Shit, the needle. They haven’t taken out the needle.Cemmy had only gotten as far as loosening the tourniquet—which Adriel immediately refastens with a flick of his wrist.
“Help me, Adriel.” Alara’s plea is ragged but optimistic, brimming with a hope that swiftly wavers as he sweeps past where she’s lying. “Please, I need a Green. You can shimmer me to a Green.”
“I could.” He briefly turns to appraise her, his face filling with pity and regret. “But that would only prolong your suffering and that’s not something I want. You were a good sister, Alara—a loyal sister, brave. If not for what you are, we could have remade this world together, but your color makes that impossible. I can only pray that you’ll take comfort in knowing your sacrifice helped usher in the new age.”
“My color—?” Her understanding dawns gradually, grudgingly, as though she can’t quite fathom the betrayal. “Adriel, please—we’refamily.”
But the only family he’s interested in is his father, the final tribute he means to drain.
“Do you believe me now?” As he binds the councilman to the last table, I drop my voice to a whisper and rekindle my efforts to make his sister see sense. “He lied to you, Alara—this entire time, he knew that you would die here today. But you don’t have to die here—you don’t have to die for him.Wecan take you to a Green,wecan get you out of the castle, all you have to do is tell us how to stop him; he must have a weakness.” And having spent her whole life by his side, she must know what it is. “Your brother’s not a prophet, Alara, and what he’s doing isn’t going to free the shadows, it’s going to destroy the Gray—I know you saw the same vision that I did, I know you felt the truth of it—so please, help us. Don’t let him do to you what the councilman did to him; don’t let him throw you away.”
It’s those last six words that break her, I can tell by the way her chin starts to tremble and her eyes fill with pain. Not the physical kind—like from the knife wound bleeding her chest—but the kind that comes with having your heart broken by someone you trust and respect. By being betrayed by your own brother.
“Color,” she finally rasps, betraying his trust in return. “The presence of it is anathema to his power, that’s why he deadens it in others. If you attack him with my charms, it’ll buy you a few seconds.”
Seconds. I’m still grappling with that grim reality when she grabs the front of my shirt with surprising strength.
“When he’s gone, the shadows won’t wait; they’ll come for the typics.”
“That’s okay, they’re protected,” I tell her, working through the problem in my head. “The initiates all have some color in them now.” The fresh screams coming from Denata’s table are proof of that, proof that Adriel wasted no time before sticking a needle in his dear old father—and according to the list we found in his sanctum, even a little blood should be enough to shield them for a few minutes. “We’ll be able to get them to a portal.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Alara’s breaths are growing heavy, her words barely audible above the din. “With seven colors bleeding, the poison will spread through the shadows fast. Any magic that touches it will wither.”
But isn’t it already withering?I steal a glance over at the initiates, at how the air around them continues to crack and pucker like dried ink.How is that different from—?
Oh.
It takes me a long moment to understand what she means.
If that’s what the poison can do now, in a void, then I shudder to think what it’ll do when it’s not being suppressed, especially in a castle made entirely of magic, with no physical counterpart to phase to outside the Gray. If we allow the poison to spread, there might not be an Academy left. And if it dies, we die with it, Hue, typic, and Shade.
Shit.Our original plan isn’t going to work if that’s the case. The three of us won’t be able to maintain physical contact with all seven initiates. Not immediately, anyhow. Not while we’re also juggling the needles, and the acolytes, and the panic, and . . . everything else.
“Then use your gift, Alara,” I beg, since she’s not limited in that same way. “You’re an Emerald—you can project your In-Betweens, keep the kids safe.”
“I don’t have any Green charms.” Her reply is as knowing as it is labored. Because I have no magic with which to heal her and she’s lost too much blood to sustain such a spell. Hells, half this chamber’s lost too much blood and the other is fast approaching that point as well. No matter how hard we try or how quickly we work, lives are going to be lost here.
Though I can think of one way to minimize the death.
Even if the cost is monstrous.
“Are you truly willing to help us, no matter what it takes?” I look Alara dead in the eye, imploring her to absolve me of this sin.
“Yes.” There’s now a crimson veil staining her teeth.
“Then I know what to do.” With a bitter sigh, I search out Cemmy and Chase, grateful for the language that allows me to sign out the plan to them unheard, unnoticed by Adriel who remains preoccupied with his father. And while they don’t like my idea any more than I do, we’re officially out of time and options, and we still don’t know if the cavalry is coming or what has become of Akari or Raya. We don’t have the luxury of a plan that’s perfect.
“On three,”I sign, swallowing down the dread.“One . . . two . . . three!”
I toss a fistful of Alara’s charms in Adriel’s direction, watching the spells detonate in a color-rich mist. He snarls in surprise, the explosion slackening his grip on the shadows just a bit, just enough to allow us to move more freely.
“Now!”
We all charge at once—Chase towards Alara, Cemmy towards Saleen, me towards the man who styled himself as the Divine Meridian, the knife I pulled from Alara’s chest ready to deliver him a kinder end than he means to inflict. And though it strikes me that by doing this, we’ll be propagating a cycle that’s been repeating itself for centuries—turning on another because of how much, or how little, magic they bleed—I don’t see any other way to save the shadows. Whether I like it or not, fate has conspired to rob us of good choices, so today, a bad one is going to have to win.
CHAPTER 34
RAYA
