Present
It was an interesting sensation. That's what Holland found himself thinking as he knelt on the ground, making sounds not unlike a dying animal, his hand clenched in the loose, damp soil of the palace gardens. An interesting sensation.
He'd heard fairy tales of this sickness taking hold of natives of Red London—people who'd grown up in a world saturated with magic, breathing it in and out of their bodies without thought from the first moment out of the womb. The stories always dealt with fair young women, the waists of their dresses clinched tight around sickly-thin bodies, coughing delicately into silk handkerchiefs. Blood speckling the white cloth like a gentle spray of freckles, flowers with creamy petals curiously dry of blood or saliva. The gasps and comforting murmurs that accompanied the first leaf, which indicated two more weeks to live. Those stories suggested there'd be a sort of elegance to Heart-Sickness.
A kind of beautiful, attractive suffering.
Holland retched again, feeling the raw scrape of his throat. He tasted blood and wasn't sure whether it was coming up his throat from somewhere in his lungs or if it was from the wreck that was his throat itself. It felt as if the vines of roses were clawing their way up his throat with brutal determination. When he swallowed, he thought he could feel the thorns digging into his flesh, lodging themselves somewhere around his Adam's apple.
This was certainly no attractive suffering.
Every morning, Holland had checked the progression of his illness with a morbid curiosity: his already pale skin had grown sallow. The bags under his eyes had darkened. His thin frame grew thinner.
White was the only color that looked even close to acceptable on him. It was a good thing, then, that he'd always worn it.
The rose rested peacefully on the ground before him innocently, flawlessly, not a single petal bent. Blood-red like an accusation of Holland's guilt. Guilty, guilty. Looking at them made Holland's hands shake. Harnessing a breath of the magic that filled Red London to the brim, Holland circled the air above the red blossom with his finger.
It released the sickly-sweet odor of old flowers, it shriveled, it turned black, it bent and curled and gently disintegrated into soil, indistinguishable from the ground Holland knelt on.
Dully, he imagined what it would feel like to dissolve into nothingness in the same way. He nearly had.
Past
The world of White London is as barren as Holland remembers it to be, the air crisp and empty. It feels both hollow and familiar. He can't help taking in a sharp breath as he enters, dropping Kell's arm and feeling coldness where their bodies had been touching a moment before.
He stands there, a gentle wind rustling the grove of trees Kell has deposited them in, feeling the air play across his skin. He is consciously exhausted without moving, tediously aware of his boots on the hard-packed dirt, the straightness of his knees and how he's squaring his shoulders. Aware of the effort it takes just to stay upright, and to not let Kell see how weary he is.
He's tired. He's so tired.
Is Kell going to leave?
Holland doesn't have the capacity to harbor dislike for the other Antari anymore—holding grudges suddenly seems unfathomable and petty—but he hopes Kell will leave soon.
He can feel Kell's eyes on his back. He starts counting in his mind, one, two, three, four…
And then footsteps, the soft grind of hard soles against hard dirt., a little fainter with each step. He starts counting those, too: three, four, five—
"As Tascen."
Silence.
Holland feels it leave him at once: the pretense of togetherness, the last reserves of his energy. The lie he's clung to this whole time, since the moment he closed his fingers around the Inheritor: that he can go on.
He leans against the nearest tree, nearly falling. The rough bark catches against the back of his coat, making unpleasant scratchy sounds against the fabric; thin clouds of pale dust rise where he sits and where he lets his hands fall at his sides.
It dawns on him, as he looks up at the nearly-colorless sky, that he is not getting up. This empty grove of trees in White London, viewed from the base of this thin, dying tree, will be the last thing he will ever see. The thought is not a morbid one, or even a bitter one. It seems to be the correct ending for Holland Vosijk: empty, but peaceful. Even beautiful in its simplicity, elegant in its minimalism. He looks up at White London's sky, his vision crisscrossed by thin, pale branches. The trees have maybe a handful of leaves clinging to them all together, and as he watches, a gust of wind shakes a single leaf loose.
It flutters to the ground. It lands at his feet.
No, he decides, no, it's not a bad way to end things at all.
And, like the leaf, he lets go.
He can feel magic leaving him, like pieces of his soul, as he breathes out. He can feel it hang in the air around him, White London snatching it up and drinking it down its parched throat greedily. He lifts his hands and places them, still dusty, in his lap as he feeds White London.
Holland has loved White London, consciously and unconsciously, all of his life. He has served White London the way a servant serves a master. He has imagined a future in it, the way a lover treasures possibilities. He has had dreams for White London the way a mother has dreams for her child.
He could not imagine a more fitting death: letting White London drink him dry.
"Holland."
Holland considers turning toward the voice, but he has no need to. He knows Kell's voice by now: clear, a thimbleful of friction, moderately deep but not as deep as Holland's own. He knows the way Kell's words carry the weight of purpose. Holland waits for Kell to say more; Kell is always saying things that sound like conversation but are objectives dressed up. Holland can picture Kell now: shockingly red hair out of place in the sparse color palette of White London, his handy coat fitting perfectly around his shoulders, his brows furrowed with displeasure over his arresting eyes: one blue, one black. He makes Holland's world spin dizzyingly.
Footsteps.
"Holland, what…"
Kell's voice is coming from in front of him now. Holland's eyes must've closed; he can't see Kell. He can't see anything.
There's a sharp intake of breath.
"Holland, what are you doing." There it is, the way Kell speaks objectives. He doesn't mean, Holland, what are you doing? He means, Stop.
"Kell." Holland is distantly surprised with how much effort it takes to open his mouth and put his vocal chords to use. He ends up whispering half of Kell's name, his voice cracking with disuse. He doesn't bother saying anything else; Kell is an Antari; he can see what Holland is doing perfectly.
"What are you doing, Holland." There's more heat in Kell's voice this time. This time, he once again doesn't mean, What are you doing, Holland? He means, I have things to do. Stop being ridiculous.
Holland drags in another breath. If he was a full cup of magic, White London has drunk approximately half of him. "Can you feel it," he rasps. "The world…" He doesn't finish the sentence. He feels as if he's falling through the cracks of reality, slowly fading into translucency.
A pause. "Yes." Kell's voice has gotten lower. Physically lower—he is probably kneeling in front of Holland now. "Yes, I can feel it."
Holland smiles. "White London." It feels like the name of a lover on his tongue. "It's alive."
Hands press against Holland's own, folding Holland's fingers closed. Holland must be very cold, because Kell feels extraordinarily warm.
And then he realizes magic is flowing into him, an endless tide, crashing over him, so much he feels he could drown.
"You can be too," says Kell.
Alive? Holland wants to ask. The relief that has slowly sunk into him, through his muscles and into his bones suddenly freezes in his veins.
Do I want to be?