“It’s our only chance. We need her alive.”
Marybeth cries out and lifts the bottle to her lips again.
“No!” I start toward her, and she freezes once more. “I’m coming with you! Take me anywhere you must. I’m not letting you die.”
She pulls the bottle away from her face and tips her head back in an agonized sob. Torben takes his chance to dart toward the Chariot. “I’m not in control,” Marybeth cries.
“I know,” I say and grab her by the shoulders, if only to make it easier when Torben reaches us. My breath catches at how frail she feels beneath my hands. This is not the girl I’ve befriended over the past three years. This is a hollow shell of that person. Something used and abused. The realization sears my throat. “It’s going to be all right,” I whisper, not knowing whether it’s a lie. “You’re going to be all right.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Torben snatch up the Chariot.
Marybeth lowers her head. Then, in a flash, she shoves me away. I stumble back, but before I can crash onto the stone walkway, I find Torben’s arms encircling my waist.
“Don’t trust me,” comes Marybeth’s strangled voice. Torben pulls me upright just in time for me to watch her tip the vial into her mouth and down its entire contents.
“NO!” Torben and I shout at once. We scramble toward her. She slides to her knees, body convulsing. Torben tries to help her gag, help her purge herself of the poison, but it’s too late.
Too late.
The black veins have already traveled over her face, her neck, even her hands. A single drop could be lethal to a human. But the entire bottle?
I can do nothing but stare in horror. Nothing but watch as Crimson Malus—the very poison I once thought of as my savior, my safety, my friend—claims another life before my very eyes.
* * *
What follows is a blur,each moment nearly as fuzzy as my poison withdrawals were. All I know is that, at some point, Torben lifts me in his arms and takes me to my room. I don’t know whether I sleep or cry or simply stare at the ceiling. I don’t notice if the kittens come to comfort me or if Torben lays by my side. All I feel is agony, tortured by the sight of Marybeth’s death. Tormented by the echo of my father’s too-similar demise.
* * *
I wake feelingempty and raw. An orange glow of evening light pours through the boards covering the windows. Torben sits at the edge of the bed by my side, running a comforting hand over my hair. Everything that happened comes back in a flash, but I don’t crumble this time. Will I always fall apart when I’m upset? I suppose death is hardly some small thing. Either way, it will probably take some time to get used to feeling the full expanse of my emotions, the good and the bad.
I angle myself closer to Torben. “Her body?”
“I’ve given her a temporary burial,” he says, voice deep and soothing. “Once this is all sorted out, her family can collect her.”
The concept is so grim, so disturbing, I nearly break into a sob. But I must keep my wits, for a while at least. I have too many unanswered questions swarming through my mind.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why did she drink the poison? I said I’d go with her. She still had a chance to steal back the Chariot and haul us straight to the queen.”
A wrinkle forms between Torben’s brows, his eyes distant. “I don’t think Tris ever intended for Marybeth to live through this. She would have known I’d try to control the Chariot’s destination. She knew Marybeth wouldn’t succeed at bringing us to her. The ultimatum was an act.”
“But why?”
“To kill our sole witness right in front of us and rob us of hope. It may also have been a test to confirm whether we’re truly here or not. Tris will have felt Marybeth’s death through the severing of the magical tie her compulsion formed. That will be enough to tell her she found us here. The only thing she didn’t predict was that Marybeth would fight the compulsion and tell us the truth. Warn us that Tris will come for us in the morning. Either way, without Marybeth to confess…it’s over. The queen has won.”
I shake my head. “It can’t be over. There must be another way—”
He closes his lips over mine. It’s a slow kiss, one laced with sorrow. His lips are like a balm on my heart, and I give myself over to it, trying not to ponder what we’ll find on the other side of our kiss, for only hopelessness awaits there.
Torben presses himself closer to me, cradling my cheek with one hand. He pulls back slightly to study my face, my eyes, my lips. “I love you, Astrid Snow. Never, ever forget that for as long as you live.”
The sorrow in his voice expresses everything he doesn’t say. That my life might not be long at all.
Nor his.
“I won’t forget,” I choke out. “I love you too.”
His lips crush against mine, and I open my mouth for our kiss to deepen. He slides his hand down my waist, while the other wraps around my wrist and pins it overhead. It sparks a flash of desire inside me, even though my logical mind tells me this is hardly the time—
