A Necklace of Water (24 page)

P
etra lunged toward Manon, who was leaning over the Source, a satisfied look on her face. She pushed Manon’s shoulders as hard as she could, which in her weakened state meant that she barely budged her.

“Stop! Stop! Are you crazy?” Petra said hoarsely. Bracing her feet on the ground, she knelt by the water, trying to grab the twins. They were out of reach already, sinking like two flawed, beautiful stones to the earth’s core. “Help me, someone!” she cried. Daedalus was useless, barely alive, but the others were supposed to be here! Daedalus had asked Ouida to come this morning with a few others, and Ouida had told Petra and the rest of the uninvited.

Manon was snatching at Petra’s shirt, trying to pull her away from the Source. “They’re gone! I’m sorry, but they’re gone!” she cried.

Vaguely Petra heard voices, but she was trying to hold off Manon and couldn’t look.

“Melita! Melita, no!” Jules’s voice overlaid Melita’s, and Petra realized her daughter’s voice was shouting a death spell. Aghast, she turned in time to see Melita fling a hand at… Manon. Manon stiffened, her head tossed back, eyes open in surprise, and then she crumpled. Petra caught her as she fell, and she was dead. Actually dead, after all this time. Days after she’d finally wanted to live. Her face was more beautiful than it had been when she’d looked like a child. Her eyes were open, the color of the sky on a clear night.

“Manon!” Sophie shrieked, running forward.

A death spell? Manon could die from a death spell? But others of them had tried it before—it had never worked. Nothing had worked. But now Manon was dead. Petra was beyond grief, beyond tears. Manon had killed the twins, and her own daughter had proven herself a murderer—again.

The cloudy skies opened up then, as if to cry for her, and a chilling rain began to fall. Then Sophie was dropping onto the wet leaves next to her, and Luc was shouting something, and Ouida was crouched over Daedalus.

“How could she die?” Sophie said wonderingly.

“Where are the twins?” Richard said, grabbing Petra’s shoulder. “Where are they?”

“Thais!” Luc shouted. “Thais! Where are you?” He wheeled to face Melita. “If you’ve done them harm, I swear by the goddess I will hunt you down.”

“Luc! They’re in the Source!” Petra pointed at the deep fissure in the ground, barely registering the horror and anger on his face.

“Sophie, Sophie—I’m sorry.” Marcel’s voice was quiet as he knelt next to where she was sobbing over Manon’s body. He put his arm around her shaking shoulders.

“Move, move!” Melita said, pushing him out of the way. Petra watched, numb, as Melita closed her eyes and began an incantation that Petra immediately recognized as dark and ancient. The surface of the Source began to roil. Petra stared at it uncom-prehendingly as Claire and Jules came and helped her up.

“
Pauvre petite
,” Jules said, looking down at Manon, but Petra was transfixed by the clear water, bubbling over the edges of the hole. She stood unsteadily, holding Claire’s hand, and felt like she was a thousand years old.

Melita kept speaking, words Petra had never heard, and then, shimmering in the water, getting closer to the surface, she saw the white skin of the twins’ faces.

“Clio! Thais!” Dropping again, she lunged for the water and felt the silken swirl of soft black hair. The girls’ faces bobbed above the surface, but their eyes were shut, their faces still. “Help me!” Petra cried.

Together she, Ouida, Richard, Luc, and Jules pulled the twins’ bodies from the Source. As soon as Petra touched them, she knew: one was dead, one was alive.

“Clio!” Richard said, his face ashen. Roughly pushing Petra aside, he scooped up Clio’s dripping body and cradled her on his lap, wiping wet, black hair off her beautiful, tranquil face. He rocked slightly back and forth, smoothing her hair, her face, her skin under his fingers. His face was a mask of pain. “Clio, Clio, Clio,” he whispered.

Petra thought dimly,
Richard
?

A few feet away, Luc had turned Thais on her side and slammed his palm against her back again and again. Waiting through a lifetime of slow seconds, Petra thought she was imagining things when Thais coughed, water running out of her mouth.

“Thais, Thais,” Luc murmured, holding her, rubbing her back. Thais gagged and choked, coughing and then sucking in breath. She was alive. Petra had lost one and kept one.

“Actually, I need them both,” Melita said quietly. Furious, Richard tried to block her, but Melita dropped like a bird of prey and struck her fist hard against Clio’s chest. The few words she spit out sounded as if they had come straight from hell. Except that Petra knew none of them believed in hell.

Richard stared, and before Petra’s eyes Clio’s white face seemed to color again. Melita could give life as well as take it away.

I
was sleeping, and the next thing I knew, I was coughing up water and gagging while someone pounded my back too hard.

Blinking groggily, I realized I was on wet leaves on the ground, and it was raining, and the only part of me that was warm was the hand on my back. I looked around. Petra sat a few feet away, her face tragic, almost skeletal. Luc hovered over me. It was his hand on my back. I’d thought I’d never see him again. Now, realizing I was still alive and he was here, I started crying but tried to sit up.

“Where’s Clio? Where’s my sister?” She’d died in front of me—I’d seen it, felt it.

“Shh, shh,” Luc said, smoothing my sodden hair.

“
Where’s Clio
?” I said, my voice a croak.

“Here.”

I turned to see Richard looking down at Clio, transfixed, and I thought,
I was right. He loves her
.

And she was dead.

Except she was blinking.

Blinking
? I sat up.

My sister was alive.

I
s there a white light, a tunnel, people who have passed before holding out their hands?

Maybe. I’m not going to spoil the surprise.

Richard was holding me, stroking my hair. Thais was alive. Petra was alive.

Every member of the Treize was there: Claire and Jules, holding hands. Sophie, weeping over Manon’s body. Ouida, kneeling next to Daedalus. Marcel, sitting next to Sophie. Axelle, who had arrived and was sitting on Daedalus’s other side, looking amazingly torn up over his broken condition.

And Luc, who had chosen Thais, not me.

Richard held me tensely, seeing me look at Thais and Luc. I looked back at him, into his dark eyes that showed every emotion I’d never thought he had: fear, hope, love—you name it, I saw it there in his tears.

“I’m glad to see you,” I whispered, and reached up to touch his face.

R
ichard paused before he rang the doorbell at Petra’s house. Inside he felt Petra, Ouida, and Luc, and he grimaced. Well, might as well get it over with. He rang the doorbell.

This morning felt like a hundred years ago. He’d seen Clio dead, wearing her necklace of water, just like Cerise had 242 years ago. There was still a lingering pain over Cerise; there always would be. He was both sad and relieved to know that he hadn’t fathered her baby. The idea that she’d been with Daedalus even once disgusted him—he really hadn’t known Cerise, had he?

What he felt for Clio was a thousand times deeper, stronger. Scarier.

Ouida answered the door. Examining his face, she hugged him silently. He hugged her back, relaxing into her embrace for the first time.

“How’s Petra?”

“Surprisingly good, considering everything,” she said.

In the kitchen, the kettle was whistling. Luc and Petra sat there, and Ouida was right—Petra didn’t look nearly as bad as he’d feared.

“Richard.” Petra looked at him, and he saw acceptance in her eyes. “I’m so glad you’re all right. What a day. Poor Manon. And Melita—”

“Is gone again,” said Ouida.

“Girls okay?” Richard said.

“Thais is upstairs,” Luc said, sounding pompous and possessive.

“They’re fine, thanks to everyone,” said Petra, sipping a steaming cup of something herby and medicinal.

“How the hell could Melita kill Manon?” Richard asked bluntly.

Petra’s face twisted in pain. “I think—I just think Melita is still the strongest of us all. As strong as she made us, she kept the most power for herself.”

“Was she the one who was trying to kill the twins?” Richard’s face flushed. “I mean, after me,” he mumbled.

“If she was, they’d have been dead,” Ouida said. “No—actually, we still don’t know who it was. Maybe Daedalus? He’s not coherent enough to ask. We just don’t know.”

Richard stayed standing, casting a curt glance at Luc. “I want to see Clio.” He looked at Petra as if daring her to try to stop him.

“She’s upstairs,” Petra said. “I don’t know if she’s awake or not.”

Richard nodded, then turned and started up the stairs. He had no idea what he’d find. He braced himself for the cool, disdainful Clio to be firmly back in place, death experience notwithstanding. Well, he would just start over. He had time.

At the top of the stairs, one door was shut, and one was slightly open. Thais was behind the closed door, Richard sensed, and crossed the landing. He tapped gently on the open door, mostly as a formality, then pushed it open and immediately shut it behind him.

Clio was propped up in her bed, not reading or doing anything, just looking at the ceiling. She seemed startled to see him, especially here, in her bedroom, and he was surprised she hadn’t felt him come up the stairs.

He stopped a few feet from her bed, taking in her scrapes and bruises, her still-pale face. She was wearing some unsexy kind of flannel something with pictures of sushi all over it. He had no idea what to say so instead looked at her challengingly, hoping to start an argument at least, because it would be some kind of interaction.

Her slanted, leaf green eyes looked at him, and then… she held out her hand.

Taken aback, Richard didn’t move for a moment, then stepped forward and took it. Amazingly, she shifted on her narrow bed, making room for him. After a tiny hesitation, he sat down next to her, his heart pounding. She leaned against him, putting one arm over his chest, and his throat closed up.

He held her to him, stroking her hair, thinking about how he’d almost lost her forever.

“I guess it’s all over,” she said, her voice still raspy and weak.

He sighed and kissed her forehead. “It’s never over, baby.”

Clio seemed to accept this. She looked up at him with her beautiful, cat-shaped eyes, the rose-colored birthmark of a fleur-de-lis on her left cheek.

“Just hold me, okay?”

He nodded, and they snuggled closer together. It began to rain outside, the drops hitting the windowpanes. But in here they were warm and dry and safe. At least for now.

W
hat was left of the Treize had gathered and built the magickal equivalent of Fort Knox around us in protection spells. I knew Petra was still worried that they didn’t know who’d tried to hurt us, but with Melita gone and no chance of a rite happening, I felt safe enough to venture out of Petra’s house. My house. My family’s house.