13. Tick-Tock
Tick-Tock
Rumor Malefic
My jaw dropped. These… these were not men who’d been secluded in a castle for over fifty years. “You can’t be,” I argued.
If that were true… I was in far worse of a situation than I’d ever considered. What kind of magical beings were they that they evaded age? How powerful they must be… and I’d wandered into their lair completely unprepared. They’d surely keep me chained in the cellar for torture and imminent death.
I was so screwed.
Riot swung the door to the cellar open. “Did you hear that, Spade? We can’t be the Blackthorne Boys. Actually, who named us that? I’d like a word. We’re clearly grown. Who do I petition for a new title? What about the Blackthorne Titans, the Blackthorne Killers, the Blackthorne Manly-Men.”
Spade stepped closer and this time I did back away.
His expression remained stern and disinterested as he regarded me like I imagined a bear regarded a mosquito.
Whatever crossed his mind in his assessment, he didn’t share, and only a scoff left his throat.
“Take care of her,” he ordered as he stomped past his brother and disappeared down a stone hallway.
Clearly, he’d seen what he’d needed to and was done. Oh, and I’d just told the Blackthorne Boys themselves I wanted to hex and kill them.
Great. This was going great so far.
Riot clicked his tongue. “As thrilling as it is milling about in corridors… I have matters to attend.” He clapped his hands, and I jumped. “Come now, misery waits for no one, dirty little rat.”
“I’m not staying in here?”
“Would you like to? Sure, you’d be at home amongst the vermin…
” He stepped forward, enveloping me in his scent again, his white hair almost shining in the low torchlight of the hall.
“But at night,” he continued, his tone dropping, “the snakes slither in through the cracks in the stone, and, well, you rodents don’t much care for ssssssssssnakes, do you? ”
A shiver traversed my spine at how easily the S rolled off his tongue. It was as if… no… I couldn’t dwell on that chilling thought.
Riot seemed highly amused, leveling me with a smirk and a mock bow as he gestured down the hall. Reluctantly, I walked with him. He held a lantern, and dim candlelight flanked the domed stone around us. “So, what’s your name?”
I glared up at him sideways, pressing my lips together.
“Oh, is that against some old witchy rule as well? What could I even do with your name? Suppose I could write a book, give a character I hated your name, and put them through some mortifying ordeal, and when you read it, you’d be quite embarrassed. Though I’ve never been much of a wordsmith.”
Goddess, he was odd.
And handsome… in a startling, moonlight, sort of way.
Riot carried himself with a devious air, like at any moment he could spin on his heel and stab you in the heart all while laughing as if it were some tragic jest. Probably all part of his game somehow.
In fact, both him and his brother were stunning in a deadly sort of way.
Like admiring a wildfire from afar. The most beautiful men I’d ever seen and certainly the most dangerous.
They sure didn’t make them like the Blackthorne Boys back in Willowspire, that was for sure.
But now that I was here, and I’d found them, I had to focus on my plan to hex them.
Riot and Spade might not have taken me seriously, but they didn’t know that my crone suspected I was a gray witch.
Gray witches hexed, charmed, and cursed—and I’d learn the same.
The Blackthorne Boys were the missing piece. They were my path to Prism… I just needed to figure out the how of hexing, charming, cursing, and killing… somehow.
“I can sense your tiny female witch mind scheming with each step.” Riot interrupted my thoughts. “Though I’m not sure what you could do to us Blackthorne Boys that hasn’t already been done.”
I cleared my throat of my discomfort at how perceptive this man was so soon. Pushing thoughts away of where he may be taking me, I decided to ease into conversation. “You’re not what I expected.”
“No? Broke in without doing your homework, then? That’s a shame. Spade and I are truly fascinating—though me more so, of course. He’s a tad broody and moody if you catch my drift. Though you’ll have time to learn.”
“Time? Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ll be leaving once I accomplish what I’ve set out to.” Prism needed me. I had to force them, by any means necessary, to help.
Riot laughed as we travelled up a spiral staircase and down a hallway adorned with frames and macabre black and silver artwork.
My eyes landed on the back of Riot’s sleek white hair when suddenly he jumped, spinning around. Startled, I tripped backwards, bumping into a stone bust of a bull’s head.
Riot held a finger to his lips, his eyes darting around wildly. “Do you hear it?”
Fear squeezed my chest.
I couldn’t predict his quick and unprecedented movements. Even in hunting Cyotuars, which were quick and jerky little creatures with sharp fangs and pointed ears, I hadn’t experienced such a volatile being.
“Hear what? No—no, I don’t hear anything.
” Aside from my pulse pounding in my ears from fear.
Riot Blackthorne was a whole new evil to me, and I knew in my bones that he could go for the kill at any moment and I wouldn’t stand a chance.
In fact, I probably wouldn’t even see him coming. So, how was I supposed to hex him?
He grinned. “Tick-tock, tick-tock. Don’t you hear the clock?”
Swallowing my trepidation, I shook my head, not liking the way he stepped forward and let his eyes drop before slowly dragging his gaze upward again. “You will. Oh, how you will.”
Riot reached behind me, and I flinched, expecting pain, but only the squeak of a door sounded behind me.
Turning, uneasy about putting my back to a Blackthorne, I took in the space. It was a large, luxurious room with a roaring fireplace, canopy bed draped in red linens, plush bearskin rugs, and arched iron windows letting in the moonlight. “What is this?”
“Your room, dimwit. I suggest you take a bath. The washroom is to the left over there.” He fanned his nose. “In fact, I insist.”
My face heated with embarrassment—though it shouldn’t have.
I wasn’t here to impress the likes of him.
“How long will you be holding me captive here? What is this, some kind of psychological warfare? Give me a nice room and take it away if I don’t comply with whatever sick game you and your brother are playing? ”
Riot strolled the room, picking up an apple from a copper dish and tossing it into the air and catching it.
“Good goddess, you are truly simultaneously incredibly annoying and exceedingly dense. Is this the fruits of an education in Willowspire these days? Pity. Also, did you sneak in here with a cat ? Truly, such a peculiar girl.” He took a bite of the apple with a crunch.
“You aren’t a captive,” he said with a muffled, undignified mouthful.
“So, I can leave?”
“No, of course not.”
“ I’m dense? That is literally the definition of a captive.”
Riot’s lips upturned in a wicked smile. “Goodnight, nameless, horrid little rat-thief.”
I picked up an apple and reared back with all my might, but by the time the fruit left my grip, he’d shut the door behind him, again unsettling me with his casual display of speed and silence.
What was he? A witch? Something greater?
From the moment I’d been captured, both him and his brother had made me feel like the ugliest, stinkiest idiot alive.
It shouldn’t matter.
It didn’t matter.
I opened the wardrobe in a huff, finding only a single white silk nightgown, robe, and slippers. I’d brought a change of clothes and my—realization hit as I frantically looked around the room. My backpack was gone. Of course they’d taken it, which meant my mystery grimoire was confiscated, too.
My heart sank to my muddy boots as I kicked them off. With the mystery grimoire and the possibility of another rogue spell appearing within its pages… I’d had a slight advantage of crafting a hex. Without it… I sighed, shrugging off my dirty dress. Bringing the fabric to my nose, I inhaled.
I did stink.
Great. Just great. I was a smelly, dumb rat, or whatever Riot had called me, wasn’t I?
Pausing in the doorway of the washroom, confusion settled in.
The tub was empty. Where was the water to wash up?
A sick joke? Sitting on the edge of the cold, white tub, I fiddled with two golden knobs and jumped as water rushed out of a nozzle.
My heart wavered in my chest. What kind of sorcery was this?
Was this bewitched water even safe to use?
It ran warm over my palm, and the more I turned the right knob, the hotter it got.
Oh, hell, I didn’t care if the water was bewitched and the Blackthorne Boys were wretched, this felt amazing. As I sank into the hot bath, I groaned, dipping my head under. To the right was a shelf of soaps, which I lathered myself with liberally.
Let Riot say I smelt again.
Again, it bugged me that it bugged me.
They turned their backs on an entire town, leaving it to rapture ruin and wither feasting, yet judged me for being unkempt? I was trying to survive and save my sister. Meanwhile, they hid away in this castle of magic with instant-summon water.
Pampered pricks.
As I dried off with a too-soft towel that smelt of bullshit lavender they didn’t deserve, I fantasized of how I’d bring them down.
A spell would come.
My gray witch abilities would surface.
They’d be hexed and forced to atone for their transgressions by bringing Prism back.
Then, when their minds were muddled by the hex, I’d lift it just long enough to give them clarity. I wanted to look into Riot’s judgmental eyes, and Spade’s condescending gaze, and watch them realize they’d been outsmarted by the rat they let walk right into their fortress.
Keep underestimating me, Blackthorne Boys.
I was here to win.