Spirit Read online

  “We were one,” Elodie said again.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Sarah said, holding Elodie tight.

  She owed Elodie her life. She couldn’t believe what the French girl had had to shoulder all alone for all that time, knowing about Nicholas’ plan and not being able to say anything. And still, Elodie had gone behind their backs, keeping them in the dark about what the King of Shadows had in store for Sarah. She had taken it upon herself to decide the course of action.

  For a moment, Sarah wondered what she would have done had she known about the King of Shadows’ design for her. Would she have accepted being his vessel so that Nicholas could kill her while the King of all Surari possessed her? Would she have risked such a terrible fate, to have her body belong to him forever?

  With a shiver, she remembered how she’d felt when the King of Shadows had possessed her – the horror, the despair. The power. The sense of being omnipotent, omniscient, the whole of the Shadow World flowing through her veins, beating in her heart. For a moment, she had wanted it.

  And that was the most horrifying thought of all: that without Lucrezia’s voice calling her back, reminding her of who she was, she might have lost herself forever. She might have really killed Sean and her friends and lived eternal days as the King of Shadows.

  Sarah held Elodie tighter. Whatever darkness was inside Elodie, Sarah wasn’t immune to it either. She was a Midnight, after all. How could she judge anyone when her family had been guilty of so much evil?

  “I knew Nicholas was going to kill you, Sarah,” Elodie whispered in her ear. “I helped him. It was the only way,” she confessed.

  “I know. I know. But you saved me, too.”

  “I was almost sure it wasn’t going to work. It’s so hard to gauge how much poison to use to knock somebody out but not kill them. I just can’t believe you are alive.”

  “I can’t believe I’m alive either,” Sarah said truthfully. One second more of Elodie keeping her lips on Sarah’s, a little more poison seeping into her system, and she might never have woken up. She released Elodie, and their eyes met. Sarah tried to find the words to express that mixture of emotions she felt, but she couldn’t.

  Suddenly, Elodie remembered the stone. She picked the opal up from where Nicholas had tossed it, right in front of her. It felt hot, hotter than it would be just from her body heat. A streak of scarlet played inside it, like blood in milk. “This stone contains a bit of your soul,” Elodie explained. “Nicholas took it. He stole it away from you and gave it to me right before he . . .” She couldn’t finish her thought.

  Sarah’s eyes widened. Nicholas’ hold on her had been stronger than she thought. A shiver travelled down her spine. “How . . . how did he do it?”

  “I don’t know how or when he did it, but I had a vision on the plane, coming to Scotland all those months ago. I saw someone using this stone to kill you. I didn’t know who – I didn’t see their face. I know now.” Her eyes met Sean’s, and there was a prayer inside them, the hope for forgiveness.

  Sean took Elodie by the shoulders and locked his eyes on hers, those black eyes that didn’t belong to her, somehow. Would they turn back to their natural colour now that Nicholas was gone, Sean wondered. Would she still feel his thoughts now that he was the King of Shadows himself? Would their souls still be linked? He tried to look beyond those obsidian eyes and speak to his friend, the girl he’d known forever, the girl he’d shared so much with. The voice that had lulled him to sleep back at Gorse Cottage after all those weeks of insomnia . . .

  “Elodie, it’s over. We made it. We stopped the King of Shadows. You are not ill any more. You don’t have the Azasti any more. You are going to live. It’s all ahead of you now.”

  “Sean,” she whispered in reply, like a question, or a prayer.

  “I’m here. We’re here. You’re not alone. Do you hear me?”

  Elodie covered her face with her hands, and Sean took her by the shoulders again. It was as if she kept drifting away from them into despair, and Sean and Sarah were trying to hold her back, to not let her go.

  “It was supposed to be me, the one who went with him. We were one . . .”

  Sean studied her face. He saw the devastation, but this time, mixed with the loss and despair, there was a light of relief. The part of her that wanted to live, however small, was rejoicing. And another part of her, the part that was one with Nicholas, was grieving. But there was something that Sean needed to know, something that didn’t make sense to him. “The whole Martyna thing . . . I don’t understand. How did you know about her? Did you read it in his thoughts?”

  Elodie shook her head. “I . . . I knew her spirit. I felt it in the castle. She possessed me.”

  Sean stared at his friend, shocked. How many secrets had Elodie kept from them?

  Elodie continued, “He didn’t know her spirit lived. It was trapped in there, and then I freed her by mistake. She followed us. She wanted to protect Nicholas. She loved him still.”

  Sarah winced. How could anyone love Nicholas, and all the darkness inside him?

  But then, somehow, it was he who’d saved them all.

  “Can you still feel Nicholas?” Sarah asked. She wanted to know he was gone, gone for good.

  “I . . .” Elodie began.

  “Sean! Sarah!” A young voice interrupted Elodie. It was Micol, standing at the edge of the clearing, silhouetted against the pine trees.

  “Oh my God. Micol is alive!” Sarah whispered. The relief was immense, all encompassing. A soft sob escaped Sarah’s lips as Micol ran to them, and they fell into each other’s arms. Sarah held on to the younger girl, feeling her sparrow-like body and inhaling the scent of her skin, a mixture of lemon and ozone, like the air before and after the lightning strikes.

  “Niall? Alvise?” Sean and Sarah asked, their anxious words overlapping.

  “They both survived. Come!”

  They half walked, half ran, Sean holding his side, leaning on Sarah. Soon they reached the edge of the clearing, where the trees were thickest and provided the most cover. Two figures crouched there, one kneeling, the other in great pain. Niall was lying on the ground, his eyes closed, head resting on Alvise’s lap.

  Sarah knelt beside them and caressed Niall’s white face, sweeping his auburn hair away from his forehead. “Are you sure he’s okay?” she murmured. Please let him be okay, for Winter, for his family back in Ireland. For us, his friends.

  “I am sure. I healed him,” Alvise replied. Only then did Sarah notice that Niall’s face looked peaceful, glowing, like a huge load had been taken off his shoulders.

  All of a sudden Sean let himself fall to his knees on the grass, a bout of pain taking the strength out of his legs. Sarah was beside him at once.

  “Let me,” Alvise said gently. He gestured to Micol, and she sat on the grass in his place, taking Niall’s head on her lap. Alvise kneeled beside Sean, and undid Sarah’s makeshift bandage. Sean groaned, his forehead covered in a thin film of sweat. Sarah was horrified. The wound was deeper than she’d originally thought. The laceration was an ugly gaping hole, and Sean’s T-shirt was soaked in blood. How could he make the journey back? Sarah trembled inside, but didn’t show anything on the outside because she didn’t want to upset Sean. Silent words were exchanged between Sarah and Alvise as their eyes met over Sean’s head. The Italian man closed his eyes and rested his hands on Sean’s abdomen. Sean whimpered softly and tensed as Alvise touched him, but then he too closed his eyes, his features relaxing, smoothing. A warm golden light, similar to Lucrezia’s iris, began emanating from Alvise’s hands.

  Alvise took his hands away. Sarah gasped as she caught a glimpse of his palms: they were full of blood, and lacerated, but the tears in his palms started healing at once. Alvise’s face relaxed as the gashes closed and disappeared, leaving only the faint ghost of a mark.

  “It doesn’t hurt any more,” Sean said, amazed. A puckered, raised scar, whiter than the rest of his skin, had taken the place of his wound
. “How did you do it?” he asked.

  “This is my power,” said Alvise. “Healing.”

  Sean gazed at him in silent awe. Of all the gifts he’d seen in his many years as a Gamekeeper, this was the one that amazed him the most.

  “What happened down there?” Micol interjected.

  Sean climbed to his feet. “It’s a long story, Micol. I suppose all you need to know for now is that the King of Shadows is dead.”

  “What happened to Nicholas?”

  “He’s gone,” Sarah said. “We’ll tell you everything . . . as soon as we make it out of here.” She looked at the scorched earth and the boulders in the middle of the clearing behind them, the ground black all around. Even though the blue lightning had stopped and everything was calm, she didn’t want to stay in this place for one minute longer.

  “I kept mental notes of how we got here. I think I know how . . .” Sean began.

  “Sean? Sarah?” Niall had opened his eyes.

  “Hey . . .” Sarah crouched beside him and helped him sit up.

  “Am I alive?” he said, patting his chest in disbelief. “I thought I was dead.”

  “You were very close. Alvise healed you,” said Sean. “And he healed me too.”

  Niall stared at Alvise. “You healed us?”

  Alvise nodded, smiling. “That’s what I do,” he said.

  “Well, I owe you one . . .” Niall said in his light-hearted way, but the look on his face betrayed his emotion.

  “Come on. We’d better go. It’s a long way back,” said Sean, offering Niall his hand.

  “There will be no journey back,” Alvise whispered. He raised his hand. The spiral imprinted on his palm was glowing. Golden ribbons began twirling in front of them, opening a rift in time and space for them to step through.

  Lucrezia was calling them back.

  56

  The End of Shadows

  And all that happened will be forgotten

  The years of waiting, the years we lost

  When you stand on my doorstep and say,

  “This is our time.”

  It took Sarah a few seconds to get her bearings after the passage through the iris. She emerged head first, falling on the floor with a painful thud, spat out by the spiral as if the journey to the Shadow World was never meant to be. Her head spun and spun, and waves of nausea hit her one after the other as she tried to steady her heart and her breathing. She kept her eyes tightly shut through it all, not wanting to see what was already making her world spin. When she opened them, the first thing to come into focus was a high, frescoed ceiling, and then two bright eyes encased in dark, creased skin, staring at her.

  An older man, tall and proud, and dressed in black. Beside him was Alvise, his quiver still strapped to his back.

  “Sean?” she called, and her voice sounded funny to her own ears, like it was coming from far away, or like someone else was talking.

  “I’m here.” Sean appeared at her side, and wrapped an arm around her waist. Sarah breathed in relief.

  “Is this Palazzo Vendramin?”

  “Yes. We are safe,” Sean whispered.

  “Sarah!” called a voice she knew. A silver-haired girl, Winter, opening her arms to embrace Sarah. Just at that moment, Sarah felt a current of air behind her and heard a thump. She jerked around to see Niall crouching in front of the golden spiral, his head in his hands.

  Winter ran to him at once. A long, deep feeling of relief bubbled up from Sarah’s toes and swept through her body as she watched them entwine, sobbing with happiness and relief and fear of what might have happened, but didn’t.

  Sarah got to her feet, swaying, looking for something to hold on to. She nearly fell again, but Sean righted her. Her ears were ringing, everything was turning and happening in slow motion. “Elodie?” she managed to say.

  “She’s here. She’s fine,” Sean whispered, gazing briefly towards the far corner. She followed his gaze.

  Elodie was standing calm and strong, her lips blue and her eyes fixed on the sumptuous, silk-covered bed sitting in the middle of the room. There was a girl lying on it, her face as white as mother-of-pearl, her eyes open, the same blue as Alvise’s, shadowed with purple, and hair the colour of pale straw gathered in a side braid.

  “Lucrezia,” Sarah murmured.

  And then something happened, and it was like everyone in the room took a deep, collective breath, sucking all the air in: Lucrezia opened her pale lips, and she spoke.

  “Yes. I am Lucrezia Vendramin,” she said hesitantly, as if she weren’t entirely sure of her identity, and somehow saying it made it true. It looked as if shaping her mouth and her vocal cords around the words took a real effort, because she hadn’t spoken of her own will for a long, long time.

  In a moment the older man – Lord Vendramin, Sarah thought – was on the floor beside Lucrezia’s bed, his face hidden in her hair, his arms around her reclining body, murmuring her name over and over again.

  Alvise stood immobile, tears streaming down his face, until finally he spoke too. “Sorella mia,” he whispered. Sister of mine. Lucrezia Vendramin was awake.

  57

  The End of Dreams

  She dug out the seeds of destruction

  One by one, down to their roots

  And she realised that rebirth

  Felt a lot like death

  Lucrezia’s skin was still white and her limbs thin and fragile, but there were two spots of pink on her cheeks. She leaned against her pillows, too weak to sit up after many years of stillness, but her eyes studied her visitors through half-closed lids.

  For the Vendramin men, having their sister and daughter back was like a dream come true. And still, they were shaken, unsure. It was as if they were holding her by a slender thread that could break at any time, and she could be gone again.

  Alvise held both her hands, almost as if to keep her tethered to them, and their father had a protective hand on top of her head. Micol stood at the foot of the bed, grinning.

  Sean, Sarah, Niall and Winter looked on, overwhelmed with emotion, all nearly unable to believe that they’d come back in one piece, and were witnessing Lucrezia’s miraculous healing. Elodie stood slightly apart from the others, aloof, as if part of her hadn’t fully returned from the Shadow World yet, as if part of her had been left there.

  “How . . . how did it happen?” asked Sarah. “How did you wake up?”

  “I don’t know,” Lucrezia replied in her hesitant English. “I went inside your mind, and I called you. The Surari stopped me and I tried again and they stopped me for the second time. But I called you again and you heard me, and you listened to me. Then there was a terrible voice in my head, and fire burning my brain. It was very strong. I could not hear you, Sarah. I did not know what happened to you. Then my mind—” she looked for the words to explain “—exploded. Yes, it exploded,” she repeated, freeing her thin hands from Alvise’s and bringing them to her temples. “There was fire everywhere . . . and then there was silence and everything went black. I was so sure I was dead. All those years of many visions and voices in my head, all the time, day and night. Every second. I could never rest . . . But now they had stopped. I could hear nothing and see nothing. It was so peaceful. To be dead was a relief, because all these years were so hard. But I wanted to see you again,” she said, eyes resting on her father and her brother. Guglielmo Vendramin caressed her face and Alvise held her hands once more. “I floated in dark and I felt no pain. I wanted to float forever. And then I heard your voice, Alvise, and I was awake.”

  “Grazie a Dio!” Alvise blurted out, drying his cheeks.

  “Figlia mia,” Vendramin murmured, his voice breaking.

  Micol was shocked to see the old man, who was always so proud, so reserved, unable to contain his feelings. She leaned across and placed a hand over his, and for a moment their eyes met in mutual understanding.

  “Mi sento debole,” Lucrezia whimpered.

  “She says she’s feeling weak,” Vendrami
n explained to Sarah and her friends. “We should let her be.”

  They rushed to leave with a small chorus of apologies. Only Elodie stayed silent. Niall and Winter walked out, hand in hand, then Sean and Sarah. Micol placed a kiss on Lucrezia’s forehead and ran out, her joy unable to be contained. At last, Elodie stepped beside the bed.

  “You are Elodie,” Lucrezia said.

  Elodie stopped and looked at the girl with her still-black eyes. “Yes.”

  Lucrezia studied her face for a moment, but she said nothing, and the French girl walked on without a word.

  58

  When All the World Is Calm

  Out of dreams comes

  A new life

  A week later

  Sarah walked in first, a wet smudge of black on her cheek.

  “Got it?” Niall asked. He was perched on an armrest beside Winter, who was curled up against soft silk cushions.

  “Oh, yeah. When we left, it was very dead, I can assure you,” Sarah said, raising her blackened hands.

  “Could not have been more dead.”

  Sean stepped into the room, Alvise by his side. A small, triumphant smile danced on Sean’s lips. Elodie smiled back. That was Sean, the way he used to be, reckless, mischievous, loving the hunt, a Gamekeeper through and through.

  Elodie was sitting on an ottoman, her long blonde hair on her shoulders, and her eyes, though shadowed with blue, were back to their natural chocolate hue.

  “Thank you,” Alvise said to Sean and Sarah, freeing himself from the quiver and resting his bow on one of the sofas. “For agreeing to help us before going home.” Conte Vendramin had asked them to help destroy the Surari that had seeped through to Venice during the rift between worlds. They had gone hunting every night for a week with Alvise, while Micol and Niall tackled the water Surari in the Grand Canal.