My eyes filled with fresh tears as I descended toward the shore. Every loss I’d ever known would soon be gone. All of this heartache, this grief, this gods-awful unrelentingexhaustionthat had become easier to bear with Gareth in my life—it would all disappear. I would be able to rest. And whatever happened to this world that had taken so much from me would no longer be my responsibility.
My sisters would understand, I told myself. I’d hardly been a part of their lives anyway. I pictured their faces and tried not to feel anything. It was easy, now, to not feel anything.
And Brigid, and Cira, and all the Roses who cared about me—well, they were used to death. No one was better equipped to deal with loss than they were.
For every reason there was not to do this thing, I quickly found a rebuttal. Suddenly everything felt so easy.
Gareth wouldn’t want you to do this.
Well, he was dead. I made myself think the words over and over. He was dead, and for no good reason. He died trying to save a woman who hated him. The unfairness of it lodged in my throat.He died, and he is dead.If I had died instead of him, he probably wouldn’t even have contemplated doing something like this. He would have felt some sense of responsibility to his friends at the university, or to Farrin, or he would have told himself,She would have wanted me to live a happy life,and believed it.
Tears streamed silently down my face. Yes, maybe that’s what Gareth would have done. But I wasn’t him. I was me, and this was one loss too many. I was finished. This had finished me.
But then, as I neared the shore, a dark figure at the lake’s edge took shape, and I realized I wasn’t alone. The Warden was here. She looked awful—haggard, gaunt, like entire layers of her had been scraped away.
And she was bringing a knife to her throat.
A flash of anger tore through me—she had stolen my plan, and she was ruining it; could she never justlet me be?—but in the end I couldn’t stand by and let her die. What would her death do to the Roses bound to her? If it killed me, so be it; I would welcome the help. But I would not allow any more Roses to die because of her.
I dove toward her, my wings pinned against my body, and rammed into her just as the blade met her throat. The knife went flying into the water, and so did she. I skidded along the shore and bumped to a halt twenty yards from where she’d been standing.
The Warden stormed back toward me through the shallow water,her heavy black gown, far too big for her now, clinging to her body. A bright slash of red marred her white neck, but it was shallow, and she no longer held the knife.
I rose to my feet, shaking with fury. I didn’t want to be furious. I was tired of feeling all these terrible things. They were so much more plentiful and tenacious than the good ones. And with Gareth gone, I couldn’t imagine ever finding those again.
“What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Why were you doing that? Have you lost your mind?”
Her black eyes were wild. “Leave, now.”
“Answer my questions.”
She struck me. I glared at her, my jaw stinging. “You can’t hurt me anymore.”
“Is that right?” She laughed, then gestured at my avian body. “Evidence would suggest otherwise, child.” Then she really looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “Why are you crying?”
I couldn’t find the words, and I didn’t want to give her the answer anyway. She didn’t deserve to have yet another part of me.
But she saw it as plain as day on my face.
“Ah,” she said. “Yourlover. Is he dead, then?”
The delicate scorn in her voice was obvious, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel angry. Her words simply knocked the breath out of me.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Her mouth twisted. I thought I saw on her face a flicker of sympathy, like some piece of her, somewhere, was sorry, but then it was gone.
“What a waste this all was,” she said. “We could have spent these last few weeks in happiness, you and I. Instead you threw all of that away forhim.”
Something silver glinted on the beach only a few feet from us. The waves had pushed the Warden’s knife back to shore. She saw it at thesame moment I did. We both lunged for it, but she was the slightest bit faster. Once more she brought the blade to her throat. I threw myself at her, knocking her flat. I grabbed her wrist and held it still. The knife hovered between us, locked in our grip.
“What’swrongwith you?” I didn’t understand the deranged look in her eyes—where it came from, what she was thinking. “You don’t have a successor in place. If you die with all of us still bound to you—”
“You would die along with me,” she said simply. “All of you would die. And wouldn’t that be a relief?”
Yes.The word stuck in my throat, unsaid. “Why would you do this? Why would you even consider it?”
“Has it never occurred to you, Mara, that you’re not the only one who longs for death?”
