Midnight
I plummet to the ground.
Thick black ribbons spiral out from the tower, whipping underneath me and halting my fall milliseconds before I crash to the cobbles.
I shuck the magic ropes off and stare at the void Interitus vanished through. A beat pounds in my throat: she’s gone after Lucy.
The stain of killing the love of my life burrows into the flesh of my palm and stings. A prickle I’ll wear like a tattoo for the rest of my life.
By rights, I should be happy Interitus is going after her, it’s a karmic justice. And maybe Lucy will be fine. She probably passed straight through the underworld and to whatever comes next. I doubt she’s a shade.
Right?
It will be fine.
Except, my feet are marching me towards Ignatius. My mouth uttering words I can’t seem to keep inside. “Are you going after Interitus?”
“No. We have to help Architecti,” he says.
I blink at him, wondering if he’s had a stroke. “You fought to stop Architecti returning, and now you’re on her side?”
“No. She’s healing the tower and the Veil and therefore our access to campus magic.”
“Are you listening? You need the damn Veil open to go after her. She’s hunting whatever is left of Lucy.”
A muscle ticks in Ignatius’s jaw. “Even if you’re right and Interitus is going for Lucy, what am I going to do? Leave the Veil open and let a million wraiths into Ora? There will be no city left to bring Lucy back to.”
I might not want to go after Lucy after what she’s done to me, but you also don’t get rid of feelings instantly, either. And I don’t want that psycho angel hunting her.
“So you’ll leave her to fend for herself after having her soul reaped?” As usual, I don’t think before I move and land a slap across Ignatius’s cheek. “You heartless cunt.”
I reach back and swing a second time, but he grabs my wrist mid-air. “Regardless of your feelings, Lucy is my daughter, and given you just broke her contract with me, Interitus will have more to deal with than she realises.”
I still. “What does that mean? What use is a shade to Interitus? Lucy is dead.”
Before he can answer, a wraith barrels into him, knocking us apart. I plunge my scythe into its spine. It shrieks, rearing back and then falls limp.
Mortem appears in my periphery. His head swings between me and the Veil opening.
“Mortem?” I shout.
“You’re all useless, taking far too long to clean up campus. I’ll go after her…”
“Not on your own. It’s dangerous.”
“I’m obviously the best choice, you’re not even dead.
” He leaps over the rubble bounding towards the Veil tear before I can stop him.
His butt wiggles as he waltzes straight through the wraiths and bodies of Societas members, without a single fuck to give about the chaos around him.
With a swish of his tail, he scrambles up the final few bricks and flings himself into the darkness.
A sharp lance tears through my chest. What if he doesn’t come back? What if he gets hurt or injured or worse? Can dead cats get injured? Demonsake, I don’t even like cats, and he bites.
Ignatius hauls himself up, dusts his robes off and surveys the mess of the campus.
“Alistair, seal the Veil… Riven, guard the opening,” he shouts orders across the campus.
Alistair responds instantly, throwing his hands out and harnessing dozens of ribbons of magic from the tower walls.
I grab Ignatius’s arm. “What does Interitus want with a dead woman?”
“Close the Veil. Make the campus safe. Then we worry about Lucy. She’ll be… she can handle herself, I assure you.”
It’s the second time I’ve asked, and the second time he’s avoided answering.
“I want answers,” I snap, but he’s power-marching across to a group of struggling students.
Professor Verrill’s head pops out from an archway, and she flings several more threads of power originating from the library. They’re more stable than the magic peeling from the tower, thank gods.
I run to help Alistair, he’s the only one with the skill to seal the Veil. Lucy’s magic grumbles in my veins, but I push it down, calling out to the campus instead. Black shadowy ribbons fly from the walls I pass. Seal the Veil. Get answers.
There’s movement in my periphery.
One minute I’m standing, the next I’m on my back staring into hollow, soulless eyes.
I don’t think, I act.
The blade meets flesh, squelching as I push it through its chest and pull up, splitting the creature’s torso wide open.
Thick, dark liquid spills over my body and I wretch.
Despite deep heaves, nothing comes out. Whatever it’s spewed on me smells vile.
Like stale cigarettes, boiled flesh and stagnant water.
Up. Get up, Midnight. I fling magic at the void. Alistair works so fast beside me, his hands are a blur.
“The fabric that sat in the hole was eviscerated. So we have to use the frayed edges, double the thread and use everything we have to pull them tight and hope the Veil can stretch that far. If it does, we can seal it with reinforced stitching.”
“On it,” I say as I join him. Though this is way outside of my comfort zone, yes, I’m good at cutting and sealing the Veil now, but reinforcing and drawing the Veil tight are not things I’ve done before.
He slings me a devious grin. That son of a bitch, he’s making it a game. The same way he would in class.
Oh, it’s on.
Faster and faster my hands move, winding through thread and magic and weaving. But as I catch up to his pace, he’s taken out by a Societas member. Alistair lands hard, a cracking sound that echoes against the brick and cobbles and makes my stomach turn.
“Fuck,” I stitch faster, beads of sweat pool on my neck, cooling and dribbling a cold line down my spine.
He screams, a piercing cry that rattles my teeth. I risk a glance at him; his dark skin has greyed.
A leg or maybe his ankle blown. I work faster. It allows Architecti to dispatch the last of the Societas members.
Alistair can’t help. He’s in too much pain. But I can’t do this alone. Not with my mortal magic. And I can’t use Lucy’s while Ignatius is around.
Architecti swipes her wings and fists as fast as I wend and weave the Veil.
My vision swims as I fight to pull more magic from Finis campus. But it’s not enough. I need more, a lot more. I’m not fully anchored to the two halves of the Veil.
The campus has grown quiet, littered with bodies and carcasses rather than wraiths and Societas members. We’re winning, though not without significant casualties.
My vision swims in and out of focus, I don’t know how much longer I can keep going. I lurch forward, coughing as my nose fills with blood. It splatters against the ground, making such pretty patterns on the cobbles.
Architecti breathes heavy, her shoulders heaving up and down.
“H—help. Me,” I manage to stutter before collapsing to my knees. I cough up more blood, my lungs searing with the strain of trying to breathe. My head squeezes from the pressure of wielding more magic than I’ve ever harnessed before.
Lucy’s demon magic plumes inside me, swelling and scratching at my insides, begging to be released. It’s too much. I can’t pull the Veil any tighter and it won’t seal if the edges don’t meet.
Architecti darts across the campus cobbles and picks up the ribbons of Alistair’s magic, then flies them across to the other side of Finis Tower, tightening the gap and bringing the edges together.
“Can you seal them?” she asks.
I hesitate. Her face swims in and out of focus. Can I? Alistair should really be doing this. Or ideally any teacher more experienced than me. But half the professors are limping towards the medical wing, a handful are dead and the rest went with the students who ran.
“You have this, Midnight,” Alistair says through a groan of agony.
I chew my bottom lip, the need for answers not just about Lucy but about my future driving me through the blotting vision and the blood gushing from my nose.
I have to hold on.
A little longer.
A few more stitches.
The shredded fabric flaps around, but I catch one notch after another and I sew.
Magic throbs between my fingers, and deep inside me another form of magic entirely hollers for release.
It ferments deep in my gut, sizzling my insides as it tries to escape.
My muscles sear with the strain. The air fills with the scent of smoke and sour milk.
I gag, retching up blood as my vision smatters.
“One more stitch,” Alistair says through gritted teeth.
I sweep my hands through one more time.
My face and neck are drenched with sweat. Chin smothered in blood. I lose my grip on reality as my vision splatters pink.
The last stitch seals.
It’s done.
And so am I.
The magic releases and I drop to the cobbles next to Alistair. My vision whites out before sucking me into darkness.
I come to, in the arms of soft feathers. The warmth cradling me is strange. Ageless and unsettling and yet a comfort, nonetheless.
“Thank you,” a voice says. It’s raspy but calming.
I sit bolt upright, realising it’s Architecti.
“Do not fear me,” she says. Her strange hybrid moth flutters around her head.
“The only thing I fear is Ignatius taking my soul,” I say, but the strain of speaking makes my entire body coil up in pain. I pushed too hard, used too much magic. Am I dying?
She nods sagely. “You believe you can save your soul?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” I cough. My lips taste metallic. That doesn’t seem like a good sign.
“That you are. You reaped her soul, and I have not forgotten the debt I owe you. I am sorry for your loss. I think it’s about time this city learned who I really am. And the lies they’ve been told.”
“Lies?”
“The Societas. Are there more of them?” she asks.
“Without doubt.”
Her mouth thins. “Then this isn’t over. My sister is using them to bring about the end of fate.”
She deposits me outside the medical wing, laying me carefully on the ground, and steps back and spreads her wings.
Her moth appears, shedding little fibres that twist and spin and unfurl into millions and millions of Architect moths.
A tall man carries Aurelia towards the medical wing. She’s wailing, her face streaked in blood and tears. She clutches her… oh my gods. I blink a few times, trying to register what I’m seeing.
Her hand is missing.
My tongue sours at the sight of so much liquid spilling down the nub. I should feel sorry for her, but I can’t muster anything other than recognition for the fact that her life will change forever. Magic at Finis is hard enough to wield with two hands, I have no idea how she will manage with one.
I try to edge towards the medical wing door, but my body is failing me, my limbs refusing to move. The moths swarm and surge above me.
There is nothing I hate more than bloody moths.
“What are you doing…” I ask, my skin crawling at the sight of so many of the little bastards. They seethe and undulate in the air.
“It’s time I show this city the lies they’ve been told. You remember the bridge?”
“Interitus pushed you?”
She nods. “I am not the villain I’ve been made out to be, and unless the city realises that, Interitus will end us all.”
Moths explode out in a thunderous, surging swarm and charge towards the city. Millions and millions of them. Enough to touch every mortal in the entire city.
The air rumbles. A new rip appears into the underworld. Architecti glances at the moths pouring into the city and to the gap.
“I need to go after her, do you have enough strength to seal this?”
“Do I have a choice?”
She slides into the underworld, and I pull a thread from the medical building and haphazardly seal the cut. Which is how I fail to notice a moth landing on my neck.
“Mother f—”
But its proboscis plunges into me and I black out.