“There has to be a way out,” she rasped, clutching her ribs and standing. “How else did the assassin get into the house?”
Because this must have been how they slipped the Lucent Pine into her bag. And these passages must have been how Zephyr—the ghost—got into the house when she was a child.
“There must be a door,” she said.
Asherton shook his head. “There’s no door.”
And he was right. Smoke poured into the passage. Asherton coughed and reached for her hand.
“We’re together,” Magdala said. “Like we said we would be. What else could I ask for?”
“I would have asked to survive.” Asherton offered her a sad smile. “If we had survived this, Mags, I meant to run away with you. I meant to take you home to the Wildlands, and we would have been free together. I’m so, so sorry that I couldn't give you that.”
Magdala brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I had nothing before I met you. I would have died a miserable, lonely woman. So what if I die young if I die in love?”
She pressed her lips to his, and he pulled her against his body. Smoke haloed them as they tasted one another, melded into one another. She would die in his arms. He would die in hers. What better ending?
They didn’t notice when warm air burst down on them, or see the light that filled the space until a woman’s voice shrilled, “Come up, you fools!”
Magdala pulled away from Asherton and blinked up at a willowy silhouette in the void above them.
Magdala froze—her weary brain was playing tricks.
“Angelonia?” she cried. “What are you doing here?”
Angelonia wasn’t leaning through an open door or pushing back some sliding panel. She was pushing her body through the ceiling like it was water or a mirage. Taking Magdala and Asherton’s hands, Angelonia drew them up. The solid stone above Magdala flickered, like mist parting, and she found herself blinking in the golden sunlight of a warm summer afternoon. Hedges loomed around them, overgrown and unmannerly. Her feet crunched on pea gravel.
Beyond the shrubbery walls, Elegy house smoked silently, flames licking out the windows.
They were in the center of the hedge maze, but when Magdala turned to inspect the strange door they’d passed through, she found only the statue of the melancholy faerie woman with the glowing eyes.
An image flashed through Magdala’s mind of another faerie woman in the palace garden. She had watched her as she sat in the pergola, minutes before she discovered Julian’s body.
“The faerie stones,” Magdala mused. “The statue is carved of a faerie stone. Its twin is in the palace garden. I read about this, in a book in Asherton’s room.”
Angelonia pressed her lips together and gazed at them with red-rimmed eyes. “I wrote that book. I was theforemost expert on faerie stones, but I gave it all up when I came to Largotia and met Julian.”
“Only someone with faerie blood can pass through faerie stones,” Magdala said. “So you must be the assassin.”
Angelonia dipped her head in assent. “The passages only let out in the armoire in the empty bedroom—I had to knock down a wall to get there—and the kitchen, but that one was blocked, too, and harder to access. At first, I meant for the assassination to look like an accident—I let the snake loose in the garden, planted the Lucent Pine sap on his clothes. Then I decided to let Magdala take the blame and stashed the Lucent Pine bottle in your bag. But when that proved fruitless, I grew brazen, shooting at him as he sat in the window one night. I only stopped because Huxley swore he would see Julian vindicated after the coronation. I see he failed.”
Angelonia drew a small shotfire from her pocket—it was no larger than the palm of her hand. “There are several of these statues connecting the three kingdoms. A faerie can pass easily from one to another. They have been mostly forgotten. But none of that matters. I want justice for my lover, whom you murdered,Your Majesty,” she spat.
Asherton groaned. “I didn’t kill Julian, but I did kill Huxley just now.”
Angelonia’s face blanched. “No …” she murmured.
“Julian was a beast,” Magdala said through chattering teeth. “And so was Huxley. And so are you.”
Angelonia’s chest heaved, her lips twitched with suppressed rage. “You have taken what I loved most,” she said to Asherton. “Now, I will take what you love most from you.”
But as her finger tensed on the trigger, Asherton jumped on Angelonia, lashing out with the sharp lame still in his hand. The shotfire flashed, but Asherton dodged sideways, the ball cutting his sleeve. The lame clattered on the gravel.
Angelonia drew a knife and lunged at Asherton, slashing. Unarmed, he leaped back, the blade slicing his shirt. With her last ounce of strength, Magdala plunged forward and slammed into Angelonia’s back. Startled, Angelonia fell to her knees. Magdala fell with her, reached around her, gripped the knife, and turned it toward the pixie woman’s chest. Angelonia was willowy and graceful—even at her worst, Magdala overpowered her. With a swift, decisive movement, Magdala plunged the knife upward, into the woman’s heart. Angelonia slumped forward onto the ground, her eyes wide in shock, and let out one last exhale. Magdala collapsed over her and fell softly into the dark.
Chapter 50
Magdala awoke to breeze and birdsong. A gentle wind carried the sweet tang of dry leaves through an open window, wafting homespun curtains over her bed. She couldn’t be at Elegy—the house had burned to the ground. This room lacked the musty stifle of her father’s cottage. So where was she and, more importantly, where was Asherton?
