“What’s your name?” he asked.
But she didn’t answer. She didn’t answer because she was dead, and the smell of blood was clawing at Romeo’s throat and making him shudder.
As if from a great distance, he heard Vai walk back into the room.
“Did you catch him?” asked Romeo.
“No,” said Paris.
Once, that voice had been a part of Romeo’s own thoughts. In such a short time, he’d become so used to it, that even now it took him a moment to realize that Paris had spoken out loud.
That Paris was here.
Then he knew, like lightning traveling up his spine, and he was on his feet and turning.
Paris stood in the doorway. Alive.
For one moment, Romeo couldn’t feel anything except a desperate, burning joy. He’d seen Makari come back to life, but he hadn’t dared hope or fear that Paris would suffer the same fate, come back to him the same way.
Then he realized that—unlike Makari—there was a strange coldness in Paris’s face, and unfamiliar arrogance in the set of his shoulders.
There was blood spattered across his clothes, and he held a bloody rapier.
“You,” Romeo said numbly. “You did this?”
Paris smiled. It was a hard, disdainful smile, utterly unlike the earnest boy that Romeo remembered. Then he moved, and the next moment he had Romeo slammed against the wall, blade to his throat.
“Don’t move,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to decide if I should kill you.” He raised his voice. “If you step into this room, I’ll definitely kill him.”
“You do and I’ll kill you,” said Vai from the doorway.
Romeo could feel his heart pounding, but he didn’t feel afraid. There was no room to feel anything, not when Paris was right here, and Romeo had one chance to reach him.
“I know you didn’t want to do this,” he said.
Everything was horribly clear. Paris had truly died, and then he’d been raised again by the Master Necromancer. And the living dead were the slaves of those who had raised them. Romeo had seen it with Tybalt.
But Makari had broken that binding. Surely Paris could too.
“I know you don’t want to serve the Master Necromancer,” he said. “Can’t you remember me?”
Paris smiled. “Did you think you ever knew me?” he said.
Romeo had known him, Romeo did know him, and he knew this was a lie—but the words still sent an icy curl of fear into his stomach, because he remembered how Tybalt had been, when he returned as one of the living dead. He remembered the flat, lifeless intonation of Tybalt’s voice, and Paris sounded nothing like him.
Paris sounded nothing like himself, either.
“I do know you,” said Romeo. “And I know the Master Necromancer has made you a slave, and I can help you.”
“You know a lie,” said Paris. “I served him of my own free will, even before I died. Like every good Catresou. Like every one of my kin.”
It couldn’t be true. But the words—the pitiless glee in Paris’s eyes—still felt like knives between his ribs.
“No,” he said. “That’s not possible. I heard your thoughts. I saw your heart.”
Paris pressed the blade closer—just a tiny fraction of pressure on Romeo’s throat, but he still choked.
“That was Catresou magic binding us together,” he said. “You think I wouldn’t know how to use it against you?”
“Are you done talking?” Vai demanded. “Because I personally think it’s time we got back to killing each other.”
“Not yet,” said Paris. The next moment he had seized Romeo by the arm and was throwing him away with terrible force. Romeo stumbled and lost his balance—Vai caught him—
And Paris vanished out the front door.
Vai snarled under her breath and bolted after him. Romeo knew he should follow, but now that there was no longer a sword at his throat—now he was shaking, and finding it hard to breathe.
Paris. One of the living dead.
He had believed in the ways of his people so desperately. He had wanted so much to be a proper Catresou, laid to rest in their sepulcher with all their traditional spells and prayers. Instead he had been raised again to be a slave and murder his kin.
Had Makari known?
Let me decide how I’ll avenge my own wrongs, he had said, and Romeo knew that Makari had been trying to protect him, but he still felt betrayed.
“Still there?” Vai called through the doorway.
Romeo turned to look at her. “He got away?”
“It’s not very fair, how fast the dead can run,” said Vai, and her voice was light, but Romeo could see her fist clenching in frustration.
Romeo didn’t have any comfort to offer, not when he was surrounded by the blood of his own failures.
“I should have died instead,” he muttered, and instantly felt ashamed. He’d been saying that since the day he killed Tybalt, but what had he ever done to fix things? He had already thought, Why didn’t Makari tell me about Paris—but if Makari had, would Romeo really have changed anything?
Vai snorted. “I can’t deny I would rather have Paris alive, but then he’d want to die for you, and then you’d want to die again, and it would just be a pointless dance, really.” She laid a hand on Romeo’s shoulder. “We should leave. I’ll cut the heads off the bodies if you don’t have the stomach for it.”
Romeo looked at the dead girl. He thought about all the promises he had made and broken. How little he had done, and how much he still owed.
Maybe it was time to make his own choices.
“No,” he said. “They’re Catresou. They deserve a Catresou burial.”
“And how are you going to do that for them?”
Romeo squared his shoulders. “I’m waiting here. I know the other Catresou come to check on them, and I’m done hiding. I’ll tell them what happened, help them carry the bodies back, and then . . . I’ll beg to join them.”
Vai stared at him. “There are quicker ways to kill yourself, you know.”
“I won’t tell them who I am,” said Romeo. “I’ll keep the mask on. They know me as their masked warrior now, so maybe—maybe they’ll trust me.”
“That is a stupid idea and I doubt your intentions of survival.”
Romeo shook his head. “No. I’m not trying to die. I’m keeping a promise.”
Several promises. He had told the dead girl he would make sure she was buried. He owed her as well.
“The Catresou are being hunted because of what I did,” he said. “They deserve to have my obedience, not just my protection at my own convenience. And . . . Paris said they were still working for the Master Necromancer. He might have been lying, but if some of their leaders are still conspiring—I have to know. I have to stop them.”
Vai looked thoughtful. “I won’t tell you not to do it, because it’s not my business if you get yourself killed. But be careful. And tell me as soon as you learn anything.”
“Right.” Romeo nodded.
“Because if you learn something and die right after, that’s pointless and annoying.”
“To save Juliet’s people, I would fight my way out of the land of the dead,” said Romeo.
“But you wouldn’t,” said Vai, and for once there was nothing but quiet sadness in her voice. “You’d be back in your body in minutes, a slave to the necromancers.”
Like Paris. Romeo closed his eyes against the sudden sting of tears.
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
Vai left, and he was alone with a dead girl.
He knelt down again beside her. His people were not like hers; they did not believe that elaborate ceremonies and spells could guarantee them a happy afterlife. They did not believe that anything awaited them after death at all. This girl, whose dead, blank eyes still stared at him, was already less than dust.
But the Mahyanai did honor their dead: all night, before the bodies were burned, they sat vigil.
He couldn’t honor this girl like a Catresou should, but he could do this much for her, anyway.
So Romeo knelt beside the dead girl and waited.
4
HIS MASTER WAS PLEASED TO see him return.
“Did you do as I commanded?”
“Yes,” said Paris, kneeling with his hands pressed against the floor.