I peck at her pulse: faint as a feather but still there. Still there.
I need a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. A pile of clothes has been placed neatly near the bathtub. With beaks and claws and human fingers working desperately together, I cut strips of cloth and tie her arm tight. The fabric soaks immediately and I replace it, repeat the process, only to yield the same results. This is not working. It’s not working.
A caw, then, forcing my human, panicked mind to pay attention. My ravens look at Claret’s cloak, swirling under her body like a snake den, loose scarlet threads reaching out, seeking, seeking. Could this be it? I don’t have time to question the absurdity of my actions. My flock gets to work, black beaks feasting in red, grabbing these threads and pulling, pulling, as if releasing squirming maggots from the earth. We wrap each thread around her arm, making a nest of bloody silk and pulsing ribbons, praying to any deity attuned to corvid prayers.
Please, Fates or witches, let this work.
The ribbons twist and pull, embedding in her skin, feeding off blood and mending flesh, until that self-inflicted cut is sewn together, until the colour slowly comes back to her cheeks, until I finally breathe again.
I am entirely human by the time Claret stirs. Human – and sick with worry.
I didn’t even notice when it happened, when my ravens retreated back into my skin, when the flock became a human body. It’s becoming easier to shift from state to state, like a muscle that was always there, eager to stretch. All I know is that I’m here, and that I’ve held Claret in my arms for what feels like seconds or long hours, mere moments or months on end.
Surely, at some point, someone will find us. A guard or maid will come to attend their queen and what I can only assume used to be their king. Claret’s husband …
At least this time that man’s head is not split open, as it was when I first opened Claret’s door, thinking I was in hell. Any unpleasant smells are masked by fragrant oils and burning essence, placed in little bowls around thebathtub, but one can only cover death’s stench for so long. I’ve spared him the odd glance or two, fascinated by how little his death weighs on me.
If Claret felt he needed killing twice …
She stirs again. Eyes flutter open. ‘What …’
‘Shh.’ I place my blackened finger on her lips. ‘You did a stupid, stupid thing but I am here now.’
She looks at her wrist, wrapped in that strange cocoon of sentient scarlet gauze, and then at me. The sparks of amber fire in her eyes rekindle, though feeble. ‘You’re here … But how? I had no hope of seeing you again. Shepherd made that clear. You had transformed, and her world was collapsing, and she said that if I left –’ Her voice breaks.
‘Shepherd saved my life, when we were separated.’ I don’t know why this comes out now, out of the million things I want to say to Claret. But it feels important to discuss. ‘She saved me from a wraith, making it fall back, fleeing from her light. But she waited till the last moment, you see. Until I was entirely certain I would choke. As if to impart a lesson.’
‘That thrice-damned bitch.’ Claret’s eyes flash with something like life, like defiance.
‘Indeed. What I’m trying to say is, I wouldn’t trust a word out of that mouth of hers. And if she struggles to control her world? Perhaps we should ensure she fails.’
‘You speak as if we can go back. How did you even come here? Did you find my key? I think I left it in the door but I’m not certain. I was … preoccupied at the time.’
‘You know, it didn’t even cross my mind to search.’ I hold her tighter, to assuage this lingering fear that she might still slip away from me. She used to be so solid, soinescapable. This is the first time I’ve been forced to think of her as fragile. I rest my chin on her hair, trying to calm my heart. ‘I saw a wall that kept me from your side, and I broke it down. Or – fluttered through it. Semantics. The point is, do you think so little of me that you believe a barrier would stop me from finding you? There is no door I wouldn’t burst open, no world I wouldn’t break.’
‘You have a way with words,’ Claret purrs, her face lost in my neck, lips on my skin. All of my birds flutter. How wicked would it be, really, to kiss her here, in front of her husband’s corpse? How horrible a villainy that the thought doesn’t disgust me? Let death gawk at us; let all the corpses wish they were alive to partake in our fire. Let our love shock and dismay the world.
I take her face into my hands and find her lips. There lies my crime and my penance.
Claret kisses me with a hunger that mirrors mine, soft and sweet and feverish, and more alive than ever. She bites my bottom lip and I moan. She pulls away. ‘We can’t … Not here.’
‘Not here,’ I agree, pitiful, breathless. ‘Where do we go? How do we run without your people finding us?’
‘My people.’ She turns that word like bitter pebbles in her mouth. ‘I had a bundle with necessities, money, water … We could have used that to flee. But I gave it away. An act of kindness, if you can believe it.’
I hadn’t noticed, but indeed there was a young woman here, last time. Terrified. Crawling away from Claret. Her husband’s mistress, if I’d surmised correctly. ‘You spared her life.’
Claret shrugs. ‘If any life here needed sparing, it was hers. But that won’t help us now. I am too weak to fight,and the two guards who would protect me are not back yet. I guess I was never going to get out of this alive.’
I want to tell her that we’ll find a way, together. That there is no force on earth, on any earth, that can withstand us. But what she needs now is a battle plan, not platitudes.
And I’ve only ever been good at –
A sound then, like a fist on a firm surface. My ravens stir, alert.
‘What in Tartaros,’ Claret mumbles, getting up. She briefly checks the body, shakes her head, then her attention turns on the wall behind us. Her eyes become two copper coins, round and ready for battle. ‘Pass me my knife,’ she orders, gaze never faltering from her mark, hair crackling with the promise of thunder.
I get up, doing as she said, steeling myself for the inevitability of fight. Soldiers, perhaps, come through a hidden passage on the wall, like the one in Gruoch’s palace …
