Can I really do this?

But she hardened her determination.

You have no choice.

She spotted a small gap, barreled through, choking as the impact with the corpses threw up foul-smelling dust into her face. She swung her cane at the Ancestor in front, allowing a little magic to weave through, strengthening the blow. The Ancestor fell, and Constance surged up the steps. She was halfway to the top—but the Ancestors ahead of her were turning slowly, disapprovingly, as if she were an unruly child spoiling the sanctity of a funeral.

She scowled, swept her cane, and dispatched another corpse—took another step toward the top. But they had surrounded her now, and they were closing in.

“Get away from me!” she screamed. She had created the spell. She was the necromancer. They should submit to her command. “I command you to stop!”

But they did not. She drew on the last of her reserves as bony hands closed around both arms—the cold, useless metal and the warm flesh. She screamed again. Her cane flashed a brilliant, intense purple.

For a moment, the hands disappeared.

And she fell onto the stairs, her metal arm clanging on the stone. She tried to crawl, but she had used up every last scrap of her energy. Figures blocked out the light ahead. There was nothing left of her, nothing but the beat of her heart, demanding: Live, live, live.

TWENTY-NINE

Spinning the Cloud

Lena bowed over Emris’s corpse, her forehead resting against his forehead. She was crying. The light had started to flicker out, the chamber lit by a dying torch and a single oil lamp discarded on the ground. Winton’s lamp. Winton, who lay prone at Emris’s side. Lena sat up, sobbing, and felt Winton’s wrist. To her surprise, it was warm, a pulse thrumming, despite the blood running down his face.

But what did it matter? The dead were closing in on them, long shadows following in their wake. If Winton wasn’t dead now, he would be soon enough.

“Please … please come back, Emris, please,” she whispered over and over, blindly reaching for the magic in her heart, trying to understand what it required. But she was fumbling, and although bright electric sparks danced between her hands, nothing happened.

Something touched her hair, an Ancestor shuffling right up close. The stench of death filled her mouth, and panic flooded her.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Stop, stop, stop!”

And … weirdly … they stopped. The Ancestors surrounded her like an audience waiting for a show to start—the one next to her was reaching down, empty eye sockets fixed on her face. She shut her eyes. She felt suddenly how they were tethered to her, tethered to the spell—how a hundred thousand threads pulled them like a company of marionettes. Her eyes flicked open. The butterfly fluttered around her head excitedly, as if it understood and agreed.