The Deepest Night

agreed.

Have you ever done something so rash, so immense, that it takes an eternity of seconds for the magnitude of it to sink in?

I’d just committed suicide.

For Armand.

I had survived my youth immersed in storybook fairy tales. Spent the last few months of my life living one. The one thing I knew with absolute certainty about magical pacts was that they were binding, evermore.

I floated, suspended, waiting for it to happen. That same distant part of me that had been horrified for Armand was now cringing at my own impending pain, but I wasn’t going to try to fly away or Turn to escape it. I was petrified and defiant, and if I’d been in my girl-shape, I’d likely have been huddled in a ball on the ground, covering my head with my hands. But what was done was done.

So I floated.

Slowly, beautifully, the shredded bits of Armand Louis sifted down around me, growing longer and denser until I was threaded through with him. Strands of his smoke coiling around mine, reshaping the mass of me until I was new and unknown, even to me.

We twisted into helixes together. We joined and separated and joined once more, dancers on air. Dancers made of air.

I thought, I never knew it could be like this, this coupling. I never guessed. I wish I’d known, I wish—

No. I wasn’t going to waste the final few beats of my life wishing for impossible things.

Armand slipped free of me, sinking down to the water. I remained where I was, still waiting for the stars to claim me as he drifted toward the shore.

Eventually, since nothing else was happening, I drifted after him.

He Turned to boy in the mud. He was flat on his back, his knees raised, eyes shut. But his chest was rising and falling. He lived.

I returned my attention to the heavens. No songs now, only those brilliant flecks of light shining down.

If they were giving me another hour with him—blimey, another few seconds—I’d take it. I hurried to his side and Turned to girl, kneeling by his head.

“Armand?”

He moaned, deep in his chest. I touched my hand to his hair.

“Armand, how do you feel?”

In response, he rolled over and vomited into the water.

“Oh,” I whispered. I kept stroking his hair. It felt so soft against my skin. Had it always been like this?

“That,” he announced, guttural, “was truly, profoundly vile.”

“But you’re here. You’re alive. You’re going to be fine.”

I said the words as if casting a spell. I said them and thought, This is so. This is what must be true. My life for yours.

Armand rolled flat again. His eyes were red and watery.

“Mind if we … walk back?”

“No.” I shot a frightened look up at the stars. “No, don’t Turn again.”

“If you insist,” he said weakly, and I helped him to his feet.

Daylight came. I must have slept through a good portion of it, because by the time I opened my eyes, the world was mellow and golden, as if the sun was already dipping to kiss the horizon.

I felt warm and comfortable. I was a lazy girl wrapped in woolly blankets and Jesse’s arms and—

No, I wasn’t.

I craned my head up. It was Armand holding me, not Jesse. He was awake, too, watching me. Our bodies were nestled close; he was the source of all that heat. Our legs had entangled.

“You looked cold,” he said, as if that explained everything.

It might have been true. All I had on was my shirt. The bedcovers had rumpled down by my waist.

He was also wearing a shirt. I’d helped him into it last night after we’d made it back to the lodge. I remembered that. I remembered …

Oh, crikey.

I remembered it all. My warm lazy happiness swiftly evaporated.

I had changed something. Maybe everything. Armand was going to live now, and I was not.

It’s fine, it’s fine, I reminded myself, trying not to panic. A fair bargain. Worth it.

So why was I still alive? Why was I burrowed here in this bed with him and those generous rays of golden sun? How much extra time were the stars going to allow me, anyway?

Armand’s palm shifted against my shoulder, a sweet, familiar pressure. His lashes were long and ebony. A shadow of blue whiskers roughened the planes of his face. He held my eyes and gave the smallest smile. It was crooked, almost shy.

Right then I made a choice. Until the stars summoned me, until my thread was severed, I was going to finish what I had come here to do. Because if I was going to leave this boy behind, the least I could do was leave him with his brother.

“Was it only a dream?” he asked, losing the smile.

“No.” I sat up and pushed away the covers. Mud had dried into flakes all around us, grayish brown smears ground into the sheets. “It was real.”

“I Turned,” he said wonderingly. He picked up one of the flakes, which went to dust almost at once between his fingers. His eyes took on a fierce, faraway look. “I can’t … quite seem to recall most of it.”

I was surprisingly disappointed. “Oh?”

“Some. Perhaps you might fill in the gaps.”

“Well …” I had to weigh my words; I didn’t want to accidentally let him know too much. I could barely stand to think about what I’d done. I definitely wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

Mandy was waiting. My fingers found the bottom button of my shirt and began to pluck at it nervously.

“I awoke, and you were gone. I found you over the lake, er, spinning.”

“Spinning? Like a top?”

I shook my head. “Like a gale. Like a windstorm that would consume the world.”

“There was the mist,” he said abruptly. “And the funnel of water.”

I glanced back at him. The fierce look hadn’t faded, but now it was directed at me.

“That’s right. And then we—we danced a little.”

“We did?”

I shrugged, embarrassed. I’d never danced with a boy before. All my lessons at Iverson had partnered me with Stella, because we were closest in height, and we’d had to take turns at playing the man. To be granted permission to dance in public was one of the most coveted ambitions of any young woman of any class. But to have your first-ever dance be with a genuine lord, no matter what form we’d had at the time—

I was sorry then that I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it. I jolly well would’ve enjoyed the expression on Stella’s face. It might even have made up for all the times she’d trod on my toes.

“Rather a dance,” I amended. “That’s what I’d call it, anyway. You don’t remember flying?”

He sat up, his brows knit. Blots of mud stained the back of his shirt, too. “I remember the pain. I remember tearing about, unable to …”

I tugged and tugged at the button.

“I remember the colors of the stars. How they were every color I’d ever seen, and more. Colors I can’t even name.” That hint of slow wonder crept back into his tone. “How exquisite they were. How they sang, and how I hoped they’d never stop.”

“What did they sing to you?”

“Just come.”