‘Where are you taking us?’ Anassa asks Ophelia as we cross the area that once held the confines of my cage, columns and pillars now all but ground to dust.
‘There’s something you need to see,’ the no-more-drowning girl responds, her voice so clear and coherent it takes me a second to recognize. She’s also changed: her now shorter hair is dry; her lips are plump and pink instead of blueish, as if whatever river claimed her has subsided.
‘Something more has happened,’ Helene adds. ‘Good, but also bad.’
We pass the middle, open part, where Shepherd gatheredher adoring sheep last time. The marble staircase she was sitting on has cracked in two, the chasm between each part still widening. ‘This wasn’t so vast before,’ my sister mutters.
‘We’ll have to jump,’ Ophelia states with an otherworldly calmness.
Easy for them to say. I don’t have their long legs, their easy strides. I’m only halfway here, the other half still bargaining on Acheron’s boat, wondering why her coin doesn’t grant her passage. Unlike these two halves of a staircase, though, my two halves are growing closer with each breath. If I can put myself together …
Helene and Ophelia jump elegantly over the chasm, landing on the other side like cranes. I could try taking several steps back to gain momentum, to run –
Anassa holds me in her arms, and the world fades to blessed black. Fluttering, so much fluttering. Before I can understand what’s happening, it’s over, and we’ve crossed to the other side of the cracked staircase. ‘Did you … did you carry me across? How?’
My raven smiles, and I see several beaks, several beady eyes, protruding from the curtain of her hair.
‘We’ll have to set some ground rules about this,’ I grumble, annoyance and amusement and awe dancing together in my voice.
Of course I would fall in love with a woman who’s part sky.
Anassa laughs, tired but happy – yet soon the warmth saps out of her face. ‘Why are we going back there?’ she asks Ophelia.
The girl doesn’t answer, only shakes her head solemnly. The screams and shouts around us have become a constant buzzing, blurring in the background as the four ofus make our way onward, avoiding red snakes and erupted earth. I don’t know where we’re headed, where ‘back there’ is, as any semblance of walls or dividing structures has collapsed – but from the way Anassa’s eyes widen, the way her hand flies to her neck, I can imagine this must be the place where she was kept. Where that wraith attacked her. I give her waist a squeeze, to anchor her.
‘I’m here,’ I tell her, hoping this will suffice to soothe her worries.
‘That’s why I keep going,’ she whispers and it’s her most moving declaration yet.
We step over what once must have been a fireplace, black soot mixing with these black veins erupting from the earth, soaking everything. I’m barefoot but find I don’t feel threatened by this muck. Yet what I see beyond it …
Shakespeare and Shepherd, pinned on the ground like butterflies, both still alive but barely. A long, metallic rod seems to have fallen from the ceiling, crushing them both. And a few feet away, a fallen golden mask cracked in the middle. I don’t need to check closer, confirm whether it’s Agamemnon’s. I did ask him to spare Shepherd no suffering. Against all odds, he must have listened. I just wish he was less absolute in his wrath, that he hadn’t also caused an innocent, a friend, to suffer. But when was Agamemnon ever capable of subtlety?
‘Like I said,’ Helene whispers in my ear, ‘both good and bad.’
‘We had to bring you here to help us,’ Ophelia says, and for a bit I think she’s drowning again – but it’s just tears, falling freely from her cheeks. ‘We need to save him,’ she adds.
I don’t need convincing. Especially when, in a way, I am to blame for this.
I run to Shakespeare’s side, fall on my knees next to his face, trying to ascertain the damage, how best to help him. ‘Dido, Queen of Carthage,’ he mumbles when he sees me. ‘Not mine but … Marlowe’s.’ His voice falters. His brown eyes, usually so piercing, have a glassy quality about them.
‘Will …’ Anassa whispers, like a lament.
‘We’ve been through this, friend,’ I tell him, to keep him talking, keep him from drifting away from us. ‘My name is Claret. Remember when you handed me my boots, that morning at the barn, when you found us? That was the moment I decided.’
‘Decided … what?’ He coughs, spitting blood.
‘That you’re not going to die from my hand. That you’re not going to die at all, if I can help it.’ I try to brush the hair from his face, because I know he’d do that now, if he could. But I don’t dare. His face and scalp are filled with tiny cuts, small shards of glass claiming his skin like stalagmites.
‘The garden …’ Anassa says behind me, breath caught in some fresh horror we do not have time for. ‘The graveyard garden, the greenhouse, it exploded. A fitting end for you,’ she concludes, and from the sudden cruelty in her voice I can only assume she addresses Shepherd.
A weak, feline growl comes in response. The metal rod vibrates slightly with the sound, causing Shakespeare to wince in pain. ‘Will you stop that,’ I say, emboldened by her weakened state. ‘You’re hurting him.’
‘I …’ Human voice now, dripping blood and honey. ‘I didn’t mean to. Save him if you can. Take him back to his world. I have … his key …’
Helene huffs. ‘We tried that already.’ I turn my head to see she’s stepped back, holding a sobbing Ophelia in herarms. ‘I tried to get to her necklace, remove any keys I could see. I couldn’t touch them. They all slipped like fish from my fingers.’
‘Because they’re not meant for you, you ungrateful harpy,’ Shepherd hisses. But she uses a small voice, staying still. Perhaps she truly cares for her Bard’s survival.
