Page 97 of Give the Dark My Love

“Yes,” Grey said emphatically. “Necromancy is a line you cannot cross.”

I shook my head. “There is no line,” I said.

“I won’t come with you,” he said, taking a step toward me. “If you do this, Nedra, if you choose necromancy... I will not follow you into that darkness.”

“Oh, Grey,” I said, shifting my bag on my shoulder. “What do you know of darkness?”

FIFTY

Grey

I watched hergo.

She was different now. Something had happened. At her village, at the hospital... maybe here, in this ransacked office with shattered glass on the floor, crunching beneath my feet.

Something had happened.

And she had emerged on the other side a different person.

There was something wild in her—I could see it in her eyes. Like a monster caged inside her skull, scratching along the edges for escape.

I listened for her footsteps to fade to silence. She was gone. Out of my reach.

Fear welled up inside me, and I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid for her, or of her.

FIFTY-ONE

Nedra

Stealing a boatwas my first crime this night, but it would not be my last.

The water was warmer than the air, and mist rose up like steam, blurring out the waves, the other boats in the bay, and, I hoped, me.

My muscles strained as I maneuvered the oar through the water. The flat-bottomed boat was small—designed to carry two people, maybe three—and the bay was particularly gentle tonight, but it was still rough going. I had not truly slept since the night I turned my parents to ash, and the weight of all that had happened since then made my entire body ache.

The clocks chimed midnight.

The bells rang out, one chime from the tower in the quarantine hospital, one chime from the tower at Yugen, and then back and forth, twelve each, followed by a resounding silence. I pulled up the oar, resting it on the bottom of the boat. My shoulders sagged.

The emptiness of the world enveloped me.

My hands—calloused and cracked, with blood and ash and dirt caked under my fingernails—rested in my lap, palms up. I was surprised at the first lines of wetness that cut through the grime, my tears gliding between my fingers.

I tilted my face toward the quarantine hospital. The boat bobbed in the water.

I was alone.

I could go back. The thought came to my mind, unbidden and unwelcome.

It’s not too late.

I had carved runes into the dead flesh of my parents. I had stolen a crucible cage created by the worst traitor in all of history. I had taken the horrible, soul-crushing first steps.

But I could still turn back.

My eyes dropped to the water. It was black—cold and unforgiving, but there was a hint of sapphire reflected in its depths.

That blue reminded me of the robes of the alchemists who had fled, of the tincture the potion makers left behind before closing the hospital doors, abandoning those who needed them most.

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