The metallic smell invaded my nostrils. My legs gave way and I collapsed in the grass. I picked up Arthur’s other hand and held it in mine. His fingers hung limp, lifeless. Were we too late? Had my warrior gone where I couldn’t follow?
Footsteps pounded down the hill. Paramedics sat a stretcher down in the grass beside Arthur, and started calling out instructions to each other in medical speak. Blake pulled me back so they could work. “We’ll take good care of him, luv,” A paramedic gave me a reassuring smile.
Panic and sorrow welled up inside me.It’s not your job. It was my job to take care of him, and I failed him. And now he’s done this to himself and it’s all my fault.
“Please, please wake up.” I sobbed into Arthur’s shoulder. The nurses had laid his body out on his back, his hands at his sides and his glassy eyes staring at the ceiling. He was so big and tall that his feet hung off the end of the hospital bed. Under the fluorescent lights he was all hard corners and pale skin. Behind him, machines beeped and thumped as they breathed for him and pushed fresh blood through his empty veins.
Nothing about him seemed alive at all.
First my parents, then Corbin, now Arthur. How many people will I lose?
A warm arm fell around my shoulder, tugging me back from the bed. “He’ll wake up,” Flynn cooed in my ear, mashing his body against mine. “He’s strong.”
“He did this to get away from me,” I sobbed. “Because of what I did.”
“Maeve, you didn’tdoanything.”
“I did! I let the fae into the castle. I trusted Daigh and got Corbin killed and Arthur hates me because?—”
“He doesn’t hate you and you’re not responsible. He doesn’t hate Blake, either.”
“Well, then he’s a bloody good actor,” Blake piped up from the back of the room.
“We’re all blaming ourselves for Corbin’s death. He was the one who looked after all of us. He made himself into our protector, all because of his own guilt over Keegan.” Flynn patted Arthur’s bandaged arm. “Arthur did this tohimselfbecause he blamed himself for Corbin’s death. Don’t you see?All that time he was yelling at Blake, he was really talking to himself.”
“He might’ve justsaidthat,” Blake said.
“That’s exactly it.” Flynn’s voice cracked. “This guilt’s tearing us apart – it’s seeping in all the cracks and poisoning everything good our coven stands for. We all need to do a little less blaming and a little more forgiveness.”
I shook my head. “I’m the High Priestess. Thisismy fault.”
“Maeve, I—” Rowan’s face crumpled with pain.
I held up a hand. “You can’t take the responsibility for this away from me. I’m in charge and if I say I’m responsible, then I’m damn well responsible.”
“Maeve,” Rowan’s voice rang high and clear, startling the words out of my mouth. “I only saw Arthur because I… I went upstairs to look at the books in the library. In the dream, Corbin said, ‘I wrote it all down for you’, and I had this idea that what he wrote down was how we could bring him back from the dead.”
“Don’t start on this again,” I warned. “I’m not?—”
“Listen,please. I found this.” Rowan dug in his pocket and pulled out some bright coloured paper. Five post-it notes, scrawled with Corbin’s spiky handwriting.
My heart thudded to see that familiar scrawl. “What are those?”
“I don’t know, but they come from the book Clara stole from the Soho coven. Corbin was making notes on these spells.” Rowan dug his phone out of his pocket. “I got photos of all the pages because the police said we shouldn’t remove anything from the house. Look,” he flicked through photo after phone of demons and skulls and latin text.
“Rowan, come on?—”
Rowan waved his screen in my face. “Justlook. He even changed the letters on this alchemical diagram.” He held up one of the notes. Behind him, Blake twisted his head to the side.“All these spells are about resurrection and something called the Mysteries of Lazarus?—”
Seeing that writing snapped something in my chest. Rage bubbled up inside me – that Corbin was gone and Rowan wouldn’t accept it. Because when he did finally accept it, his heart would shatter, and my own heart would break all over again watching him go through that.
“I don’t want to hear it!” I yelled.
“Maeve, you’ve got to?—”
“No.This isn’t like Aline, who was trapped in what I can only gather is an extra dimension within the painting. Corbin is DEAD. We all saw his body. He was burned and had a stake pushed through his chest. All the wishing on a fucking star isn’t going to bring him back.”
Rowan’s features froze. He slunk out of the room. Instantly, I regretted my anger. I stood up, but Blake stepped in front of me. “Let me talk to him.”
