Page 60 of Last Rites

There had to be a way to stop this. I refused to let it end this way. I wouldn’t watch Penny die. But even if I threw myself on Merrick’s mercy, insisted that I alone did this, he’d kill Penny anyway. He’d make me watch. He’d make it hurt.

Merrick reached into his robes and withdrew a ceremonial knife from a sheath hidden there and wiped it on his sleeve. The firelight from the braziers glinted off the blade, etched with Eeus’s mark, and sparked aching memories of watching my father use that same weapon in countless sacrifices here in this very room.

I couldn’t breathe.

Beside me, Penny jerked free of the Sentinels and scrambled for the door. Matina’s hand shot out and gripped the hair at the back of his head to yank him back. He yelped as she shoved him down to his knees before Merrick and wrenched his head back to bare his neck.

“No!” I pulled against Klaus and Fletcher’s grip, my voice emerging as a strangled sob. “Stop, please!”

“You leave those boys alone!”

Philippa’s shout cut through the air, and everyone turned to where she’d stepped out of the gathered crowd. Her gray brows were low over her eyes, and beneath her veneer of indignant rage, I caught a glint of fear.

“I did this,” she said.

Relief edged out my terror for the briefest moment before guilt and horror crashed in behind it.

“No,” I breathed, willing her look at me, to reassure me that she wasn’t about to do what I thought she was. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t how any of us were supposed to go.

But her focus never left Merrick.

“I’ve been planning this for months,” she continued as she closed the distance between us, “long before those two came bumbling in here. Everyone was so busy watching them that no one was watching me.” She scoffed. “You really should open your eyes and look around once in a while, Your Eminence, then maybe you wouldn’t miss what’s right in front of you.”

There was genuine surprise on Merrick’s face. For a moment, he struggled for a response.

“There’s no way you could have done this alone,” he said at length.

She waved off his disbelief. “It took a few days and a bit of planning, but I managed. The only way Mister Koesters was involved was by unwittingly lightening my workload so I had more time to focus on this.”

The Right Hand ground his teeth as his surprise gave way to aggravation. “You realize the consequences of this admission, don’t you?”

“I’m not so proud as to let someone innocent be punished for my actions.” Philippa tipped her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “It’s enough to know that I, at least, am right with both of the gods.”

Merrick’s lip curled in a snarl, and he gestured toward Penny with the knife. “Let him go,” he growled.

Vi and Matina released him at the same time Klaus and Fletcher stepped away from me to cross to Philippa. Penny struggled to his feet and I caught him as he stumbled into me, clutching him to my chest so tight no one could ever pry him away from me again. He pressed his face into my shoulder, and I couldn’t tell if I was the one trembling, or if it was him. Either way, it made undoing the knot of rope securing his wrists difficult. But when the binding fell away, his arms came around my waist and cinched in until the breath squeaked out of me.

Klaus and Fletcher had Philippa by the arms when I looked over again. She still wouldn’t meet my eyes. I understood what she was doing, though, and that made it hurt so much worse.

She hadn’t been able to save her son from being swallowed by this place, and it haunted her. She stayed to make it mean something, to try to make Ashpoint what she always wanted it to be. For a time, she’d given us hope. We’d given her hope. But she, like the rest of us, understood that sacrifices would need to be made if we wanted any chance of preventing the horrors that Merrick planned to unleash upon the world.

She couldn’t save her son, but she could save us.

“I do hate getting bloodstains out of this floor,” Merrick said idly. Without further hesitation, he jammed the blade between Philippa’s ribs and twisted.

Her body went rigid, her face paled, but she made no sound. Only when he yanked the blade back out did a scream tear from her throat.

Penny’s shoulders shook against me in powerful sobs. I could do nothing but hold him up and stare as Philippa sank to the floor into the growing pool of her own blood. Everything wavered as tears stung my eyes, but I refused to look away.

“This is what awaits all of you should you step a toe out of line from here on out,” Merrick barked at the rest of the workers. He pointed to the door with the bloody knife. “Dismissed.”

Everyone surged forward, breaking like a river around where Philippa lay, motionless. They streamed out the door, and I eased Penny away so we could get lost in the crowd, but a hand caught my arm.

Merrick’s face was twisted with anger, and he jerked me around to face Philippa’s body again.

“This”—he pointed at her—“wasn’t a pardon, only a delay. Now get out of my sight.”

I dragged Penny into the press of bodies hurrying for the exit, and it was all I could do when we hit the open air of the atrium not to break into a run.