Grim (25 page)

Now it was only a picture, less than symbolic, because his father had taken the meaning from it that morning when he'd sent away those charms as if they were immaterial. As if they had always been immaterial.

“You're going to the service tonight.”

Jeremiah turned. Selaph stood behind him, as still as one of the bronze garden statues.

“I haven't decided,” Jeremiah said.

“You're going, Brother.”

For the first time, Jeremiah realized that Selaph had always been sidelined by his own silence. The brothers hardly ever considered him, because he had given them no reason to. He was soft-spoken, and what he did say was always noncommittal. He treated all of his brothers as if they were older than himself, letting them find their own way and, more often than not, letting them make his choices for him. It was because he never gave absolutes that they had gotten used to walking all over him, and because he never seemed to mind that they had never even noticed.

“Why should I go?” Jeremiah asked.

“Because Michael will be there,” Selaph replied. He made it sound so simple. Predetermined.

“And when have I ever wanted to see Michael?”

“You used to,” Selaph said. “When we were younger. Remember how we thought he was a king? More of a king than our own father?”

“I do.”

“Gabriel was the crown. He always shut himself up with his books and his lessons. Michael was …”

“The second?”

“Except to us.”

“Except to us,” Jeremiah mused. “It's funny how the tables turn, isn't it?”

“He has Erika's children.”

Jeremiah blinked. His mind felt numb — as if every rational thought had slipped away.

“How do you … How do you know about them?”

“Word travels fast here, as you should know by now. I've been keeping an eye on them, to make sure no one abused them too much. They're only children. It's not their fault.”

“And you know where they are now?”

“Didn't you notice that I was gone from the ball last night?”

Jeremiah flushed, because he hadn't.

“Of course, Brother,” he said. “Of course I did.”

“He had me take them last night. He didn't think that it should be someone they already knew. I listened because I thought that it might keep the family together.” He paused. “Both theirs and ours, Jeremiah. They came willingly.”

“But why would Michael want them in the first place?”

“He's baiting you,” Selaph said. “He's after your soul.”

Jeremiah felt suddenly cold. He considered the statement for a moment, afraid to speak. “Hasn't he got his own?” He'd meant for the question to be light, to ease the sting of such a hard situation. Selaph didn't seem to take it that way.

“I'm not always sure,” he said. The look he gave Jeremiah was filled with so much sincerity, so much sadness that it forced his little half brother to turn away. “He's the one who moved the council against you.”

“I know,” Jeremiah said, surprised with the thickness of his own voice.

“You never meant for this to happen, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“You still love him.”

“How can I? After what he's done. After everything that he still means to do.”

“He's your brother.”

“Not by much,” Jeremiah said. “Besides, I doubt he feels the same way.”

“Are you taking your lessons from him now, Jeremiah? You used to call him a god.”

“He used to be one, for me.”

“What happened?”

Jeremiah looked back at Selaph, unsure as to whether or not he expected an answer. Anticipation filled his eyes, as if he honestly didn't know. All that Jeremiah could see, apart from Selaph's expectant face, was an old memory from his childhood. The edges were faded, the sounds were muted, but Michael's face came through clear. He was young and petulant and jeering as Jeremiah backed himself into an alley. Gabriel had come to save him just in time. If he hadn't heard the shouting, perhaps it would've all ended there.

“My mother, I guess,” Jeremiah said.

“That didn't change who you were.”

“It did for him.”

Selaph turned to leave. “You didn't fall out of favor,” he said. “Michael did.”

“Father hasn't ever seemed to think so.”

“Father's isn't the only voice that matters,” Selaph told him, and then he walked away.

 

Erika opened the front door before Jeremiah even put his key to the lock.

“Where are they?”

“I don't know how to tell you this, Erika —”

“Don't play with me, for God's sake. You owe me more than that.”

Jeremiah held back a rush of self-hate. Of course he owed Erika more than this. She deserved more than any of this. He found his voice. “Michael's holding them,” he said, “to get to me.”

Erika pressed her fingers against her forehead. “Oh, thank God.”

When Jeremiah stayed quiet, she dropped her hand. A challenge flashed through her eyes.

“You
are
going, aren't you? I mean you're not … you're not just going to leave them?”

He waved his hands in front of his face, palms out. “No, Erika. Of course I'm not going to leave them. Listen, my father is …” He took a shaky breath. “Is going to free himself tonight.”

“What?”

“It's a service. It's … complicated.”

“But I thought —”

“So did I. I was wrong. I'm going. Michael will be there. Gabriel will be there. I need him to see what Michael's done. I need him to know. After our father goes … well, then Gabriel will be the one with the power to stop Michael. Gabriel will be the one with the power to send your kids home.”

“I'm going with you.”

“No, you're not.”

Erika grabbed his hand.

“This isn't about me. This is about my
children
. So yes,” she said, “I'm going.”

 

Jeremiah ran a finger over the spines of a row of books, deliberating. He took one down and set it in the wooden crate at his feet. An identical box, already full, waited by the door of his study. Close to that sat a locked pine-and-iron traveling chest with his mother's portrait perched on top.

Gabriel's proclamation lay unopened on the desk, and beside it, a note sealed with a splatter of blue wax.

 

Gabriel —

I'm sorry to write that your first wish as king will never be bidden; I have given up living on anyone's charity.

Take Kala, who has lived too long below her place, and let her remind you ever of the boys we used to be.

Erika I leave also in your care, for I would be a poor host to bring her where I plan to go. I realize that she will not understand. Tell her that I'm sorry for all the pain I fed her. Tell her that I am afraid of being too much my mother's son.

I wish for peace, Gabriel, and a long reign to the new Throne.

Do not look for me.

Yours, humbly,

Jeremy

 

Jeremiah drummed his fingers on the glass front of the next shelf. At last, he sighed and pulled down a five-volume series. He frowned, thumbing through the pages, and tossed aside three of the books, each making a loud
crack
as it hit the tile. The last two he dropped into the crate.

“Are you happy, Mother?” he muttered. He felt the Sickle's weight in his left pocket, and reached in to feel the cool metal. “Would you be happy if I wanted you to be?”

He took down another armload of books. As he stared at them, a breath of air, half-laugh, half-sigh, passed over his lips.

“For my eleventh birthday,” he said to the first cover, “from Armen Firman.” He flung it against the wall.
SLAM.
The next book was embossed with red velvet and gold thread. “For my thirteenth, from the dear lady Hildegard von Bingen.”
SLAM.
“From Gottfried Leibniz — a parting gift.”
SLAM.
“For top scores in mathematics, from Shen Kuo.”
SLAM.
“Here, from the queen herself, a very patient woman. She even signed it.”
SLAM.
“And this.” Jeremiah waved a slim leather-bound book over his head. “This was the first book I ever stole, after Father turned me out.”
SLAM.
He turned to his mother's portrait, which smiled softly at him. “I hate you, Mother. I
hate
you.” He grabbed another book and threw it at the portrait. “
I HATE YOU
.” Another. The corner broke the canvas, ripping through the side of her face. “You
LEFT me
.” Another. It sank into the cinched waist of her gown.

“YOU.”

Another.

“LEFT.”

Another.

“
ME
.”

Another. Gone were her pale fingers, where the Sickle had hung before someone filched it away.

Chest heaving, Jeremiah brushed his wrist across his eyes. He dropped the books that still dangled from his other hand.

“Why couldn't I have been more like you?” he moaned. “You, who couldn't love your own son?”

He looked one last time at the clean, empty green of his mother's eyes and then walked away, the study door thudding shut behind him.

Jeremiah and Erika arrived at the common just as the sky began to bruise. A halo of crimson hung over the building, a flush cast by the dying sun. A line of empty carriages waited along the sidewalk. Erika recognized Jegud's black coach and Gabriel's white one. A pair of trotters drew it today, instead of his hounds.

After stepping down, Jeremiah peered back into his own unlit carriage.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

Erika gave him a hard, cold look.

“Fine,” he said, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Wait here.” He went down the sidewalk alone, horses whinnying and tossing their manes as he passed.

The archway that surrounded the common was lit by lines of gas lamps, and the smooth cut of the stonework became a mirror under their flickering glow. Jeremiah followed the hallway into the main room, where the altar stood ready for services. The king waited behind the podium, in the same place he'd stood to conduct services every morning for millennia. He ran his fingers back and forth over the silver edges of the ceremonial dagger. It had gained new meaning for him, since the handle now had his own death note carved into the bone. It was fitting, maybe, to be set free by the same knife that he had used so many times before. He looked up when the door opened and saw Jeremiah walking toward him. The king smiled, or tried to, and set the knife back on the podium.

The princes were the only ones in attendance.

Jegud walked over and clasped Jeremiah's hand, leaning in close to his ear. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Michael has the kids,” Jeremiah said.

There was a pause.

“Don't ruin this for Father.” Jeremiah pulled back a little in surprise, but Jegud kept hold of his arm. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” Jeremiah said. “I'm going to wait until after the service.”

Jegud nodded and stepped away.

Jeremiah took the hands of his other brothers, wondering if this wouldn't be the last time he was ever allowed to do so.

At the end, he came to his father, who stayed an arm's length away from his youngest son.

“You came,” the king said.

“I did.”

The moment stretched awkwardly.

Then the king reached for Jeremiah and pulled him to his chest, hugging him as he'd never done before.

“I loved your mother,” he whispered. “I would have done anything to save her. I would have done anything.”

“You exiled her.”

“I know. There are things you do as a leader that you would never dream of doing as a man. I had to.”

“You didn't do it as a leader,” Jeremiah said. “You did it as a coward.”

The king drew back. His mouth was open, his eyes half closed as he stared at the ground between them.

“If your stepmother had stayed, then it would be different now, Jeremiah,” he said. “Do you see how history can be twisted? How intentions can be perverted by time? You
are
right to call me a coward, but only because my wife ran away.”

“Put my mother back in the crypt.”

“Oh, Jeremiah.” The king shook his head. “We all have to fall into our places as they come. That is no longer mine.”

“Would you, if it still was?”

“I'm not a man for hypotheticals,” he said. “But yes. That was my one great mistake in life. Can you understand that?” He looked his son in the eye. “I made her into a whore instead of a queen. For that, you can blame no one but me.”

Jeremiah reached for his father's arm, but it was too late. The king had already turned away. That was one thing that, Jeremiah could see, would never change.

The king picked up the dagger. His old fingers traced the bone handle, thanking it. The carvings felt alive in his hands, electric and comfortable. He brought it to his eldest son.

“Please,” he said. “I'm ready, Gabriel.”

The eldest prince took the knife from his father and weighed it in his hands. He had seen these services every morning of his life, but this was different. Everything that he had ever heard about being freed no longer applied. No longer mattered.

The king lay down on the altar, resting his neck against the raised cradle. He smiled.

“Do you know,” he said, “I've probably been in the common a million times. But I've never really seen the sky from here.”

All six sons turned their eyes to the open ceiling, where a blanket of stars winked down at them like a silver city. When they looked back at the altar, their father had faded into a blur of white mist.

Gabriel crossed the room, his brothers close behind, and leaned over the king.

“Go to peace,” he murmured, lifting the knife above his head.

He brought it down with all his strength. The blade slowed when it sank into his father's soul, but, with a quiet grunt of effort, Gabriel forced it toward the stone beneath. There was a
click
, as the tip of the dagger touched the bed of rock, and then Gabriel sprang backward and the king's soul rushed up through the creamy handle of the knife and swirled skyward, churning like the slender tail of a cyclone. When the last of it was in the air, the knife clattered against the altar and a rush of wind spat the funnel out through the open roof. The soul split overhead with a crack like dry thunder, and the pieces drifted, as fine as gold dust, back into the soil of the Middle Kingdom.

 

Gabriel carried the knife back to the podium and laid it down with gentle respect. The altar had collected a thin layer of powder-fine dust, which he would gather and send to the crypt for interment.

He could hear his brothers behind him, coming out of their own separate thoughts, but he didn't feel up to facing them just yet. Instead he stared at the cold blade of the dagger and at his hands, thin and pale in the lamplight. He tried to remind himself that this was what his father wanted. That he had only ever done what his father wanted.

Michael and Jeremiah were bickering in low voices as they passed by behind him, but still, Gabriel held himself from turning. Perhaps it was for the best that they were being split by law. He knew that it had never been Jeremiah's fault, but it remained that the simple fact of his existence had always been a strain on the family. His father had tried to ignore it, but the weight settled on his own shoulders now.

He felt that he had to do what was best for the Kingdom as a whole.

 

Michael and Jeremiah stepped out of the common, still bickering.

“Why would you even bring them into this?”

“Why not?” Michael asked. “
You
did.” He shook his head, laughing softly to himself. “When you tried to marry off their dead mother, you made the entire court concern itself with the well-being of the children. How would it look if we let them starve alone in the Passing Woods?”

“You're crazy, Michael,” Jeremiah whispered.

“I'm the mad one now? And who brought a human soul into the picture? It wasn't me, certainly.”

“Erika has nothing to do with it.”

“Erika has everything to do with it. A human in the palace. You've been trying to corrupt my family all your life, Jeremiah, ever since you wormed your way into the cradle. But then, I guess that it comes from your mother. You inherited something other than guile from her after all. It's a pity that it was still something filthy.” A footman leaped down to open the carriage door, but Michael waved him away. Instead, he took the brass handle in his own hand and gave Jeremiah a long stare.

“What do you want me to do?”

Michael laughed again. “Nothing, Jeremiah,” he said. “I want you to do nothing but leave us alone. Have a nice life in the Colonies. I hope that there's nothing catching.”

“I'm sure that you won't leave me long enough to find out.”

The second prince grinned. “You're probably right. But only time can tell.”

“And what are you planning for the children?” Jeremiah asked.

“That's no longer of your concern.”

“Do I need to remind you that your duty is first to the people?”

“You need not remind me of anything, Jeremiah, because you are wrong. My duty is first to my family. Besides, the children of that woman are not my people.” He smirked. “Well, other than the little one, I guess.”

He ducked into his carriage, but the lamps near the opposite door cast a flickering glow into the box, and Jeremiah could see the face of Rebecca Stripling, bent forward in sleep.

“You bastard.” He grabbed Michael by the back of his coat and pulled him out of the carriage and onto the walk. Michael slammed against the cobbled ground. He lay there for a moment, motionless, and then let out a low, rolling laugh as he ran a hand through his hair, where his head had hit the stones.

“Oh, Jeremiah,” he said, propping himself up. “You're going to regret that.” He transformed into a cloud of twisting vapor and sped away.

Jeremiah didn't pause to check the children. He sprinted back to the entrance of the common, almost toppling Uriel, Selaph, and Jegud in his break for the door.

It didn't take much for them to make up their minds, and the three of them turned en route and dashed after their half brother, none of them really knowing what he was after.

 

Erika had been waiting just outside of Jeremiah's small carriage when she saw the scene, and she pulled her coat tighter around her waist and ran over to the open door of Michael's coach to see what the matter was. As she drew closer, the footman turned and looked down his nose at her. She ignored him and stuck her head into the carriage.

She clapped her hands to her mouth at the sight of her children.

“Megan?” she gasped. Relief swept over her, making her heart pound hard. Suddenly everything made sense, everything was right.

Rebecca and Shawn were sitting at the front end, side by side, eyes closed and shoulders moving in slow, sleepy breaths. Megan, on the other hand, lay curled on the floor, with her knees under her chin, wearing a high-collared dress a size too small for her and looking very pale.

Erika reached in and ran the tips of her fingers down her son's cheek. His eyes fluttered open as sleep slipped away, and he took a moment to adjust to the dim light.

“Mom?”

“Shawn.” She pulled him out of the carriage and wrapped her arms around him, rocking him like a crying child against her chest. She almost laughed with the release, she felt so free. Shawn melted against her.

“What happened?” she asked him, allowing herself a smile. “How did you get through?”

“There was an angel,” Shawn said. “Mom, we —”

But Erika's eyes flew open and she jumped away from her son.

“You!” she called to the footman. “Your master — what was he thinking before he left?”

“He was thinking about a knife, madam.”

Erika gasped and felt Shawn push her toward the common.

“Go, Mom,” he said. “Hurry.”

He didn't wait to watch her leave. Instead, he turned back to the carriage and shook Rebecca awake. Megan he was more careful with. He had seen her breathing a few hours ago, before they had been put to sleep, but he had also seen her die. He did not know which would be the more permanent.

 

Jeremiah came back into the hall with pounding footsteps. He saw Gabriel first, standing behind the podium with a hand over the blade of the knife. Then he saw Michael, who waited, arms folded, a few feet away.

“You don't know what you're saying, Michael,” Gabriel warned. A tinge in his voice suggested that, in reality, they both knew what Michael argued, but that the ground was too dangerous for Gabriel to even consider it. “You're tired,” he said instead. “We're all tired. Go home. Rest yourself. He'll be gone by week's end and you won't have to think about it any longer.”

He looked over when Jeremiah walked into the room.

“This is a bad time, Brother,” Gabriel said. “What is it?”

“Listen to you,” Michael spat. “Calling him brother as if you claim him. You're just as bad, Gabriel. You're the crown prince and you're just as bad.”

The doors thumped shut again, and Uriel, Selaph, and Jegud came running down the hall. They froze at the threshold of the room.

“My God,” Gabriel snapped, the first touch of anger that any of them had heard from him in a long time. “Why are all of you so determined to make this as difficult as possible?”

“What are you doing, Michael?” The outburst came from Uriel, and all eyes turned to him.

“I'm
fixing things
,” Michael barked. “I'm doing what everyone else is too weak to do.”

“You didn't tell me anything about this.”

“It was unplanned.”

“You can't do this,” Uriel hissed through his teeth, gaze flicking to Gabriel. “Not here.”

“It's not about what you think.”

“Excuse me?”

“It's never been about what you think.” Michael turned away from his baffled little brother and began an advance at Gabriel. “Give me the knife, Brother.”

“No.”

“Give me
the knife
.”

Gabriel picked it up from the podium and pointed it at Michael.

“Go
home
, Michael.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“As the Kingdom's heir, I order you to forget about this and go home.”

“Kingdom's heir?” Michael quipped, chuckling. “Take it back please, Gabriel. You don't deserve to call yourself that.”

“And
you
do, I suppose?” Jeremiah asked.

“I suppose so, yes,” Michael replied, without taking his eyes away from the dagger.

“Stay out of this, Jeremiah,” Gabriel said.

“Yes,” Michael said. “Stay out.” He took a step forward, and Gabriel took a step back.

The other brothers began to fall away themselves, trying to stay out of range of the impending scuffle.