They scrabbled their way to the edge of the cage, grasped the bars, and hauled themselves up. They slid arms out between the bars and clawed at the air, jaws yawning open and then snapping shut with desperate hunger. Emera’s red hair was a tangled veil across her face, but Romeo could see her eyes, gray and sightless and inhuman.
The grief he felt was as dark and vast as the night sky. He grieved for Emera, and for Juliet, and for Paris—for everyone whose life had been shattered by the Master Necromancer—for everyone alive, and therefore doomed to die and become nothing. Like Emera.
“But none of that can save you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
The bolt rattled. Romeo was on his feet in a moment; he turned and saw the door opening.
Paris stood outside. And Romeo’s heart shattered in his chest again, because while the cruel smile of the night before was gone, now there was no life in his face at all. Just the grim, relentless obedience that Romeo had once seen in Tybalt’s eyes, when the Master Necromancer sent him to kill them.
Makari had been living dead as well, but he remembered himself.
“Paris,” Romeo whispered, “this isn’t you, I know it, you don’t want—”
“What’s that you’re saying about my brother?” asked Meros, stepping into view behind Paris. His voice was smug. “I’m afraid he understands his duties now. Death has a way of helping some people.”
He ruffled Paris’s hair.
You know he’s a slave, Romeo thought, sick with sudden fury. And you like it.
“Anyway, it seems the Master Necromancer wants you alive a little longer,” said Meros. “So we won’t be putting you into a cage yet. If you give me your oath of obedience, I’ll even let you out of this room.”
He thought that Romeo was intimidated, broken by fear of the revenants. It was clear in the smug sneer of his voice, and it made Romeo want to defy him.
But he had come here to save Juliet’s people. He couldn’t do that locked away in a room full of revenants.
He couldn’t save Paris while he was locked up either. And Paris could still be saved. Romeo believed that, he had to believe that.
“I will obey you on two conditions,” he said. “Give Emera Juliaros a proper burial. And don’t ask me to harm Juliet.”
“You think you can make demands of me?” said Meros.
“I can tell you,” said Romeo, “it is the only way I will serve you. I made Emera a promise. And rather than harm Juliet, I would lock myself in one of those cages and let the revenants tear me to shreds.”
Meros snorted a laugh. “Really?”
Romeo’s heart thudded. Then he strode back to the cage where the Jularios family clawed at the air. He slammed his back into the bars and faced Meros.
“Yes,” he said.
His heart was beating very fast. His whole body crackled with fear. Nails scrabbled at his arm, trying to dig through his sleeve into flesh. A mouth closed on his shoulder, drooling and gnawing. A hand wrapped around his neck—he choked, but he wouldn’t move, he couldn’t—
Paris lunged, sword flashing.
The revenants shrieked. A moment later they had let go, and Paris was dragging him forward.
Romeo stumbled, all the strength going out of his legs, and fell to his knees. Suddenly he couldn’t catch his breath; he could only gasp, and stare up at Paris’s face—now blank of all expression—and think, He saved me.
Surely that meant something.
“I see you’re just as foolish as they say.” Meros looked down his nose at him.
“Yes,” said Romeo.
It was true. He’d always been a fool. He was going to die one.
But at least he might die helping the ones he loved.
“If I agree to your absurd conditions, will you swear to serve me?” asked Meros. “As a true and loyal servant?”
And suddenly, Romeo was just as terrified as when the revenants had wrapped their fingers around his neck. Because if he took this oath, there would be no turning back. He would not be able to change his mind, to run away again and find another secret way to be a hero. If he couldn’t persuade the Catresou to defy the Master Necromancer, he would have to serve along with them.
Romeo felt like he was falling. But he’d already made this choice. He had made it when he first put on a mask. When he had agreed to help Paris fight necromancers. When he had asked Juliet to marry him. When he had seen her for the first time, lonely and beautiful.
From the very first, he had belonged to the Catresou.
So he said, “Yes,” and then he swore an oath.
6
THE NIGHT SKY YAWNED OPEN like the gates of death. The moon was down, but the stars pierced the darkness with a glitter like swords. All the world seemed to be holding its breath.
By now, Romeo was used to crouching on rooftops. He was used to keeping his head low, his breathing soft and steady as he watched the people below. He was used to the tension coiling tighter and tighter as he waited for the violence to begin.
He wasn’t used to waiting with someone on each side of him.
He wasn’t used to doing the errands of the Master Necromancer.
They weren’t here to free the few Catresou prisoners that Lord Ineo kept on his personal estate. They were going to do that—Gavarin had all but demanded it, had insisted to Meros and the rest of the Catresou lords that it would be an excellent distraction, and their duty besides. But that wasn’t why they had come.
There’s a dead Catresou girl made living dead, and Lord Ineo keeps her for a pet, Meros had told them. The Master Necromancer is sending us to bring her home.
The other Catresou had been wild to rescue her. They hadn’t asked who she was, or where she had come from. Romeo knew: she was the living dead girl who had once sat in a glass cage in Lord Catresou’s secret study. He’d called her the “Little Lady” and used her to bargain with the Master Necromancer.
Paris had been horrified when they discovered her. Now he was living dead himself, and he would bring the Little Lady back to a Catresou cage—or worse. Romeo had no idea what the Master Necromancer might want her for, but it couldn’t be anything good.
(He tried not to think about what the Master Necromancer might be doing to Makari right now.)
Romeo had wanted to go with Paris, but he wasn’t trusted that far. He was to help breaking out the prisoners; there were fifteen of them, split into five groups. So there were only two people crouched on the rooftop with Romeo.
“Everything look normal to you?” asked Gavarin, his voice a barely audible rumble.
“Yes,” said Romeo, his stomach tightening as he looked down at the empty courtyard. As a child, he’d been so desperately excited when he was allowed to visit.
He wasn’t used to leading an attack on his own clan. But the Catresou prisoners surely deserved to be saved.
Ilurio snorted. “It’s empty. Don’t need any hero to tell us that.” He was Romeo’s age, and he’d imperiously introduced himself as Ilurio Alabann Catresou, as if it were an important name everyone ought to know. Maybe it was.
“Quiet,” said Gavarin, still watching the courtyard.
“What’s he ever done for us?” Ilurio muttered. “I don’t see why everyone wants to treat him like a hero when he’s one of our enemies.”
Without looking, Gavarin reached over and cuffed the back of his head. “I said quiet.”
Ilurio huffed indignantly, but held his tongue.
“Time to go,” said Gavarin. “Masks on.”
Ilurio pulled out his mask and started tying it on. Romeo, who’d already put on his, took a slow breath, trying to control his heartbeat. Now. He was going to start fighting his own people now.
Suddenly Gavarin seized Romeo’s wrist. His grip felt tight enough to snap bones. He looked at Romeo, his gaze slicing through his mask.
“Wasn’t my call to bring you with us,” said Gavarin, voice still barely above a murmur. “Wasn’t my place to choose. But you ruin this, and I will gut you.”
Like the Jularios family? Romeo wanted to say. But he knew better than to pick fights on the cusp of a battle.
“I swore to serve your people,” he said. “I will keep my oath or die.”
The room was small and windowless and heavily bolted. Inside, on a little wooden stool, sat a girl. Her head was bowed, gold ringlets falling forward over her shoulders. Her face was pale and still as a wax doll.
She was living dead.