Chapter Forty-Three Viola
Dear Viola, every day I have to lie to you, it kills me. I hope these letters find you one day so you can understand why I did what I did.
forty-three | viola
Lyria lies flat on her bed, her long black hair neatly splayed on her chest. She looks like she’s dead, but her chest rises and falls steadily, and Nyx checks on her every few minutes.
Beau and I take turns by her side, going through theories about Grimm and Delaney with her in the off chance that she can hear us.
Founder’s Room is empty without Lyria’s bright eyes, her excitement over the littlest things, and her optimism through our darkest days. Right now, we could use all of it.
“They won’t be able to come in here,” Beau reminds me for the twelfth time. “Founder’s Room has ancient magic dating back to Sileas Ronin. It works like our aspiers, so if the Aspieri don’t willingly let you in… we’re safest here.”
I nod, then sigh at Ysenia, bringing up the same question I’ve asked repeatedly since Sylas left. “Are you sure that I can’t rearrange Lyria’s mind?”
Yes, unless you’re somehow also a reader, she replies every time. This time, though, she adds, You should probably have bonded with a reader Arkani instead of… the petulant serpent.
I sigh, ignoring her purist comment. She adds, Before you accuse me of being a purist, did it really have to be the descendant of Sileas Ronin? Any other Aspieri would’ve been fine.
“Ysenia, Grimm is back, and Delaney will still try to murder me. Could we talk about your dislike of the Ronins later?”
She doesn’t reply to me.
After a short while, when it is clear Lyria is stable, Beau joins me on the sofa by the fireplace. We sit in silence; every now and then, his eyes glance toward Lyria’s room. “I keep expecting her to get up.”
I nod. Words don’t come easily anymore. Lyria didn’t have anything to do with heirloom relics, Delaney’s revenge, or Grimm. Why her?
I lean back against the couch, and my hand catches on something hard. In the corner of the sofa is Olivia’s book of dark fairy tales. I had forgotten where it went after we came from Albion. I had wanted to read Lyria a few tales; now I don’t know if she would even be able to hear them.
My hands close around the book, Olivia’s DOTS letters extending from the top edge, their golden seal glowing under the muted fire. “Did Gorhail send you these letters?” Beau asks.
I frown. “No, these are letters DOTS sent my sister…” I pull them out, studying the address carefully this time. It reads Olivia’s name and our address in Albion. I blink… this is Olivia’s handwriting.
“Golden seals are from Gorhail, Vi,” he says. “Official DOTS correspondence bears a red seal.”
Why would Olivia send herself self-addressed letters? Before I answer my question, I slide my finger under the lip of one and tear it open. “Ouch.” The paper cuts my skin, and blood smears on the envelope, some over the letter inside. I hand it over to Beau as I put pressure on the paper cut.
Beau winces. “Sorry, do you need a bandage?” he asks. “I’d offer my aspier, but Briar has been a bit reclusive lately.”
I shake my head and gesture for him to continue. He pulls the letter out, his eyebrows knitting together as he unfolds it. “Viola, you have to see this.”
He hands me the letter as the words slowly appear, one after the other, like magic.
“Dear Vi,” it reads. “These two letters are enchanted. My friend, Sierra, made me this sparkly pink dust that makes words disappear. Victor, my other friend, enchanted it so it could only be opened by you and your blood. Morbid, I know. But there is a second letter with instructions, should I leave before I have the chance to speak to you.”
Leave? To go where? I reach for the second envelope, tearing it open. The moment my finger slides across the side, words appear.
“Dear Vi,” I read. My heart slams against my chest. Reading Olivia’s words weeks after she died… I can’t even be happy. Because all I’m thinking about is how I will never see her again, and if we don’t manage to save Lyria, how I will handle losing a second sister.
The letter continues. “If you’re reading this right now, I must have already left—I can’t tell you where, Vi. But I am safe and away from this lie I can no longer keep up with.”
My eyes fill with tears. No, Ole. You’re dead.
“Remember my favorite book about dark fairy tales?” I read further.
“Between every two pages is an extra page. Sierra handstitched them together and enchanted it all so it looks like it’s part of the story.
Blood smeared on every other page should open my journal through all my years at Gorhail.
I wrote it addressed as letters to you. I’m sorry I won’t get to say goodbye, but I promise we’ll meet again. ”
“Give me your dagger,” I say to Beau, but he just tilts his head at me. “Your dagger, now.”
He pulls it out, and I snatch it from his hands and make a straight cut along the length of my index finger. Then I flip to the first page of Olivia’s book of fairy tales. Before my eyes, the letters change into new words.
The first pages detail her life at Gorhail Institute, her favorite food, her favorite classes, mundane things that she found fascinating, like Arkani-made pens that never ran out of ink, or Arkani-enchanted fabric that stretches. Toward the middle of the book, my eyes catch on a familiar name.
“There’s a new Magister. Lorne. I fell in love so fast. I know I’m not supposed to, but he is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Maybe one day, after graduation, you’ll meet him.”
The next pages detail more of her recent life at Gorhail. I read them with a pinch in my heart. Her happiness radiates through the page, through her outings with her friends, her new classes, her frequent visits to the Penbryn Gardens. How could Delaney rob her of that? How could she rob me of her?
Then the next page makes me stop.
“Viola.” She used my name; she never used my full name.
I sit up, holding the letter tight. “I wanted to tell you in person today, but I didn’t want to risk Mom hearing.
It breaks my heart that you think I’d choose Gorhail over you, and I think it’s time you know the truth.
Right before her death, Nan told me to hide your magic, to take your place at Gorhail to keep you safe and hidden from a world that would inevitably kill you.
I believed her. It killed Dad, after all.
So I went, and I’ve never spoken about you, never told anyone I had a sister.
I tried. I’ve worked so hard, Vi. I’ve sent you two self-addressed letters; I thought I was going to leave, go far away to the Isles of Carac in the North.
But after our conversation today, I think I’m ready to come back.
I’ll go to Osneau with you and maybe start a bakery. ”
My hands are shaking. She wrote this the Monday I last saw her. I don’t know that I am reading her words right, so I flip to the next page and watch as my blood smears across the parchment and the letters jumble into the right order.
“Viola. Victor died this morning. I have a horrible feeling. Yesterday, Overseer Delaney told me to retrieve a book about relics from Nan’s library— the one you just unboxed last week.
She’s always asking to borrow books from Nan, and they’re usually regular textbooks.
But this one was different. I read it cover to cover.
I tore three pages about resurrection and relic merging out before I handed it over to her. No one should have that much power.”
Every single word I read drives a knife farther through my heart, and every apology twists it. My sister, my beautiful sister, sacrificed herself to keep me safe, because Nan sent her to this forsaken place.
Anger surges through me, and I grip the book.
I do not doubt that Nan would have done the same to me had Olivia been the mage and I the nonmagi.
What happened to telling me I was the most precious thing to her?
Was she talking about me? Or was she talking about the cuff she knew I would inherit?
Now that I know about Willow’s entrapment, I know it wasn’t me she was trying to keep safe.
It was her stupid cuff, one of the six relics she’d used to trap Grimm.
The cuff Olivia died for. The cuff Delaney and Grimm will kill me for.
It has always been about the magic in the end.
How could her love of magic be greater than her love for us?
I flip through the last three pages of the book, meticulously stitched with the rest. By now, the pages and my hand are a bloody mess.
Still, I read the words ever so carefully.
My conversation with Ysenia resurges. “This details how to carry out resurrections, simple and complex, and how to break tethers.”
Beau shifts closer. “You were right… about Grimm being tethered to Willow.”
The poacher’s riddle is as clear as day in my mind. “Only when the maiden and the crone die at the hands of the usurper will he be free.” Sliding the book to Beau, I explain, “Grimm needs to sacrifice Delaney to resurrect Willow. Ysenia?”
Correct.
Her word encourages me further. “And then he needs to kill Willow to break the tether.” I pause, waiting for Ysenia’s confirmation. Also correct.
Maybe Nan did have a good reason to hide the cuff—Delaney only wants to bring back her daughter, but Grimm lurks in the shadows, waiting for her to do his dirty work before pouncing.
“Delaney wouldn’t stand for that. She didn’t damn herself to the tenth circle of the Underworld to allow her daughter to be killed again.” Beau studies the page.
“What if she doesn’t know?” I wonder aloud.
Ysenia scoffs. Mortemagi have a habit of sacrificing their own in pursuit of… power.
Sylas would’ve loved to hear the Founder of the House of Death lay our sins bare. After what Nan did to Olivia, it wouldn’t surprise me if Delaney was on board for everything.
“Ysenia, didn’t you say complex resurrections were impossible?”
Improbable.
“What happens when he breaks the tether to Willow?” I reach for the book in Beau’s hands.
The second page is covered in notes. Some I recognize as Nan’s handwriting, some Olivia’s, and some foreign.
Delaney was wrong about one thing: Willow never released Grimm on purpose.
Nan’s notes confirm that she brought him back while trying to carry out a resurrection, and this resulted in his soul tethering to hers when it escaped. He needs to kill her to be free.
He regains true form, the full extent of his whisperer magic and his reader magic. I pray you don’t see that day, Viola. The ages of Grimm were dark, if I am to go by the ghosts of the catacombs.
“If we live through this, we owe Olivia everything.” I get up, reaching for a thick jacket. I refuse to sit and do nothing. I won’t let Olivia’s sacrifice go in vain, won’t let Lyria lie half dead when all she was trying to do was find a way to save me. “Does Grimm know about this?”
Grimm, yes. Delaney, I doubt it. Although, when I wrote about it in The Founder’s Book of Relics, it was a working theory. Of course, I never tested it. If he’s waited this long, he may very well have. He’s not someone who strikes without thought.
There is a tiny chance that Grimm has never done this before. I laugh at my hopelessness. If we can prevent Delaney from resurrecting Willow, we can keep Grimm from regaining his true form. “How do we stop him?”
We cannot stop him. But we can weaken him. Ysenia goes silent for a moment.
“Tell me.”
Viola, it would require an immense sacrifice.
“Tell me… please.”
I’ll have to take over your body, throw your cuff to Delaney, and let her carry out Willow’s resurrection.
Then, when Grimm sacrifices Willow and begins regaining his true form, I’ll take Faro’s Cuff.
Other than him, I’m the only one who can unclip it.
We won’t have long, only between the time the host dies and Grimm is born anew. But if I take over your body…
“I die.”
My heart stutters. Even if I know it’s inevitable, I don’t want to die. I let out a sharp exhale as I turn to Beau, my chin quivering. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave them. I don’t want to leave Sylas.
“Vi.” Beau’s voice trembles as he finally realizes what I’m talking about. “Olivia gave up her life to keep you hidden. Don’t do this.”
But there is no other way. Ysenia is the only one who can stop Grimm from coming back with a relic so powerful it could break apart our world. This is bigger than us now, bigger than my life.
“Viola, please. DOTS has to be aware of both Delaney’s crimes and Grimm’s return by now—Sylas would’ve told Paltro.
Firstline can use Sierra’s relic as bait; other than yours, Grimm still needs hers to complete the set.
There are other ways. Viola, please don’t do this… Let DOTS do its job for once.”
“Do its job…” I laugh, an empty, barren laugh like all of DOTS’s and Gorhail’s promises.
“If DOTS and even Gorhail did their jobs, Lyria wouldn’t be trapped in her own body!
Olivia would still be alive. Our parents would still be alive.
I wouldn’t be a prisoner to magic I cannot use.
” As the words tumble out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back.
Beau doesn’t deserve my frustration. “They don’t care about any of us, Beau.
We’re all disposable to them. If we don’t do anything, we’ll doom everyone else to a terrible fate. ”
“Leave then, Viola. Seal your magic and start a new life with however many years you have left,” he says, voice cracking, a hot tear rolling down his cheek onto my arm. “But don’t throw away Olivia’s sacrifice.”
A few weeks ago, before Olivia’s death, I would’ve jumped at his words, given up my magic, and run away without sparing a glance back at this twisted, horrid world.
But this is my one chance to change the story, to give back all that was given to me.
More people can’t die because of these monsters.
“What is a life if I’m always running from something? ”