Chapter 11 The Holiday Club
The Holiday Club
Luc spent a good chunk of the next two hours going through the magi-science with all of us.
When he’d finished, I just stood there alone with Nyx, Bones, and Alaric, staring up at the projections depicted by the last of Luc’s light globes, which now covered that portion of the wall in a blueish glow.
I was still turning over everything he’d said, trying to make sense of the blood samples and images of living cells he’d been showing us for that same period of time.
“You’re saying you think the Separation itself did it?” I said, when no one else spoke.
“I suspect so, yes.” Luc hesitated, looking at me as if it was on the tip of his tongue to ask something, or say something.
He seemed to catch himself, and looked away from me, to Bones.
“I’m only at the beginning of this, but Blackstone’s been helping a lot.
So has Forsooth. Once I asked the question, all the evidence started unfolding like it’d all just been sitting there, waiting for someone to notice. ”
Frowning as he gazed up at the projection, he lowered his voice to a mutter.
“The hardest part now, frankly, is separating out the data I need for my piece of the puzzle, and the very real and much more ample evidence around the degeneration of the human world, and those impacts on Magique.”
“So where do we fit in?” Nyx asked. She leaned a hand on the work table, and stretched her back, reminding me of how long we’d all been standing there.
“Research assistants?” she continued, still stretching.
“Lab rats? I assume part of your interest in Leda is that she’s lived on Earth, has half-human blood, and has magic for days? ”
Luc’s face visibly reddened before he glanced at me.
He was back to not quite being able to meet my eyes.
“I had hoped to perhaps convince Leda to let me do an auric scan of her,” he admitted in a muttered voice. “And a blood test, if she’s feeling really generous.”
He cleared his throat, waving off his own words when I cocked an eyebrow.
“…But yes, what I really need is a research team,” he continued.
“Especially now, when we’ve got the library and records rooms basically to ourselves.
Blackstone wants me to get everything I can, wherever I can, while there are still relatively few eyes on me, and while there’s less scrutiny on the academic work being done at the school more generally.
Apparently they keep a pretty close eye on what some of the top students and teachers are working on while classes are in session––”
“Not to blow your own trumpet,” Bones muttered.
Luc gave him an annoyed look, even as his pale skin visibly flushed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
Alaric managed to insert himself at that point.
“Ooh!” His gaunt-looking but still handsome face beamed. “A Holiday Club! Stealing into the bowels of royal estates to obtain rare tomes and forbidden texts! I’m so in.”
He closed the gap between us and wrapped his free arm around my shoulders, the one that wasn’t clutching Wraith to his chest.
“What about you, gorgeous?” Alaric winked at me, looking even more manic from up close, even in the dim light of the room.
“Want to break into the private libraries of royal families with me?” He glanced at Luc.
“I’m positive we can mirror in and out before anyone manages to kill us.
We might occasionally get barfy from some lucky librarian who’s particularly quick with a nasty hex.
We are definitely the right group of mages and witches to be doing this sort of thing, though. Stellar choices, all around.”
Bones scoffed, and Nyx let out dry snort of amusement.
Alaric ignored Bones, and smiled past me at Nyx.
“Well, possibly excluding you, dear,” he added.
“As far as I know, Dark Cathedral isn’t feeling particularly murdery towards you, yet.
Although, chin up, dumpling. I’m quite certain being seen in our company will remedy that in no time.
Within a few weeks, or even a few days, if we really work at it, your chances of being murdered should have improved considerably. ”
I glanced at Alaric and rolled my eyes, but my mind was already churning around the possibilities. I admit it, I was intrigued. Also, it would potentially give me access to research sources for my own particular obsessions.
“We could disguise ourselves?” I said, looking at Bones.
Bones gave me a hard look in return, but I didn’t get the sense it was because he disagreed with me, exactly.
An annoyed flicker passed through his eyes as he noted Alaric’s arm around me, but I also saw something else in his expression.
Determination shone there, along with a faint excitement I suspected was more personal.
“You already said yes to this,” I said, a little accusingly, but without any real heat.
“You’re the one Dark Cathedral wants the most, and you’ve already told Blackstone and Luc yes to this crazy plan.
What if your father can still trace you?
We can’t assume he won’t have some way of communicating with the outside. ”
Bones flinched visibly at my words. He hesitated, glancing around at the others as if not sure he wanted to get into all that with them listening. In the end, he shrugged, and I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, either.
“Sounds like you’re coming, too,” was all he said.
I didn’t answer, mostly because he was right.
I wanted to go. Honestly, all of this felt connected to me, although I didn’t know how the pieces fit together precisely: Bones’s strange magic, Malefic’s rituals, Dark Cathedral’s obsession with reuniting the human and Magical worlds.
Had they figured out the same thing Luc had?
Was that the real reason Malefic was obsessed with ending the Separation?
Did Malefic and his Dark Cathedral cronies know more about Luc’s research than Blackstone or Forsooth realized?
Luc broke into my thoughts, his voice wary.
“Is that true?” he asked Bones, his mouth pursed. “Can your father track you?”
“Unconfirmed,” Bones said, his voice dismissive. “Blackstone says not.”
“It’s not entirely unconfirmed,” I said, disbelief in my voice. “Forsooth told me he could. Malefic himself said he could. He certainly had a lot to say about it that morning, when I heard him ranting about it from your closet.”
“He ranted about it because he couldn’t trace me,” Bones corrected, giving me a warning look. “And he hadn’t been able to for a while. So something obviously changed.”
“You can’t assume that,” I said, shaking my head. “Bones, it’s dangerous.”
“You heard what he said,” Bones said, sharper. “The whole point of his tantrum was that he’d been unable to access my magic. Obviously, something has changed.”
“We should still ask Forsooth,” I insisted.
“Leda, it’s fine.” Bones’s voice lost some of its heat but still sounded impatient. “Blackstone assures me there’s no way Malefic can trace me while he’s locked inside the Pyramid, in any case. They collar Magicals in there. He can’t feel his own magic right now, much less mine.”
“I’d like a second opinion,” I said. “You’re the one who told me not to trust Blackstone.”
Bones opened his mouth, as if about to argue, then closed it, frowning.
I grew aware of how quiet everyone else had gotten, and glanced around at the rest of the room. Bones and I really needed to have a talk about how much I was allowed to say in front of other people. Not just about his father, but about the rituals, The Priest, and everything else.
“Shadow and I could do the Black Tower,” Bones offered, breaking into my thoughts. “I’m reasonably sure we’d be safe there right now. And they have records stretching back thousands of years.”
When all of us looked at him, including me, he cleared his throat, adjusting his sleeves as his jaw tightened. When he looked up again, he focused only on Luc.
“My mother wants me to come home for Yule, for a week, at least,” he explained.
“We could arrange for a secure mirror directly from Malcroix. The only followers of my father’s who might’ve had access to the Tower have already been arrested.
” At the silence this produced, he cleared his throat again.
“I doubt my traveling to my family home would raise much suspicion, particularly over the holiday. That would be true even if Malefic could trace my movements…” He glanced flatly at me. “…Which he can’t.”
I rolled my eyes, about to argue again, but Bones cut me off.
“Anyway, my mother would really appreciate it, as I said,” he added in a subdued voice.
“Particularly now. Particularly if I brought a new friend.” He glanced at me again, one eyebrow cocked.
“We could ask your cousin to clear the place ahead of time, if you’re worried.
He could go alone, to keep it from being general knowledge among the Praecuri. ”
He paused, now gauging my expression openly.
“You trust him, don’t you?” he asked.
At that, I slowly closed my mouth. I stared at Bones, and felt a flicker of nerves reach me as everything he’d just said sank in.
Had he just invited me to his family’s ancestral home?
Another, more alarming thought reached me, immediately following that one.
Had he just invited me to his family’s ancestral home for Yule, to meet his mother?
“There’s more for you to consider than just that,” Bones commented dryly to Luc.
Gripping a saucer and cup of tea in his fingers, he plunked himself down on the end of the couch nearest to me.
He balanced the cane he’d been using with the gold dragon’s head against the nearby end table.
Then he threw his free arm over the worn leather back, and set the saucer and cup on the same end table.
I felt his magic sprawl outwards along with his body, and merge unapologetically into mine.
He wasn’t touching me, not even after he’d arranged his back and legs over most of that corner by the couch’s arm, but I still tensed.