A Fever Dream

CHAPTER 29. Heavy is The Crown

I haven't been to Still Garden since the day we said farewell to Elliot, even though from time to time I caught glimpses of its snowy trees from the windows of August.

The garden didn't change, nor was it supposed to - the frozen orchestra obscured by the evergreens, red berries dotting the snow carpet, and pine trees sleeping in their white fur coats.

The boy in the crystal tomb slept as well.

The mage, as I decided to call him, looked long and hard at the crystal sarcophagus, while I looked at him. For a moment I forgot I was cold, blinking away the snowflakes that strived to land on my lashes. Finally, he turned to me.

"Bring the ingredients," he announced in the tone of a cook at the royal kitchen.

"What?"

"The letter said you'll have the ingredients from the green witch. I'll need something of that family as well, something ancient."

I lifted my hand and the ancestral ring glistened in the spark of lightning.

"Oh," I cleared my throat.

I did indeed have the ingredients. Which was peculiar.

Until it wasn't, I realized, as I dug out the little pouches of herbs from "Rosemary's Herbs and More" from my suitcase.

I should have guessed sooner.

Elliot did not trick the demon just so that he didn't get his soul - he actually planned on returning.

He was no stranger to dark magic, after all. It was always fascinating to him, even in those little experiments, when he tried to teach his ravens to speak summer tongue. And what magic could be darker than resurrection?

And so he asked someone - me of all people - to take his life first, binding his soul to an obsidian dagger.

But why ask me? Surely, plain old suicide wasn't something beneath his dignity.

"But then no one would be bound by his last wish." I muttered, with a strange pang of sympathy.

Of course! To deliver the letters with instructions, to gather ingredients. It wasn't like he had an awful lot of friends. Besides, he didn't trust anyone. He only trusted in magic obligations.

And still, why me?

Almost despite my will, the corner of my mouth lifted.

This was so much more like Elliot. So much more like the boy I hated. Who knew his way out of any situation, like a street con artist.

"I need ceremonial candles as well," the mage turned the bags of herbs carefully in his bony fingers. "And get yourself some clothes," he wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I am not going to perform two resurrections tonight."

"Right. Candles. There were some in Elliot's bedroom."

Still grinning, like a madman, I rushed into the mansion to fetch the candles.

As soon as I stepped inside I had almost unconsciously halted my steps. I just couldn't run in here. Everything inside August was in dreamlike haze, perhaps century old, and it felt sacrilegious even - to disturb it with loud voices or steps. Walking through the halls of the dark castle felt odd, since I'd fallen into its other side.

For a moment, I wondered if I was still there - behind the black glass and nothing of what was happening was real.

Or maybe I'd fallen behind the looking glass a long time ago and have forgotten about it. Trapped inside, thinking that I was living, when instead I was just watching a dream.