“I’m getting you help. Just hold on.” Aric cradled me against his chest as he dropped from Thanatos and rushed inside, spurs ringing. “Lark, get the EMT!”

Lark . . . I’d missed her over the last few weeks. She’d led Aric to me. They’d both fought to save me.

“We’re prepped and ready to go in the nursery, boss,” she answered. “Under the sunlamps, just like you said.”

Sunlamps. Clever Aric. They had strengthened me before. But I sensed I was beyond help. He hurried down the many steps to the underground nursery, telling me, “Stay with me. You must stay with me.”

He laid me on a bed. I squeezed my eyes closed against the blazing overhead light. I heard shears as my clothes were cut away.

Lark sucked in a breath. “She’s one big wound. I’ve seen roadkill in better shape.”

“Enough!” Aric snapped.

A man said, “She’s been bitten multiple times. Those are bullet wounds in her chest. The EMT? Wasn’t his name Paul? He’d patched up Lark after Ogen’s attack. “Her legs are . . . done. What do you expect me to do for her?”

His tone murderous, Aric grated, “Unless you want to die by my sword, I suggest you—save—her.” I knew how menacing his face would look right now. I’d been on the receiving end of his threats enough.

“I-I’ll try to clean these wounds, sir,” Paul said, his voice scaling higher. “And start a drip. Lark, can you help me? She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Shouldn’t Eves have started healing?” Lark asked. “When I sliced off her cilice down here, she was regenerating in seconds.”

“Give her time,” Aric said. “The injuries are significant.” He brushed damp hair off my forehead. “Feel the light, sievā. You will heal. You always heal.”

I could feel the warm lamps, but I didn’t sense even a twitch of regeneration—

A woman’s scream. “E-Evie!” Was that . . . my grandmother?

I tried to say, “Gran.” Blood came out of my mouth. For so long, I’d fought to reach her. She was with me at last, but I couldn’t speak a word.

“The Sun did this to her,” Gran said. “Did you kill him, knight?” I sensed her and Paul on one side of me, Aric and Lark on the other.

“No. I believe they survived the helicopter crash.” They had?

“Then why don’t you leave my granddaughter’s care to us? While you go finish the job?” She sounded as murderous as Aric had.

“I won’t leave until she’s healed.”

“You should have found her sooner! How could you not find her before this happened?” Why was my grandmother baiting him? “You’ve located her so many times before.”

I knew she considered him a villain, but couldn’t she see that he cared for me? He’d rescued her from North Carolina, bringing her back to this castle—for me. He’d taken on two Arcana and a Bagger army to save my life.

To try to save me.

I still might turn.

Sounding like he was about to strangle her, Aric said, “The Fool has silenced our calls.” No wonder I’d heard nothing. What was Matthew up to? “After following every mile of the flood’s path, every fork, every twist and turn, I scoured the countryside for the Empress—from here to Fort Arcana. For some reason, she went in the opposite direction of this castle. I wisely had Lark dispatch sentries in all directions.”

“Wisely? Evie’s dying! Or worse.”

“She can hear you. Govern your tongue—or leave.”

“I am her grandmother!”

“Even my eternal patience has limits, Tarasova.”

“You’re threatening . . . threatening . . .” Her words trailed off.

I heard a strangled cry. What was going on? Why couldn’t I see?

Aric bit out a curse in Latvian.

Lark said, “Uh, what’s happening to the old lady?”

A scuffling sound. A moan.

“Jesus,” Lark muttered. “Eves, you’re having the shittiest two weeks in history.”

16

“I’m here, sievā.” Aric brushed a cool cloth over my forehead.

Death’s vigil. How long had he been caring for me? I was suspended in some kind of twilight; I didn’t die—yet I hadn’t healed.

I thought I’d understood physical pain. A few months ago, I’d amputated my own thumb to get free of cuffs so I could fight Death. When I’d drowned not long after that, I’d felt as if my lungs would burst. Then an ogre had choked me, snapping my neck. Lately? I’d lost an arm, been tossed around in a flood, and been bitten and drained by ravenous Baggers.

Yet real pain and I had never been introduced before now.

The Bagmen’s mutation ripped through me. Whatever Empress power I still possessed battled it. A war had erupted inside my body.

“Fight this. Fight,” Aric urged me. He sat next to me on the bed, taking me into his arms. “You must return to me.”

I tried to speak, to tell him I loved him and to ask about Gran, but no words passed my lips.

“I know why dying might seem tempting”—because I could follow Jack?—“but I need you. Come back to me.”

Another wave of agony hit. I heard a scream.

Mine?

Voice thick, he said, “I wish to the gods I could take this pain for you.” He rocked me. “You’re too strong to die, and too stubborn to turn. Your only path is to come back to me.”