Page 64 of A Fate Everlasting

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“She’ll resurrect him right?” I mumbled, the words spilling out too slow. “Verrine will bring him back. Right this time.”

“No, darling,” Esmerelda’s voice cracked as she blotted the wound with gauze. “You can’t bring someone back more than once.”

The words shattered deep within me, splintering deep and aching. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. All I could do was grieve the boy who was gone, andhatethe one who saved me.

The tears came fast, spilling down my cheeks and pooling in the corner of my mouth. When I parted my lips to speak no words came, only the taste of brine on my tongue.

The Thread’s voice curled through me, all too sickeningly familiar. Dante’s voice.“Someone had to do it. He wanted you dead.”

30

The blood wouldn’t stop.

It seeped into the cracks of the stone, dark and endless, like the earth was drinking him whole. The scent of iron clung to my lungs. Everything was tacky with it, his blood and mine. It coated my skin, my throat, my ownteeth,somehow.

The scent still clung to me when I stumbled back into my room, crossing through the corridor where students dressed in suits and long silk dresses were busy drinking cocktails and chattering loudly. The Dawning Ball.I’d almost forgotten.

The moment the door to our room clicked shut, I collapsed against it. My hands were shaking. I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel anything.

Hugo was dead.

The image was still seared into my mind. His body collapsing. The deafeningcrack.Blood pooling fast dark, soaking into the marble floor of the sparring ring. I looked down at myself, at the place where the blade had torn through my ribs, where I had felt the agony of steel splitting flesh.

I was lucky it didn’t kill me. Esmerelda’s tonic sealed the skin but left the muscle raw. One wrong move would re-tear it, Ifelt.I pressed my fingers to my temples, squeezing my eyes shut. The room was too bright. The world was too loud. The Thread curled, whispering something indistinct. I willed Dante to leave me alone.I hated him, I hated him, and I hated Dorian, too.

He was infuriating, but I couldn’t shake the way he’d stepped in. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it. Maybe I hadn’t noticed just how often he had. I forced the thoughts away by steadying my breath.

Something clattered against the floor across the room, and I snapped my head up, sniveling. Ruby emerged from behind the wardrobe to inspect herself in the mirror as she yanked her laces tighter. The ribbon snapped against her bodice. Then she saw me in the reflection, and her lips parted, face contorting.“Arabella.What the hell happened?”

I tried to answer, but the lump in my throat swallowed it. I caught my reflection in the mirror. Blood.Dark, dried, staining my collar, my sleeves and seeping into every thread, as if the fabric itself had drunk its fill of what he had done. I looked like a wraith, a girl who already belonged in Elsewhere.

Ruby’s hands fisted at her sides. “You—” Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “You’re covered in blood, Arabella.”

I couldn’t speak. The words tangled somewhere between thought and breath, refusing to take shape. I didn’t know if anything I could say would make sense.

“Hugo. He’s gone.” The words barely made it out before the sob tore free, jagged and broken, splintering the last of my composure.

“Dead?” Ruby’s arms wrapped around me, solid and warm, a tether I hadn’t known I needed until I was sinking so deeply into it. I folded, unraveling in the space she offered. “How?”

“Dorian,” I managed. How much of this could a person endure before they shattered completely? How much more before the cracks became too deep to ever be pasted over?

The world dulled at the edges, and for a moment, there was only the steady rhythm of Ruby’s heartbeat against my cheek. Then my gaze snagged on the empty bed beside mine, the sheets still perfectly smoothed, untouched.

“Rosaline.” I pulled back, forcing myself upright, peeling the ruined uniform from my skin. It clung like a second layer, soaked in grief, in loss, in the memory of what Dorian had done. My bones felt brittle, aching under the weight of everything. “You’ve heard nothing?”

Ruby hesitated. “I asked around. Someone said she was still with the other Ascended Upper Sixth in specialized training, but...” She trailed off, lip twitching downward. “With the negative score we saw on Verrine’s slate, I have a really bad feeling.”

A bad feeling.I had more than a bad feeling. I swallowed, but the lump in my throat refused to fade. I moved to the bathroom while Ruby continued, slipping into the shower. I watched the red-brown sludge circling the drain.

“They want us grateful for crumbs,” she called so I could hear. “Like getting into Elsewhere is some kind of reward.”

I caught my reflection again, and for a moment, I saw him. Hugo, grinning over my shoulder like nothing had happened. I blinked, and he was gone. He was really gone.

I drew a towel around myself, padding back into the room. I gingerly held up the gown that was laid out for me, bright red, molding to my frame like blood turned silk. My hands trembled at my sides. It didn’t matter how elegant the cut was, how perfect the fit. I still felt like a dead girl walking. “I can’t believe they are even holding a ball tonight.”

“It’s so unfair,” Ruby spat, sinking back onto the bed. “Even if the Archangels come back, once we’re marked as a Daemon that’s it. Our chance at the After is gone.”

“Mmm.” I replied. I couldn’t focus. My chest ached, and Icouldn’t stop replaying the moment Hugo diedover and overin my mind.