“You were right, sister,” Simeon says softly to me. He’s still processing things, and I understand—it’s a lot to take in. “Got any other incredible theories you want to run past us?”
As I shake my head, Jax mutters, “At least part of this makes sense. I can see how a spirit newer than Firiel would still be drawn to our world. Bet a lot of them are wondering what’s been happening without King Wylding around.”
“But how are we going to find this wandering spirit?” Simeon asks worriedly. “Or send them back here without running a sword through some decaying body?”
Jax and I exchange a glance. Neither of us has an answer, so I refocus my attention on Firiel. I have one last question for her.
“Do you know why some of the spirits here can’t move?” I stand still as a statue for a moment myself, but that only causes Firiel to blink politely.
She’s told us all she knows. I start to thank her for the help she was able to give us, but she’s already slipping away, back toward the river. There seems to be no resisting the pull of the world after the Deadlands, not once someone has lingered here long enough. Even the blood wasn’t enough to tempt her back to life, toward warmth and light and laughter. “Tell Evander I say hello, if you find him,” I call after Firiel, a familiar lump forming in my throat despite all the thoughts racing through my mind. Then I start down the hillside toward the gate with Simeon and Nipper beside me, and Jax slightly ahead.
With my wild suspicion confirmed, it’s time to head home. Time to remind the dead and the living where each belongs.
We barely get in a few steps, picking our way carefully through the trees, before a shrill cry splits the Deadlands’ still air. I know that sound. “Shade,” I mouth to Simeon. One so close that its hunting call reverberates painfully in my ears and makes my shoulders tense in anticipation of a fight.
The three of us draw our swords.
I scan the dark border of the forest to our right, ready to give Nipper the command to use her fire breath the moment the monster bursts from between the trees.
Something silver bounds through the shadows alongside us, making my every muscle tense, but it looks more like a spirit than a Shade.
The Shade howls again.
Nipper growls and tenses, flicking her tail.
The silvery creature darts past us toward the forest’s edge, and I get a close enough look to see that it’s Firiel.
As she crashes into the forest, her movements becoming harder to track with each passing moment, the Shade’s cries diminish. She’s drawing the monster away from us, giving us time to get safely into the tunnel that will take us home.
We were chosen for this job because we had no loved ones in the Deadlands. We were taught that it was dangerous to feel something, anything for a spirit here, because our hearts could trap us here forever. But after what we just witnessed, I think somehow, a long time ago, some other necromancer got things wrong. I’m grateful for my friends here, but not even Firiel’s selflessness is enough to make me want to stay a moment longer than necessary. Not when there are people who need me back in our world.
Not when a spirit with a score to settle might be lurking unseen within the palace.
XXIV
We emerge in our world not by the cliffs near the palace gardens where we started, but in the sunlit graveyard behind Noble Park, maybe two miles away. Time can move inexplicably in the Deadlands, and though we left at sunset and were gone for what felt like only a few hours, it appears to be bright and early the next morning.
Wrapping my arms around myself to stave off a chill, I take in the sights. This is the best graveyard in the city, the only one with a sea view. It’s also the graveyard full of headstones that now bear many familiar names: Cymbre. Evander. Even Hadrien. In some cases, we had no body, so all we buried were memories.
The last time I came here, patrolling for Shade-baiters, the grass grew thickly, as if the headstones and the memories they hold rarely had visitors. Which is probably true. The grass still looks healthy, growing unchecked, only now flowers decorate the green everywhere we step.
Simeon plucks one from beside a white marble headstone andcradles it in his palm. The yellow pheasant’s eye in his hand, a type of buttercup, is a symbol of bitterness.
I spot a few more just like it, scattered throughout the headstones, but they’re far outnumbered by the tiny bright pink blossoms dotting almost every grave. “Oleanders,” I announce when the others struggle to come up with the name. These flowers aren’t in season right now, yet they look as fresh as if they’d opened their petals yesterday. There’s no reason the colorful blossoms would be growing here unless they came from the spirits of those buried beneath them, now residing in the Deadlands.
Meredy would know what the oleanders stood for right away—she’s got a good memory for flowers, as Lyda always liked them. But since Meredy isn’t here, I search my mind until I find the oleanders’ meaning. And when I do, I’m more uneasy than I was in the Deadlands, being stalked by a Shade.
I draw Nipper closer to me, unable to stop her from nibbling on the blossoms.
Beware, the oleanders warn as I look around.
With so many of them surrounding us, they seem to shout it.
But what good is their warning when they don’t tell us how to fight an enemy we can’t name or see?
***
As we stride down a sunny but deserted street on our way back to the palace, we argue over what to tell Valoria, if anything.
