Then Ree was falling, down into the plantation’s damp earth, then farther below, into the darkness of that long corridor inside. Her mother’s face was swimming above hers in the moonlight. She could hear someone screaming. It was her. It was Marie. They both were screaming. The pain was agonizing, unending, and she felt her body betray her—convulsing, writhing on the ground as a serpent might. And still her mother was screaming.
Marie tried to heal her, tried every spell, every prayer, every bit of knowledge she could think of. But, in all her power, this was not a wound she knew how to mend.
Ree let out another scream—an unnaturally loud, high keening sound. Another wave of dead rose. She could feel them clawing, a tidal wave. She was glad Henryk was not here to see her like this, a malevolent thing, twisting away in the dark.
Ree was dimly aware that her mother had taken her in her arms, cradling her like when she was a child. Her mother held her close, rocked her back and forth, swaying from the weight of her own grief.
“No!” A broken chorus Marie kept repeating over and over.
Ree could feel death upon her, a hovering dark presence that was now pressing down on her, blanketing her vision, her every thought with the promise of oblivion. Of sweet nothingness. She just needed to accept its offer. And there would be relief at last.
Her only regret was in not keeping her promise to Henryk. She knew now that she would not find him again, and that when this terrible night had long passed, when the magic of Mardi Gras had finally waned, he would go to that bridge, and he would wait for her. And she would not come to him. The thought made her cry, and then she began to choke. She fought to hold on to that promise, on to that spark of life that still existed in her spirit.
“Maman,” Ree choked through the blood that was quickly filling her mouth. “I don’t want to…I don’t want to die…”
“Shhhh now, ma petite bébé…” Marie cooed.Ma petite bébé.What she called Ree when she was young, when she would hold her in her arms after a bad dream. Her little baby.
It had been easier to be brave before. But here, cradled in the safety of her mother’s arms, she felt like she was eight years old again, facing down a long, scary road she could not walk alone. Marie’s tears fell hot on her face as she rocked her in her arms, her lips still moving between every prayer, every curse, every bit of life-sustaining magic she knew. But in the end, it seemed, the great Marie Laveau did not know enough.
The world darkened. Ree reached up, touched her mother’s faceone last time. If she had to die, what better place than in her mother’s arms? There was something about that that made her smile some. She would end as she began.
But there was singing. And it was coming closer and closer.
It was Aram. She was not used to this sound, this strange new crow-song. It was a melody she had never heard before but still faintly recognized. He was calling. But he wasn’t calling to her. He was calling tosomeone else.
Ree’s vision blurred, but she could just make out, through the horde of undead, the blanket of smoke, the red-orange flare of fire that kindled across the dark grounds, a man in a tall dark hat walking toward her.
Toward Marie. Toward them both.
Baron Samedi, she thought. The Lord of Death was coming to take her at last. At least the pain would end, the door would close with her. But it was not Baron Samedi who crouched over her, who held her in his arms. The baron’s eyes were dark and sinking, beautifully inhuman. No, this man’s eyes were golden, bright with strange, old magic. It was not Baron Samedi who whispered in her ear.
It was Jon the Conjurer. It was her father.
It was her father whom she felt now, lifting her from that cold dark place. Her father who whispered a word of healing. This was a magic he was well suited to, the dark magic of death, the delicate balance it held with life. And she felt that balance shift inside her, felt all the pain and sadness slowly begin to ebb away like a bad dream. The scales righted.
“Get up, daughter.” There was a smile in his voice, and the pain had gone from her. She was healing. The voices were whispering to her again, singing faintly from the dark. A Song of Three. “For a queen never,everkneels.”
Epilogue
Marie
One Week Later
Marie followed the smell of alchemy, the strange scent of metal and magic that made her skin crawl. There was a hint of foxglove too, the bitter smell of a trickster. She walked deeper into the Dreadwood, but its gnarled arms did not scare her now. Spirits called softly at her ear, beckoning for her to stay awhile. But she could not.
She had to return to her daughter. Now her queen. It was a paradox she was still getting used to. Her mind turned to New Orleans, to the Quarter, as it had done in the days since her return from the Veil. Communication with the other Voodoos had been sparse, only a quick letter with Claudette, who’d taken the Voodoos underground within the city as best she could while they waited for the fallout from Corbin’s death to pass. News of the undead uprising had already spread like wildfire in the city, although Jon had made sure to lay the zombi to rest deep within the Dreadwood for safekeeping. Such power, Jon had warned, they would need to soon call upon.
Now Marie ventured farther into the haunted wood, past glowing yellow eyes and sharp teeth that showed from the dark. She’d faced down demons. Death. Her own past. There was nothing in thesewoods to fear now, least of all the alchemist who was somewhere in her midst, playing a game.
“Show yourself, alchemist,” Marie shouted. “Silas!”
There was a distinctwhoosh,the softness of footfalls over dried leaves, and she turned to see Silas leaning against a withered tree, his white staff hanging over his shoulder, his spill of pale hair trailing to his waist.
“Hello, priestess.”
In the week since she’d been pulled back from the Veil, life had seemed to move faster, the days shorter than she remembered. She felt as if she’d aged an eternity in that shrouded world of death and twilight. But Silas looked as if hehadaged. Something was wrong. “I’m quite busy at the moment.”
His lips quirked. “So it seems.”
