Wanda Embermoor's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

The orb's silver light poured under the door. Wanda knew the eye would find it. She had the crown, but her hands were dead cold. She could not smother the orb, and she could not run far on empty. Elizabeth pressed her back to the wall, frost crawling up her fingers. "That glow will bring hunters in minutes," she said. "We can't stay." Leslie yanked the door open. Beyond the hillside lay a black building lit with neon. A skeleton sign danced above its doors. "The lounge," Leslie said. "He owes me. He hides light better than my sugar-glass ever did." They stumbled inside. Crystal pillars threw pink and blue across the floor. A skeleton met them at the door, bones clear as glass, one green eye burning bright. He leaned on a black cane and tipped his top hat. This was Skeeter Bonez, and Leslie had spoken of him once as the man who owned every shadow he stood in. "A witch with a crown of fire and no fire in her hands," Skeeter said. He circled Wanda. His cane tapped the floor. "You brought me a lamp that walks. Bright thing. Hungry thing. What does a fire want most, girl, when it can't burn?" "To be fed," Wanda said. "The crown is mine, but I can't kindle a spark. I've nothing to prove I hold it." Skeeter laughed. "Wrong door. You don't feed the crown. The crown feeds you." He tapped her cold hand with the cane. "You spent your fire buying a master. Now let the master pay you back." Wanda stared at him. She had thought of the crown as a thing she must keep burning. She had it backward. She reached up and gripped the crown with both charred hands. She did not push heat into it. She pulled. The gold flame bent down into her fingers. Warmth ran up her arms, into her frozen chest. Her hands did not heal. They stayed black. But a small flame woke on her palm, gold and steady, drawn straight from the crown above her head. She held living fire again. Elizabeth breathed out. "You're warm," she said quietly. "You're back." Wanda turned to the door. She closed her burning fist around the crown's light and let her new flame swallow the orb's glow. The silver died. The room went dark but for the crown and the neon skeletons. "There," Skeeter said. "The lamp stops walking." Wanda had her answer at last. The crown fed her hands. She could kindle fire again, endless fire, so long as she wore it. She was sovereign now over her own flame. But when she opened her hand, the crown's gold had dimmed a shade. Feeding her cost it. Skeeter watched the change and stopped smiling. "Everlasting is a long word," he said. "Yours just spent its first minute. What burns for you, girl, burns down."