Lilith's Arc

Chapter 10 of 40

Gabe's question hung in the quiet room. Lilith knelt on the floor, the spell still warm under her skin. Her son could not remember learning to swim. She had traded that memory to the dragon, and now it had reached into him. She had to know how far the price would spread. Only one person could tell her, and she was underwater, far from here. "I'll be back," Lilith told Tre. He held the baby closer and did not answer. She walked to the shore, let her legs become her tail, and swam. The drowned library rose from the dark water, its broken windows green with weed. Lilith pushed through the flooded doors. Selene waited among the time-darkened shelves. She had lost her own name to the dragon years ago. She never left this place. "You cast it," Selene said. She did not sound glad. "I felt it move through the water." "It took my son's memory," Lilith said. "I gave the dragon my own memories. Why is he losing his?" Selene ran a hand along a swollen book. "I warned you the price would be greater than you thought. The spell binds them to you. So the loss binds to them too. What you paid, they pay with you now." Lilith's throat tightened. "All of them? The girls too?" "Whatever you traded will find whoever it touched." Selene turned. Her eyes were tired. "I lost my name and forgot the ones who called me by it. Then they forgot me. That is how it works. It never stays with one person." Behind Selene, in the shadow of the shelves, the marked wolf lay still. Symbols glowed faint along its dark fur, purple and gold. It had guarded the last rite until Nyx fed it to the dragon. Now it did not breathe. Lilith looked at the empty guardian and understood she had built her family's binding on things that could not be given back. "Can I undo it?" Lilith asked. "No." Selene said it plainly. "The spell is cast. You can only learn what it costs, and pay attention." Lilith had come for answers. Now she had them, and they were worse than the not-knowing. Every memory she had spent would surface again inside the people she loved. Gabe first. Then, in time, the others. She swam home through the cold water. The house glowed at the edge of the shore. Through the window she saw Novalee asleep on the floor and Tre pacing with Hadley. Gabe sat by the door, waiting for her, watching. Lilith stepped onto the sand and took her legs. She had bound them to her forever. She had also bound her losses to them forever. She opened the door. Gabe looked up at her, still trying to remember the water he had once loved.