Chapter 26
As promised, Casimir delivered the Book of Erebos into my hands before the afternoon sun set over the trees.
He’d also had the foresight to bring an assortment of my belongings in a canvas rucksack.
Along with sweats and a pair of socks, he’d also included the slim moleskin journal where I’d stashed the lock of his hair.
I didn’t ask whether he knew what it contained. I did, however, lift a brow when I discovered a pair of strawberry-pink cotton undies.
“I really hope Gwen packed these,” I muttered.
Casimir met my disapproval with a cheeky grin.
The moment Dr. Hobart finished with her examinations and left me to eat my dinner in relative peace, I pulled out the Book from under my pillow and splayed it over my lap.
The winter sun had begun to set, casting the room in a warm amber glow.
I carefully slipped the lock of hair from the moleskin and placed it into the Book’s leather bindings and waited.
When nothing happened, I gave the Book’s weathered pages a violent prod, ostensibly to wake it the hell up.
The ancient book wheezed and coughed as though clogged with centuries of dust, though it had only been a week since I’d last opened it.
“Come crawling back already, Little Arrow?” came a familiar croak.
“I’ve brought you what you asked for,” I said, running a finger over the curled lock sheared from Casimir’s own head.
It was softer than I’d remembered, like a raven’s feather.
I pushed away the thought of my fingers running through Casimir’s silken curls and cleared my throat.
“Now I want you to give me something in return.”
The Book sighed wistfully. “Ah, you have brought me a lock of the Darkseer’s hair. His tresses are as dark as moonless night, his eyes like gobs of honey…”
I made a disgusted noise and rolled my eyes. I swore to the gods, Casimir must’ve enchanted this Book himself. It was the only way to explain how ridiculously infatuated it was with him.
The sprite rasped out a chuckle. “You are no fun, Little Arrow. What will you ask of me?”
“Who is the Keeper’s Heir?” I asked.
Silence met my inquiry.
After a moment’s hesitation, I added, “If you can’t reveal their identity, can you tell me what secrets the Heir is tasked with guarding?”
The Book gave a hoarse giggle that sounded like a frog croaking.
My stomach twisted with unease. Giggling from an evil spirit was never a good sign.
“Tell me, please,” I urged.
“Tricky questions yield tricky answers,” sang the sprite.
I sighed, taking this as a sign that it was going to be another long night.
The Book gave a cackle of wicked delight at my provocation, and the following poem appeared on the blank page before me:
Cut before first blossom and unwise
Obsidian eyes pay their penance in blood
But smiles mask both friend and foe
When serpents lie in every soul
And naught but death can make them whole.
I stared down at the poem. Cut before first blossom and unwise…
Was the sprite referencing my unwise veilbound bargain with Casimir?
Obsidian eyes pay their penance in blood…
Was that about Casimir? Or August? And penance for what, exactly?
A cold trickle of unease skittered up my spine as I read the poem again.
But smiles mask both friend and foe
When serpents lie in every soul
This part of the poem was clearly talking about trusting the wrong person. Serpents lie in every soul. Did that mean I couldn’t trust anyone?
And neigh but death can make them whole.
Death was the only way to root out who was my friend and who was my foe? That seemed entirely too cynical, even for the Book of Erebos.
“You seem obsessed with death,” I commented wryly.
“Only mortal fools do not fear mortality,” the Book trilled. “After all, ‘that is not dead which can eternal lie.’”
I frowned. “That’s H.P. Lovecraft, isn’t it?” The Book was resorting to plagiarizing dead writers now? Good grief.
“Is that quote supposed to be about me?” I prompted when the Book ignored the question. I was beginning to feel frustrated. “You promised to give me information if I brought you a lock of the Darkseer’s hair, remember?”
On cue, the sprite cackled, and a moment later, the following lines appeared as the daemonic little spirit sang along in a gravelly voice:
“Sweet tongues offer barbed swords
Forgoing truth in favor of lies
Beware lips of sweetly word
For treachery wears a friendly disguise.”
Treachery wears a friendly disguise? I felt my frown deepen. It was a warning. Someone I trusted was going to betray me. Had perhaps, already done so.
The Book chimed in again, interrupting the dark turn of my thoughts. “But hark! A mortal girl is as foolish as she looks. The Bloodweaver awaits on tenterhooks.”
“What does any of this have to do with Evren?” I asked, a little too loudly. I spared a nervous glance in the direction of Dr. Hobart’s office, afraid she might suddenly scuttle out to check on me. “Who’s going to betray me?” I hissed into the pages.
“You ruined my wordplay, selfish girl,” the sprite whined impishly.
I was seized by a strong desire to hurl the infernal little sprite out of the nearest window.
The sprite gave a weary wheeze. “I shall grant your request, but only this once. You seek the one who will betray you?” The Book paused, as though for dramatic effect. “No need to root them out, Little Arrow, they always find you first.”
My body tensed in fear as I glanced around the hospital ward, scanning the shadows for signs of an unexpected visitor. Finding only the boy with the broken leg, still sleeping soundly, I breathed a sigh of relief and then turned back to the accursed Book.
“Who are you talking about?” I asked. “Who always finds me first?”
The sprite launched into another song, the shrill sound of its voice grating against my ears.
“I am a sprite cursed to the realm I dwell. Neither the future nor past shall I ever foretell.”
Except that was definitely a lie. The sprite had made predictions before.
I waited for it to say more, holding my breath tightly in my lungs.
The nettlesome sprite only hummed happily to itself, as if thoroughly amused by the way I hung on its every word.
I was on the verge of calling it a night, when one last question burned through my resolve.
“Why can’t you tell me who the Heir is?”
The Book clucked in disapproval and trilled, “I cannot speak what is not written in my bones, little maiden.”
I waited, gnawing on my cheek in my anxiety.
“However, I shall direct you to the place where secrets are buried in verse, and oaths are hidden among ivory and prose.”
Excitement bubbled like hope in my chest. “Where? Tell me!”
A pause, and then an invisible hand scrawled out the following verse:
Silver-tongued and moonless
Encrypted in shadow and myth
The Minotaur’s lair eponymous
Awaits the seeker’s gift
Imbibe your poison, this
ancestral haunting
Untangle a tongue or unravel an inch
An inscription of decipherable wanting.
Lies betwixt F-A-R-R-O-W and F-L-Y-N-C-H
A, Tqud, ftuzq aiz nxaap nqefaie pqxuhqdmzoq
My heart sank as I read the riddle once, and then again.
Hopelessness washed over me. This was going to be impossible.
I shook my concussed head and tried to focus on one line at a time.
The Minotaur’s lair eponymous…In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was confined…
within a labyrinth! So, the Book wanted me to seek something hidden in Ouverham’s library.
But how the hell was I supposed to find an object I knew nothing about among the endless stacks of innumerable books?
Even focusing on the library’s volumes on Greek mythology wouldn’t narrow it down much.
Not when we only had days before the blood ritual.
I frowned as I read over the next few lines.
Imbibe your poison, this ancestral haunting
Untangle a tongue or unravel an inch.
Imbibe your poison like Daemon wine? Or did the riddle mean a figurative sort of poison? Many poisons could be swallowed…As for the reference to an ancestral haunting, well—it might refer to ghosts of the past, generational trauma, family histories, etc.
I glanced over the next line. Untangle a tongue…
The word “untangle” struck me as odd. Tongues, generally speaking, didn’t tangle in the literal sense; however, they could tangle metaphorically.
Tongues that were tangled could not speak—they were silenced.
Could this clue be referring to censorship?
Untangling a tongue might mean restoring the ability to speak freely?
Yes! My heart leapt in my chest. That made sense.
But whose tongue was “tangled”? Ostensibly, if I could untangle this silenced person’s tongue, I would be able to “unravel an inch.” An inch of what? The truth? A secret?
I homed in on the last two lines in the stanza.
An inscription of decipherable wanting
Lies betwixt F-A-R-R-O-W and F-L-Y-N-C-H
A, Tqud, ftuzq aiz nxaap nqefaie pqxuhqdmzoq
The inscription lies between F-A-R-R-O-W and F-L-Y-N-C-H? Between my last names? That was… utterly baffling. And I had no idea what to make of the gibberish assortment of words below.
I ran a hand through my tangled hair in frustration, wincing when I accidentally grazed the bandage on my scalp. Why couldn’t the Book give me the fucking answer, just this once? I was tired of encryptions and riddles and schemes.
Seething, I shoved the Book into my bag, under my discarded clothes, thinking of how much I was going to enjoy burning those pages in a few days.
Little did the sprite know, we planned to destroy its home the night before the ritual.
I’d show Casimir the riddle tomorrow. Maybe he’d have some insights to offer.
Earlier, Dr. Hobart had given me a stimulant to prevent me from falling asleep and slipping into a coma. Despite the drugs, I gave in to exhaustion and fell back onto the hard hospital pillows.
A few hours later, my eyes fluttered open to see nascent streaks of dawn above my head, casting the yellow walls of the infirmary in a warm, rose gold.
No coma, then, I thought with a snort. Dead-me would’ve gotten a kick out of Casimir’s reaction to my untimely demise.
I slipped out of bed, stifling a yawn. I could’ve slept longer, but my bladder was full to bursting. The aching and dizziness, at least, were much improved. I turned the corner to the darkened, narrow hallway that led to the infirmary bathrooms.
A hand shot out and clamped over my mouth, right before a second dragged me into darkness, and I realized too late that I’d just wasted my last breath, the one I might’ve used to scream.
A cold, malevolent voice hissed in my ear, “Hello, Arden. Miss me?”