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III.IV

Pain seeps out of Indigo’s body. A quick glance at the cloaked figure is all he needs to know this man is not from the Council—or, if he is, he’s decided to omit wearing his official robes for reasons Indigo is persuaded aren’t good news.

Alice continues to struggle against the hand, who has been joined by another, until two complete bodies who carry the scent of death with them rise from the ground. She gasps and tries to elbow them in the face, yet, it is to no avail, for Alice cannot predict the moves—nor can she read the minds—of people long deceased. “Kill me,” she whispers, low, and surely in hopes that the man will not hear. “You have to run. You have to kill me and run.”

Indigo freezes. “What are you talking about? I’m getting you out and—”

“No!” Alice snaps. “He’s a necromancer. I won’t be able to predict his movements, you’re too inexperienced, and we don’t know how many more of them are coming.”

“But, Alice, you—”

The man clears his throat. He crosses his arms and taps his foot impatiently against the ground. “I have your friend, traitor!” he yells at Indigo from across the stream separating them. “You wouldn’t dare leave her here, would you?”

“Alice, this is weird,” Indigo says in a rush. “He might just be stalling for time. He hasn’t summoned anything else so far, we might be able to—”

“This is war, Indigo. We can’t count on maybes. He thinks I have value and that it’ll be enough to get you to surrender. If you do just the opposite of that,” Alice mutters, “I’m sure you’ll have enough time to escape. And with the right set of tricks, they won’t be able to look into my memories to find your identity.”

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“But you’ll die, Alice. What about your dreams of—”

Alice chuckles. The smile beneath her mask makes the dark cloth at the edges of her cheeks rise. “Exactly,” she tells him. “That’s all they are and ever were—dreams. Seriously.” Alice turns her head to get one last glimpse of Indigo. The grips of the undead tighten around her arms. “Don’t worry about me,” she tells him. “I’ve been ready for this since day one. I’m just kind of disappointed it wasn’t in an epic battle or something like that…” She sighs. “Honestly, if it were me, I would have killed you and left already, so please don’t start feeling any kind of sympathy for the person that I am.”

No matter how much he wants to deny her claims, Indigo knows she’s right. Between being captured, tortured, and killed—Alice being brainwashed to reveal everything she knows—and him escaping without any of these things happening, it’s obvious to Indigo which choice is the best of the worst.

“The scroll with the recipe is in my back pocket,” Alice whispers. “I have a sample of the potion that can last you a couple days. Take it all and run. Grab the acid bombs I gave you before we came here and throw them at me. Even if I do happen to survive, I probably won’t be able to speak much, and they’ll do away with me soon enough.”

It is so strange to Indigo, the contrast between Alice’s words, how calm and assertive they are in comparison to what she is asking him to do.

And he thinks he might have done it—taken her life—though he isn’t sure. He isn’t sure because, when he was about to obey and throw them as she had ordered him to, his mind went blank, and now Indigo is running, escaping from what he believes could be Alice’s hollow screams and the sound of bones fizzing, which he can only hopes are not hers, but those of the undead that had been stationed next to her.

Had it not been for the new weight of the potion and the scroll inside his bag which followed him out of the forest, Indigo could have passed this off as a dream.

He’s back where he started now—the Academy.

With his shoulder pressed against a kind old tree, Indigo observes the building from afar and tries to forget. Alice’s screams. The villagers. The fog of the fray. Acts unkind. Wavering smiles and promises lost. He shuts his eyes. He drops to his knees.

“Fuck.”