The Last Spell 41.1

All sense of order vanished from the courtyard the moment the lights went out.

Mireya recoiled several steps back from Dante as though she’d been shoved, while Dawn let out an alarmed shout from somewhere behind her. The helmet slipped out of her hands and clattered onto the pebbles. She heard a sharp intake of breath from Dante, signaling that— possibly— he didn’t know what this sudden outage was either. Or maybe it was his own horrified reaction to her seeing him.

How? How?

The cold of the flintlock’s trigger seemed to be sliding under her fingers again. In her mind’s eye, she was raising it at him again as he stood there bravely, bracing for his own execution. Anyone in those coastal woods could’ve heard that gunshot. He’d fallen like a stone. His body would’ve stayed there, growing colder and colder until nature had done its work. There was nothing to find by the time she’d returned with a heavy heart in winter to see a forest buried in snow.

Dante Weylin had died centuries ago. Seeing his face now was an impossibility, a cruel trick the light had played on her just before it went out.

But when a Flare spell lit up the courtyard from Clarity’s direction in a harsh burst of orange flame, the face of the man pressed against the wall was the same as she’d last seen him.

“Why did you—” Dawn started.

“It wasn’t me!” Mireya exclaimed.

“That would be one of ours,” Clarity said.

It took Mireya a moment to realize Clarity meant she was grouping herself with Sparrow, not with their own team, and her heart clenched as Clarity moved to stand beside Mireya. The ball of fire hovered over her open palm, and something told her it was equal parts a source of light and a threat.

“Who’s Dante?” Clarity asked sharply, with a look in his direction.

Mireya wasn’t sure she knew anymore, because she found herself staring at Dante desperately, like she needed him to answer for her. She watched as he swallowed, standing taller and taking a deep breath. If this was an impersonator, he’d somehow nailed the brave stubbornness Dante always clenched his jaw with.

“A dead man,” she breathed. A memory. A monument to other people’s cruelty. The blood I can’t wash off my hands.

“He doesn’t look very dead to me.” Clarity held the fire higher. “Start talking, spaceboy, or we’ll fix that.”

Dante tore his gaze away from Mireya to fix it on Clarity. The grimness in his eyes was enough to have her suddenly questioning if there was anything familiar about him.

“Put out the fire, Sable,” Dante said. Hairs rose on the back of Mireya’s neck when she felt certain it was his voice— and when she heard the sharp, serious edge it held. “This is your only warning.”

“Make me,” Clarity said.

Mireya realized what was happening a moment too late. The ground at Dante’s feet burst into flames so scorching, the heat forced her back. Clarity flinched backwards as well, true confusion flashing over her face as she strung together a quick Acid spell, no doubt intending to extinguish the fire he’d started. Before Mireya could warn her to get rid of it, Dante’s frame sparked with the glow of rapidly dissolving magic as he replicated Clarity’s spell against the Force keeping him in place and effortlessly stepped free.

Clarity and Dawn had no idea who they were up against.

“Stop!” Mireya screamed, throwing herself in front of Clarity. “Both of you! You can’t fight like this!”

Fortunately, Clarity stood down, frozen behind her with her spells still in hand. Mireya heard her breath catch as Dante stepped forward calmly, the fire licking harmlessly at the boots of his spacesuit.

“Put it out,” Dante repeated evenly. “Then we’ll talk.”

“Just do as he says,” Mireya breathed.

She could feel Clarity’s outrage radiating off her, but she must’ve combined her Acid spell with her Flare, because the warmth behind her went out. The only light in the courtyard came from the fire at Dante’s back now.

“How did he—?” Dawn whispered. “He didn’t even cast a spell.”

Mireya dared to glance her way. Dawn was a few feet behind Clarity, clearly paralyzed, with the artificed flamethrower still clenched in her hands. Her face was a painting of shock.

Swallowing, she turned around to face Dante again, and he looked like he was waiting to hear her words as much as she was.

“This is Dante Weylin.” It felt like someone else was using her voice for her. “The friend I killed. But you may know him better as the battlemage called the Butterfly.”

The stunned silence that followed from Clarity and Dawn was exactly what she expected. They had to know their history— they knew his powers of spell replication, how he’d used it to create the ever-repeating spell of the Fading that had become the deadliest killer on the planet. That was all the world knew of him. And looking at the stranger before her now, Mireya felt no wiser about him than the next person.

Dante crossed his arms over his chest as he dropped his gaze to the flames. His shoulders sank slightly, but his face remained composed.

“Don’t give yourself too much credit,” Dante said. “You couldn’t quite finish the job.”

Mireya’s chest felt tight. She’d never checked for his death. She couldn’t bring herself to search for Dante’s pulse and not find it, so she’d fled the scene like the coward she was. But that didn’t make any of this less impossible.

“Oh, yeah?” Clarity sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth. “Replicate this.”

Mireya nearly leapt out of her skin when she heard the two gunshots fire from behind her— and nearly did so again when she watched Dante stagger, twin holes smoking in the spacesuit over his chest. He sputtered breathlessly, pressing a gloved hand to his ribs as he sank to his knees.

Clarity stepped out from behind Mireya, slowly lowering a small gun. She knew it to be artificed with Concealment, just like Cyrin’s dagger, but she’d never seen it used until this moment—she didn’t even know Clarity had it on her. The gasp from Dawn brought her back to her senses.

“No!” Mireya screamed, whirling frantically between Dante and Clarity. Sparks leapt off her fingers as she curled her hands into fists. “How could you? How fucking could you?”

“You said you killed him!” Clarity shouted, waving towards Dante’s slumped form. “I trusted you had a good reason— one being that he’s probably here to kill us!”

“You don’t know that!” Mireya screeched back. “If you killed him, then we’ll never know at all why he’s here!”

“I wasn’t taking that chance!” Clarity retorted.

Dawn pushed past the both of them to drop the flamethrower, drag Dante out of the flames’ way and kneel at his side, pulling down the zipper over his sternum and peeling aside the orange spacesuit layer to reveal red bloodstains spreading over a white undershirt. His eyes had slid shut. Shooting a fierce glare Clarity’s way, Mireya rushed over to join them.

“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Dawn said urgently.

“We need to maintain pressure.” Mireya reached to press down over the wound, her hands shaking. She could feel the frantic racing of Dante’s heart under his chest. “Do you know of any doctors at the party? Maybe if—”

“Stop,” Dante wheezed, weakly shoving at her hands as his eyes cracked open again. “Give me a moment.”

“The fuck do you mean, give me a moment?” Mireya snapped at him, applying more pressure in response. “Do you want some extra help bleeding out too?”

“I mean, give me a moment,” Dante hissed through clenched teeth. “It’ll kick in any moment now.”

What?

Mireya was about to make another impatient retort when she felt a strange warmth under her hands, like she’d held her palms up to direct sunlight. Dumbfounded, she slowly pulled her hands back, watching as the pair of gunshot wounds started to glow at the edges and seal up as if repaired by a healing spell. Within a few seconds, the bullets had been expelled from the wound, rolling harmlessly to the ground, and there was no trace of the injury except for the blood coating Dante’s skin, his shirt and spacesuit, and Mireya’s hands.

“What the…” Dawn muttered.

Mireya slowly lifted her gaze to Dante’s face, feeling her eyes start to tear up. Dante could do this, if he had a Salve spell to replicate. But no spell had been cast.

“How?” she choked out.

Dante took a strained breath as he opened his eyes, the last echo of pain leaving his face. He didn’t look her in the eye.

“It’s like I told you back then,” he said quietly. “I had to die. I just didn’t want to.”

Mireya’s jaw hung open as her thoughts failed to compute, wanting— no, needing— him to elaborate. But instead of explaining, Dante turned his head back to Clarity. Following his gaze, she saw that Clarity had leveled the gun at Dante again. Her hands weren’t shaking, but Mireya spotted an unfamiliar glint of fear in her eyes.

“Now that you’ve made your point,” Dante said, “will you have the decency to let me make mine, or do we need to do this again?”

The pale look on Clarity’s face suggested she didn’t think she’d managed to prove anything. After a moment, she bit her lip and lowered the gun.

“Much appreciated,” Dante said.

Mireya didn’t know what it was, but in that instant, she finally found the words for the confusion tormenting her skull.

“How did you just heal yourself?” The questions spilled out one after the other as she felt a tear trickle down her cheek. “Why didn’t you die? How are you here hundreds of years later? What reason did you have for attacking Clarity? What side are you on? How come you’ve been following us around? What’s with that battery? Why are you dressed like that?”

Dante’s gaze returned to Mireya, something pained briefly flashing over his face. For a moment, he seemed to move, and she swore he’d been about to hold her before he froze up again. Instead, he held up a hand to ask her to slow down.

“Mireya,” he said, and she didn’t know if she was imagining the softness she heard. “Still my favorite headache.”

“Just— please tell me.” She was losing sight of his face through the blur of the tears. “I don’t know who I’m talking to.”

Dante’s face seemed to fall for a moment before he steeled himself again, regaining his composure. With a sigh, he sat up more fully.

“You and I were being watched more closely than we realized after we left that rendezvous,” he started slowly. “Even followed, apparently. You left me there, and I was half-conscious for only a few minutes before someone found me and cast a spell to heal me.”

“Found? Found by who?” Mireya pressed.

“I’m getting there.” Dante pressed his lips together. He was being too calm right now, and she was silently screaming at him to feel this with her. Or at least show that he was, if it was all suppressed under this steady façade. “I didn’t think I’d be dying without you there. I was delirious, I was terrified— and I couldn’t shut down my instinct to survive. I wasn’t strong enough.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t decide to focus on that Salve spell and use my ability on it. My panic did that for me.”

Out of the corner of Mireya’s eye, she saw Dawn look at her in horror, no doubt connecting the dots as well.

“You… accidentally made a repeating healing spell on yourself,” Mireya breathed. “It’s made you regenerate whenever you’re hurt.”

“It’s kept me from physically aging as well. Maybe the spell thinks the symptoms of that are something to heal as well.” Dante closed his eyes briefly. “The Fading never stopped. Maybe it never can, if I can’t seem to die.”

Dread sank over Mireya. She’d known that day in the forest had all been for nothing. Now, it seemed even worse than that.

Dante looked her straight in the eyes. Below the regret she saw, there was a layer of solemn, grim acceptance that she didn’t like at all, but she didn’t know why. He was keeping himself in line, and seeing that from the lighthearted, relaxed man she used to know made her think that something was very, very wrong. She felt like she was about to find out what it was.

“You really should have killed me when you got the chance,” Dante said.