Chapter Nineteen Viola
Conduit (n)—Mortemagi whose cuff hypnotizes ghosts so they can lead them to the Underiver.
Conduits are banned from the catacombs.
They run the risk of death should they breach the rules.
Addendum: Too many ghosts flocking to a conduit’s cuff overloads them with magic, which in turn causes their heart to fail. A good reminder that everything should be consumed in moderation, even magic—especially magic.
YSENIA FARO, THE CATACOMBS: VOLUME I
nineteen | viola
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1939
I stand on a slope that leads down to the entrance of a tunnel of darkness. The musty, sickly scent of decay throws me off. I thought I knew what death smelled like, but this is far worse.
Behind me, Lyria gags, slapping a hand over her mouth. I don’t blame her. It’s nauseating. I turn around, and Archyr stands a step behind, his brows furrowed as he stares at his sister. She looks like she’s about to be sick.
“You should go back,” Archyr tells her.
“No,” she says with a scowl, then gulps nervously. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Lyr,” Archyr says. “Victor won’t lead Viola to her death because he needs her, and I have Raiek.” He runs his hand over the Imortalis around his neck. “If something were to happen to you… please, Lyria. You’re all I have left.”
Lyria’s chin wobbles. “You can’t do this, Sy. You can’t use my words against me.”
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” Archyr wraps his arm around her, and she leans into him. My stomach twists into knots. In Lyria, I see my sister. In a twisted way, the Gods are giving me a second chance to spare someone the same fate as Olivia’s.
“You need me,” Lyria tries one more time. “You don’t have a clue about death magic. What if she—”
“Nothing will happen to her.” He glances at me, then back at Lyria.
The conviction behind his words fills me with dread.
He can’t look at me like that—like maybe I’m not just a tool to him.
Not when we’re about to step into the kingdom of wandering ghosts, where death magic is the only one that reigns, and my only weapon is my mind.
“I’ll be fine,” I promise her, snapping out of my wishful thinking. Archyr needs me to speak to Victor. Nothing more.
“All right.” Lyria finally relents. Right before leaving, she turns to me. “If anything happens, anchor yourself to Sylas’s voice. Nothing else.”
Then she is gone.
“Ready?” Archyr asks.
I’m as ready as a bird who’s not yet learned to fly.
Every step we take down the slope slaps us with sharp, frosty air.
Archyr mutters a curse, tugging his coat at his neck.
Before we enter the tunnel, he glances at me again.
I hate that he keeps giving me so many outs.
Because I want to turn around, to run back to the safety of my mundane life in Albion, back to when all I had to worry about was my mother’s temper and my escape to Osneau.
But Olivia, Beau, and Victor deserve justice, and my temporary discomfort is a small price to pay.
The silence of the tunnels makes me question my resolve.
The same Arkani-powered lights from the stairwell glow faintly against the stone; it doesn’t help because down here the darkness commands our every move.
My eyes take a moment to adjust to the drop in visibility.
The floor is a blur of black; it’s impossible to tell where we’re walking.
We use the candles and our hands on the damp limestone as a guide until we reach a split in the tunnels. “We’re not splitting up,” Archyr says before I’m able to suggest anything—splitting up is an absurd idea.
He doesn’t protest when I turn left. The tunnels get narrower from here, the acrid smell more pronounced, and…
bones. Bones protrude from the walls. We’re in an endless maze of skeletons, heading straight to the depths of the Underworld.
Bones can’t hurt you, I repeat like a mantra as I find my footing on the slippery stone.
I would choose falling over touching bones.
The blisters blooming on my heels tell me we’ve been walking for a while. We’re getting nowhere, and Victor’s ghost chose now of all times to take a vow of silence. He could have thrown a pebble, flickered a light, scared a rat in the proper direction. Anything to help guide us.
“I have to wear the cuff,” I whisper. “We’re going to die in here if we keep wandering down random tunnels.”
“No.” Archyr brushes past my shoulder. “Don’t you feel the magic down here?”
I don’t.
But I know this will change the moment my cuff clips around my arm.
The magic Archyr speaks of is ancient. I remember reading in one of Nan’s books that it draws on the essence of the ghosts refusing to cross the Underiver, feeding it to the cuffs.
The real danger of the catacombs is that it feeds so much magic to our relics that it makes it near impossible to control.
“Viola,” Archyr warns.
He doesn’t understand. Without my cuff, there is no magic, no danger, and no answers. I cannot back out now. With that, I clasp the cuff around my arm.
The floodgates open to a cacophony, even louder than in the stairwell.
Piercing screams, cries of terror, and wails of sadness muddle the thousands of words being thrown at me.
My head will explode. Suddenly, I wish I had listened to Archyr, and I immediately reach for my cuff.
My hands are right there, inches away from unclasping it, when the voices shove me out.
My fingers won’t move.
“Viola.” I hear Archyr say my name, but it sounds like it’s coming from a great distance. “Anchor.”
To what? I want to scream. The sharp sting of death takes over my senses.
Like hungry wraiths, the voices flood in, eclipsing my every thought.
Lyria told me to find a river, but there’s none.
Only a blur of red, blue, and silver threads.
More cries drown out Archyr’s instructions, shattering my insides.
This is worse than death; this is eternal damnation.
The voices get louder, the screams more harrowing, each one threatening to split my head in five. I try to cling to one, but they are all woven together.
I am an intruder in my own mind. The voices are all over the place— blue, red, and silver in every corner. I focus, try to compartmentalize. Maybe if I can put them in boxes… but there are too many.
An anchor. I need an anchor; human or ghost, I don’t care. I want the pain to stop.
In the narrowest corner of my mind, I am lured by the soothing voice of a girl who doesn’t sound much older than I, singing the story of her death. The climb is too high, my end is nigh. To my death I plummet, at the hands of my lover, the prophet. The tide, merciless, finally lays me to rest.
Did she fall from Death Spire at the House of Death? That place is sectioned off with guards behind the doors. Lorne said the place is so sinister that even looking in its direction is a bad omen.
Was she a student? Why did she die? I open my mouth to ask her, and tape it shut just as fast. The texture of her voice, melodious and soothing, still has the translucent echo that I should be terrified of.
But something about this ghost feels different.
While the others screamed at me, she brings me peace.
Maybe if I don’t talk to her, she won’t follow me out.
Her story sits with me long enough that my brain quiets.
“Viola, please, fight it.” Archyr’s urgent voice is back. He says something else, but the moment I try to focus, the angry ghosts drown him out, slowly dragging me back into the cave of insanity. I can’t go back there; I can’t be lost forever. But it seems impossible to resist.
Fight it, a distant voice says. I no longer know who is speaking, whether it’s an echo of Archyr or the textured whisper of the girl.
An explosion of colors mars my vision, and with it comes the barrage of demands.
I steady my breathing. Lean on the magic, a distorted voice says.
I close my eyes, thinking of the soft song of the girl from Death Spire.
When I open my eyes again, a river of green is ahead, faint and narrow. The voices are weak now; I hear birds and the soft ripples of water gliding on rocks. It even smells like the forest at dawn.
I reach for the nearest blue thread, twirling it around my fingers, mesmerized by the light shimmer. In my heart, I know this thread belongs to a Mortemagi who once was. Were they happy? Did they leave a family behind? I find myself hoping their end wasn’t agonizing. Then I remember where I am.
The blue thread flows into the river with ease, ebbing and flowing with the smooth current. This must be what Lyria meant when she said to lead them into the river. One by one, I lead the threads into the water until I see a path ahead. The more I feed to the river, the clearer I see.
Soon, the soft forest scent is gone, replaced by the putrid smell of the catacombs. There are no birds, no water, only stones and bones.
I did it. I broke through ghost paralysis.
After some time, I snap back to reality.
Archyr’s hands cup my face. His eyes brim with panic as he searches mine for any sign of life.
His brows furrow, and he swallows. For a foolish second, I let myself believe that he is scared for me, and not because he’s scared to lose the only lead to his brother’s killer.
“Do you know of a girl who fell to her death from Death Spire?” I ask without preamble.
“Did you anchor to a ghost?” he asks at the same time, drowning out my question.
“No.” I shake my head. At least I hope not. I didn’t speak to any ghosts. What’s most important is that I broke out of ghost paralysis. “No,” I whisper, with hesitation this time.
Archyr studies my face for a moment, then pulls away, giving me his back. He flexes his hands, shaking his head, as if he’s trying to shake me out. I realize I want him to turn around and look at me again. And I hate it.