Bid My Soul Farewell Read online

  ALSO BY BETH REVIS

  Give the Dark My Love

  Star Wars: Rebel Rising

  A World Without You

  Shades of Earth

  A Million Suns

  Across the Universe

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  Penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in the United States of America by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Beth Revis

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  RAZORBILL & colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Revis, Beth, author.

  Title: Bid my soul farewell / Beth Revis.

  Description: [New York] : Razorbill, 2019. | Series: Give the dark my love ; book 2

  Audience: Ages 12 up. | Audience: Grades 7 up.

  Summary: Told in two voices, Grey hopes to revitalize plague-ravaged Lunar Island, but knows that his alliance with the emperor threatens his love for necromancer Nedra, who wants to keep her revenant sister with her even as she tries to free the souls of the dead.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019023069 | ISBN 9781595147196 (hardcover)

  ISBN 9781101627860 (epub)

  Subjects: CYAC: Alchemy—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Soul—Fiction. | Good and evil—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.R3284 Bi 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023069

  Ebook ISBN 9781101627860

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  To Corwin,

  who always knows how to

  fix my broken heart.

  Dei gratia.

  CONTENTS

  Also by Beth Revis

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”

  —Thomas Paine

  ONE

  Nedra

  THE GOVERNOR’S CASTLE rose into the dark at the top of Northface Harbor. All the streets in the city converged there, at the base of the imposing mansion.

  The road was empty. Except for me and my dead.

  My revenants walked beside me, an army of corpses. They bore wounds that I would have to heal with alchemy. Dead flesh could not knit back together on its own. Blood splattered their faces—the black blood was theirs, the red blood was from those who opposed us.

  None of it was Governor Adelaide’s. Her blood was on my hands alone.

  I bowed my head, my teeth clenched as I strode down the cobblestone road. Grey was somewhere behind me, still at the castle. He had thought—I flinched, even though he wasn’t there to see—he had thought that killing Adelaide would be the end. That stopping the plague would be enough.

  I reached blindly to my right, feeling for my sister, gripping her left wrist to make sure that she was still by my side. Her skin was cold and clammy, no life pulsing in her veins.

  None of this could end until she was whole and alive again.

  The road evened out, and I almost stumbled on the curb. I looked up—and there, past my sister, were the iron gates of the Yūgen Alchemical Academy. I could see through the moonless night the dark outlines of the buildings I had lived among for a year—the library where I had researched, the dormitory where I had slept. The administration building. I had danced along the rooftop beneath the clock tower with Grey, before everything had changed. I had worked in the basement with Master Ostrum. I had gone deep into the earth at the very foundation of that building, and pulled from the shadows the severed, bony hand that formed the foundation of my iron crucible.

  I turned sharply toward the gates that protected the school. My revenants sensed my intentions, following me without needing any directions.

  The heavy gates were locked, just as they had been the first time I’d arrived at the academy. I want in, I thought, and every single one of my revenants heard my desire.

  My army of the undead had fought tirelessly for me tonight, helping me invade the governor’s castle and destroy the necromancer who’d caused the plague that had killed my family and thousands more. But the dead cannot tire. They worked as one, swarming and pushing against the iron bars. The gates were old, and the hinges ru
sted. With a groan and a clatter, the iron gates gave way, clattering to the brick walkway beneath them.

  I knew there were students at the academy, guards, teachers, and staff, but none dared approach as I and my undead army strode down the gravel pathway that cut right through the center of the school grounds. I wondered, though, if they watched from the darkened windows.

  I forced my shoulders down, my spine straight, my chin forward.

  Let them watch me. Let them fear me, if they must. I did not need their thanks for all I had done for them tonight.

  I had never had it before.

  The administration building wasn’t locked; everyone on campus felt safe behind the iron gates that kept the city out. I pushed open the door, my revenants streaming behind me as I made my way downstairs to Master Ostrum’s office.

  The last time I’d been here, Master Ostrum had just been arrested. As a descendant of the most infamous necromancer in history, Bennum Wellebourne, Master Ostrum was plagued by suspicion. He was never a necromancer, even though he’d secretly kept books on the fourth alchemy and a crucible cage made from Wellebourne’s own mummified hand. After he was taken, I’d snuck into Master Ostrum’s office, stolen the crucible cage, and left, expecting never to return.

  His office was boarded up now, two wooden planks forming an X over the door, nailed into the frame. The broken glass window in the door had not been repaired; jagged edges poked up like teeth in a gaping maw all around the frame.

  Let me in, I thought, and my revenants surged forward, using their primal strength to rip the boards down and then step back, allowing me entry.

  The room was dark. In the basement of the administration building, there were no windows to the outside. But even with the dim light from the hallway, I could tell that there was nothing left for me here.

  I tried to swallow down my bitter disappointment. A part of me had hoped that there would be something else here in this room. I was so used to Master Ostrum providing me with the answers I needed. But the books on the shelves were all gone. The desk and chair were empty. There was ash and broken glass and splinters on the floor, debris from Master Ostrum’s arrest.

  My sister’s empty body moved closer to me, hearing my unspoken call for her comfort. Of all my revenants, she was the one most covered in gore. She had fought the hardest. I rested my forehead against hers and wondered if some of the blood that flaked onto me was Master Ostrum’s.

  Governor Adelaide had had him arrested under suspicion of necromancy, but she had known he was innocent. His execution was a way to get to me. His dead body had been raised and forced to fight me in an attempt by Adelaide to take my crucible. I touched the iron bead at my neck again. While most other crucibles were large, souls did not take up much space. My necromancy crucible was a hollow sphere I could barely squeeze a fingertip into. Size had nothing to do with power, though. I had defeated Adelaide. But doing so meant that Master Ostrum had returned to death fully.

  He was gone.

  I looked around the empty room.

  And so was my last hope of finding something here that could restore my sister’s soul.

  The events of the night were catching up with me, a tide rolling in, drowning the false hope I’d fabricated.

  I started to leave, my feet crunching the broken glass. But a piece of cloth, dark blue and almost invisible in the shadows, caught my eye. I bent down to examine it.

  Master Ostrum’s coat.

  I held the cloth close to me. I could almost still smell his cologne, bergamot oil musty against the wool. My hand gripped the material, my knuckles shaking. It wasn’t fair. He had been a hard man, but a good one. He had wanted to help others. He had wanted to help me.

  And he’d been killed for it.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. Master Ostrum had been nothing like my father, but the place that ached inside me was close to the same hollow spot where Papa’s love had been. The injustice of his senseless murder reminded me too much of the injustice of the plague itself. Governor Adelaide had been so eager and willing to slaughter anyone, seeing them only as potential puppets in an undead army she could use to overthrow the Emperor.

  I looked down at my hand, clenching the blue cloth. Earlier tonight, that hand had been wrapped around a sword. It had pushed the blade through the governor’s heart.

  No. I had done that.

  I had watched her die.

  I had wanted her to die.

  My chin tilted up. Should I feel regret? I thought dully.

  I didn’t.

  Cursing, I tossed Master Ostrum’s coat to the ground.

  It thunked.

  I crouched to the floor, rifling through the pockets. There was some spare change, a handkerchief, and inside the front inner pocket was a small book. My heart thudded—I recognized the slender volume.

  On my very first day at Northface Harbor, I had shown this little book to Master Ostrum. I snorted bitterly at my memory of the day. I’d been so proud of the journal, the handwritten text by my great-grandmother that listed the herbs and common treatments for illnesses in the north. Master Ostrum had graciously considered it “homeopathic,” but I knew now that most of the things my great-grandmother had listed had been weak compared to modern medicinal alchemy. I flipped through the pages.

  This journal had first sparked my love and interest in medicinal alchemy, and that spark turned into a flame as the Wasting Death spread throughout the north. It had led me here, to Yūgen, to Master Ostrum, to Grey. And then it had led me back home. I’d returned to my village as a medical student with a golden crucible used to help heal the sick, but I left it a necromancer with an iron bead around my neck.

  A flash of deep black caught my eye. I flipped back to the page—fresh ink stained the margin. Master Ostrum’s handwriting.

  I sucked in a breath.

  I held the book up to the open doorway, using the dim light from the hall to read. Passages were underlined; notes littered the margins, especially near the end, where my great-grandmother had interviewed people who had lived through Bennum Wellebourne’s revolt.

  Master Ostrum’s single-minded focus had been to find a cure for the Wasting Death, and he had known early on that it was necromantic in origin. I had to assume he saw something in this journal that hinted about the cause or the solution to the plague, or other signs of necromancy at work.

  I gripped the book and stood up. Maybe I would still be able to find the answers I needed.

  “Let’s go home,” I said aloud to my revenants. They followed me as I left the office behind, as I strode past the iron lump of Wellebourne’s statue, through the gates, and back into the city.

  This was not home.

  It would never be home again.

  TWO

  Grey

  I BENT DOWN, ignoring the way my muscles burned with exertion. My body wanted to shut down, but my mind feared the silence sleep would bring. I kept my gaze focused on the soldier’s chest, the shiny brass buttons, the crisp lines of the wool coat, as I slipped my hands under his shoulders and heaved his body up. I stared at the starched collar, not the lolling head. I focused on the tangled gilded threads of his epaulette, not the sword embedded in his flesh.

  I dragged the soldier’s body down the hall, dark crimson smearing a trail on the white marble.

  When I had arrived at the castle with Nedra and her army, I had been horrified at the way her revenants attacked. But if I was honest, I’d also been in awe of how efficiently they cut a swath through the highly trained Emperor’s Guard.

  What I hadn’t thought about was how heavy the corpses would be when we cleared them from the hall.

  The human body was not designed to be moved after death. It was awkward and unevenly weighted. When death felled a man, the earth should swallow him.

  Bile rose in my throat.

  When death felled a man, he sh
ould not stand again.

  “This the last of them?” a small man with wire-rimmed glasses asked me. He held a clipboard, and I wondered if he intended to take a census of the dead.

  “As far as I know,” I replied. Servants in black coats with green trim moved wearily, carting the bodies of the fallen from the halls and toward a wagon outside, where they could be transported to the pauper’s grave in the clear-cut forest at the center of the island.

  The man nodded. “Just the tower, then.” He looked around, squinting. It wasn’t until his eyes landed on me that I realized he had been looking for volunteers. The other servants were busy loading up the last of the soldiers.

  “I’m not a—” I started, but the man had already turned, leading me back into the castle. I sighed, the weight of exhaustion sinking in.

  I could walk away. But when I looked behind me, to the open door and the night sky beyond, all I could think was that she was out there. Nedra. She had left through that door, and I did not want to follow her.

  So I followed the man.

  “Who are you, anyway?” he asked me as I fell into step behind him.

  “A student at Yūgen,” I answered, although I wasn’t sure that was true anymore. I had still been arrested, even if it had been by a corrupt, traitorous governor. I wondered if saving the Emperor would have any kind of bearing on my status.

  “Linden’s boy,” the man said after looking me up and down. We mounted the stairs leading to the old tower.

  “Yeah.” My father was high on the council, much more accustomed to walking the halls of the palace than I was.

  The man made a derisive snorting sound that seemed utterly incongruous with his short, mousy stature. “I’m Hamish Hamlayton,” he said, pausing in front of the iron doors that had been locked earlier, trapping the Emperor behind them. “City planning.”

  “Grey—gori,” I said awkwardly, then repeated my name more clearly. “Greggori. Astor.”

  “Yes,” Hamish said, but his attention was elsewhere. His rounded shoulders hunched a little, reminding me of the rats we kept caged at Yūgen for alchemical experiments, the ones that stood on their hind legs and sniffed the air, their lips curling over their fangs.