I could tell from the riotous chants of the boys that something was happening. I realized I’d shut my eyes tightly beneath my mask, and I forced myself to look. I couldn’t be caught now.
Sonja swayed in place, hands raised. The drums were pounding, smoke choking the room. Trainees were passing something from hand to hand, each taking a moment to take a taste.
Oh God. Oh no…It was Frost’s heart.
They passed it along, each boy tasting in a haze of ecstasy. I saw Josh take his turn, saw the rapture on his face. He held it longer than anyone.
Nausea punched me in the gut. Spit pooled in my mouth, revulsion washing over me in violent waves. My body rebelled, wanting to expel the contents of my stomach, to repel everything about this. I had to swallow and swallow again, choking back my bile. This was how the boys became vampires. How vampires became immortal.
Except for Yasuo. Yasuo wasn’t surviving the transition. I doubted he was even here tonight. He’d spoken of Emma’s heart. Her heart. Of course Yasuo was turning Draug. Did he know he’d be forced to hold his girlfriend’s heart in his hands? Or was she already gone?
A Ferris wheel spun in my brain, making me woozy, blurring my vision. I was sick. Confused. Hysteria clawed at me, desperate to be unleashed. A thin, rational thread was all that held me together, while the rest of me had snapped, wanting only to fall to the ground and curl into a ball, weeping and trembling.
I fought it. I had to save Emma from this. Had to save everyone from this.
I backed up until my hand touched the wall, clutching at the cold, damp stone to hold myself upright. I panted through my teeth. Deeper than this horror was the visceral, animal instinct that I couldn’t be caught. I couldn’t betray my presence.
The madness in the room reached a fever pitch. Miraculously, I managed to edge away.
I stayed away from the “apple.” It repelled me. And it was easy enough to avoid—the boys were too doped up on smoke and Idun’s immortality to notice me shifting through the crowd.
Sonja, though…I imagined I felt her eyes on my back. But she made her grand exit, and the boys filed out behind her.
I wanted to run, to shoulder my way through the crowd and be the first out the door, but I made myself wait. Finally, everyone was gone.
All that was left was Frost, on the table, alone in death as in life. Her eyes were wide open, and I couldn’t help it. My feet stuttered beneath me, walking toward her. I had to shut those eyes. I had to do one kindness for this girl.
Her skin was already cold when I touched a hand to her forehead. Closed her eyes. “Bye, Audra.”
All my talk of power. I had no power. These were vampires. How could I ever kill them? Forget power.
And forget Alcántara, too. Al was small-time. Some greater force was at work.
But then I saw it. Sonja’s dagger. The misericordia. It gleamed, wiped clean and placed adoringly on its velvet-cushioned platter.
Who was Sonja? What did this all mean? I’d thought she was my heroine, but—oh God—she wasn’t my Wonder Woman at all. She was at the root of all this. Ruling with an iron fist.
I’d thought much about the nature of strength. Of power. Standing there, utterly disempowered, I realized: Such things didn’t exist in a vacuum. Strength was meaningless without something against which it could be measured. There was a yin to every yang. Power wasn’t power until it was tested. Which meant, if there were such creatures as these fighting for dominance, then who were they fighting against? If there was a force this evil, surely somewhere there existed a good just as formidable threatening it.
I was tired of being strong. But I had no choice. I’d be strong a little longer. For Emma. I wouldn’t give these vampires power. I’d take it. And it would start here.
I stared at the misericordia. If it could make vampires, then maybe it could destroy them, too.
I didn’t pause. I took it.
And then I ran. The smoke had cleared, and with it, my thoughts. My instincts burst alive with renewed intensity. My body was an explosion of muscle and adrenaline. I raced back down the stairs, arms pumping, until I reached the tunnel; then I bounded down passages, guided only by my gut. I was heedless of danger. Heedless of anything but the need to flee. I’d have clawed all the way out of my skin if I could.
I tore off the robe as I ran. Ignoring my injuries, ignoring the elements, the cold and the wind and the darkness, ignoring the very real possibility that I was about to hurtle toward certain death, I leapt from the sea gate and plunged into the waves below.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Waves dark as midnight sucked at my legs. The freezing water churned, brutal slaps at the back of my head. Caught in the breakers, I couldn’t get my bearings. The surf wasn’t so very deep, but it was violent, tearing my feet out from under me, slamming my face into the rocky sand, holding me down. Waves rolled over me. I couldn’t tell up from down. Churning, churning, I stole a breath, then was sucked back under, pounded some more.
Survive. I had to survive. I gripped that blade harder, my hand frozen into a claw clutching the misericordia like a lifeline.
Rolling in the breakers, I turned the last of my energy inward. My own fear would kill me, not these waves. I imagined my panic was a balloon…and then I let it go. I could swim. I would swim.
I went limp, let my body spin underwater, trying to sense the angle of the riptide. Rocks punched my ribs. Caught my ankle. My knee slammed hard onto rocky sand. Feeling the bottom beneath my feet, my reaction was instinctive, instant. I jackknifed, kicking up out of the water, bursting as high over the waves as I could, diving sideways. My arms windmilled. I managed to begin a crawl stroke across the riptide.
I made it to shore. Lumbered up the beach. I had to get out of there. Far from the castle.
Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.
Hysteria would kill me. I lengthened my stride, slowing down. I slowed and deepened my breaths.
The knife. I had to protect the knife. I stopped, unzipped my wetsuit enough to slide the dagger in, nestled along my rib cage. Trembling, it took me forever to manage that simple task.
I was alive, though. Maybe Emma was, too.
But Sonja…she was immense power. Pure evil.
I had her blade. Would she sense it missing? I had to hide it. Had to act normal. I sucked in a deep breath, held it, blew it out slowly through my teeth.
I’d return to the dorm. Tomorrow, I’d make a fuss about Frost’s absence. I’d feign shock, surprise.
In the past hours, my world had tilted sharply. Everything I’d thought I understood about the island was wrong. Emma—I had to believe she was alive. Josh couldn’t be trusted. And Alcántara, what of him? Was he friend? Foe?
I’d felt so alone, but was that true? There was always Ronan. Would I see him soon?
My dorm came into view, a hulking shadow in the darkness. A single bulb was lit in the foyer. It was enough to illuminate the person waiting for me.
I wasn’t alone. It was Ronan, sitting on the front stoop.
“Ronan,” I exclaimed, so unutterably relieved. I took the stairs two at a time, ready to throw myself into his arms.
But then he stood, hands held stiffly behind him. He looked nervous. “Acari Drew,” he said formally.
I stuttered to a halt. My world had just shattered, and now this. Was I losing my mind? How long had I been gone? How much time had I spent in the castle? Suddenly everything, even my own sanity, was thrown into doubt. “What’s going on?” I asked dumbly.
Another figure emerged from the shadows. “Och, my wee dove.”
Carden. Carden was back.
My mouth opened, but I was unable to make a sound. I realized I was shivering violently, emotions buffeting me more savagely than any surf.
Carden turned to Ronan. Had he sensed the emotion between us? My urge to go to Ronan for comfort? I expected him to lay into the Tracer, but instead the vampire approached him, clasped his hand. Carden put a brotherly arm around Ronan’s shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for guarding her. It was much to ask, and you have my gratitude.”
The ground jolted beneath me. Thank you for guarding her.
I’d wondered why Ronan kept showing up, all those times he was concerned for my safety. But he hadn’t been there because he wanted to be. It was because Carden had asked him.
My knees gave way. But Carden was suddenly there, catching me. I shoved him away, steadying my own self. “You asked Ronan to babysit me?”
“I knew I’d be away for a time,” Carden said gently.
“So you had Ronan babysit me,” I repeated flatly. I stared at the Tracer, but he didn’t—couldn’t?—meet my gaze. I’d thought I knew him, but after seeing Josh at that ritual, how could I think I knew anybody?
He’d been there for me because Carden had asked him to be. Because if anything had happened to me under his watch, he’d have been in a world of hurt.
Look at me, Ronan. What about our almost-kiss? Because I hadn’t imagined that, had I? I could only guess what would’ve happened to Ronan if something had happened with Ronan.
“I dared not leave you to face danger alone,” Carden said gently.
I spun on him. “You were the one who left in the first place. No, check that. You took off…in the night…without telling me.”
“I didn’t know until—”
“You had enough time to ask Ronan to mind me. You put me in his care. What am I to you, a child?” I felt Ronan disappearing into the shadows—of course, he’d want to sit out on the lovers’ quarrel. “Bye, Tracer Ronan,” I shot out, putting a cold edge to the formal term of address. “It’s been real.”
Carden took my arm. “Come, mo chridhe. You are upset.”
I made myself flinch away, wanting to lash out. “You bet I’m upset.” I was furious. After the horrors of that ritual, I felt lucky to be alive, and here was Carden, nonchalant as ever with his affections. And the really crap part about the whole thing was that I was angry mostly because I was embarrassed. Because seeing him now, I realized how much I’d missed him when he clearly hadn’t even cared enough to say good-bye. “Do you want to be with me, or did you come back because you had to?”