Sisters' Fate

Page 63

The tower is open on all four sides to the elements. In the center, high above me, the enormous cast-iron bell hangs from a beam right below the steeply pitched roof. Despite the fierce gusts of wind that send clouds scurrying over the moon, the great bell has gone still. Has Tess already left?
A lantern sits on the brick floor, casting a small circle of light among the shadows. It’s the only clue that she’s been here.
To the west, fire is already blazing on the horizon.
I hurry to the low wrought-iron fence, trying to get a better look, but it’s impossible to tell anything from so far away. It could be one fire; it could be half a dozen.
Damn Inez.
I’ve got to find Tess and get to the river district.
“Tess?” My voice is swallowed up by the night.
“I’m here.” Her voice is so close behind me that I jump.
I whirl around. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you,” she says.
There’s something in her voice—something off.
I take a few steps forward. The hair on the nape of my neck prickles, as if my body can sense danger before I can.
I should not be here.
The wind sends my cloak flapping like the wings of a great black bird. I’ve hardly braced myself against it before I’m pitched backward.
I fling out my arms, grasping, trying to catch hold of something, anything. There’s nothing within reach. My boots slide across the brick floor without gaining purchase. I throw myself forward, but it doesn’t work. An invisible hand is pushing on my chest, shoving me toward the edge and the ten-story drop to the street below.
I scream as my thighs bump into the wrought-iron railing behind me.
“No! Tess, help me!”
But she doesn’t. She can’t.
Tess is the one trying to kill me.
Chapter 20
IT ALL HAPPENS SO QUICKLY. I HIT THE RAILING and begin to fall.
My eyes never leave Tess’s, but her gaze is no longer hers. I have the eerie sense of Inez peering out at me, cold and uncaring and triumphant.
The prophecy is coming true, and I am going to die.
I want more time.
Another scream claws its way out of my throat.
There are no words this time, just inchoate rage.
Someone grabs my wrist and yanks me forward. I fall to my knees, scraping my palms against the brick. Opening my eyes, I see my sister’s face: bright and beautiful and furious.
Maura.
Across the tower, Tess lies in a heap of black skirts. As I watch, she pushes herself to her feet, smoothing her cloak calmly, meticulously, as though I haven’t just narrowly avoided death at her hands.
I am shuddering, shaking, sick.
“Tess. Look at me.” Maura strides forward, trying to snag her attention, to distract her from the task Inez has set her.
But Tess has always been extraordinarily focused. I am pushed slowly, inexorably backward. I scramble to my knees and grab the cold iron railing with both hands, curling my fingers around it as tight as I can.
Maura tosses Tess through the air again. Tess’s small body crumples as it hits the door that leads downstairs. “Don’t hurt her!” I cry.
“She’s trying to kill you!” Maura snaps, pulling me to my feet.
Tess struggles up and stalks forward like a small blond wolf hunting her prey. Maura turns to me, her face full of panic, and it’s obvious that her magic isn’t working this time.
I try an immobilizing spell, with no effect.
Our sister is strong. The strongest witch in all of New England.
Maura thrusts her hand into mine. I press my skin against hers, merging our power. Magic crackles through me like lightning as Maura casts and Tess flies through the air a third time.
“Stay down,” Maura commands. “Inez has gotten inside your head. You’ve got to fight. You’re stronger than her, Tess. You’re stronger than anybody.”
It’s a desperate admission, coming from Maura.
Tess sits up, and something overhead cracks. Maura and I look up into the bell tower in time to see two massive bolts pop free and clatter to the ground. Tess is trying to unlatch the beam that holds the bell in place. If it falls, it will crush us.
Maura clutches my hand again. Tess rises to her feet, her lips pursed in concentration.
“Intransito,” I cast, and she freezes.
Maura sags in relief, looking up at the bell.
I step closer to Tess, careful to keep some distance between us, half afraid she might reach out and snap my neck. Only her gray eyes move, darting here and there. “Tess,” I say, voice gentle.
Then there’s a noise—a huge, terrifying crack—and I whirl around to see the slim white spire of Richmond Cathedral falling right toward us.
All I can think is that Tess, unable to move, will be crushed. I cast silently, freeing her, just as Maura tumbles into me, shoving me toward the door.
Then something smacks into my shoulders, and I trip forward.
Everything goes black.
• • •
I don’t know if it’s been two minutes or two hours.
Something heavy lies across my back, pinning me to the floor. My left cheek is pressed into the brick. The floor is covered with rubble. Nearby, something shifts and dust scatters through the air. I cough.
“Cate?” It’s Maura’s voice, hoarse but alive.
“I’m here.” I try to move my arms, but I can’t. Pain stabs through my left shoulder and splinters down my arm and I bite back a cry. I concentrate on the weight across my back. Try to move it. My magic feels far off, overwhelmed by pain and the nausea spinning my stomach. I cast again, focusing with all my might, and the weight lifts and shifts and I roll to the right, out from beneath it. This time I can’t help the whimper that escapes my lips. My left arm is definitely broken.
“I can’t move.” Maura again.
“I’m coming.” I scramble to my knees, ignoring the wave of dizziness that threatens to drag me under again, and search the rubble for my sister.
My heart sinks when I see her.
Just a glimpse of bright curls beneath a pile of brick and stone and splintered wood. I crawl over the debris to reach her, heedless of the shredded skin on my palms. Warmth trickles over my cheek and I swipe it away and it stains my fingers red. I use a combination of magic and sheer willpower to lift the bit of roof that’s hiding Maura, hoping against hope that beneath it she’ll be uninjured and—
No. I press my fingers to my lips.
Maura lies on her back, her right side still trapped beneath an enormous wooden beam. Her heart-shaped face is dusty, save a clean trail at the corner of each eye. There’s a gruesome cut across her right cheekbone, and her right collarbone—clavicle, I correct myself, from my anatomy lessons—has punctured through her skin and the ivory fabric of her dress.
“I’m here.” I collapse at her good side. “It will be all right. I’ll heal you.” I reach out and touch her chin with my fingertips.
I almost jerk away as I feel her injuries. Her collarbone I could fix, but that’s not the worst of it: shattered humerus and radius, broken right femur. I can’t tell about her spine; her stomach is a haze of red that indicates broken ribs. Has one of them punctured her lung?
I can’t kill again. I cannot kill my sister, not even to ease her suffering.
Please, Lord, don’t ask that of me.