The Deepest Night

kissed the girl he loved, not really, and if he died here, tonight, she’d be the only one who’d ever truly know what happened.

It would ruin her, the burden of that secret. Somehow he knew that it would.

Finish this life.

The Turn was building inside him, a tidal wave of smoke and disintegration so colossal it blotted out everything but his fear.

He dug his fingers into the sheets and stared up at the black timbered ceiling.

Shed this skin. Finish this life. In the twinkling of an … 

The dam of his willpower crumbled, spent.

The air went to syrup, too thick to breathe.

His heart slowed. Slowed.

Stopped.

He couldn’t die—

Chapter 25

I jolted upright. I didn’t even realize I was awake until I heard the mournful piping of the water bird again, and I looked at the windows because it sounded so near.

I was awake, and I was alone in the bed. I felt ill and sweaty for no reason I could think of, as though I’d just broken a fever.

A fever.

I looked down and yes, there they were: his shirt laid out flat, the bandage that had been around his head fallen to his pillow. Beneath the sheets I’d find his trousers and underwear, too.

I sprang from the bed.

“Armand! Where are you? Mandy!”

I didn’t bother to keep my voice down. There was no one else here, no one at all.

All the windows were closed tight. If he’d left as smoke, it hadn’t been that way. There was no fireplace up here, but there was the one downstairs, and the door—

I hit the stairway so hard my feet slipped; only my grip on the railing kept me from spilling all the way down. As it was, I had to skip and hop and finish the last few steps at an awkward run, my boots cracking against the floorboards of the landing.

The front door gaped open. The night sky hung beyond it, coal black dappled with treetops and stars.

I tried to Turn. It didn’t work. I raced out into the open and scanned the heavens, searching for him.

There were some clouds, that persistent haze hanging over the lake. No smoke that I could see. But he had to be here. He had to. He wasn’t going to be one of those unfortunate young drakon who Turned and dissolved into death, because I was going to save him—

“Where is he?” I shouted to the stars. “Where?”

rise up, came their response; even they sounded mournful. rise up, fireheart.

And then, as if they’d unlocked the hidden shackles that had bound me, I could.

I went to smoke, freed from the earth. I left my garments behind, the lodge, its mossy roof. I launched upward, and suddenly I could see all of the lake, the bristly stretch of forest encircling it, the mist that shifted and curled above the surface of the water …

Hold up. There was no wind, no reason for that patch of curl there near the center of the lake. I moved closer to better see. It spun and whirled like a miniature cyclone, no natural thing.

Armand.

I flowed over to him, became thin and hollow and surrounded him as best I could. I couldn’t tell if he realized I was there; now that I knew where and what he was, I felt him as strongly as ever. It was obviously Mandy, gone to smoke but in such a furious way. The force of his whirling was sending me spinning, too, tearing me into tendrils.

I was beginning to feel ill again, so I had to draw free and let him alone.

What was he doing? Below us both, the water grew stormy, thick wide ripples that slapped all the way back to shore.

I wished he’d stop. I wished he’d move away from the lake, because if I accidentally Turned to girl here, I probably wasn’t going to be able to swim to safety. I was rotten sick of nearly drowning.

He went faster, faster. He was pulling a spiral of water up into his middle, sending drops in every direction. I hung back farther, baffled, as the spiral became a funnel, and the drag from his rotation became something stronger and more ominous.

What’s happening to him? I asked the stars.

They didn’t answer. I wandered higher and hunted the heavens, but Jesse wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Tell me why he’s doing this, I demanded.

shape and form, they sang to me. form and shape.

So … Armand was attempting to hold on to his shape? To not Turn back to a human or into a dragon, but remain as smoke?

Why would he do that? Unless … unless he thought that if he didn’t, he’d have no form left at all.

this beast was never meant to be fully as you are. the thread of his life has always been destined to be severed here.

If I had had breath in a body, it would have left me then. I rushed upward, trying to see as many of them as I could.

No! You can’t take him!

we do not take, fireheart. Their song was so sad now. So chilling. he is a child of magic. by law of magic, he ascends to us.

I sped higher and higher. Where is Jesse? Let me speak to Jesse!

Again, no answer. They glittered against a black, black sky, ice cold and remote.

You told me I wasn’t alone!

you were not. your span of hours with this dragon were freely given. that time is done.

Far below, the cyclone that was Armand began to break apart. The waterspout grew shorter, splashing into diamonds upon the surface of the lake. The mist settled. Armand spread thin … then began to rise.

I arrowed back down to him, surrounded him. I tried my own cyclone to keep him in place. He only twirled with me and then beyond me; I wasn’t able to stop him from flowing higher.

Please, he can’t die now, I pleaded.

I had no hands to capture him. I had no words to encourage him. Within moments he was so diaphanous it was as if he had no substance at all, not even color. Zigzag rips began to cleave him; unvarnished night peeped through. A distant, horrified part of me wondered if it hurt.

I’m supposed to save him! I have to save him!

The stars burned in silence. I wanted to scream and I wanted to cry. I wanted to destroy the magic that was taking him. If I’d had a bullet or a bayonet, if I’d had a machine gun, if I could have killed this thing that was killing him …

I watched, helpless, as the smoke of the only living soul who loved me wisped away, molecules falling skyward, gone forever.

And I realized that I had no true power, after all. Not over death.

I’d failed. I’d failed at everything.

A sudden new song swelled around me.

what do you give for this life? what sacrifice do you give?

My answer was instant, unthinking.

My own life. Mine for his.