YOU CAN'T HEAL HIM

His own dead, empty eyes stared back at him.

Marvel didn't know what to feel. He settled on numb shock. A thick wall rose between him and the wave of horror and fear threatening to crush him the longer he looked at his own corpse.

He was dead. After everything he'd gone through, he'd still ended up dying. He wondered, when the little barrier separating him from what he should feel inevitably tumbled down, if he would go mad.

Probably. He blinked at his body's unseeing eyes that faced the sky above. I'm dead. I'm actually dead.

"What happens now?" he asked.

The girl moved to stand beside him. She didn't appear to be affected by Aisling's display of grief. "Come with me." At Marvel's puzzled glance, she said, "I know you're confused and have questions. I'll answer them if you just come with me. You want to see your athar, don't you?"

"And if I don't?"

The girl said nothing. Beside her, the hellish hound began to growl.

Right.

Marvel swallowed. It seemed the girl was the only person he could talk to anyway, and without arrays or athar or a centre, he was completely helpless. He needed to figure out a plan, and for that, he needed information. His best option was to follow the girl and the hound and hope they weren't dragging him to—to a hell or something.

Once more, he glanced back at Aisling. Her face was covered in tears, pain in every single line of it. Grimm Boll had managed to get close enough to her, trying to separate her from Marvel's body.

His body. Which he wasn't in. Because he was dead.

Squaring his shoulders against the sudden chill that passed through him, he faced the girl and her monstrous hound. "Lead the way."

…

Aisling couldn't take her eyes off him, even though each second she stared at Marvel—at the body threatened to unravel her sanity. She could feel something inside her coming apart, loosening with every spell she tried and failed.

She was exhausted. Her arrays complained under the strain of the heavy spells she worked. She didn't care; there were so many more spells to try. A hundred more spells. She refused to accept that she couldn't do anything.

To accept that was to lose something as dear to her as her own life.

Somehow Marvel could be saved. She knew it. She just had to keep trying.

"Aisling."

Aisling flinched at the sound, jerked her head around to look at Grimm. She had forgotten he was there, forgotten they were in his workshop. The information was slipping from her already. All she could focus on was the body on the worktable in front of her, the glow of the firelight making Marvel look like he had merely closed his eyes and gone to sleep.

Shaking herself, she summoned athar into her hands, mouthing the incantation for a spell of revival. The magic fizzled out the moment it touched Marvel's body. She refused to admit the reason why. Instead, she tried again, over and over.

She swayed on her feet after her fifth attempt at the spirit-catching spell.

"Aisling." Grimm's voice was so gentle she couldn't bear it. "You need to stop. You'll exhaust yourself."

She narrowed her eyes. "I have a few more spells to try—"

"Which won't work," he said. "You know they won't work." He took in a shaky breath. "Healing spells can't work on someone who's already dead."

A cold silence frosted the room. The heat from the giant furnace at the centre of the room disappeared.

"Are you a Healer, Enchanter?" Aisling asked, aware that her words were knives and relishing it. "Are you a mage?"

Grimm Boll's face crumpled with hurt.

She snapped, "Then, stop talking about things you don't understand before I take your tongue from you."

She didn't spare a glance for his reaction, returning to another attempt at a soul-linking spell.

This was all her fault. If only she weren't a damn apprentice. A good number of her peers in the Novice Class were already Adepts; they could probably have healed Marvel, no problem. She couldn't do anything to help him at her level.

It was no wonder Master Haddon had laughed in her face when she told him she was considering Ascendancy.

Giving a cry of frustration, she reached for a spell beyond her level anyway. She knew how it worked. She had the energy it required. There was no reason it shouldn't work for her just because it was a Journeyman spell.

The athar formed over her hands, rushing up from her arrays that felt like they were being lit on fire. She gritted her teeth against the pain and pressed the large ball of energy to Marvel's chest.

As soon as it touched his body, the spell fell apart.

She gave a cry, grabbing the edge of the table.

Marvel's face looked peaceful; the dark curls of his hair were in chaos, his mouth half open, a tiny spot of blood beside his mouth. If his body hadn't been covered in a dozen snake bites, she would have believed he was only sleeping.

Wake up, she begged him. Please, wake up.

Spots dropped into the edges of her vision. The room tilted slightly. Or was that her?

She didn't even realise she was plummeting to the floor until her fall was stopped by strong arms. Grimm's face filled with concern as he held her up.

"Are you insane?" he hissed. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Aisling tried to fight his grip, but her arms were too heavy, her body drained of energy. She let him guide her to a wooden chair. He cleared away a pile of tools she couldn't identify so she could sit.

Then he walked off.

Too tired to try getting up again, Aisling considered her hands. They were covered in her best friend's blood, speckled with old scars and burns from potion-making. They were completely useless.

Grimm returned with a metal cup filled with pink liquid. She could smell a hint of mint in it—rejuv potion, brewed by her. "Here. Drink."

She smacked it away. The cup clattered on the wooden floor, the potion spreading over the boards.

Grimm sighed. "I'm just trying to help you."

"I need to figure out a way to heal him." Her voice was scratchy even to her own ears. "If you want to help, you could figure out a way to wake him up." She grabbed the front of his apron. "Don't you have something that can help? Anything with healing qualities?"

His eyes were sad as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "You can't heal him."