Chapter Twenty-Three Viola
Exhausting an aspier’s magic before they’ve had time to regenerate can destroy them.
Addendum: Does not apply to the Imortalis and their bonds, as long as they remain with the same Aspieri.
JOURNAL OF SILEAS RONIN, THE FIRST FOUNDER
twenty-three | viola
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1939
Little Lake Albion is still tonight. The stars bleed diamonds in the sky. Are the Gods wishing us luck or sealing our fate?
The crisp air should feel familiar, but right now, it cuts my breath into pieces. I pull Lyria’s jacket close. Every time the breeze brushes against my skin, I pretend it’s Olivia. We stand not far from where her body lay cold against the dark cobbles that horrific morning.
“Beau and I will be waiting by the side door, so it’s easier once you bring the bodies out.” Victor breaks the silence as he turns to Sylas. We went over the plan at least five times while we were driving here.
Sylas ignores him, sheathing another four daggers into his harness. It’s similar to the one he gave me, but where mine is a strong weave of Arkani-made fabric that should hopefully withstand a blade—or a claw—the material of his is hidden by at least a dozen daggers sheathed against his chest.
I take in every detail. How his black shirt hugs the muscles of his chest underneath, how his jaw could cut through glass, and how his eyes scrutinize every inch of our surroundings.
Both his aspiers are awake and ready to engage.
Out here, he’s not the Sylas I’ve come to know.
Something about him is different, deadlier.
“Once you regain your bodies, run to the car,” Sylas commands Beau and Victor. “Railesza won’t be able to heal all of you should you be injured.”
“Let’s get this done, so we can send the puppeteer to the ninth circle of the Underworld.” Beau catches my eye and grins. For a treacherous moment, I feel like I belong here, with them. That I am part of this family. And I want so badly for it to be true.
The funeral home is pitch-black, the curtains pulled and the lights off. Like I thought, no one’s here. This will be easy enough.
“It’s empty. Victor, Beau, let’s go straight to the cold room to get your bodies.” I take the lead.
“No,” Sylas replies, his voice menacingly low.
“No?” I question, whirling around.
He ignores me, giving directions to Beau instead. “Stand by the side door. The moment you come back to your body, get Viola and go straight to the car. If I’m not there soon after, drive away.”
“I can’t leave—”
“Drive away.” Sylas stresses each word, and Beau gives him a single nod.
I step in front of Sylas, and he barely spares me a glance. A momentary boldness takes over me, and my index finger digs into his chest. “No one’s in, Archyr. You’re wasting time and creating unnecessary commotion.”
His head lowers, and his eyes bore into mine. They tell me I crossed a line. Slowly, I lower my finger. His silence cuts through my temerity, and I move. But his hands lower to my waist, scrunching both sides of my jacket. He pulls me into him, and my hands brace against his chest.
“You do not deviate from what was agreed upon, understood?” he says between clenched teeth. A storm brews in his eyes. Instead of taking shelter, I run straight to the eye.
“Plans change,” I retort, flexing my fingers against his chest. My heart hammers against my own. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. But with him, that seems impossible.
“Corvi.” He leans closer, his whisper a poisonous caress on my skin. “As long as you wear my House crest in the field, you do not talk back to me.”
Right then and there, I unzip the jacket and shove it in his arms. Without a word, I get into my original position and tell myself once again that I’m doing all this for Olivia. For the first time, it feels like a lie.
The moment I press the door handle, the nape of my neck tingles with horror. The front door is never unlocked.
It’s funny, how the people in town have this old saying that your life flashes before your eyes before you die. Because my life unravels with every step I take into Dearly Departed. This place used to be my second home; now I hug the walls that once provided me peace to escape death.
My ears reach for a semblance of a ghost, but nothing comes back. Even my cuff is ice cold. After the memories comes the regret. I wish I had listened to Olivia and worn my cuff sooner. Maybe then I could have dabbled in thread magic enough to save my life.
The main room is empty; the dim light of the moon pouring through the tall windows let in just enough for me to catch my bearings. Nothing has changed since last week. I allow myself a sigh. I was right. No one is here. The back door is right down the hallway; I should let them in.
But then, I hear it. The quiet snicker that steals my brief moment of respite.
“Resilience is admirable.” I hear Mara’s voice, but I don’t see her.
I close my eyes, reaching for any semblance of color like I did in the catacombs, but I get nothing. She’s not a ghost.
“Murder isn’t.” I peel away from the wall and step toward the reception desk.
Only last week, I was scheduling funerals.
I close my eyes; now isn’t the time for nostalgia.
The longer I can keep Mara occupied with me, the more time Sylas has to get the bodies out.
If I make it out alive, I owe him a million apologies.
She scoffs. There’s a quick shuffle but still no sign of her.
“Why Olivia?” I throw into the nothingness, although I already know the answer.
“You’re a fool, Viola, if you think I don’t know why you’ve come.”
I remain silent. My presence has already sharpened the blade; I don’t need to hand her the hilt as well.
“You’re right.” She sighs at my silence. “Poor darling Olivia. So tragic.”
I bite my tongue. She’s baiting me, just like I am her. “Death kills a mage’s relic…” I whisper. “Why?”
Her laugh falters into pity. “Darling, when will you learn? You wear your heart on your sleeve for people who wouldn’t spare you a glance.”
A muted thud from the hallway toward the back room jerks my legs forward.
Sylas. He must have gotten the bodies out.
The cold room’s metal door clangs against the wall. “Where are they?” Mara’s voice bellows, but I still don’t see her. “Where are the bodies?” Her breath crawls down my neck, like a rabid animal, thirsting for prey.
I whip around, and there she is. My former friend, the only person in Albion who gave me a home when mine was broken. Her eyes flash sickly green, reminding me that my friend is long gone, replaced by this twisted shell. My heart stutters. She lunges.
I duck, but she scoops me by the waist and shoves me against a wall.
Before she moves again, two daggers lodge in Mara’s spine, and she roars, her features melting into something out of my nightmares. Her eyes are hollow, her nose gone, and her teeth are a serrated mess. She reeks of the sickly sharp stench of rot mixed with the copper tang of blood.
My eyes scan the back room, and Sylas crouches behind the kitchen table, a finger on his lips.
He gestures to Mara. Raiku holds her legs in place, his fangs in her bones.
She shakes him off like a pest, flinging the aspier against the nearest wall.
Her head snaps back to me, and I gag. She cages me into a corner, and my eyes dart around for a way out.
There is none, unless I push through her.
I refuse to die at the hands of my sister’s killer.
My magic is rooted in death. This is a funeral home with a cemetery in the back.
There must be ghosts somewhere. I focus on anything out of the ordinary, but nothing happens.
Gods, curse this forsaken magic. What is the use of this torture if it lets me die when I need it the most?
Mara collides with me, sending me flying to the floor with her on top of me. Pain blooms at the base of my neck. Right when I think she will strike me, she gently brushes one of her sharp claws from my temple to my jaw.
I hold my breath.
Gods, make it stop.
Up close, Mara looks like a grotesque piece of art at a gallery of horrors. She bares her serrated teeth, cocking her head. The claw is back again, this time going down the side of my neck. She takes her sweet time, like she’s enjoying this.
I wince, readying for the inevitable tear of skin, but nothing comes.
My eyes flip open to find Sylas pulling Mara off me, slicing a dagger across her dark bony throat. She twists his hand, and the dagger falls to the floor.
“Run,” Sylas yells. “Run now. Don’t come back.”
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I bolt across the room.
Stumbling out the back door, I catch my bearings on the railing, heart pounding in my throat. Victor’s translucent face unclenches every muscle when he sees me. Beau hurries past him.
“You have to help him.” My plea comes out as a raw scream. Sylas may be immortal, but Mara will find a way to torture him.
“Do you have what I asked?” Victor’s eyebrows pull together. Beau glances at him, bewildered by his question, but Victor will need his relic if he wants to help.
“Here.” I pull the silver laurel pendant out of my pocket. He and Beau asked if I could retrieve the spare relic from the Archyr safe right before we left. The pendant dangles at the end of a thin silver chain, occasionally catching the moonglow.
Behind the ghosts are the two metal stretchers holding their bodies.
They are as fresh as the last time I saw them, not a wrinkle, not a single hair out of place, and not decomposing yet—Beau’s venom must have been just enough.
I stuff the relic in Victor’s pocket, wishing on every star in the sky that stitching their bodies back is as simple as he explained on our way here.
“Are you certain about this?” Beau steps to my left.
My head bobs, but it’s a lie. I am no longer certain about anything other than Sylas won’t make it if they don’t help him, and they can’t help him as ghosts.
“Start by conjuring a single thread,” Victor instructs.
Conjure threads? What is he talking about. “Victor, I can’t learn magic in a minute. You said this was going to be simple.”
He sighs. “It is. I mean, it should be. Year Ones can do it during their first week.”
Wonderful. He’s telling me I’m incapable now. “I don’t know how to conjure threads.”
“In the catacombs, when you threaded the voices to the river,” he explains. “Same principle. Find the threads.”
“There are no voices, and there is no river.”
“Focus, Viola. All ghosts have threads.” He paces back and forth, huffing occasionally, as if it’s my fault he picked an untrained Mortemagi to do his bidding.
I can help. A sudden voice steals my breath. The light timbre of her tone reminds me of the woman from the catacombs, its texture soft and weightless. I won’t harm you, she croons.
It is the ghost from Death Spire.
“Bloody saints,” I mutter, closing my eyes and bracing myself for the floodgate of voices to open, but it doesn’t. It’s only hers.
“How?” I ask. “I can’t see the threads.”
Well, your eyes are closed.
Hilarious. I open my eyes, looking at Beau and Victor. There, I see them, the red and purple and silver threads. “I see them.”
Good. Weave them with the bodies, but be wary: nothing comes for free.
I already know this will deplete my cuff’s magic. Victor told me, and I agreed. After this, I will have no use for the cuff anyway. At least now, Nan’s magic is bringing two people back to their families. It’s what I know she would’ve done.
“I don’t know how,” I say.
“Viola.” Beau gasps. “You’ve anchored to a ghost, haven’t you.”
My glare pins his mouth shut. I don’t want to hear about what I should and shouldn’t be doing. They threw me into the cave of death without a guide and expected me to come out its master.
May I?
“What will you do?”
Take over your body.
How kind of her to ask if she can possess me. “No.”
A window breaks and my head jerks toward the funeral home. If Beau and Victor don’t help Sylas, who knows what Mara will inflict upon him? He may be immortal, but I wouldn’t wish the coldness of her sharp claws upon my worst enemy.
“Do it.” I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for what’s to come. But instead, she laments, All these centuries, and our downfall is still our heart. I don’t know what she means, but I need her to be less introspective and more active.
My ears ring. Victor’s talking, but I hear nothing. I see Victor’s broken smile and Beau’s worried eyes, and I pray to the God of Death this isn’t the last time I’m seeing them.
It happens in a blur. My eyes open again, and now Beau’s and Victor’s ghosts are gone. The bodies are still here, unmoving, still cold, and still very dead.
“You call this helping?” I yell at the ghost.
Leaning over Beau’s chest, I listen for a heartbeat. One second, nothing. Two seconds, still nothing. Three seconds, my body warms, and my harness dampens. Frowning, I pull away, running my hand over my abdomen.
It comes away with red, sticky liquid.
My own blood.