Chantress Fury (23 page)

I tried to close my ears, but the pull of the voice was too strong. I couldn’t help imagining it—Nat in love with me, the two of us together always. . . .

“What is the Earth to you, anyway?” Pressina whispered. “Humans don’t trust you. They hate and fear you. You don’t belong there. It’s only here that you can be truly happy. Only here that he can truly love you.”

I found myself nodding. But then I saw Nat’s eyes above Pressina’s scales, wide open and angry. I froze, horrified. Even if Pressina was telling the truth, how could I sacrifice everything—Nat’s free will, his sanity, the lives of everyone on Earth—to gain love? No, not even love. Just some cheap imitation of it.

Pressina had seen only the nod. “Yesssssssss. That’s right, Chantress. Take off your stone and sing for me, and I will make you happy.”

I nodded again. My fingers found their way to the chain and started to pull. It was a terrible choice, but I’d made my decision.

“Yessssssssss.” The serpent tongue flicked, and the coils started to relax.

Yanking the necklace up, I screamed, “Jump, Nat!” As the Wild Magic of the place rushed in on me, I sang the shifting song at the top of my lungs, and I flung the stone at Pressina.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

LEAVING

As Pressina twisted and Nat leaped, I sang a variation on the shifting song—changing not myself but the stone. I poured all my anger and all my fury and all my love for Nat into the singing, and in an instant the stone expanded to hold them all. When it careened into Pressina, it was as big as a boulder, impossible to evade.

With a screech that rivaled the cacophony of the Wild Magic, she blew apart. The blast shook the whole cave. Still half-caught in her spirals when the stone hit, Nat flew up in a whirlwind of green scales.

As loose rocks cascaded from the rumbling walls, I screamed Nat’s name. Had I killed him, too?

The whirlwind let him go, and he fell to the cave floor. Dodging the rocks, I ran toward him, but my foot caught on something and I tripped. Reaching out, I found my stone, small and dull and more cracked than ever, but still in one piece on its chain.

When I flung it on, it did nothing to deafen me, but at least I was becoming more used to the music. Even if I couldn’t understand much of it, it no longer made my head swim.

Rising to my feet, I rushed over to Nat. He was unconscious, burned, and bruised, and his limbs were sticking out at odd angles. I started to weep. He was still breathing, but for how long?

Looking around for something that would help him, I caught sight of another body, that of the sea snake that had been my mother. And there was Melisande, half-buried under rocks, and Odo, at the foot of the rock where my mother had stood . . .

Death. Death everywhere.

And then singing.

The music poured out of the small caves and rifts and tunnels. I couldn’t understand the phrases, but it was entirely different in mood and tempo from what I’d heard from Pressina’s horde.

Moments later, starfish and sharks and squids shot into the cave, dancing around me in a dazzling rainbow of colors. Soon the whole place shimmered with vibrant creatures and their ever-changing speckles and stripes and spots.

“You did it!” a school of fish shouted.

“You killed Pressina!”

“You freed us!”

“And we helped,” a small shark-toothed creature said proudly. “We beat back the others.”

“The last ones gave up when Pressina died,” a squid told me. “Without her magic directing them, they seemed to forget why they were fighting us.”

A school of fish cheered.

“But you do not rejoice,” a starfish said to me. “You are sad?”

“My friend is dying.” I gestured at Nat, choking on the words. “And my mother is gone, and Odo—”

“Take heart,” the starfish said. It glided around to everyone who had fallen, even Melisande, then returned to me. “The one under the rocks has no life in her, and neither does Odo. And neither, I am afraid, does your mother.”

My heart clenched.

“But your friend is not dead yet, not quite,” said the starfish. “We must see what we can do for him.”

“You can do something?” I asked.

“We can try,” it told me. And it began to sing.

The song passed like lightning from creature to creature. Soon the whole cave was echoing with it. The hopeful melody twisted my heart, and so too did the sight of them, crowded around Nat, as if by their mere presence they could lend their strength to him.

Was there still a chance he could be saved? On Earth, there would be none. But perhaps here it was possible.

I started to sing with them.

As the music circled the room, the shifting started—not in the singers this time but in the ones who lay still. Nat’s bruises and burns faded. His bent limbs straightened. But before he moved or spoke, the music faded.

“Don’t stop,” I begged.

The starfish waved one of its arms. “We have done all we can, Chantress. But simply being here in the Depths is a strain on him. The guards who helped him escape say that he was struggling with the ether even then, and now he is badly injured. If you wish him to heal more fully, you must take him back to your own world.”

A golden fish murmured to me, “There is no guarantee that he will heal, even in your world. He is very weak. But he will do better there than he will here.”

“How do I bring him there?”

“We will help you through the wall between the worlds,” the starfish said. “The rest is up to you. But you must go quickly. Now that your mother’s song is no longer there to hold the gaps in the wall wide open, they are narrowing. Soon we may not be able to get you both through. Come!”

As the starfish spoke to me, two eels, singing tenderly, were popping out huge fins to scoop up Nat and bear him away.

I turned. “But my mother—”

“We will sing her into peace, and the others, too,” the starfish said gently. And indeed, some of the creatures were already singing a melody so strange and sweet that my eyes brimmed again. My mother was returning to her human form, and if her body was mangled, her face was serene. Nearby lay Odo, whose terrible burn marks were fading; indeed, all of Odo was fading. And now my mother too was vanishing . . .

“Wait.” I ran to her. I could barely see her cheek as I knelt to kiss her, but I could feel it, cool and soft beneath my lips. For a moment we were together again. Then the music twined around us, and she was gone from me forever.

My eyes were streaming, but the starfish was calling, and Nat needed me. At the starfish’s bidding, I took hold of one of its arms, and we started down a tunnel, the finned eels carrying Nat behind us. The pale green light of the ether grew darker: grass-green, fir-green, forest-black. When we stopped, the starfish pointed to the still darker path in front of us. “We are at the thinnest part of the wall, the oldest hole. Will you take him through?”

“How do I carry him?” I asked.

“You simply need to keep hold of his hand,” the starfish said. “For the journey you are making, that will be enough.”

I grasped Nat’s hand, which lay unresponsive in mine.

“Are you ready?” the starfish asked.

I hesitated. “After this, everything depends on me?”

“Yes,” the starfish said. “But take courage. Listen!”

I closed my eyes. From the darkness came the very faint sound of a familiar Wild Magic. It was a song calling me home.

“Thank you,” I said to the starfish. “Thank you, everyone. I’m ready to go now.”

I started to sing. Suddenly the last vestige of green light was gone, and we were in the chilly, salty sea.

Up and up and up we went, and I thought of nothing but Nat’s hand in mine and the Wild Magic on my lips. Although we were underwater, my lungs seemed inexhaustible, and I felt as if I could sing forever. Yet as we continued to climb, Nat grew heavier and heavier. Soon I was struggling to keep hold of his hand.

What if I wasn’t strong enough to bring him all the way back? What if he was already dead?

Keep singing. Don’t let go.

We kept moving upward, but the journey became harder and harder. And just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Nat’s hand slipped.

I caught hold of his fingertips. I didn’t lose him. But the effort of holding on to him was excruciating. I couldn’t concentrate on my singing anymore. I was hardly making a sound, and we were barely moving.

I had almost given up when Nat squeezed my fingers.

He was alive!

With new heart, I poured myself into my song. Moments later, we shot up into the shallows. Light was coming through the water. Our heads popped above the waves.

I saw sky.

And sand.

I couldn’t find the strength to sing another note, but it didn’t matter. The waves themselves were washing us in. I gulped in a sweet breath of air and let the tide take us.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

AFTERMATH

Later I was told that Nat and I landed on a Thames sandbank, where fisherfolk rescued us. I was so weak, I had to be carried to safety along with him.

By the next day, I was well on my way to recovery. Not so, Nat. In a makeshift infirmary, he lay motionless, hardly breathing at all.

The infirmary was in St. James’s Palace in London, where the King had moved his Court, now that the danger of flooding was over. Though not as high as the property on Cornhill, it was much bigger—and since it was well away from the Thames, it had sustained less damage than Whitehall and the Tower.

That night Norrie, Penebrygg, and I stood vigil together, with others coming and going at intervals. We burned candle after candle, determined not to miss a single movement or twitch—anything that would give us hope.

Earlier that day, from my bedside, I’d relayed the essentials of the battle against Pressina to the King. I’d wanted him to know that the floods were over, that it was safe to rebuild. Now, as the other watchers withdrew and the flames crept down the candles, I told Norrie and Penebrygg more about what I’d seen in the Depths.

They, in turn, told me how our world had fared while I’d been gone. Judging from the reports that were rolling in, London was the only place to have been struck by a great wave. I’d feared the whole city would be drowned, but the evacuation and my wind magic had muted the wave’s impact. The death toll was in the hundreds, not thousands, and most of the city’s buildings were still standing.

Nevertheless, the wave had devastated many Londoners. Although the Thames now meandered harmlessly within its banks, people’s houses were half-buried in muck. Their belongings were ruined or washed away. Docks and entire shipping yards had vanished, so all supplies now had to be carried in by cart.

Already, however, Londoners had begun rebuilding.

“It’s all most of them can talk about at the encampment,” Norrie said. “Some are still in mourning, but the rest want to get on with their lives.”

“Everywhere you go, you see people busy reclaiming their ground,” Penebrygg said. “And sometimes the damage isn’t as bad as it first looks. When I went out to my house yesterday, the lower floors were in a terrible state, but everything in the attic was intact—books and tools and clocks. I even found a spare pair of spectacles there, and I do believe they’re every bit as good as the old ones.” Putting his hand up to them, he yawned.

“You’ve been up too long, Dr. Penebrygg,” Norrie said. “You should get some sleep.”

“I can’t leave the boy,” Penebrygg said, but even as he spoke, he yawned again.

“There’s a bed in the room next to this one,” Norrie said. “You take it for now, and Lucy and I will sleep later. Nat’s going to need round-the-clock care for a while, so it’s best we sit up with him in shifts.”

After some urging, Penebrygg finally agreed to this. After he left, Norrie said, “That man has been driving himself much too hard.”

I nodded but never took my eyes off Nat. A few minutes later, I said, “Was that a blink?”

Norrie leaned in. “Maybe.”

For hours I’d been holding Nat’s hand. Now I squeezed it. “Nat, can you hear us?”

There was no response.

I tried again and again, until Norrie stopped me. “You can’t bring him back by force of will alone, lamb. Now, if you had some magic for him, that would be different—”

“I don’t.” Healing had never been in my gift. I released his hand and turned away, choked with anxiety. “There is nothing I can do for him.”

Norrie laid her hand on mine. “Child, you mustn’t give up hope. And whatever happens, you mustn’t blame yourself either.”

“But I failed him, Norrie. I didn’t bring us back fast enough. And I didn’t protect him from Pressina.” My nails dug into my palms. “I failed Mama, too. If I had been quicker—”

“Hush, child.” Norrie put her arms around me. “You did your best. That’s all you could do.”

“But I failed her. I failed them both. If he dies too—”

“Don’t say it!” Norrie hugged me tighter. “He’s held on this long, Lucy. That must mean something. As for your mother, I see no failure of yours there. You rescued her from a terrible captivity.”

“But she died.” Tears stung my eyes.

“Yes.” Norrie pulled back and smoothed my hair from my forehead. She’d always been far too matter-of-fact for tears, but in the faint orange glow of the banked fire, I saw that she was crying now. “And we all wish she hadn’t. But I’ll tell you this, child: What your mother wanted more than anything else in this life was to know she’d kept you safe, and to see you face-to-face again. And you gave her that.” She hugged me again. “You gave her that.”

It was the merest flicker of a flame against the black despair I felt. But it was all I had to hold on to—that and the hope that Nat would somehow survive.

Another day passed, and Nat still did not wake. Hour after hour, I stayed by his side. To my surprise and relief, there was no summons from the King—or anyone else—to take me away.

Left to myself, I would have kept watching him, but Norrie and Penebrygg were worried that I was still not completely recovered myself. Insisting that I take a break, they sent me to rest in the rooms that had been allocated to Norrie, just across the courtyard from the temporary infirmary. And there Sybil came to see me.

Dressed in soft woolens rather than silks, she gave me a ferocious hug and a look of deepest sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. About your mother, about Nat . . .”

When I winced, she changed the subject. “When did you last eat?”

“I can’t remember—”

“Then I’ll see that you’re fed now. We must get you strong again.” She rummaged through the food cupboard, then sat me down in front of a cold meat pie that Norrie had squirreled away earlier that day, after I’d left it untouched. “Now eat.”

“I can’t.” I was too worried about Nat.

Sybil looked at me with her warmhearted eyes. “While there’s life, there’s hope, Lucy. At the encampments, I’ve seen people make astounding recoveries this week. But you really must eat. I’m going to stay here until you do.”

As I picked at the pastry, she told me more about some of the recoveries she’d seen among the refugees. Modest though she was about her own part in this, I could read between the lines. She was working miracles. With Joan as her redoubtable second-in-command, and a score of volunteers at her disposal, she had requisitioned several noble houses and grounds in the higher parts of London and had found shelter for everyone who’d asked for it.

“Sometimes the rooms are very crowded,” she admitted, “but it’s something. And they’re all getting soup every day, and bread and ale, too, when I can find them.”

“They are lucky to have you on their side,” I said, thinking I was lucky to have her on mine.

Sybil blushed. “I don’t know about that, but it
is
awfully nice to be useful. I’ve told Henry that, even when this is over, I’m not going back to my old life. I know the kind of queen I want to be now.” She looked at me with resolve in her eyes. “And I won’t let anything stop me.”

I smiled for the first time since I’d returned from the Depths. “Good.”

“And what about you?’ Sybil said more hesitantly. “I’ve told Henry he must give you time to recover—and I gather Norrie and Dr. Penebrygg have said much the same. He’s given orders that you’re not to be disturbed.”

So that was why no one had summoned me.

Sybil went on. “What you’ve been through must have drained your powers, and I’m sure it will take a while for your magic to reach full strength again. But the city needs you, Lucy. As soon as there’s anything you can give . . .”

I looked down at the table and the half-eaten pie. The truth was that my powers, though not fully restored, were recovering rapidly. If pressed, I could do some magic. But I didn’t want to be pressed; I couldn’t bear to leave Nat. Yet how could I say so? I was a Chantress—and that didn’t leave much room for being human, even with a friend like Sybil.

The silence stretched out, and then Sybil put her hand on mine. “Come when you can, that’s all I ask,” she said with a compassion that made me wonder how much she guessed at. “And now, I’m afraid I must go. I need to see Henry.”

“And I need to see Nat,” I said.

Once we were out on the landing, Sybil gave me another swift hug. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Lucy—and Nat, too. But it’s good to see that these terrible misfortunes have brought you two together again.”

I looked at her, dismayed. Was that what she thought my vigil meant? Did other people think that too? Painful as it was, I’d have to set the record straight. “We’re not together, Sybil. Nat’s engaged to Lady Clemence.”

Her gloved hand went to her lips. “To Clemence? Are you sure?”

“Yes.” My heart twisted, remembering the two of them together on the stairs. “It happened just before the great wave hit. Gabriel told me.”

“And Nat confirmed it?”

“I couldn’t ask him. In the Depths, we . . . couldn’t speak.”

“Then maybe it’s not true.”

“Even if it isn’t, I don’t think there’s any hope for us,” I said steadily. “Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

You are a monster.

Sybil looked as if she wanted to ask questions but didn’t quite dare.

“Lady Clemence hasn’t been to see him, as far as I know,” I went on. “But—”

“She isn’t here,” Sybil said quietly. “Her sister was injured by the wave, and Clemence is nursing her at her father’s estate in Sussex.”

So that was why Clemence hadn’t come. Perhaps even now she was hoping to return to London and make her way to Nat’s side.

“Did she say anything to you about Nat before she left?” I asked.

“No, but I saw her for only a moment that day, after the wave hit. She came to beg permission to leave my service and look after her sister. We didn’t speak of anything else. Everything was in chaos.” Sybil shook her head. “Half my ladies-in-waiting left me that day, though that may be for the best. Now I know who I can truly rely on.”

In the distance a bell tolled the hour.

“Oh, Lucy, I’m so sorry, but I can’t stay. Henry will be waiting—”

“It’s all right.” I started for the stairs. “We both have places we need to be.”

And while I was in mine, looking after Nat, I wasn’t going to allow myself to think about Clemence at all.

When I knocked on the infirmary door, it took some time for Penebrygg to open it.

“Ah.” He stepped back, steadying his floppy cap over his tired face. “Come in, my dear. Come in. Norrie’s gone off to badger the Royal Physician and see what else can be done for the boy. But I think it’s just possible he’s finally on the mend.”

There was a note of good cheer in his voice that I hadn’t heard for some time. “Has something happened?” I asked as he shut the door behind me.

“Nat’s responding when I speak to him,” Penebrygg said with suppressed excitement. “Just for the last half hour, mind you, and only in the barest way. He turns his head toward me. Nothing more. But that’s an encouraging sign, don’t you think?

“Oh, yes. May I see him?”

“Of course.” He led me around a screen to the bed where Nat lay. “I’m wondering now if I should perhaps try to exercise his limbs for him—flex his fingers and such. Sir Barnaby was here earlier and suggested the idea to me. He’s seen cases where the muscles withered away from lack of use, and we can’t have that, can we?”

“No, no,” I said, but I was only half-listening. From what Penebrygg had said, I’d hoped to find Nat looking stronger and more himself. But he looked just as he had when I’d been with him earlier that day—his long legs motionless under the counterpane, his skin pale over the strong bones of his face.

“Speak to him,” Penebrygg urged me. “Talk to him just as you usually do, and see if he responds.”

I curled the beloved fingers around mine. “Nat? It’s Lucy.”

He jerked his hand away.

Penebrygg looked startled. “He’s not done that before. Try it again.”

I slipped my hand into his, more gingerly this time. “Can you hear me, Nat?”

This time he not only yanked his hand away but his whole body started to shake.

“Nat, it’s all right. It’s just me.”