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Elaine took a deep breath. "I am not evil."
"Child, I know that," Tereza said.
"Let us agree to disagree on this one matter," Jonathan said. With his eyes he tried to ask her, please, please let this not stand between us. He had thought her lost for all time. She was back, and he did not want to lose her again, not so soon.
Elaine nodded. "Very well, I think you are both being foolish, but it is your right." She leaned forward and kissed Tereza on the cheek. She brushed her lips on Jonathan's beard, giving it a tug as she had as a child.
"We will not let this stand between us," she said.
Jonathan smiled. "No, we will not."
She gave her hand to Konrad, and he raised it to his cheek, not kissing it, but it was an intimate gesture.
Elaine stood and followed the wizard from the room. Jonathan watched her go, watched Konrad watch her. In the midst of every disaster were the seeds of hope. He knew that, but it was good to be reminded.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Gersalius led Elaine out into the street. They had found her another cloak. It was brown and stiff, but warm enough. It wasn't until she was outside that she realized she hadn't taken time to clean off the blood. Gersalius had offered her breakfast, but she had refused; though she felt light and empty, it wasn't food she needed. What she needed was to see Blaine's face, hear his voice, feel the touch of his hand. She needed his death to not be true.
Konrad had hugged her. The softness in his face that she had always longed to see was finally there. What would Blaine have thought? Would he have been happy for her? Or would he have been jealous? She would have given up Konrad's newfound love, if that was what it was, to have Blaine back.
Konrad returned her feelings, at last, and it was ashes in her heart. She walked down the snow-covered street. The cold air touched her face. There was a hood on the borrowed cloak, but Elaine left it down. She wanted to feel the cold on her face. Her hair fell unbound round her shoulders. She hadn't even thought to tie it back. It was so like Blaine's hair. She would see a shadow of him in every mirror for the rest of her life.
Gersalius led her to the town square. There was a fountain in the middle of the paved area, and the water within it had frozen to solid white ice. The ice coated even the figure in the center, making it unrecognizable, though a thin trickle of water still played through the ice. The soft sound of water moved oddly through the silent courtyard, echoing off the two-story buildings that hedged the paving.
"It was a large town once. This is the center of an ambitious town," Gersalius said.
Elaine stood by the frozen fountain and let her breath out in a white cloud. Huge fluffy clouds hung low in the sky, pale gray, as if they held not snow but rain. But it was far too cold for rain.
The gray clouds cast everything in a sameness. The day was as dull and downtrodden as her mood. "Why did you bring me here?"
Gersalius turned to her. His smile died as he looked at her. "I know that right now you won't believe this, but it will hurt less as time goes by."
She shook her head. "Why are we here?"
"This is the heart of the town. It wasn't the first thing built, but it was the center of all their hopes. A fountain in a courtyard, very cosmopolitan. This is the heart of the village, and here is where the spell was laid."
Elaine looked around. "I don't see anything."
"Look at the fountain, Elaine. Open that i
It seemed like such an effort that she wanted to say no, I can't.
"If we can trace this spell back to its owner, we will find the person responsible for all this misery," Gersalius said. "Then you can have your revenge."
Vengeance, was that enough? No, nothing would ever be enough. But revenge was better than despair.
Elaine took a deep breath of the frigid air and closed her eyes. She held the breath, willing herself to be calm, to quiet the maelstrom in her mind. She opened her eyes slowly. The fountain ran with colors, as if someone had melted wax in the water before it froze.
Elaine brushed her hands over the ice. A line of sickly green, red the color of burned skin, the purple-blue of bruises; one line was iridescent, with many colors. Elaine couldn't decipher it at first, until she remember a drowned man she'd seen once. The last line was the color of a drowned man's skin, mottled and putrefying.
The thin line of free water that still coursed through the ice picked up the colors like a river picking up the dirt of different fields. The water ran black as it pooled in icy pockets, deep enough to dip a small bucket into, deep enough to drink from.
There was a thickness on the water's surface that held all the colors like an oil slick, but sparkling with some i
"He poisoned the water," she said, at last.
Gersalius nodded. "Indeed."
"Is it poison or magic? It gleams like a spell."
"Both," he said.
Elaine shook her head. "If it is in the water, then why does everybody rise from the dead, even strangers?"
"Most strangers don't die as quickly as Averil and Blaine. Most have time to drink the water before they die."
She turned to him. "Blaine won't rise as a zombie."
"No," Gersalius said.
"Will Averil?"
"I fear she was given water to bring down her fever."
Her relief that Blaine would rest now forever was spoiled by the thought of Silvanus's having to watch his daughter become a shambling corpse.
"Then why take Elaine's body if he won't rise?" she asked.
"Perhaps exactly because it won't rise on its own."
"I don't understand."
"If only people who have not drunk of the water lie quiet in their graves, then the townsfolk may discover that it is the water."
"Oh, so they took his body to prevent that." Elaine thought of something. "Then whoever is behind all this controls at least some of the zombies. He had the bestial zombie steal Elaine's body."
Gersalius nodded. "Good girl. You are right. Now, let us trace this spell back to its lair."
"I see only the ice and the colors. How do we trace it farther?"
"Open more than your eyes to your magic, Elaine. Think of it as opening a window a little more."
She frowned at him. "I am using my magic. I don't understand about windows and opening them farther."
"You are impatient, Elaine. That will not help things. If anything, it will make it harder for you. Magic does not come at the call of a whip, but of a whisper."
She wanted to cross her arms over her chest and be angry, wholeheartedly angry, but she realized it wasn't the wizard she was angry at. It was her grief twisting inside her, spoiling all with its touch.
Elaine took a deep breath and let it out. With the breath some of the tension left her. She would not let even her grief stand in her way. She would find the maker of this spell and destroy him. It was cold comfort, but it was all the comfort she had.
"All right, I'll try to open your window." She could hear the scorn in her own voice. The wizard had done nothing but be her friend, but in that moment, she hated the whole world. It was hard to work around that, but she tried.
Elaine reached into that cavern deep inside herself. The center of her own magic. She brushed it lightly, scooping some of the blue-violet light into invisible hands. Healing and wizardry had that light in common. She opened her eyes and spread her right hand over the fountain.
"Mo, Elaine," Gersalius said, but it was too late.
Blue-violet light spilled from her fingers, bounced along the ice, melting here and there. There were small explosions where her lights touched the i