Artem’s expression was triumphant, and more than a little wild. His lip curled in contempt as his gaze slid from Baz and Kai to where Nisha stood. “Zenara. I can’t say I’m surprised to see you with them. I always thought your loyalty to the Order was rather unconvincing, especially after the Brysden girl died.” He smirked. “You and Virgil really thought you could fool me.”
“What did you do to him?” Nisha asked.
At first the question baffled Baz. But then he finally saw who the other two coming up behind Artem were: The first was VirgilDade, an unsettlingly vacant expression in his eyes that could only mean Artem was using his Glamour magic on him. And the second, equally Glamoured, was a woman in her thirties whom Baz recognized as Freyia Lündt.
The Reanimator.
It dawned on Baz that Virgil and Freyia were carrying something between them: a stretcher, on top of which was a body bag.
“Set it down,” Artem said, voice laced with compulsion. Virgil and Freyia did as he commanded without blinking an eye, setting the body between them on the path laden with stars. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You can talk now,” Artem added as if in afterthought, waving his hand at them. “But no moving, no magic. That goes for all of you.”
Baz felt the Glamour magic settle into him, rooting him in place. He couldn’t reach for his magic now, no matter how hard he tried.
Virgil blinked rapidly, that vacancy leaving his eyes. His gaze found Artem’s, full of fury. “I’ll kill you for this,” he said through gritted teeth. Then, to Baz and the others: “He’s the one who broke the Reanimator out. He forced her to use her magic on Lizaveta, and now he’s—”
“Don’t you dare mention my sister’s name!” Artem howled, getting dangerously close to Virgil’s face.
A strangled cry that sounded like a laugh broke from Virgil’s throat. “You killed her all over again.”
“Artem, what did you do?” Nisha asked in a small, horrified voice. Her eyes darted from Artem to the body bag, no doubt realizing whose corpse was hidden inside.
A flicker of shame or maybe grief flashed in Artem’s wild eyes. “I tried to bring Liza back.” He looked at the Reanimator with disgust. “This Eclipse scum is Collapsed, so I thought her limitless magic would work. Seems it wasn’t so limitless after all.”
Freyia closed her eyes, a tear running down her cheek. “Iwarned you it would not work. The dead are meant to stay dead.”
Artem gave a manic laugh at that. “Explain to me, then, why you killed all those people so you could have corpses to experiment on.”
“Inevertook a life that was not already dying, or so corrupt that it had no right to live,” Freyia said fiercely. “Criminals and killers of the worst sort. The terminally ill, hours from death, to whom I could offer this small kindness, before…”
“Before bringing them back as soulless corpses?” Artem pressed. “Trying to play god and perfect this twisted, unnatural gift of yours. If the dead are meant to stay dead, why bring them back at all?”
Freyia swallowed hard. “I brought back my husband,” she said in a barely audible whisper. “After he was murdered. He came back with his Reaper magic all wrong. It—he couldn’t control it, and it got our son killed. I Collapsed trying to bring our son back, trying to fix my husband at the same time. My son came back an empty shell. My husband shriveled up from the inside, as if his own Reaper magic was killing him all over again. And it did kill him, for good this time. Then it was just me and my son, barely two years old and no livelier than a porcelain doll. I went on the run with him, unable to let him go. I thought maybe, if I perfected the Reanimation, if I tried it often enough that I managed to bring back someone the right way, soul and all, I could fix him too.”
Freyia blew out a sigh. “But I was never able to. Even with the expansion of my Collapsing, I could never bring them back right. And my son… It seems the clock ran its course on this second life I’d given him, which was really no life at all.” She fixed Artem with a hard stare. “So yes, I learned my lesson the hard way. The dead should stay dead. You saw what happened with your sister, and it won’t be any different for your friend.”
“It will be,” Artem argued. He motioned to the starry expanse around them. “Here, the boundaries of the possible are expanded. Magic is endless. Your power won’t be constrained to its usualrestrictions. At least, that’s what he believed. So you’ll bring him backfully, soul and all. Not just an empty corpse.”
The words made the hairs on the back of Baz’s neck rise.
“Artem, who is that?” Nisha asked, eyes glued to the body bag.
Artem unzipped it in answer. Inside was not Lizaveta but another familiar face, deathly pale and horribly still, yet perfectly preserved, as if his corpse had been kept on ice.
Baz wanted to recoil but couldn’t, kept rooted in place by Artem’s Glamour. This had to be a nightmare, his worst fears drawn up by the umbrae he was certain lurked in the darkness, playing tricks on his mind.
He had watched Keiran Dunhall Thornby die in his arms, had gone to his funeral and watched as his body was buried six feet deep. Yet here Keiran was, still dead—there was no doubt about that—but perhaps not for long.
“You can’t be serious,” Baz said with bleak realization, shocked that Artem would go to these lengths to bring Keiran back. But as he looked at Artem, he recognized the deep grief there, and somewhere in his heart he felt sorry for him.
Artem was alone—his sister dead, his best friend dead. Those he’d called family, all gone.
Some of them gone because of Baz himself.
“This started with you, Timespinner,” Artem said as if he’d had the same thought. “When your own Collapsing robbed Keiran, Lizaveta, and me of our families. Oh yes, I know,” he added at Baz’s bewildered expression. “I know it was you. Keiran had started to piece it together, and after I saw you open the Hourglass back there, I knew for certain.”
A half-formed apology died in Baz’s throat as Artem added, “If the Reanimator’s magic can’t bring him back, then yours will.” His gaze slid to the Eclipse sigil on Baz’s hand, lip curling in distaste. “At least you Shadow-cursed filth have your uses.”
“You’re pathetic,” Kai said with a laugh. “No wonder you lost everyone around you. Lizaveta, Keiran,Far—”
