Chapter 36 Aurelie
Aurelie
Aurelie woke to the sound of the door opening and Des’s large silhouette slipping through. Before she could say anything,
he sat down on the ground next to the sofa and kissed her cheek.
“What took so long?” she asked, glancing at the clock. At least half an hour had passed since she fell asleep.
“I searched everywhere for your ribbon,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, his ice-cold fingers proof that
he’d been outside all this time. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t find it.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll find it in the morning. Thank you for trying.”
He nodded. “I should get back to the fort.”
Suddenly, she was fully alert. “Already? What about . . . ?”
He smiled and kissed her so sweetly that Aurelie felt a curl of doubt in her stomach. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said, his voice a soft rumble in the dark. “But you have a big day ahead of you tomorrow, and I think you should
get your rest.”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” she said, taking his face in her hands. “I want to spend tonight with you.”
“Aurelie . . .”
She reached over to her nightstand to turn on her lamp. “What’s going on? Everything was fine before you went to look for the ribbon, and now you’re acting strangely.”
Something passed behind his silver eyes, but it was a look she hadn’t learned yet. Maybe that was why it elicited a sinking
dread in her stomach. “I’m concerned about tomorrow, that’s all.”
“I wish you’d have a little more faith in me,” she said, pulling him onto the sofa beside her.
“And I wish you’d have a little less faith in Everard.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I know you don’t want me here
tomorrow—”
“It’s not that I don’t want you here, Des. It’s that it wouldn’t be safe for you. If Everard sees you, he’ll think I’ve betrayed him in some way.”
“What makes you think Everard isn’t already well aware of me? If Kobal has seen me, I have to assume Everard has.”
“If that were the case, he would have said something by now. Listen, I know it’s difficult, but in twenty-four hours, this
will all be over. Uncle Leo will be home, I’ll be back to being a student, and if all goes well, you’ll be searching for a
new line of work.”
To her relief, he smirked. “Seems a shame, when I just got a promotion.”
“I’ve heard the Iron Guard has a good retirement program.”
“I’m nineteen. A little young to retire, don’t you think?”
She chewed her lip for a moment, and when she spoke again there was no teasing in her voice whatsoever. “Maybe it can be a
fresh start. For both of us?”
He arched a brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m going to give up inventing.” She shook her head when he started to protest. “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I can’t in good conscience continue with it. Not after all the harm I’ve caused.”
“But with the portal closed, you’ll be able to invent without creating demons. It’s hardly the time to retire.”
She was grateful for his encouragement, when once he’d despised her for her inventing, but she’d made up her mind. “My uncle
wants me to live a normal life. Even if inventing is legal again, there will be a stigma hanging over it for years to come.
I’ll finish university, earn my degree, get a proper job.”
“But it’s your passion, Aurelie. You can’t just give it up.”
“What about you? Have you thought about what you’ll do next?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t allowed myself to get that far, if I’m being honest.”
Her heart sank. “Because you don’t believe it will work.”
She was grateful he didn’t lie to her, that he had more respect for her than to offer false hope. “Even if it does. I never
think beyond the immediate future. There’s never been a point.”
“Well,” she said, leaning against him, “let’s daydream for a minute. Close your eyes.” She sat up a bit to make sure he was
complying. “Good. Now, imagine yourself in ten years.”
He shuddered. “I’ll be nearly thirty.”
“Exactly. Your life will just be beginning.” Aurelie had never feared growing older. It was a privilege to live a long life,
one her parents had been denied. “Now, you’re a strong, handsome, young man. Where are you?”
He took in a deep breath through his nose and released it slowly. “I’m in a garden.”
Aurelie shifted and Des cracked one eye open. “Really?”
“It’s the first thing that came to mind.”
“Hmm.” Aurelie resettled. “All right, you’re in a garden. Where is this garden?”
“Behind a cottage. My cottage, I think.”
“Curiouser and curiouser. What time of year is it?”
“Early autumn. It’s warm, but there’s a hint of fall in the air. The first leaves are just beginning to turn.”
“It sounds lovely.”
“It is. You should join me.” She could feel his heartbeat beneath her ear, slow and steady, content.
“Speaking of, is anyone with you?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “No, but I can hear someone moving around the cottage. Clattering, in fact.”
She felt a grin tug at the corner of her mouth. “Clattering?”
“Yes, and giggling. It’s the cutest sound in the world. There’s a dog next to me. A very large, tough-looking dog, of course.
And I can smell a cake baking. It’s slightly burnt, but I’ll eat it anyway.”
She batted his arm, annoyed he wasn’t taking this seriously, but also grateful that he had included her in this fantasy. “All
right. When I’m not busy giggling and clattering, what am I doing?”
“You’re in your laboratory. Right here, at the university. You’re a science professor, and occasional inventor,” he added,
once again cracking an eye open to see her response. “And your uncle is so delighted you’re nearby he doesn’t say a word.”
It was all so perfect, she felt the bittersweet sting of tears in the back of her eyes. “And Mephisto?”
“Here, in this very room, keeping it cockroach free. And preferably staying far away from our cottage.”
She turned to look at Des.
He opened both eyes and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “What’s wrong, love?”
“I want it. Everything you said. Why can’t we have that?”
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. “Who says we can’t?”
Everyone, she thought. But she didn’t respond, and when he finally brought his mouth to hers, she let herself believe, if only for
a moment, that the future was theirs to create.
When the morning came, Aurelie found herself alone on her sofa, and the absence of both Des and Mephisto was a dull, throbbing
ache she recognized as the deep loneliness she’d felt right after her parents died. Everard was supposed to arrive at ten
for the completion of the portal. There was nothing left to do but get dressed and wait.
Aurelie put on her simplest dress, a plain black wool one that seemed fitting for today, which had the heavy, sobering atmosphere
of a funeral. The temperature had dropped once again, refreezing all the melted snow into a treacherous sheet of ice. She
nearly fell several times on the way to Uncle Leo’s cottage. She lit a fire and prepared tea, but the warmth of both couldn’t
reach her today.
By nine, she was growing anxious, pacing up and down the halls with nothing to do.
She wished Everard would hurry up and arrive so she could get this horrible day over with.
She had forbidden anyone else from coming—had ensured it, in fact—and yet she couldn’t help wishing that someone would rescue her from this terrible mess she’d made for herself.
At nine thirty, when she couldn’t stand sitting still anymore, she went outside to wait for Everard by the gates.
On a whim, she checked the postbox. A single letter was wedged inside, damp from snow but fortunately still legible. She was
so relieved when she saw Professor Sheldrake’s shaky handwriting that she nearly wept.
But as she scanned the words, her relief quickly turned to a thick, cloying horror that crawled up her throat like a scream.
Aurelie,
I can only pray this letter finds you in time. It’s my fault, of course. I gave you free rein when I should have harnessed
you like the reckless child you are. Please, if you are reading this, stop everything you’ve put into motion before it’s too
late.
You nearly translated the spell—I suppose you deserve some recognition for that—but I must have failed to fully impart how
devious Elder Vansion can be. How reading it from the lens of a modern Wisterian could be ruinous, given how archaic the language
is, how simplistic compared to New Vansion.
Aurelie skimmed the words beneath, her translation with the blanks filled in and corrected by Professor Sheldrake:
Spill ancient blood, seize the fated thorn,
A quest for balance, through treason reborn.
One flame to extinguish destiny’s might,
Renewal through battle, one soul to make right.
In the shadows lies the ancient key,
Transformation, betrayal, to set forces free.
At crossroads dark, the portal will wake,
Creation from ruin, the bond we shall break.
Below that, Sheldrake had written, “Shadow” is an archaic term for demon. I believe the “fated thorn” in question refers to King Aciano’s hawthorn crown. Aurelie,
this is a plot for treason. Whoever Everard is, he is not trying to send the demons back from where they came. He—
“Good morning, Aurelie.”
Aurelie thrust the letter into her pocket on instinct. Everard loomed above her like a gallows. “You’re early,” she blurted.
“Reading something interesting?”
She forced out a dry laugh. “Hardly. Just a note from one of my professors regarding a project proposal.”
Everard’s lips twitched. “Are you going to let me in, Aurelie?”
“Yes, of course.” She fumbled with the latch, her cold fingers numb and useless. Finally, she managed to open the gate just
wide enough for Everard and closed it behind him. She hadn’t finished Sheldrake’s letter, but what she had read was clear
enough. This had all been a trap, and possibly one far worse than she could have imagined.
“This way,” she said as they headed toward her workshop where the portal waited.
Her mind raced for some sort of way out.
Surely this wouldn’t work. She hadn’t translated everything properly—though she knew that likely didn’t matter, since Everard had provided the actual runes and Kiara had copied them with exacting diligence.
Well, she would simply have to transcribe the final rune incorrectly.
If Everard were capable of doing it himself, he would have done so already.
Leading Everard down into the cold, dark basement, she had a terrible feeling that he was going to kill her as soon as she
was finished. That he’d never meant to let her uncle go in the first place.
She turned at the bottom of the steps to find him standing so close to her she flinched. “Where is my uncle?”
“He’s still in my basement,” he said. “Here.” He procured a key from his pocket and held it out. “This will free him. You
have my word.”
“I don’t trust your word,” she said, refusing to take the key.
He sighed and reached into the breast pocket of his coat, procuring a letter. “Go on, read it.”
This she took, instantly recognizing Leo’s handwriting.
My dearest Aurelie,
Whatever you’re about to do, I beg you now not to. Everard cannot be trusted, and nothing he has planned is worth my life.
I will die a willing sacrifice if only you’ll call this off. I love you. All of you. Never doubt that.
Yours always,
Uncle Leopold
She looked up at Everard with fury burning in her eyes. “How is this possibly supposed to reassure me?”
“Well, he had to be alive to write it, didn’t he?”
“He could have written it at any point. And he wants me to stop you.”
Everard shrugged. “Of course. But I also know you won’t.”
Hot tears slipped down Aurelie’s cheeks. “I despise you.”
Everard sighed and stepped around her, approaching the portal. “I’m impressed,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “I knew
you were clever, resourceful. But I did not have faith that you’d pull it off.”
“What choice did I have?” she demanded.
“You could have done it all by yourself, and then I have no doubt you wouldn’t have finished.”
Aurelie’s stomach sank at the implication. “You know I had help.”
“Of course I know. I already told you, child. I know everything. I was surprised when I realized the Iron Guards were helping
you, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been. There is something about you that I imagine people find appealing. Your single-mindedness
is refreshing in a world of compromisers and settlers.”
“Are you going to hurt them?” Aurelie asked, her voice shaking, her hands clenched in useless fists at her sides.
“There’s no need.” Everard glanced at the final metal plate waiting for its engraving. The one that looked something like
an eye. The one that she now knew meant wake. “Now, am I going to have to force you to complete this, or are you going to comply like a good girl?”
Something about Everard’s words struck a nerve deep inside Aurelie, the mocking echo of Des’s very real praise, Everard’s
clear disregard for her humanity. She was a tool to him. Nothing more.
“Who are you, really?” she asked.
“I think you already know the answer to that, Aurelie.”
It had nagged at her from the start, his flame-red hair, his in-depth knowledge of Wisterian history, his near-reverence for
invention. “Prince Florian,” she whispered, as the dread inside of her widened from a slowly creeping wormhole into a deep,
unending chasm.
Before he could respond, a terrible howl split the silence, causing every hair on Aurelie’s body to stand on end. “Is that . . . ?”
“Kobal. Yes. Your friends have grown desperate.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come, Aurelie,” he said, taking her by the arm. “They won’t get to you in time. Finish this, before they’re all dead and
you have nothing left to save.”
“What have you done?” she asked, wrenching free of his grip.
He studied his fingernails with the callous detachment of a man without a soul. “How can I put this?” He looked up at her
and smiled. “Well, let’s just say your little demon friend has eaten well this week.”