Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 16 of 29

Beth crawled back through the cathedral doors on her hands and knees. The stone was cold under her palms. Her wings dragged behind her like wet cloth. She had bought hours by sending the vase away, but the price had emptied her. No star magic left in her hands. None in her chest. When the next attack came, the walls would fall. She made it to the low couch under the dark blue wall. Small teal stars swam across the paper above her head. The cat jumped up beside her and pressed against her ribs. Beth put a hand on the warm spotted back. "Stay," she said. The word felt strange without the name attached. The cat's green eyes narrowed, then held on the door. A soft glint moved at the edge of the room. The void chef poured itself out from behind a dark bush she kept by the window, its worm-body star-flecked, its eyes bright as coins. It had no mouth, but she felt the question anyway. She had traded with this creature twice now. It did not come for nothing. "I can't pay you," Beth said. "I have nothing left." The void chef bobbed. It drifted to the seam where the cathedral met the sky beyond her half-built world. She felt the thin, torn place there. It slid a coil of its own night into the tear. Cosmic dust spilled out of its body and into the seam. The seam pulled tight. Beth felt the bridge under her ribs steady, as if a rope she hadn't known was fraying had been spliced. Her eyes stung. "Why." The worm curled a loop in the air. A shape like a hand held open. A favor. Later. She would owe it. "Fine," Beth said. "Later. Take it." The void chef bowed its star-eyes and settled at the seam like a cat on a warm brick. It would hold while she slept. Beth's head fell against the cushion. The cat stayed upright at her hip, ears forward, six-toed paws braced. Watching the door for her. Outside the cathedral wall, past the sealed north stone, past the ice and the woods, Elijah pressed his palm flat against something he could not see. He had followed the pull of her scent to this ridge and lost it in the trees. The air here was wrong. Solid where it should be empty. He drew the gold dagger and dragged its edge along the invisible surface. A faint line opened, then closed. She was inside. He could feel her the way a man feels a held breath. If she died behind this wall while he stood on the wrong side of it, he would not come back from that. He sheathed the dagger and started walking the perimeter. He would find the seam. He had all night. Beth slept. Her magic began to fill again, slow as a tide.