“Now you know how he felt!” Magdala roared. “I want you to die the way he did!” Huxley’s scream came out as a burst of bubbles. “I told you never to touch him, and you should have heeded me. Your blood is on your own hands!”
Huxley fought her, but her rage lent her an inhuman strength. Asherton’s voice rang in her head, over and over and over …
Her first.
Her. First.
His life was worth a thousand bodyguards. She had done nothing to deserve his sacrifice, and it angered her more than Huxley’s crime.
She risked a glance downstream at Zephyr. He was holding Asherton in his arms, rocking softly, his now-human fingers buried in Asherton’s hair.
The weight of her grief shocked her. It tumbled down like a rockslide, violent and crushing, grinding her to dust. Her grip on Huxley slackened, and he kicked and clawed out from under her. With a gurgling cry, he scrambled,crab-like, away from Magdala and snatched the shotfire from the grass.
“You mad little whore,” he rattled. “You were meant to aid us, not get into his bed! Your father will disown you—the people will have you hanged from a tree!”
But Magdala couldn’t hear him. She doubled forward over her knees and screamed out her pain until it shook the pines and trembled in the earth. Huxley started away from her, renewed terror on his face, and ran haltingly into the trees.
“NO!” Magdala screamed. She beat the ground with her fists, mud spattering her face. “No, no, no, no!” She threw her head back and wailed at the moon. The manic surge that had turned her murderous dissipated like water in sand. Her very bones ached, and she touched her forehead to her knees and wept.
“Stop it, Miss Devney, you’re being dramatic.”
Magdala lurched up. Zephyr stood behind her, his face pale and placid. Asherton leaned on his shoulder, his chest heaving. With a shriek, Magdala launched onto Asherton, knocking him off his feet. They both tumbled to the ground.
He couldn’t be real. She must be hallucinating, but his body felt solid under hers, and his chest rose and fell. She didn’t wait for him to speak before she pressed her mouth against his, kissed him with unchecked, unabashed passion. She slid one hand into his hair, the other down his chest until her fingers found the light thrum of his heartbeat. He laid his palm on her cheek, smearing blood along her cheekbone.
Heshuddered, and a fit of coughing overtook him. Magdala stretched out beside him, half her body propped on his. When his coughing settled, he lay on the grass, wheezing.
“I thought I lost you,” she said, tears stinging the cut on her cheek. “You bloody idiot! How could you do that to me?”
His eyes still closed, Asherton smiled, and it warmed and irritated her at once. She leaned over him and kissed him again, on his lips, then his brow, then his neck. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” she said between kisses. He laid his hand on her back and squeezed her against his chest. “I’ll never forgive you for putting me through that.”
He let out a waterlogged laugh and was seized by another coughing fit.
Zephyr touched Magdala’s shoulder. “We need to find somewhere to shelter and get medicine. He is likely to be ill.”
Of course, of course. She was being stupid. Alarmed, Magdala sat back and studied Asherton for the first time. His right arm was still in the rusty cuff, blood dripping to his elbow. The other was more swollen than before. Zephyr rooted around in the grass until he found the key Huxley had dropped and removed the iron from Asherton's arm.
“Yes.” She nodded. “We need to find someone … we need a physician and …” Her mind reeled. Where could they go now, with the city and the village and the royal guard all set against them? “I need to think. I need to …”
Magdala bit her lip. There was only one place that could not turn her away. “I know where to go.”
Zephyr creased his brow. “Where? We can’t go back to Elegy like this. We can’t go to the city …”
“Trust me,” she said with counterfeit confidence. “They’ll take us in.”
Magdala paused outside her father’s door, staring at the wood grains and the rust on the knocker. She nearly turned and retreated back the way she came, but Asherton’s coughing grated her nerves. With a deep, steadying breath … she knocked.
Silence followed, then footsteps. Finally, the door swung open, and her father stood before her, backlit by firelight.
“Magdala?” he said, his eyebrows raised. He took in her wet clothes, the blood dripping off her chin, the gash high on her cheek, now so swollen, her eye was half closed. “What has happened?”
“I need help,” she said. “But it’s … you’re not going to be happy when I tell you why.”
Seamus’s brows pinched. “Why? What have you done? Did you …” A hint of hope lit his face. “Did you kill the king? I heard someone did, but I didn’t know who …”
“No, Da, I’ve done something much worse than that.”
“What, little hen?”
