“Destruction does not become you,” Lucius goes on, and I’m starting to think he’s the most diplomatic of the group. He won’t let Odette pass him, and I can’t quite make out her expression, but her body language shows that she’s pissed. “Don’t let the darkness win, Ray.”
If Ban or Zarev have any thoughts about this friend of theirs appearing from nowhere, they smartly keep it tothemselves. They spread out a bit, almost forming a triangle around Ray, but I’ve seen the way they struggle to stand against him. I don’t know whether Ray has always been the most powerful, or if his anguish is driving him forward.
“I can’t save my family,” Ray says, and shivers work their way up my spine at his voice. It’s almost an echo of itself, and it’s getting worse the longer he is like this. It reminds me a little bit of possession, except Ray still seems fully in control of his choices. “I can’t save anyone at all.”
Lucius keeps the sword pointed at him, the same way Ban keeps his staff angled toward the shadows, and Zarev circles with that enormous blade. At least Lucius doesn’t seem to antagonize when he speaks. “That’s the pain whispering in your ear, brother. We are the guardians of Death, not the controls. There is nothing we can do once a spirit passes on. Keeping that anguish inside will only corrupt you.”
My brow furrows as I listen, thinking it sounds like he speaks from personal experience.
Ray growls, an inhuman sound from the shadowy mass. Behind me, Dahlia curses and steps to the side, the heat of her body abandoning my back.
“I wouldn’t get involved,” I hiss, staring at her profile. “Seems like the shadows have to fight themselves. Do you have some hidden magic that’ll help?”
“I don’t haveanymagic,” Dahlia replies in a broken, clipped voice.
“Then don’t interfere,” I say, turning my attention back to the group. “I don’t think he recognizes any of us right now. In that kind of disassociation, he won’t see you. If he accidentally hurts you… or worse…” I can’t bring myself to finish, but she understands my words.
I watch as she nods at my warning, but her eyes never leave her son. I can’t help the thread of jealousy that worms itsway into my heart. I wish, just once, my mother had looked at me with such love and pain, begging to save me with her eyes. Instead, she was nearly my downfall. She not only imprisoned me in a century-long sleep, but she destroyed my homeland because of self-serving greed. Unlike Ray, I don’t believe I want the time to mourn. It will only fuel my hate.
Ray has the familial love I crave so desperately, and his loss blinds him to that. I hope Thomas was a brother worthy of that loyalty.
“Ray, you’re scaring everyone!” Odette yells over the rising wind. I can’t tell if it’s the weather, Ray’s magic, or a mix of the two. “Please, please come back to me. Let us help. We can–”
“We can do nothing,” he replies in a hollow voice, the mass of darkness growing with his desperation. “This is the fate of us all.”
He sounds hopeless. When I chatted with Odette as we were traveling through the Frostlands and then Sherwood, she made me think he was the lighthearted one of the group. At least out of the three Reapers she had met thus far. Now, I think he’s the most devastated.
“Your magic is out of control," Lucius says again, but I notice his gaze seems unfocused. He seems to be looking away from Ray entirely while speaking to him, but his sword is still angled in the right direction. “Come, brother, if you do not find calm, we will be forced to stop you.”
“No!” Dahlia screams, and I hold out a hand, freezing her to the ground. Better she be devastated than dead, too. Her gemstone eyes turn toward me, betrayal mirrored in her gaze. “Traitor! Let me go.”
I ignore Dahlia, turning my attention to the Reapers. Instead of letting his shadows roll away from him like waves, Ray seems to be drawing them in. It makes his form appear bulkier, the shadows sucking themselves into a circle, themagical energy around him growing strong as he tries to keep control.
Ban changes tactics, striking the shadows with snow instead of shadow. It plows into Shadow Ray, making him cry out, but it doesn’t seem to lessen the sphere.
“I can see now, the ways this is meant to go,” Ray continues, and his red eyes swivel about, turning in a circle inhumanly fast. “The only fate left to me.”
Rather than striking at his friends again, he launches himself skyward, and the wings across Lucius's back unfurl. I think for a moment he means to go after Ray, but instead he turns to clamp a hand around Odette’s arm, who also appears ready to take flight.
“Let him go!” Zarev yells, his eyes on the two with wings. I barely let my gaze flicker to them before tracking Ray, keeping my hands raised as Dahlia screams for him to come back. The blurry darkness drifts over our head, moving slowly, but the shadows seem to widen as he goes. He’s moving higher, and in the early evening light, I realize where he’s going.
That beanstalk I’ve heard so much about, the one Zarev and Odette climbed. He seems to be moving toward it.
“Let me go!” Odette screams behind me, and without turning, I sense Ban appear at my back, his chilling presence doing nothing to calm me. I keep my eyes on the dark blur heading for the beanstalk.
I press my hand back, feeling Ban’s strong arm around me. I grip it, digging my nails in, without taking my eyes off Ray. I don’t trust I’ll be able to focus on him and keep track of that darkness if I look away. “Aren’t you going after him?”
Ban doesn’t respond for a moment; all I hear is Dahlia screaming at us to let her go. “No.”
“No,” I repeat, finally looking away. I flick my hand and release Dahlia from the ice as some of her children run over. “What do you mean, no?”
“We don’t know what’s happening to him,” Zarev continues, resignation in his voice as he walks over. Lucius is here, too, Odette between them,prepared to rip them apart if it means she can go after him. She’s flailing, trying to shift, while they use their shadows to stop her. It’s hard to say who is winning.
“So you’re just going to let him go?” I hiss, turning to Ban again. “He’s your friend, isn’t he? And he’s hurting.”
“He is,” Ban says carefully, looking at the group. But kind of like Lucius, who didn’t quite focus on Ray before, he seems to be looking to the right of the trio instead of at them. “But there’s more than just Ray to consider.”
“The hell there is!” Dahlia screams, stomping over to us. There are two children with her, a boy about ten and a toddler. “That’s my son, myboy. He’s hurting, and if you lot have any pride left, you willnotabandon him.”
