hex might not have worked—and Rangar Barendur was dead.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
THE POWER OF MAGIC . . . a long awaited reunion . . . two ghosts . . . "when are you going to be mine?"
“Where is he?” Bryn couldn’t move fast enough through the hidden passage into the old coal room. “Where’s Rangar? Is he alive?”
After her stunt during the hanging, Captain Carr had posted extra guards at her door, which had meant that to escape, she’d had to climb out her window and into Elysander’s old room. She’d cut her hand on one of the rooftop’s iron nails. Blood stained her sleeve, but she could hardly focus on anything other than ensuring her spell had worked.
Mars and Illiana crouched over a bedroll lit by candles and lanterns. Bryn spotted Rangar’s bare feet, cold and still. As panic flooded her, she shoved her way between her brother and the witch.
“Rangar!” she cried.
He lay on the bedroll looking pale. A rope burn circled his neck, but his eyes were open.
Bryn collapsed next to him, stroking his matted hair. “Thank the Saints—I can’t believe it. You’re alive!”
Rangar reached a hand to cup her jaw, brushing his thumb over the same place on her cheek where she had marked him with ash. “You said to trust you. I did. I always have.”
She threw her arms around him, then immediately thought better of it, and pulled back. She patted her hands over his body to ensure nothing was broken. “And you’re well? Are you weak?”
“From my time in the dungeon, yes,” he admitted. “But nothing a few days of ample food and rest won’t mend. I’m afraid I might sound like your fiancé for a while, though.”
He touched his hand to the rope burn around his throat. His voice was slightly hoarse but nothing like Captain Carr’s heavy rasp.
Rangar suddenly grabbed her wrist. “Bryn, you’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing,” she said dismissively. “I had to climb onto the roof to get out of my bedroom.”
Rangar sat up, reaching for a rag they’d stuffed in a pillowcase as a makeshift pillow. He ripped it into a long shred and started wrapping it around her palm.
“Here, let me,” Illiana offered. “You should rest.”
Rangar seemed reluctant to turn over Bryn’s care to anyone else, but Illiana was already pulling herbs out of her basket. She set to cleaning Bryn’s hand and rubbing in an herbed salve.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Illiana said to Bryn, then gave a slight wink. “It’s hasn’t been easy being a buffer between these two.” She nodded between Mars and Rangar.
Bryn had been so concerned with Rangar’s state that she hadn’t noticed the tension between him and Mars. Her brother leaned against the wall, toying with a knife. He must have dedicated a good deal of time practicing with it, because even blind, he wielded it with the swift grace of a street performer.
Bryn rested her hands on her hips. “Mars, are you being beastly to Rangar? After he nearly died?”
Her brother scowled. “I know he matters to you, Bryn, but I’ll never understand why. I spent years protecting you from him, and you ran straight into his arms.”
Rangar raked the hair off his face, his scars flashing in the lantern light as he turned toward Mars. “I saved her life while you drank and chased girls in the ballroom.”
