Chapter Forty-Seven Viola #2
“Grimm,” I utter. A cold smile stretches across his lips, and I gulp. Rafael Grimm stands in front of me; he has been close to me the entire time I’ve been at Gorhail.
“I prefer Rafe, if you don’t mind.” He sighs, his face still so close to mine. “Grimm is so… grim.”
“You could’ve killed me and taken the cuff so many times…” My throat thickens with the realization that I am only alive because he wants me alive, like a mouse he’s toying with before he claws my guts open. What does he want then?
“At first, I was going to.” He finally drops my face and walks away, his hands clasped behind his back.
I don’t wait, and my wrists are back at work trying to slip out of this stubborn rope.
The sooner I’m free, the sooner we can take Faro’s Cuff away from Grimm.
Gods, this isn’t a good time for Ysenia to have disappeared.
He stops a few steps away from Delaney, who stares at him with murder in her eyes.
“But then, you grew on me. I’ve tried to keep you out, Viola.
Tried to stay away, but not anymore,” he says, turning around again.
My wrists stop moving. “I see your potential for greatness. You weave magic so skillfully. I’ve seen your work on Beau.
The stitches are seamless; you practice like you’ve been doing this for centuries. ”
Ysenia’s work. I remain silent.
“Oh, darling.” Grimm’s lips twist into an apologetic smile. “You and I— together, we could’ve started a new dawn for Mortemagi. But you had to ruin it all because of a stale serpent.”
“You’re lying.” My head lolls, the weight of his admissions too heavy for me to bear.
He waxes poetic, but his words are laced with poison.
He killed Ysenia with a cold heart and no soul.
If he didn’t hesitate for one second to sacrifice the only woman he loved, what will he do to me?
“You’ll still kill me for the Corvi cuff. ”
Behind him, Delaney clasps her hands together. “I assure you, Rafe, that my Willow is a spectacular mage. Kill her, and let’s proceed with the resurrection.”
“Overseer,” I try, desperate to create a wedge between them. “He cannot resurrect your daughter without killing you. I’ve read the missing pages of The Founder’s Book of Relics. He’s plotting something—”
“Enough.” She looks at me in disgust. “You don’t know Rafe like I do.” Delaney bows her head to Grimm, as if she’s apologizing for my accusation.
My wrists are almost free. “He will kill you. He will kill your daughter. The only one he seeks to resurrect is himself,” I blurt, freeing my hands. Now all I need is Ysenia. Gods, where is she?
Delaney narrows her eyes at me, and I see it.
The flash of doubt. She’s questioning his motives.
For a second, I wonder if I can convince her.
If she refuses to go through with resurrecting her daughter, Grimm will remain trapped in Lorne’s body, his magic limited to that of the poor mage—Lorne—he possessed.
“Instead of worrying about us, Miss Corvi,” she scoffs, “worry about yourself. Where’s your little Aspieri now?”
My Aspieri. The word is comical. Sylas isn’t mine at all. He hates my magic; he hates that I wear a relic that killed his mother; he hates me enough to have let me walk straight to my death. Still, my heart stutters at the thought of him. Gods, please, keep him away from this circus of maniacs.
“He won’t come.” My eyes blur, and a single tear rolls down my cheek. I hope he doesn’t come.
“Darling.” Grimm smiles apologetically out of Lorne’s face. “Take it from me. Love makes you weak. It takes away your defenses. If there’s a single thing to learn before your inevitable death, it’s that the House of Poison thinks of no one but their own.”
Then, I feel it, cold at first, but the moment she coils around my wrist, she warms. The scales are familiar as they rub against my skin. Railesza slithers the length of my forearm and the moment her fangs sink into my vein, I catch a second wind.
“You’re right.” I cough. “Aspieri only care about their own.”
“See, Aurelia,” he drawls, without looking at her. “She’s coming around. She has the makings of a Mortemagi as powerful as my Ysenia.”
Keep her name out of your mouth, I want to shout, but I press my lips together and shake my head. “I’m not joining you, Grimm,” I say quietly.
He tilts his head, holding my gaze for a moment. Then he presses his fingers together one by one. “If you aren’t willing to join me, I am afraid, darling Viola, that we have a problem.”
He opens his palm, the veins in his right forearm flexing, black against his pale skin.
At his command, sharp, bony fingers emerge from the floor, chipping through the wooden floorboard.
The bones press on the ground, and a dark skull pushes through, stretching its neck, and screeches like a newborn babe.
As the undead rises, the unmistakable sharp scent of death assaults me.
I recoil.
Right when I think the undead is about to come for me, Grimm turns and walks over to the stairs in the right corner of the room, the skeletal figure following closely behind him.
The moment he’s gone, I lurch out of the chair toward the door, but Delaney stops me with one arm and throws me back.
“Did you think we’d never find you?” she scoffs. “After your little trick with the fake cuff, I can’t wait for him to kill you.”
She whistles, and Mara emerges from the darkness below the stairs Lorne just took. Her face is a memory of what it once was; her skin is ashen gray, her eyes now bright blue, and her teeth serrated. She moves like a rabid animal, salivating at the sight of me.
“Take her to the greenhouse,” she snaps at Mara. Then she turns on her heels.
If she’s giving Mara verbal instructions, it means there’s another puppeteer controlling her. Gods, it has to be, because this is the first time Mara’s had blue eyes. Now that I think about it, the previous times her eyes were the green of Delaney’s or the moss shade of Lorne’s.
Mara—the other puppeteer—hesitates. My foolish heart thinks the puppeteer will have mercy on me, that they will save me. I don’t break Mara’s stare as she bends toward me, clinging to this futile hope that maybe she’ll reconsider.
For a moment, I think she does. Her features relax, her head tilts, but the next second, a wicked grin stretches along her lips and her claws come out.