“Mother,” I whisper, “my darling mother, you’ve taken such good care of me. You’ve given me everything I ever asked for.”
The leaves rustle as she curls around me, caressing my cheeks, my neck, my arms. I lay one hand against the rough bark of the tree.
“Please, there’s just one more thing that I want. I want it more than anything else in all the world.”
And this is my final lie. Because I realize now that I want her to stay with me, even like this, twisted into a mindless, cruel ghost. I have wanted it—if not more than all the world—more than my nurse’s life, and the butler’s and the chambermaid’s. I have wanted it more than Koré and Thea and Stepmother. Even more than Anax.
But now it’s time for me to stop.
“Please die,” I say.
Her cold touch goes still. My heart pounds jaggedly in my throat, but I pour out the words like sugar and cream: “You’re already dead, but you’ve worked so hard and long for me anyway. Please rest. Please leave this tree and rest forever.”
I wait. For a few agonized heartbeats, her touch doesn’t move; it rests cold and heavy as guilt around my neck. Then she begins to stroke me again, to run her bodiless fingers through my hair as she did when I was a little child, and she would untangle me before bed.
Maybe she can’t stop. Maybe she can’t understand me. Or maybe my true mother has never been in this tree at all; maybe her soul rests in Elysium, and what lingers in the tree is not even her ghost but only an idiot whirlwind of love and protection and mine, mine, mine.
Koré’s fingers clench around my hand, human and heartbroken and warm.
“I’m sorry,” I say to my mother that was. “I love you.”
My fingers are steady as I pour the oil down the trunk of the tree, as I strike the match and lift it.
Chapter 10
Fire roars up the trunk of the tree and into the branches, faster even than the oil should burn. The heat slams into my face and I drag Koré back. I would run, but then I see the demons, and horror roots me to the spot. They bleed out of the apple blossoms: little tendrils of black shadow that corkscrew and billow through the air like ink dropped into water.
My mother ruled them, and now they are free.
I am not mad yet. I know it is because they have not yet looked back at me, but I can feel their attention swinging toward me. I drop to the ground, pinning Koré underneath me; she struggles and I hiss, “Don’t move.” I shove a hand against her face, feel the mask, and remember she is safe: she cannot see. I squeeze my eyes shut, press my face into her shoulder, and wait.
Their attention crawls over my back and shoulders, ice-cold and multitudinous, like the feet of a thousand rats, like dribbles from an ocean of alien hatred. Suddenly I imagine—suddenly I know—that beyond the parchment dome of the sky waits an abyss of demons, and my body shakes as I wonder if the sky will tear like wet paper and let them flow through.
Mother, I want to call, Mother, save me—but my mother is twice dead and can protect me no longer. Tears squeeze out of my eyes, icy tears that don’t belong to me, and I know that even if I don’t see the demons, their constant, rushing presence will soon shred through the last walls of my mind.
Beneath me, Koré shudders and her hands clench around my arms, nails biting deep enough to draw my blood, which has not yet turned cold. She’s desperate and human and mine, and in the madness around us, she’s the only still point. But it’s not enough. Not enough.
And then something spreads over me, like a soft blanket or sudden silence. I can tell the demons are still somewhere near, but they are no longer scrabbling at my mind. Maybe they have shifted their attention. Maybe the last remnants of my mother’s ghost are huddled over me as I huddle over Koré in desperate, incomplete protection.
Whatever it is, it’s enough. The panic leeches from my body; I feel Koré go limp beneath me. From what seems like a very far distance, I hear crashes and the roar of flames. But we are safe, and in each other’s arms we fall asleep.
I wake up cold and stiff. It’s the chill gray hour before dawn. The birds have just begun to chirp; the tang of smoke is heavy in the air. Sometime during the night, I rolled off Koré; she lies beside me now, her foamy golden skirts spread across the grass, her golden mask glimmering faintly in the dim light.
I sit up and catch my breath. The entire house is a smoking ruin. The roof has collapsed; broken beams and shattered windows stand nakedly against the pale sky. I turn the other way and see my mother’s tree also destroyed: the trunk still stands, though charred black, but only a few twisted stumps survive of its branches.
I hear a step behind me.
“Good morning, Maia Alastorides,” says the Gentle Lord.
Fear sparks through my body, snapping my spine straight.
“Good morning,” I say breathlessly.
I don’t look back.
He laughs softly. “I am not that sort of demon. You can look on me and not go mad.”
“Considering my family’s record, I am not so sure of that.”
“It’s true, they made some very interesting bargains. Would you like to see if you can do better?”
He sounds as if we were all fascinating butterflies pinned to cards for his amusement. No doubt, to the prince of demons, that is all a human life can ever be.
“Is that why you came here?” I ask. “To collect us all?”
“No,” he says. “Your mother’s final death released the demons I had put into her care. They are what I came here to collect. But I always have ears for those in need. Tell me, Maia Alastorides. Isn’t there something you want more than anything else in the world?”
My throat clenches with grief, and I think that I finally understand my mother. Because there are things I want that badly. I want to find Thea, wherever she has fled, and give her back the sister she’s always adored. I want to heal Koré’s sight and peel away the mask and her false shape, so that she can spend just one day in freedom. I want—I want so very, very much—to undo the harm I did Anax, and to heal the bitterness that’s festered in his heart for years.
My mother knew that wishes are always bought with pain. She thought she could shield me from the price, but she was wrong. Maybe I could do better. Maybe I could word my bargain carefully enough that nobody I loved would pay. But somebody would. And I know one thing my mother never did. I know what it is like to live every day and every hour by the fruits of someone else’s wretched bargain. To see people suffer and know, They suffer because I am loved.
I would not do that to the ones I love. Not for anything in the whole wide world.
“There are a lot of things I want,” I say quietly and deliberately. “But I think I will keep what I have.”
The Gentle Lord laughs again. “Then you are wiser than many. Farewell, Maia. I do not think we will meet again.”
And he is gone. I feel it in a sudden relaxation of the air. I let out a great sigh and climb stiffly to my feet. Koré is still asleep; I will need to wake her soon, and then—
Then we will need to find our way in the world with no family, no money, no help. I try to imagine the days ahead, and it’s not fear of ruin that makes my chest ache; it’s fear of the unimaginable blank with every familiar part of life gone. I never thought that freedom would feel so much like grief.
And that’s when I see Anax walk around the side of the house. He’s pale and a little unsteady on his feet; when he sees me, he stares for a few moments as if convinced I’m not real.