Chapter Twenty-Three #4
I open it just an inch, and scream.
Aliz echoes my scream. She grabs a rusty sword off the wall and immediately drops it when she sees my expression. I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help it. “You really are a scaredy-cat,” I say, opening the empty coffin all the way up.
“Thanks,” she grumbles. I focus on the coffin. There’s nothing inside but more white wood. Unlike Aliz’s, there’s no mattress or bedding. But on the inside of the lid are long and deep scratch marks.
“Okay, this is actually creepy,” I whisper as I feel Aliz come to stand next to me.
“There’s nothing in here,” she says. “Can we go?”
“Did your sister have a study?” I ask. “Maybe we’ll find something there.”
Just then, my eyes pause on one painting right in the corner of the room that’s different to the rest. The canvas has been slashed with an angry diagonal line. I lift the torn edge, until the vaguely familiar features come into view.
The woman in the painting looks like a soldier, her jet-black hair cut short just below her ears. She wields a silver sword, and on her neck, barely visible, is a black moon surrounded by thorns.
“My sister’s Familiar,” Aliz says behind me.
“Legend says she was a bodyguard who was immune to compulsion. So in order to control her, Ada consulted with witches to find a curse that would bind them together.” Aliz steps closer to the painting, taking in the mark on the Familiar’s neck. “I wonder how much of that was true.”
Pain twists through my mark. I’m in the exact same position. Immune to compulsion, but on the brink of losing the only defense I have. “What’s her name?” I ask, a sinking feeling in my chest.
“Catherine Lovelace,” Aliz says. My hands go cold.
No.
I think back to Penny’s office and the silver sword that hangs there, that once belonged to the same woman in the painting. My eyes sting. Finding out that Callisto had once worked for the Astras was bad enough. But this?
Callisto’s founder was also Ada Astra’s Familiar.
I feel as though the floor is about to vanish beneath my feet. I storm away from the painting, swallowing my panic. My hands have gone numb, my throat too tight to utter a single word. I need to calm down.
It makes sense, I tell myself, digging my nails into my palms, trying to get the feeling in them back. If it was Callisto who killed Ada Astra, they did it to free Catherine from her contract. And if Penny ever finds out I’m in the same position, I know she won’t hesitate to do the same to Aliz.
“We still have time,” Aliz whispers, and I feel her at my side. “We’ll break the contract. I promise.”
I can’t look at her. I walk to the window to try and calm down.
And when I look out into the night, I see it.
Stretching out in the shadows, past the river and the glass ballroom, is the maze.
A shiver runs through me. It’s a perfect circle, smaller than I thought.
The hedges, just like in my dreams, are overgrown, some passages blocked entirely by their creeping branches.
I set the lantern on the floor and stare out.
At the centre of the maze stand four sculptures, each holding a moon.
Just like in my dreams, the first quarter moon is gilded gold. The rosebush is not visible from here.
And as I stare at the outline of the maze and the pattern of hedges, something clicks in my mind. Aliz comes to stand next to me, tense as she takes in the site of our shared nightmares.
Without saying anything, I reach into my satchel, drawing out my notebook. In it is my map of the tunnels. The centre is still missing, but the same three tunnels, the curves I drew from memory, appear now near the entrance of the hedge maze.
“It’s a map,” I whisper.
“What?”
I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not, but Aliz’s breath is on my ear. Her low voice, which I could listen to all day, harnesses me, pulling me away from the maze and back indoors, into Ada Astra’s bedroom. I can hear my own careful breaths, far too loud.
Aliz’s fingers stop on the notebook, not prying it away from me, but tilting it enough that she can see it. Her fingers press against mine. We’re too close. Close enough for the mark to burn my skin, not with an itch, but with another feeling entirely. A craving. It whispers to me of what I want.
Bite me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to rid myself of the thought, but I can still feel her breath on my skin. The dreams I try to not think about come to life. Her fangs, my blood. I want her to consume me again. No, I tell myself.
“Am I too close?”
Each new beat of my heart is like a knock on a door, demanding to be let in from the rain. “No,” I whisper, waiting for her to come even closer. Her other hand rests gently against the glass. I should run. But I want her so much that I tremble.
The hand on my notebook glides to my wrist, and the bound pages slip to the wooden floor. Aliz reaches down for it, shoulder brushing my thigh. She stays on her knees, staring out the window with a grimace. Then she glances up at me. Her eyes are black.
“No,” Aliz says, as though she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
She stands up, and slowly, the urge leaves me. Shame stings my chest, and I breathe out, unable to look at her. The thought wasn’t my own. And although I should be terrified by what crossed my mind, Aliz was able to control herself. Just as she promised.
I look through the window, slowly putting back the pieces of what I was thinking before she came to stand beside me.
“The maze,” I say again, keeping my distance. “It looks like a map.”
“A map?” Aliz’s voice is soft. “To what?”
“I could be wrong,” I say, pressing my hand to the glass, staring out into the night. “But I think it’s a map to the library.”