A quiet voice inside myself, struggling to speak through the Stone’s pull, tried to remind me of what the Stone had done to me in the past, to my mother, to Dominic. Was it good to long so much for something with the power and the will to do so much harm?
Power to do harm is still power, said my mother’s voice. That power in your hands becomes the power to do good. To do anything.
Her voice was so much louder than the quiet one inside myself. So much easier to listen to. I pushed my doubts aside. The thing now was to get the Stone, to heal my mother and Dominic. The rest would come afterward.
I took a room at the cheapest inn in Portsmouth Point, the cheapest part of town, reasoning that I would be likely to find Will somewhere he could afford. I stood at the door of the inn and hesitated to enter it. The water lapped quietly against the jetty beneath me, and the air was thick with mist and the brackish smell of the harbor. It was very quiet and very still. From where I stood on the point, I could see the docks crowded with ships, the town behind them, and the white-pocked hills beyond the town. The Stone was here, somewhere. I felt it.
I went inside and booked a room. I avoided the cloudy mirror on the wall, but I still saw my ill appearance reflected in the concerned frown of the innkeeper. I clutched my shawl tight and found myself worrying about how this cold damp affected Will. I tried to dismiss the thought, but to my dismay the anxiety remained. It was only habit, I reassured myself. I did not truly care if he was cold, no matter what it did to his lungs.
I climbed the creaky wooden stairs slowly. It was a necessity—my breath came shorter with each step—and it was also a good way to listen. Sure enough, his cough tore through the walls, and even from the stairway and down the hall, I knew it was him. He was on the third floor, one above mine. I gripped the rail and waited in vain for my heartbeat to slow. He coughed again. It was worse than it had been in London. I had not thought it could get worse, but it had. He couldn’t have long.
I made my way slowly down the hall to his room. I waited outside his door until the coughing subsided. I waited a long time. He must have heard me.
“It’s not locked,” he said from inside. His voice was little more than a gasp.
I opened it. The room was snug and dark from the unpainted walls of wood. Faint light filtered in through one small window; just enough for me to see how dreadful Will looked. More corpse than man. He made an effort to sit up when I came in, but failed. What had been left of the flesh on his body had wasted away, and the dark circles under his eyes seemed to have spread to his whole sunken face. His lips were red with blood. He clutched a mass of red-stained handkerchiefs in his hands. He looked up at me with flat, hopeless eyes when I came in. I tried to hate him. I tried to call up his betrayal, his lies, his selfishness. None of that could take hold. He had been so beautiful, and so alive. All I could feel was sadness that now he was not.
“Bee,” he said, so very quietly. “Thank you for coming.”
“I didn’t come for you.” I tried to hide my pity. I doubted I succeeded.
“I know.” He gasped, coughing into his handkerchiefs. “You came for the Stone.”
I looked around the room, then closed my eyes for a moment to listen for it. Will spoke, confirming what I already knew.
“It isn’t here.”
My mind filled with panicked questions, but I forced them down. He hadn’t lost it. He would have hidden it somewhere, until he could be sure I would do what he wanted.
“Then I cannot heal you,” I said.
His eyes lit with a trace of pathetic hope. “You can make it work, then? Are you certain? It nearly killed me when I tried.”
I nodded. The Stone would work for me. I was certain of almost nothing but that.
“Then you will, but not until we’re away,” said Will with a little more force. “When you’re on a ship with me to France, and we’ve left England and the Germans behind for good.”
“So it is already on the boat?” My pulse quickened. A reckless plan, if it was. Too many things could go wrong. “That was foolish, Will. We don’t leave until tomorrow, and you look like you might not last the night.”
He made a ghastly wheezing sound. For the half moment before it became a cough, it was almost like laughter.
“Very true,” he gasped. “I might not last the night. But you should try to see to it that I do. The boat sails with the early tide. If I don’t get on board, the Stone will be thrown into the sea.”
My anger rekindled. I pressed my clenched fists into my thighs. A new reason to hate his illness occurred to me. If he were well, I could hit him in his selfish face. But nature had taken my revenge for me.
“Even now,” I said in a low voice. “Even now you think of nothing and no one but yourself. If you let the Stone be thrown into the sea my mother will never be well. And I—I will have nothing. You know that, and you do not care.”
“You’re wrong about that,” he said. “I do care. I’ve always cared about you.
