Page 11 of The Duplicity of Thieves

The longer we run in silence the more my mind screams. This tunnel is never ending. I never even knew it was here. Bile rises in my throat threatening to expel all of the drinks I’ve had tonight. Wind whistles from up ahead and tears at our freezing bodies. We must be getting close to the other side.

We burst out into the open, hidden at the edge of the trees. I yank my hand from Vivian’s grip, and she cries out. “No!”

The house is small, but I can still make out Kate’s outline. She’s suspended in the air, above a figure shrouded in what can only be described as a blizzard. Killian appears from the side of the house across the field. He’s supposed to be behind me. We’re supposed to run away.

There is some sort of exchange between him and the heart of the blizzard. The storm strengthens and explodes around us, almost blinding my view of the two people who saved my life.

Vivian slams her hand over my eyes, dragging me backward. “Don’t stop,” she sobs.

“Get off of me!” I wrestle her away and shove her to the ground before looking back.

I can barely make out a long, curved dagger slicing across Kate’s neck, and her blood spurts out, tainting the storm until the three of them are surrounded by the white powdery wall. Vivian is back on me, yanking me back by the strap around my neck.

The storm stops as suddenly as it began, and I maneuver out of the strap causing her to fall to the ground.

The snow-covered figure is gone. The sky is clearing of the storm now, revealing a deep indigo. It would be beautiful if it weren’t for the nightmarish circumstances. I finally decide to face it, to see the truth of what has happened. My heart pounds in my chest and my skin crawls.

There is so much blood that I’m sure the grass will be stained for the rest of eternity. The field will be known as something cursed, just like the Lethe. There’s a heap of death in the blood covered grass in front of the house. I can’t breathe and it feels like my lungs are being ripped from my chest as I see them laying there in a pile like discarded peanut shells.

There are no lights on in the rooms we ran from. The wind chimes still sing across the light breeze. Blood paints the white railings and splatters the siding. It’s horrific. The things Tartarus is made of. Two people over the span of a day, lost to me forever. I stare at the grass where the blood pools around the human sized lumps.

Never again will Kate tell me her wild ideas about the world. She won’t give me that curious gaze or admonish me for my antics while trying to hide a smile. She won’t read fantastical tales, force me to practice complicated languages, or tell me about Magic.

Killian will never wake me from my nightmares and soothe me back to sleep. He won’t look at me with those burning orange eyes. He won’t kiss me in secret or give me that crooked grin. He won’t tell me he loves me ever again. Given to me and stolen, just like my memory.

Something strange bubbles up inside of me. I laugh. It starts as small boofs and crescendos into all out cackling. I’m roaring with laughter. I’m aware of Vivian’s presence off to the side, but I can’t hear her through my heartbreak. They’re dead. Killian is dead.

Heat ripples on my skin and I smell earth and ash, but I can’t stop laughing. Or maybe I’m screaming. The snow melts, turning to water and gushing around my boots. Faintly, I’m aware of something happening to the earth. It cracks open between my feet. Wisps of black fire slip through it, billowing around me. The rumble of ancient trees in an earthquake fills the atmosphere. A fire erupts in the grass at my feet, flicking up and rushing toward the house, toward their bodies.

It rages through the field and crawls up the railings, consuming the porch and burning up the remnants of Killian and Kate. It continues through the door and spreads like poison, flashing in the windows of the home we all used to share. In moments, the world is blazing, the heat burning my skin. The grass crackles as it dries out and screams with smoke. Tears like lava slide down my cheeks.

This is all my fault. I brought this here. I carelessly went out of the Republic for fun instead of being careful and heeding their warnings. Whatever is being unleashed inside of me is in control, and that must be what I was trying to get away from. That’s what whoever they are want. I am the danger.

Kate kept her eyes on me as much as possible because she somehow knew I was the unpredictable evil. She wanted to control it. Even the Lethe couldn’t strip me of this immense darkness. It only took one thing for me explode, but it feels so fucking good to be full of fury. A hungry void has been unleashed inside of me. There is no going back.

I have been broken. I feel hopeless. Mere hours ago, I was someone else entirely. I had a harmless night out with my friend. I met a boy. My best friend told me he loved me and asked me to run away with him. It feels like that was years ago. My world has ended, and I will make it pay.

“Josephine, stop! Please?” Vivian’s voice is shaking with terror. “I’m so scared, Jo.” She falls to her knees with her face in her hands rocking back and forth. “Don’t look back. Don’t stop. Don’t look back,” she’s sobbing.

I’m teetering on the edge of a catastrophic meltdown when a realization cuts through my grief. It rips through the darkness. Vivian is still here. There is no one else to pick up the pieces of our lives. We will never be the same, but I need to be brave. She has no one else. I have to do it for her.

As suddenly as it began, it ends. I suck the oxygen from the air. The fire is extinguished and the ground stops shaking—it all stops. I carefully tuck the rage, the grief, and the anguish away into the spaces of my forgotten memory. Someday I’ll get revenge, but not today.

“Don’t look back,” I agree.

And I collapse.

Chapter two

Josephine, Four years later

The lights are off when I get home, but I still see that same stupid thrift store curtain in the window. We argued over it so much that I know my sister left it to aggravate me. Ascending the steps, I run my hand along the wall feeling for the loose brick. It wiggles, crumbling under my grip. Once it’s free, I reach in, my fingers dusting the cobwebs that encapsulate the spare key.

Boxes are piled high across the apartment, filling the place with the smell of bland cardboard. It’s a scent I didn’t know I hated until now. The place used to be bright and beautiful, full of life and passion with Vivian’s presence. Now the paint peels away from the walls in protest. The linen curtains still hang there, faded and frayed. Particles of dust float lazily through the air, finding places to rest in the labyrinth of her possessions.

The place is a tomb. My sister’s life is in these boxes, and I didn’t even help pack them out of quiet protest. I pull out a cigarette and light it, inhaling the toxic smoke and blowing it back out into the empty space.

Being here feels like a mistake. I should have found somewhere else to go. I’m a stranger in my own home. I’m not sure what I expected. To feel relieved, I guess. With the window cracked, I look out into the night. Hades’ dazzling gold laced palace reflects the light from the streets of Asphodel, the capital of the Underworld. The buildings have doubled since we moved here, and they’re taller. I’ve been so absorbed in my own self-hatred I feel like I’ve missed it all, and it’s a soul crushing admission.

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