Chapter 31
The Horror and the Breaking
‘Y ou …’ I snarl, fumbling for the wooden stake, cursing myself for not being more alert.
But it’s gone from its holder at my thigh, I must have dropped it fighting Fion.
Shit. I search for a hint of magic, pearlescence, or a glimmer, even a glint of the illusion or masquier wielder this could be …
I find no trace. Not a hint of glitter, nothing to suggest this monster isn’t real.
Which means this might not be part of the final Ordeal. Fuck.
His hair is blonde, so blonde it’s almost white, eyes a pale blue, features sharp and angular, with that greyish tinge that the boy and the woman both had.
He’s just taller than me and thin, clothes tailored, cut close to his frame, and he has an air of the aristocrat about him, a commanding sneer twisting his mouth.
He sniffs, eyes widening … then he begins to laugh in exuberant delight.
‘Oh, I’ve found you. My cousin was too greedy, reckless in the end. She couldn’t help herself. I see she marked you, but no matter. It’s just the two of us this time.’ He bounces on the balls of his feet, hands clasped behind his back. ‘How wonderful. I truly believe we will enjoy this.’
I flick my switchblade open and pin my gaze to his. Somehow, this monster has got in; another cold one has found me here. Could Fion have let him in like the last one? Is this another play by Alloway to destabilise Killmarth? Or worse, is this personal?
‘Your kind has been stalking me. Why?’ I narrow my gaze, assessing the hallway for escape routes and anything I can use as a weapon.
‘You are a feast. And we are hungry, so hungry.’
‘You’re a vampire. I mean, I’ve heard the stories, but they’re folklore.’
He chuckles, watching as I take another small step.
‘We are not the kind of vampires you whisper about to scare children. Don’t confuse us with those base creatures, driven by lust and thirst. We don’t just feed on any blood.
Not that coppery stuff chugging through just any human in these worlds.
It’s that gleam, that glitter that renews us …
In some worlds, you are witches. In this one, wielders.
’ He closes his eyes, as though in rapture, picturing it.
Then his eyes fly open.
‘You call it magic .’
And he lunges.
I slash, catching the scrape of skin and he curses me, digging his fingers into my shoulders.
Blood leaks from a cut across his cheekbone and he shoves me against the wall, my bones barking as I crash against it.
With one hand, he pins me like a thrashing bird, eyes never leaving mine.
And with horrific calm, he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes it over his face then looks at it.
His mouth becomes a thin, cruel line. ‘You owe me a few drops now, Sophia. A few drops more than I would have taken.’
I struggle against his hand pinning my chest to the wall, and I slash out again. But he catches my wrist, twisting, and I cry out, pain exploding up my arm as the blade drops from my fingers. Then before I can so much as flinch, his jaw bends to my outstretched wrist and he bites down. Hard.
My world narrows to the cut of his teeth, the clamp of his jaw as I hold back a cry of pain. And when he inhales, as though breathing in my blood, I scream. It’s so much worse than the last time. The agony, the excruciating rage of his thirst as he pulls the blood, the magic from my veins.
My vision tunnels, stars exploding, dizziness overwhelming me. It’s more than blood. It’s-it’s everything. My memories, my very self, and yes, my magic, the glints of it, the glimmering shape of it … everything …
‘Stop.’ I gasp, feeling myself, my very soul unravelling, drawn into his ravenous maw. ‘Please, just … stop .’
He releases his hold on my wrist, eyes drifting up to meet mine. Blood, my blood dribbles down his chin and nausea claws its way up my throat. ‘But you’re so delicious. I haven’t fed like this in oh … decades.’
I blink steadily, the hallway coming back into focus.
He’ll drain me until I am nothing but dust, until my soul is inhaled between those vicious lips …
and all memories of Dolly, of Killmarth, of Alden …
they will be gone. I will not only lose all of them, but they will also lose me.
Every piece of me. I will cease to exist. The horror of it, the sheer horror of what this monster is capable of, what he wants to take from me …
It’s terrifying.
Not just my body, my blood, but my soul.
This is what they are. I tremble, the sheer magnitude of it, of this death, the finality of there never being anything beyond, of the tiny scratch I have made on the surface of the earth being the brief summation of my entire existence … it’s unimaginable. Intolerable.
I am not a victim. Not today, not ever.
I refuse to lose control again.
‘I am not some feast . I am not here to be used and discarded.’
As my fingers tremble, I reach for the weapon I threaded in my belt loop and stab the shard of wood into his side.
It’s small, but sharp enough to make him crumple at the waist and I wrench myself away, stumbling back.
He turns, hate pinching his features, my blood smeared over his chin, and unleashes an unearthly shriek of pure rage, twisting his fingers into his side to remove the needle of wood.
In that split second, I grab for a chair and swing it at his pale, shitty face.
He shrieks again as it connects, the chair legs snapping off as the impact judders up my arms. I roll, reaching for one of them, coming up near the door, and find the chair leg in my hand is jagged where it snapped away.
‘You little bitch,’ he seethes, coming at me again. ‘Draining you will be a pleasure. It will be my—’
But I don’t let him finish. Gripping that makeshift stake in my fist, I use his own momentum against him, all that lethal force as I leap for him, holding that stake aloft, and drive it into his heart.
His eyes widen to shock as he blinks down at the wood impaling him.
His body tremors, turning grey, flaking off as he ages rapidly.
I watch in horror as this cold one, this vampire in a tailored suit, melts into nothing but bones, collapsing around the stake of wood still gripped in my outstretched fist. His bones fall to the floor, a clatter of death in the hallway of Alabaster House before they too turn to dust. All vampires die the same way, as it turns out.
With a gasp of shock and a skewered heart.
I pull in a long, steadying breath, looking down at what is left of this monster, and wipe the hair and sweat from my eyes.
The makeshift stake drops from my fist, clattering next to what remains of him, and I drag my gaze down to my wrist. An angry red welt where his jaw clamped down circles my skin and directly over a vein, two puncture marks, black with spidery lines flare outwards.
I screw up my face as I look at what’s left of him, wondering how much he took.
Magic and blood and the very essential pieces of myself, my memories, my secrets, my thoughts …
I back away, cradling my arm to my middle and shuffle over to my switchblade on the ground.
As I hold it in my fist, my fingers trembling around it, the entire hallway shifts.
I stumble on my feet, throwing a hand out to brace myself.
When I glance at the staircase, I find it’s disappearing.
Tremors run through my limbs, the bite on my wrist screaming in pain, stealing my focus as each stair is devoured, a strange cloud of nothing in its place.
I realise dimly, if I stay here, I will be devoured by that nothing.
Even as my chest aches, my entire body protesting, I leap over the ashen ruins of that monster, racing for the front door. But I hear a whisper, a voice calling me. And when I turn to the parlour door, there’s a woman standing there. A woman I would give anything not to be an illusion.
Dolly.
‘You’re not real,’ I say, even as my feet carry me to her. ‘You’re not real. You can’t be …’
She opens her arms wide and I want to rush into them so badly, to smell her smoky scent, for the skinny tumble of her bones to envelop me.
I release a choked sob, pressure building at my temples into a throbbing ache as I hover on the bottom step.
Maybe it’s from the illusion I’ve wielded, the cold one that tried to drain me, or being right on the edge of losing Tessa …
but my head thuds like a drum, and all I want right now is this.
This moment, with Dolly safe and well, hugging me the way she’s always done. But I can’t take those last few steps.
‘You’re not real,’ I say again. Oh, but I want her to be, desperately. Something inside me fractures all over again, wanting to cling to her, this woman I know I’ve already lost. That nothingness is pluming towards me, the hallway disappearing inch by inch. But I don’t want to leave. Not yet.
‘Oh, Sophia,’ she says sadly, lowering her arms. ‘Here, I can be. If you come with me, I can always be with you.’
Tears track down my cheeks, the irrepressible urge to give in, to go with her, almost too much.
All I want is to give in and carve out this space for us, to rest and feel unconditional love.
I want to bury my face in her shoulder, hear her husky voice, huffing a laugh.
‘I’m so tired, Dolly. Ever since that night it’s all changed, and I miss you.
I’ve been trying to avoid it, but every time I’m alone, all I think is what if … ’
‘What if we didn’t go to that house?’
‘Yes,’ I breathe, taking half a step closer to study her face. The laughter lines marking her skin, the kohl smudged around her eyes, the robe she would always wear around the shop … I sniff, wiping my eyes with a sleeve. ‘I want to keep fighting. I want to win. But I also just want you back.’
She smiles sadly, reaching out to pat my cheek.
The rasp of her fingertips feels so real.
So wonderfully real. ‘Then stay with me. We’ll talk and tidy the antiques like we used to.
Remember how we played cards? You loved playing cards with me.
We can sit down right here, play a game, forget all this—’
‘But …’
‘Yes?’ she says, her bright, serene smile, limned with …
light. With soft, glowing light. The soft gleam of magic.
Of illusion or a masquier’s wielding. Then she reaches inside her robe, drawing out a tiny bottle, no bigger than my thumb.
‘Drink this, my dear one. Drink this and take my hand. Walk with me, back to our life together.’
I look at it, this glass bottle, tiny and vicious, glinting a pale, milky blue. I know what it is. I know what this Ordeal offers. A way out, an escape route. A chance to give in.
Unconditional love, it’s my greatest desire.
It’s what I seek, over and over, the scraps of it only just staving off the knife edge of hunger.
Without Dolly, I was hollow, an unloved husk.
I would give anything, everything to keep that.
That shining pearl of love she gave me, that pale orb in the endless night of my childhood.
‘I will if you will,’ she says quietly and those words, her words are a clanging bell.
Those words are about strength, about continuing, about fighting on – not about giving up. She never, ever wanted me to give up.
I release a taut breath, and finally reach out, drawing my arms around her to hug her one last time.
I know this isn’t her. I know I’m stretching out a moment of borrowed time …
but I don’t want to let her go. Not again.
The ache builds in my chest, squeezing every breath and it feels like it did that night when we buried her.
Like a hole has formed in my centre, and however much I want to feel whole again, I never will.
‘I love you, Dolly. You were everything. Everything.’ Then I close my fingers over hers, around that small bottle of poison before drawing my arms around her.
‘But the real you wouldn’t want this for me. It’s not my time yet.’
‘I love you too. Stay—’ She gasps and the illusion cracks, shattering in my arms. And I know I’ve passed the second part of the final Ordeal.
I wipe tears away from my face as the bitterness of reliving that loss leaves me bereft all over again.
Then I stumble to the front door, just as the hallway is devoured.
I wrench the door open and step past the threshold just before Alabaster House disappears entirely.
I don’t notice the gleam of magic until it’s too late.
Pitching forwards, unable to twist and stop myself, I fall into a different reality, a different place entirely.
Granite flies up to meet me and I thud to the ground, bones barking in protest. I blink, telling myself to get up, to move.
Curling my knees under myself, I push up to stand and stumble slightly, finding my knees are cut and bloodied, my hands not much better. In fact, my entire body is a mass of bleeding cuts, and behind me, a mirror. An alchemist-made mirror.
There are many of them, all lined up, more hopefuls falling through.
More portals, like the one I just threw myself through.
I look around, finding a seated crowd gazing back.
Sitting on huge granite steps, carved into a cliff face, stretching up and up, a strange mist clinging to the air, damp and eerie, as though swirling with past ghosts.
And on the other side, the sea. Churning and grey under a sullen sky. A hundred sets of eyes watching, waiting. This has to be the arena Professor Grant mentioned. Now this is the third, the final and greatest test of my wielding.
Initiation.
I gaze at the space before me, the arc of smooth granite floor, the steps to my left, rising like a tide, cut into a cliff where the crowd sits, and the sea gushing over the rocks far below to my right. A show, then. The hopefuls’ final part of this Ordeal is to put on some kind of show.
‘You made it,’ Alden’s voice laden with relief says and I turn to him. I sag, exhaustion and dizziness consuming me. ‘Sophia, you’re hurt. How?’
‘A monster, a cold one found me.’ I show him my wrist, wincing as the pain pulses. ‘Fion probably let it in. It drained me, and I don’t know how much it took. I don’t know how much magic I have left.’
Alden’s face is a mask of horror as he cradles my arm, looking at the marks the monster left. ‘Fion? Oh gods. It’s happening again. It’s really happening.’
There’s a clap like thunder and we look to the crowd.
Sitting in the front row, flanked by the faculty is Professor Grant with Caroline Ivey beside her.
‘Welcome, hopefuls, to the arena. Congratulations on making it this far. This is your Initiation, the final test. Remember, only twenty of you will make it.’