Chapter 25
Peter’s still limping when we cross through the brick walls back into Old Campus.
I’m not in much better shape with my aching knee, but I have the key card now to get into the archives, which means my bruised body will have to wait.
A question’s been nagging at me, though.
“Why didn’t Crowley kill that werewolf?”
Peter looks up at me. His eye is starting to swell. “You mean, why keep it in the dungeons after we’d finished our lesson last week?”
Elliot’s hazel eyes light up with mischief. “Does Harker experiment on them?”
“Like Frankenstein’s lab?” Soph says, wiggling her fingers at him. “Someone’s getting into the Halloween spirit.”
“I’m serious,” Elliot says, pulling his sunlit strands into a man bun. “Maybe they run some kind of turned deviant rehabilitation program.”
“Actually,” Peter says, “in Kitty’s and my summer program, I did my final paper on syrabraxas, and in the rare cases where they’ve been cast, the counterspell that removes them has taken some abilities with it.
Maybe the Elders are studying the dark magic to see if a syrabraxa can strip a deviant of its deviantness. Or— Viv?”
Peter must notice my stunned silence. I scramble for words. “What did you just say?”
“Strip a deviant of its deviantness?”
There’s something out there that can render a being mortal? The guilt rushes in almost as quickly as the idea does. What kind of hunter even thinks about being free of their responsibilities? “Syrabraxa.” I shake my head. “What is that?”
“It’s a type of spell. The most powerful form of dark magic,” Peter says. “The kind of power that can break the planes of existence…It curses all who wield it with unendurable madness.”
Like the first High Thane who wrenched the Chasm open. His liver eating has not been forgotten. “That’s what was used to split the Chasm? A syrabraxa?”
Peter nods. “And like all dark magic, it must be cast by a turned witch.”
“So any witch who crosses over to the dark side can learn this spell and end life as we know it?” Elliot asks, a little spooked.
“No, no.” Peter rubs his swollen eye. “Syrabraxas are unique. They require complex ingredients to be brewed along with the incantation. And we’re talking about ingredients that could take centuries to gather.
On top of that, the deviant witch needs a host to put the spell into.
The brewed potion is imbued into their skin. ”
“Okay, now I think we’re too into the Halloween spirit,” Sophia says.
“It gets worse,” Peter tells her. And I know what’s coming. All dark magic requires a sacrifice. “The power of the spell is granted to whoever kills the host. Sometimes it’s called blood magic or host magic, but the technical name from the Old World is syrabraxa.”
I knew about dark magic that could be brewed and cast by turned witches that killed innocents, but I didn’t know anything about hosts being used as human vessels. “What does a syrabraxa have to do with experimenting on deviants?”
Peter only shrugs. “It was just a hypothetical, not a feasible experiment. Not only would you need a turned witch to cast the spell, the syrabraxa can only be removed by the same witch who cast it in the first place. Harker would never work with a deviant witch on school grounds.”
“Right,” I nod, chewing my lip.
“And there’s only one recorded instance of this even being possible,” Peter continues.
“Outside of the Chasm, of course. The one I referenced in my paper was from hundreds of years ago. A syrabraxa was implemented into an aeon and removed before they could be killed, and apparently the removal spell took the aeon’s powers with it.
They were rendered human—but it was ancient Egypt, and I’m not sure how accurate the hieroglyphic translation was… ”
But my mind has stalled out. It’s just as the lymantrian biology book from the library said. Some dark magic can remove hunter genetics.
I’m not a do-gooder like Fiona or Penny, Nora or my dad.
Or a legacy hunter like Sophia, Elliot, Peter, or even Kitty.
I’m not motivated solely by responsibility and honor.
I hunt because I have to. Because I harbor a repellant, constant, compulsive need for the kill.
But if it’s somehow possible to be rid of my aeon gene…
I think of being able to actually live my life.
I could stop thinking about everything in relation to my imminent gory death.
Stop waking up in the middle of the night with crippling bloodlust. Free myself of torrential emotions.
Be a real friend to Penny, not someone who is constantly making up lies and being called away from birthday dinners to stab things in dark alleys.
I could be an even better friend to Sophia, Peter, and Elliot.
I could be their Penny. Mortal, happy, whole.
I could pursue photography—one of the only things that actually makes me feel human.
Maybe I could even have a real relationship with someone.
Maybe it would be James, or maybe it wouldn’t, and that would be okay too.
And yeah, the thought of losing one of the only tethers I still have to my father cuts right through my insides.
So bad I nearly keel over with the hurt.
But he isn’t here. He never will be again.
And he lied to me, kept this entire world from me.
Kept his real name from me. And if I were mortal, maybe my mother—the parent who’s still alive and kicking—might actually care about me again.
I’m not sure how that’s related—it’s not like she knows I hunt deviants—but still…
It feels like not slaying monsters could only help things between us.
I wouldn’t be bound by duty. Nor by a desire to kill.
I would be free.
“How do you brew one?” I ask, trying to keep the desperation from my voice.
Sophia eyes me warily.
“No idea,” Peter says. “That kind of information isn’t exactly made available to students. It would be like asking how to build a nuclear bomb.”
I breathe out with an easy smile. I’m normal. I’m fine. “Of course.”
Satisfied, Peter continues to stride toward the commons.
The bell tower chimes, echoing mournfully through the crisp campus, as unwavering as my new resolve.
All this time, there was a way. Not an easy way.
Not one I can attempt anytime soon or without risking my life.
But a way nonetheless. A slim, nearly impossible death-wish-level decades-long-waiting-list way.
A sliver of hope has slipped under my skin like a splinter: It’s everything I’ve never let myself dream about, and I’ve found it here at Harker.
“Okay, Mr. Encyclopedia,” Sophia says. “We have another question for you.”
She nudges me and I pick up on the cue. He’s in better spirits despite his injuries. Educating us seems to have that effect. Time to dig in about the blades.
“Peter, do you know what might cause my daggers to suddenly start…burning?”
“I already told you to get that checked out by the pixies at the infirmary,” Elliot says with a smirk. “And always wear a sheath.”
Sophia snorts.
“What do you mean burning?” Peter asks.
“After the zombie spell, I was just holding them, and suddenly they became hot as coals. They glowed like them too. It was a full two minutes before I could pick them up again…” I eye the ancient silver at my waist. “But they’ve been fine since.”
Peter lifts a brow, intrigued. “Can I see?”
Even with his swollen eye, he inspects the silver with care, noting the carvings on the hilt. His lips turn down at the corners and I can tell he’s noticed something strange.
“What is it?”
“I’m about to blow your mind,” he mutters, eyes still on my blades. “Follow me.”
I want to tell him I’ve had enough bombshells for one day, but I follow him dutifully away from Elkfore Hall, Sophia and Elliot in tow. We wind around bleary-eyed students still recovering from last week’s trauma until Peter pushes inside the storybook-style doors of the armory.
There are a few students already in there, some sitting at workbenches, one getting help from the armorer with his scythe.
My gut already knows why we’re here. Peter guides us through the cluttered back shelves, over to that glass display.
The double-paned casing hasn’t been touched or breached in any way.
No cracks, fissures, or fingerprints. But there, on the little velvet cushion, the dagger with the carving of the jaguar is now gone.
“Fascinating,” Peter says.
Sophia cocks her head, confused. “Explain, please.”
“Your blades are a set of three,” he tells me. “The Demon’s Dagger, the Lymantrian’s Dagger, and the Aeon’s Dagger. They’re antiques.”
Sophia goes stiff beside me. I clutch my blades tighter in my hands.
The Aeon’s Dagger.
“Yeah,” I say tightly. “They were my dad’s, and his mom’s before him.”
“Most historical accounts will claim hunters of the old world fought with two daggers, just like you do. One was usually decorated with deviant imagery—to remind the hunter of what they sought to kill—while the other was a reminder of the good they swore to protect.”
“My father’s have a serpent on one and a doe on the other.”
“Exactly,” Peter says like I’m a very good student.
“She still hasn’t named them,” Elliot mutters to Sophia.
“No respect,” Sophia sighs.
“But,” Peter continues, “it’s believed that aeons fought with a third dagger too. Often kept in a hidden holster and used when one of their other weapons had been compromised. And that dagger—”
“Was a mix of the two,” I finish for him. “The light and the dark.” I remember the carving on the missing dagger. The jaguar—a wicked, bloodthirsty beast—was protecting its cub.
“A-plus for Viv.” Peter smiles. “Yours might be the last complete set in existence. The three of them are tied together through ancient magic. If one of them is destroyed, they all have a reaction. You said they got very hot?”
“Like they were in a furnace.”