And Ethan was gone for good.
I shook my head to keep the tears inside, refusing to give in to grief. She'd have created a monster, and there was no point in grieving for something that never should have existed in the first place. I'd rather have memories and grief than a perversion of who he was. I'd just have to get back to living the life I had accepted was mine.
"I can do this," I whispered, the tears fal ing down my cheeks. I stood up, looking over at Catcher and Mal ory. He was winding glowing strands of magic around her unconscious body as if to bind her when she awoke.
Magical restraints, maybe. I didn't know what the Order would do to her now, but I couldn't imagine it was going to be nice.
I felt pressure at my elbow and glanced around. Jonah stood behind me, gaze scanning my face. "You're bleeding again."
"I'm fine. Just a little shrapnel. McKetrick's gun exploded - he's over there."
Jonah nodded. "I'l make sure the cops find him. Are you okay? I mean, aside from the bleeding?"
"I think so - " I began, but was interrupted by the crackle of a particularly loud bit of residual energy. I ducked a little as it flashed across the park before petering out and sending a prickle of magic through the air.
"Merit," Jonah quietly said. "Look."
I glanced up.
A dark figure moved through the blue haze across the Midway, approaching us. The hair at the back of my neck stood on end.
"Get back," Catcher said, moving toward us. "That thing is walking evil. The spel was interrupted, which means that's the remainder of magic."
But I held out a hand. "Wait," I said, the word fal ing from my lips even as I began moving toward the figure.
I was compel ed forward. Without explanation, every atom in my body was intent on moving to meet whatever was emerging from the fog of fal ing ash. That move could have been deadly, but I didn't care. I kept walking. And when the fog cleared, bril iant green eyes stared back at me.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
My knees suddenly trembling, I ran toward him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PHOENIX RISING
He wore the same clothes he'd had on when he'd been staked - dress pants, his House medal, a white button-up shirt, a tear in the fabric in the spot above his heart. Eyes wide, he drank in the sight of me.
I reached him, and we stared at each other for a moment, both afraid, perhaps, of what might come - and what had been.
"I saw the stake," Ethan said. "I watched Celina throw the stake and felt it hit me."
"She kil ed you," I said. "Mal ory . . . She worked magic to bring you back as a familiar. Catcher interrupted the spel .
He thought it would create a monster, but you're - you don't seem like a monster."
"I don't feel like a monster," he softly t sh uld csaid. "I dreamed of you. I dreamed of you often. There was a storm. An eclipse."
"You dissolved into sand," I added, as his eyes widened in surprise. "I had the same dreams."
Stil frowning, he raised a hand to my face, as if unsure whether I was real. "Is this a dream?"
"I don't think so."
He smiled a little, and my heart tripped at the sight of it. It had been so long since I'd seen that teasing smile. I couldn't help the new flood of tears, or the sob that escaped me.
He was here. He was alive. And most important, he seemed to be his own person, not some mindless servant, some black magic familiar of Mal ory's. I didn't know what I'd done to deserve a chance at it, but he'd come back, and the gratitude - and shock - was nearly overwhelming.
"I don't know what to say," I told him.
"Then don't," he said, embracing me again. "Be stil ."
A cool breeze crossed the Midway, and I closed my eyes, just for a moment, trying to take his advice, trying to slow the overwhelming beat of my heart. As I stood there, I'd have sworn I caught the scents of lemon and sugar in the air again.
But then Ethan shuddered. I looked up at him, and his eyes were glazed, his skin suddenly pale.
"Merit," he said, gripping my arms fiercely, his legs suddenly shaking with the effort of standing. I wrapped an arm around his waist.
"Ethan? Are you al right?"
Before he could answer, he col apsed.
Luc and Keley arrived at the Midway to inspect the damage, their joy at seeing Ethan muted by their fear - our fear - for his condition. Once assured Mal ory was being cared for, the Maleficium was back in safe hands, and Jonah had control of McKetrick, we focused on getting Ethan back to Cadogan.
The trip was surreal - escorting my evidently resurrected vampire lover and Master back to his House. Luc led us back through a gate in the fence I hadn't known existed. We hustled through the back of the House and up the back staircase into Ethan's suite.
Luc placed him on the bed and stepped away while Keley, apparently having been trained in medicine in some former lifetime, looked him over.
Maybe having seen the fear and exhaustion in my face, Luc moved over to me. "You okay?"
I lifted my shoulders. "I don't know what I am. Is he going to be al right?"
"Hel , Merit, I'm not real y sure what he is or why he's here. What happened out there?"
I fil ed him in on what I'd seen of Catcher and Mal ory's magic before he'd arrived. "Is Ethan her familiar? Wil she be able to control him?"
"I don't know," Luc quietly said. "If Catcher interrupted the spel , I'm not sure why he's here at al ."
"I've been having dreams about him - prophetic dreams about him and the elemental magic - since she took the ashes. Maybe he's been coming back, bit by bit, since then."
"So Catcher's magic finished the resurrection, but kept him from being completely mindless? That's certainly a possibility, but it's not my area of expertise. Hel , I doubt Catcher even knows.er hed"
The unknowing, the risk Ethan would be at the beck and cal of a girl so addicted to black magic she was wil ing to throw away her friends - and her city - pushed me over the edge. Fear and panic bubbled to the surface, and I looked away, tears suddenly streaming down my face.
I moved to the nearest chair and sat down, then covered my hands in my face, sobbing from the tol of the emotional rol er coaster of Mal ory and Ethan - and at the possibilities that I'd already lost Mal ory . . . and that I'd have to endure losing Ethan al over again.
I don't know how long I'd cried when I heard rustling, soft but certainly there, from across the room. Slowly, I uncovered my eyes and looked up. Ethan was propped up on the bed. He looked obviously weak, his eyes barely open. And as in my dreams, he said my name. But this was no dream.