As the late afternoon wore into twilight, more servants escaped from the house, piling out the back doors and making their way to the garden. Camille joined the girls at the fountain, snuggling against them, comforting their tears. She beckoned me to come too, but I couldn’t sit still. Wandering through the groups of people, I tallied how many had made it out, who was still missing.
Every male servant was gone. The Rusalka had truly run aground, and they’d all gone after it. Seeing Sterland and Roland in the Blue Room had just been another beguiling.
As the flames made their way down the wing, windows shattered in the heat, raining shards of glass like wicked snowflakes. Something inside exploded—stores of wine or kerosene oil, no doubt—and a ball of fire burst free. It flew down the steps, throwing itself into a snowbank.
It wasn’t part of the explosion—it was a person!
Horrified, I raced over and threw handfuls of snow to stifle the flames.
With trembling fingers, I turned the body over and saw not one but two people.
Verity gazed up at me, flushed and smeared with soot but looking relatively unscathed.
“Annaleigh!” She hurtled into my arms, tears streaming down her blackened cheeks. “Annaleigh, you’re alive!” She turned back to the other figure, lying motionless in the snow. “Is Cassius okay?”
I looked over at the pile of burnt clothing, trying to see the form beneath. “What did you say?”
“Is he okay?” She pulled away a piece of fabric, revealing his face.
My heart stopped. It was Cassius. He was real. Verity saw him, and I could feel his body beneath my fingertips. Kosamaras had beguiled us into forgetting him. “Cassius?”
Verity pawed at his legs, seeking a reaction. “It was so awful, Annaleigh. I woke up this morning and no one could see me or hear me. It was like I didn’t exist. I followed Mercy and Honor everywhere today, but they didn’t know I was there. I fell asleep in the Blue Room when the storm came. When I woke up, there were flames everywhere. But then Cassius came, and he could see me! He pulled me out of the fire. He saved me!”
I leaned over the blackened body. “Cassius?” I gently shook him, rousing him back to consciousness.
His eyes flashed open but couldn’t focus. They were bloodshot from the heavy smoke. Had the fire blinded him?
“You see me?”
I pressed a kiss to his blistered palm. “I do, I do.”
He coughed. “I wrote you that message in the dust…. I didn’t want you to think you were alone…. Is she all right? Is Verity okay?” His voice cracked, his throat raw from breathing in the noxious fumes.
“She’s safe. She’s right here.”
Verity ran her little hand over his ruined face, and he smiled. “You saved my life, Cassius.”
His eyes closed for a moment. “Good. That’s good.” He fumbled for my hand, the flesh of his fingers bubbling with charred blisters. “It wasn’t Sterland, was it?”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about that. You need to save your strength. The bargain was broken. Everyone is going to be safe. That’s all that matters.”
He tried to smile, though it clearly cost him. “Not everyone.”
Tears streamed down my face, landing on his. “Don’t you dare give up! You’re out of the house, and the storm will end soon. We’ll send for your mother! There’s the wall of wishes at her abbey…. Everything will be all right.”
He raised his hand, stopping me. “Will you take me out farther into the garden? Please? Out from under the branches? I want to see the stars.”
Verity and I looked up into the storm. There was no way Cassius would be seeing any stars tonight.
“It’s storming, my love. Stay here and rest.”
For a moment, his eyes lit up and he looked like the Cassius I knew and loved. “Did you say love?”
I pressed the softest kiss I could to his cheek. “Of course I did.”
“Then take me out from under the trees, Annaleigh.”
With Verity’s assistance, I picked him up as gently as possible and helped him walk farther from the house, out from under the oaks’ obscuring branches.
A great cough racked his chest as we lowered him to the ground. Blood flecked across his lips, and I wanted to howl. This wasn’t how things were supposed to play out. Eulalie’s novels always had the villains defeated and the lovers safe and sound, ready to start their lives together.
“Cassius, isn’t there a way to stop this? To summon your mother and—”
He clasped my hand, his head moving with a nearly imperceptible shake. “Oh, my darling Annaleigh, remember when you let the turtles go? Some things can’t be kept.” He cupped my cheek, and my tears trickled down his fingers. “Be brave. Be strong. You’ll always have my whole heart.”
He coughed again, his hand falling slack into the snow.
“No!” I screamed, and Verity sobbed, wrapping her arms around my neck. I rocked back and forth, holding her as tightly as I dared. The smoke on her clothes and hair singed my nostrils, grounding me into this horrible, awful moment. I wanted to punch the ground, kick and stomp and rip my shattered, useless heart from my chest.
He couldn’t be gone.
I waited, praying to hear the wicked cackle of Kosamaras’s laugh, but this wasn’t part of her tricks. The beguiling was over, and Cassius was dead.
The snow swirled as the night wore on into morning, piling up on us, on Cassius, until he was tucked under a blanket of white. Hearing our cries, my sisters gathered around us, huddling together, warm and safe, the last of the Thaumases.
As the storm cleared and the sun rose over the smoking facade of Highmoor, Camille stood, inspecting her ruined estate. She held her body stiff and erect, trying to be strong, but her shoulders shook.
I pushed myself to my feet, knowing she needed comfort, someone to hold her hand and meet this challenge with her. But I needed to see Cassius one last time. I wanted to say goodbye while he was still just mine. Not a half god. Not Versia’s son. Just mine.
But when I looked back, the body wasn’t there.
I pushed through the snow, brushing handfuls away, rooting through it, but he was gone, vanished as if he’d never existed.
But he had. Verity had seen him. She was pressed against me, alive and well, because of him.
I looked up into the sky. Had Versia somehow spirited him away, back to her moonstone palace? Back to the Sanctum? I wanted to race to the Grotto’s door and travel to the House of Seven Moons, demanding answers, but stopped short. There was no door. There never had been. I had no way to reach her and would never know.
A great piece of the East Wing’s wall toppled over, sending tremors through the garden and gasps through the crowd.
“What do we do now?” Lenore asked. “Where will we go?”
Camille’s eyes, pink and watery, flickered over the crumbling edifice. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re the People of the Salt. We’re tied to this land, to these seas. Fire cannot force us to retreat.” She turned, her eyes looking over all of us, the final six Thaumas sisters. “We rebuild.”
