Aliena’s eyes went wide and I saw Arachne frown from where she was sitting.
“It has strengthened May’s magyk as well,” said Devil, “and we think, wehope, it could help her clear the Rot. We can go to the falls now and test that theory.”
“And what about Will?” came Jon’s hoarse voice. He had shifted back, but was crouched at the base of a tree, distress plain on his face as he struggled to maintain his human form.
“Alive,” I answered. “But he was arrested, along with Tuck. We have five days to plan a rescue before they’re…sent to the gallows.”
Jon let out a fearful bellow and shifted back, then tore away down the creek. Aliena put a hand over her mouth, grabbed a blanket off her wash line, and went after him.
Devil turned to Larch, who was pinching the bridge of his nose. “The Rot is being used against Nottingham’s citizens now too. If May can clear it, everyone will be safer. One less wolf at our door. But then, can we count on you to help us save Will and the friar? I know it isn’t your—”
“Consider it done,” Larch said. “Anything for Jon, and for the people who brought Cee back to us.” He glanced over at his wife and children, then put a hand on Devil’s shoulder. “Be careful with the Rot, my friend.”
“And you be gentle with Jon,” Devil replied, raising an eyebrow. He turned to face me and we joined hands as I reached out for the magyk currents of the Arden. My prayers had been meagre as of late but now, I sent one up to every god I’d ever heard of, begging for a chance against the fetid disease threatening both my homes.
But it seemed none of the gods were in a listening mood, because the Rot did not respond to my new powers. Not to the molten gold light I discovered I could pull from my veins, the same way Devil did; not to the little black and green fireflies I could now form in my hands; and not to the two angry blades of dark fire I conjured. I threw everything I had at it, tried every combination of magyk I could think of, and Devil helped, pouring his own light out over the blackened earth. Nothing made a difference. Running out of patience and energy both, I sent a massive blast of dark flames toward an infected beech tree. The fire did not catch, but instead burst into a swarm of tiny, iridescent shadow-beetles that flew away and faded into the air. As I watched them, chest heaving with frustration, the edges of my vision suddenly darkened. I only realized that my body was giving out when it was too late and I was already falling.
The cold, grasping hands of the Rot wasted no time finding me in my unconscious state. I tumbled through a dead, corrupted clearing and landed on my hands and knees, only to face down an Unseelie creature with a horrific visage—gnashing, jagged teeth set in the jaw of a charred deer’s skull beneath lidless, empty eye sockets. It limped toward me on four dessicated stumps, dragging a pair of enormous wings across the forest floor. Antenor’s wings. The spidery, black veins of Rot covered them completely now, and they were lifeless, torn to shreds. The creature let out a terrible, mewling sound, but I couldn’t run, couldn’t scream, my body locked in a vice grip.
The Unseelie monster crept closer, and a long, shining black tongue flickered from its mouth, running over my knees and thighs. Scorching tears fell downmy cheeks, but I still could not move. As the unholy thing circled me, I saw that the wings had been stitched onto its shoulders—thick, black thread creating haphazard seams that tore at its rotting flesh. I could not even turn my head as the beast climbed up my back. Its movements were jerky, unwieldy, and its hot, disgusting breath washed over my skin like a horrific wave.
It tried to speak several times, but just rasped, before finally eeking out a perverse imitation of Will’s voice.
“You…did this…to me…” it uttered.
“I’m so sorry!” I sobbed. “Please, tell me where you are and I’ll come for you, I promise!”
“Too…late…”
I screamed and lunged forward, my body somehow capable of movement again, but when I wrenched my eyes open, I was met by darkness again.
“May!” Devil’s panicked voice was far away, muffled by a crackling noise. “May, stop!”
There was a wall of black fire separating me from Devil. He let out a sharp blast of his own flames, which broke through mine just long enough for him to leap through and get to me. We were back in his room at the top of the oak tree, and I was sitting on the bed. He took my hands and pressed them against his own chest. The sight of his face contorted with pain caused my flames to sputter and die.
“I’m here. You’re safe.” He repeated it over and over until the magyk faded, but then I saw the damage I’d done to his room. The soft, green moss which normally coated the walls and floor had been burned away, and the remains of his hanging collection had been singed, if not completely destroyed. On the floor below the archway lay his beautiful longbow, his most prized possession, charred and cracked and broken.
“Oh gods, what did I do?” I cried, burying my face into my knees.
“It’s alright, it doesn’t matter,” Devil assured me, wrapping his arms around my back. “What happened? You blacked out at the falls and I brought you home, but then you started dreaming.”
“It was a nightmare,” I breathed. “A horrible one…” Slowly, falteringly, I described everything to him, trying not to break down as I repeated what the Unseelie monster had said using Will’s voice.
“Guilt,” he muttered. “It’s your guilt, over Antenor, over Will and Tuck and the Rot. It is trying to make you doubt yourself. You cannot allow it.”
“Guilt…” I repeated, my mind suddenly whirring, “and doubt…and hatred…a poison that spreads and kills slowly, but only by consuming the heart…”
“What areyou—”
“I will never be able to get rid of it alone, because…it was never mine to get rid of.”
“The Rot?” Devil asked, inching closer to me on the bed. I had been looking down at my own hand, where I’d conjured a black and green shadow-beetle, but now I looked up at him and nodded.
“I think I understand it now,” I told him. “It will never respond to me alone, no matter how much power I have.” I sat up on my knees and took his arm, running my finger along one of the scars left from where I’d healed him the night before. “The Rot is an infection, caused because the wound left by Lyric’s death was never cared for, never cleaned or bandaged. Oberon thought that bringing me here, havingmymagyk close the wound, would solve it, because he believed me to be some kind of missing piece. But my gift could not touch your magyk blood, andthatis where the Arden’s infection is. In her blood, in her magyk, moving toward her heart.”
“And the infection is made up of…doubt and hatred and guilt? All the terrible things you felt when you touched it that first time?”
“Yes!” I stood up and placed beside the bed, speaking quickly. “Antenor thought Titania’s cruelty was the poison, while Titania blames Oberon for Lyric’s death, and her own inability to let go for the rest, but Titania alone is not the heart of the Arden, is she?”
