Page 72 of Those Fatal Flowers

Please.

We usually recite an incantation before the final mercy is delivered. This time, only one name is necessary.

“Proserpina,” I say. My voice booms through the grotto. It’s a dedication. It’s an offering. It’s an apology. My hand on his cheek slides into his tangled mess of hair to draw his head down so he’s facing the Underworld.

I slice.

His blood is dark, and it spurts from the wound like a fountain onto my frame. Jaquob sputters and gasps and sobs until he finally chokes on his own life force. I stand there, captivated, waiting for his last breath to pass between his lips before I remove my hand from his hair. Finally, he slumps over. I take his relic from the ground and place it around my neck before turning to the others triumphantly.

Raidne reaches for the blade and promptly removes his lungs, his liver, his heart, then tosses each organ into the fire. The smoke licks the ceiling of the cave, wrapping around thehanging rock formations like ribbons before escaping to the gods. When the organs have burned completely, we unchain Jaquob’s corpse from the wall and drape it over the flames as well. If this were a gift to Ceres, we could butcher him and eat the meat, but Jaquob now belongs to the Realm of the Dead, and it’s forbidden for the living to consume him. When only his bones remain, I toss a coin into the flames, the fee for his upcoming passage.

Take him to Tartarus.

Pisinoe slows her drumming. Our ecstatic frenzy reaches its low point, and we watch the fire swallow the last remnants of Jaquob’s skeleton until nothing is left but ash.

With his body gone, the sacrificial fever begins to dwindle. Raidne moves to start cleaning the blood from her frame. I take a step forward to follow her, but a sharp pain erupts in my gut. I shriek, taken aback by its sudden appearance, but the agony doesn’t relent. It intensifies.

I fall onto my knees, my arms wrapped around my stomach. The rough ground tears across my skin through the thin ceremonial dress, offering the linen two new blooms of blood to join Jaquob’s. Raidne drops to my side. I feel the warmth of her hands on my shoulders, and I think she’s speaking to me, but I can’t make out the words. Concentrating on her speech requires too much effort, and all my focus is turned inward. Pressure builds in my abdomen, as if something is forcing my intestines up into my lungs. Before I can warn my sisters, I’m on my hands as well, vomiting darkness onto the floor of the cave.

18

Now

Margery’s statement chills the room. Cora slips an arm beneath my shoulder and lifts me slowly.

“Can you walk?” she asks gently. I have no choice; I nod.

It’s twilight. I’m thankful for the coming darkness, but we don’t have much time to make our escape. The men will be returning from their drinking shortly. Cora leads me, slowly but purposefully, through the hallway, down the stairs, and out the back door. We stop several times as dizziness threatens to overtake me.

I think back to the seer who wouldn’t tell me how many children I’d bear. The memory makes me want to tear at my hair, to bang my fists against the wall. After we were banished, I understood why she refused my question. But being here, being human, it let me ignore a very important truth: This baby was doomed to death the moment it was conceived. And now Mercury draws close, here to collect both our souls for the Underworld. Will he recognize me as the same girl responsible for delivering the Realm of the Dead its mistress all those centuries ago?

Cora doesn’t know any of this, doesn’t understand this was predetermined by the Fates. To her, this child is the last piece of her brother that she has left. As much as I want to curl up in my bed and let my body purge her in peace, I must try to save her, or I’ll lose Cora forever as well.

“If Thomas asks where she is, tell him she’s with me. I’ll have her back as soon as possible.”

Margery nods, urging us on with a quick motion of her hands. “Go quickly!”

It’s early enough that the night watch hasn’t closed the settlement’s doorways for the evening. As we approach the southern gate, Cora pulls the hoods of our capes over our heads, casting our faces in shadow. Thankfully, there’s no need—it’s manned by John Chapman, asleep at his post.

As soon as we’re free from the village walls, Cora squeezes my hand to encourage me to move faster. I go as quickly as I can, but my stomach roils, and a cold sweat collects underneath my arms and behind my neck. Everything blurs, and I have the distinct feeling that if it were not for Cora’s grasp, I would simply disappear.

The twisted branches of the wood all fade together, and with their distinctions gone, so is my sense of time. Have we been out here in the cold for minutes, or has it been hours? When I’m finally able to focus, we’ve arrived at the edge of a swamp. Trees I’ve never seen before shoot from the water like tall sentinels, their leaves more like hair than foliage. The sun has sunk completely beneath the horizon, and it would be pitch-black were it not for a soft orange glow coming from the windows of a small hut perched precariously close to the water’s edge.

We’ve made it to the witch’s cottage.

Cora takes a confident step toward the hovel when its door squeaks open. The silhouette of a woman twisted with timestands on its threshold. In the confines of the village, the swamp witch was a hypothetical, the only potential solution to my condition. Will seeing Sybil in the flesh give Cora pause? She carries me forward without faltering, and I moan softly with relief.

“Please,” she says, her voice trembling. “We need help.”

“Bring her inside.”

I sway on weary feet, and the vertigo that’s threatened me this entire time finally makes its move. Cora barely catches me before I hit the ground, and the display propels her to pull me into the cottage with renewed conviction. As we cross the doorway, I’m struck by the familiar scent of medicinal herbs and plants. I look up to find the entire ceiling is covered with muted greenery—Sybil hangs them to dry, like we do. In fact, the entire space is like my home on Scopuli. Despite Cora’s tightening grip, I feel a sense of peace for the first time since the bleeding began. The yarrow, the purple coneflowers, the marigolds—these are plants for soothing and healing, not for malice.

“Lay her down here,” the woman tells Cora, motioning to a makeshift pallet on the left side of the room. Cora helps me settle atop a pile of animal furs. I catch her running her hand over one, going against the grain of the red hair. A fox, perhaps. She chews her bottom lip, and I know exactly what she’s thinking.

Foxes have avoided our snares for months. Is it possible that Sybil really did curse them? Sybil interrupts the question by settling between my legs. Although this is the second time we’ve met, she makes no indication that she knows me in front of Cora. Instead, she opens my knees and peers into the vastness between them. Long white hair is tied back in a braid that falls over her left shoulder. A frown forms on her lips.

“How far along are you?” She looks up at me for the firsttime. Our eyes meet, and a surge of energy passes between us. The sensation makes her mouth drop, her wrinkled eyelids open wide with surprise.

---