Chapter 19 Blood Magick
It rained in sheets for three days, turning the world into a blur of white.
The downpour kept me confined to my room, save for the moments I ventured out to eat or attend Circle.
I moved through the House like a ghost, slipping between doorways, avoiding conversation.
Avoiding the Trees. I wasn’t ready to face them—not after the other night.
The rain finally broke on the first of February, leaving behind a sky so crisp and empty it felt unnatural. It was a deceptive kind of stillness, but I’d take advantage of it anyway.
I crept down the stairwell, the journal pressed tightly against my ribs beneath the strap of my shoulder bag. The House was still, hushed in that fragile silence that never lasted long. By noon, the others would be descending for lunch. I needed to be gone before then—gone and unnoticed.
At the bottom of the stairs, I hesitated, looking back up to Sequoia’s door. A hollow tug pulled at my chest. Should I check on her? The thought curdled the moment it formed.
Betrayal rose in my throat as sharp and bitter as nettle.
She had meant to manipulate me—with the cards, with her charm.
Had any of it been real? Had there ever been a moment between us untouched by her calculation?
I searched the memory of our friendship for something honest, but all I found were the tainted shadows of our mutual deception.
My lips tingled with the phantom of hers. Lips that I had saved.
I tore my gaze from the door and pressed forward. No one in this House could be trusted.
I adjusted my bag and moved carefully down the main staircase, testing my weight against each step, avoiding the treacherous boards that groaned under pressure. A single misstep could summon a witness I didn’t want.
I was making my way to the exit when I heard voices.
I froze outside the Meister’s office, the low murmur threading through the thick wood. These weren’t the other students. These were men—older, their tones edged with authority. I pressed my ear against the door, catching fragments of their conversation.
“We are . . . low on patience . . . Renate,” said a clipped, deliberate voice.
“Your control over this House is slipping, Renate. The Council has been watching,” said a more nasally tone, closer to the door.
“I am humbled by your support,” the Meister said dryly, his voice laced with condescension. “But I have everything under control. The House is on its way to recovery, and so is our magick.”
“Under your leadership, Renate, our magick has twisted into something else,” the younger voice said. “Something unnatural—” The man’s voice cut off. There was a wheezing sound like someone trying to cough.
“Our magick has become the most powerful the Council has ever seen, and you’d be wise to remember who secured your position, Beaufort,” the Meister snarled.
Beaufort. The name struck a chord. It wasn’t Leone, but a relative of his must be on the Council. What was the Meister doing to him?
“We do not question you, sir, but we do question that girl,” the oldest voice said. “Wait—did you hear that? Is someone else here?”
Coughing erupted behind the door and I startled backward. The floorboard creaked under my foot and I cursed. A spike of adrenaline shot through me.
I stepped back, pulse hammering. I slipped into the nearest corridor just as the office door opened. Someone stepped into the hall.
I pressed myself against the cold stone wall, breath caged in my chest. A damp heat broke across my forehead as I willed myself steady.
The figure stood there only a moment before the door creaked shut again.
I waited, counting to ten.
Only then did I move, slipping back into the hall and sprinting for the exit. My fingers fumbled with the latch before I forced it open and slipped outside, swallowed by the waiting air.
I didn’t stop moving.
*
The storms of the previous days had passed, and now the weather was warm and pleasant—the first inklings of spring.
Sequoia had been right. I could hear the swallows calling in the distance, making their way back from winter.
An assemblage of them dotted the sky, forming a “V.” The brace of birds soared in rhythmic unity against the backdrop of a clear blue sky before disappearing behind the House’s clock tower.
I traced their shape in the sky. They were too early, and winter would not let them rest easy here, not yet.
A chill ran through me as I recalled the conversation I had just overheard. That girl—had they been talking about me?
I was becoming increasingly convinced that the Meister had a hand in Julian’s death.
My suspicions were all but confirmed now.
But it didn’t make any sense—why would he summon me here if he killed Julian?
How was the Meister corrupting magick? Julian’s journal had hinted at forces beyond our understanding, rituals feeding something ancient.
Could that be what they meant? Could he be drawing power from something the Council feared?
I walked down the cobblestone path to the gate, tracing the same path that Nina had taken me.
Everything looked so different in the daylight.
I remembered Nina and I following the edge of the forest that lined the area against the House’s perimeter, and so I strode around the thick black bush.
I followed the path about a mile down until reaching the fork.
Faint mud prints guided me through the thicket until I lost them in the grass.
I looked around but every direction was the same, and I couldn’t remember which way Nina went. A white oak. That was the tree that marked the way. I picked up a log and laid it down and stacked several others on top making cairns. The obvious human intervention would serve as my center point.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a spool of yarn.
I tied it to a tree next to the cairns and started making spirals.
I had to circumscribe several trees to keep the yarn from getting tangled, but this method was worth the time.
Otherwise, I’d be making circles in the woods not knowing if I had traced the area or not.
On my third spiral I found it—a great oak tree with a smear of white across the trunk, like someone had painted it. The marker.
I tied my string to a neighboring tree, leading the path back homeward.
I stepped closer to the oak, branches breaking under my feet.
My swollen feet cried in my Oxfords, but I ignored them.
I was getting close to the Tramping Ground; I could feel it.
I found the narrow path uphill and began the ascension.
My legs objected to the excursion, but I forced them up the way.
I could see the ridge of the hill and increased the length of my stride, my shoes digging into the loose soil.
Stop, before you go too far, my father’s voice resounded in my head. I pushed him away, just as I did the burning in my legs.
When I got to the top and saw the clearing, I stopped to catch my breath. Despite the fire in my lungs, my mind was clear and bright, free from the gloom of the House. I took in a hungry gulp of air, filling my chest and holding it there. I sighed, my pulse falling.
The Tramping Ground was right in front of me.
I stared at the cold, barren earth. The patch of dry soil was circumscribed with rocks, no doubt the work of Nina defining the grounds. The circle itself was perhaps only three yards in radius, but the dead bleakness of the ground was contrasted by the overgrown grass surrounding it.
Nina had called this Sophia’s Circle. The same deity that Sequoia had seen the night when she nearly died.
A jolt of energy ran down my arms, and I wrapped my blazer tighter around my midsection. I took out Julian’s journal and flipped to the pages stained in red, with what I now knew was blood.
He had left a message. One he didn’t want just anyone to know—only those who had access to this Circle. And I was going to figure out what it was.
I came closer to the Circle and crouched down just a few inches away from its edge.
I laid down the journal on the grassy side and stacked a few rocks on either side to keep it propped open.
I reached inside my bag and took out my leather gloves.
There was no way I’d touch the soil with my bare hands.
I donned the pair and began to reach for the soil.
It was hard and packed, as if someone had indeed been stamping around on it.
I dug my fingernails through the gloves, pinching the crust to break. It finally did, but at the cost of heat rising in my finger tips. It was burning my hands through the gloves. I worked quickly to coat the journal’s pages with the foul soil until all the words were obscured.
It had only taken seconds for Nina’s blood to disappear. The familiar buzzing surrounded me, and I tuned into the noise, no longer pushing it away. It was saying something, I realized, in a tight pitch.
Blood, it rang out.
I watched in awe as steam rose from the book, burning away the runic characters, leaving behind only the English written in red pen. I quickly dusted off the rest of the soil before it burned through the book.
I studied the marvel before me closely. It worked on organics. Blood, cellulose paper. Even the leather of my gloves was not impervious to its effects. I took out a small vial from my bag and scooped a pinch of the soil into the container to examine later.
I turned my attention to the journal in front of me. I raised it and shook out the dirt from the pages back into the Circle. To my delight, only the English writing remained. My heart lurched when I saw the entry was addressed to me.
Dearest Dahlia Blackburne,
If you’re reading this, it means I’m dead. But don’t worry, I caused enough trouble on my way out to make it worthwhile. Abyssus abyssum invocat—hell calls for hell. My one regret is that we never met. I had hoped that, under different circumstances, we might have.