Chapter 21 Blood Malady
Blood Malady
For the rest of the day, I hid in the Bones family library, not trusting myself around other people.
I’d spent the majority of my time at the Tower in that library, at least when I wasn’t in Bone’s actual bedroom, either sleeping on the velvet armchair Varya had dragged over from the fireplace, or sometimes, right on his enormous mattress next to him.
Varya had encouraged the latter.
She’d told me there was plenty of space, and that it wasn’t strange, given I was there in a “healing” capacity, and particularly given Bones’s reaction to my being gone.
In Varya’s words, I needed to sleep, “regardless of the compulsions of my son’s magic,” so I may as well do so comfortably, and not where I’d wake up unable to move my neck.
But there were other times, too.
Times when Bones didn’t notice me gone.
Every day Blackstone came and poured potions down Bones’s throat, he would be knocked out for hours, deeply enough that my being gone wouldn’t register.
Those were the days I returned either to the main library to read, or to the crypt underneath it, where I would search through storage crates of records, stacks of loose parchment, ancient books, urns, bones, and family relics for anything that might help Luc with his project.
I couldn’t face the crypt today, though.
It was gloomy and dark down there, devoid of the elegance, sunshine, and quiet that lived in the library upstairs.
It was more than that, too; something about the crypt made me feel depressed if I stayed down there for long.
Dark magic seeped out of the walls, out of the strange objects sitting on shelves and the piles of illegal talismans and books.
That darkness felt cloying, claustrophobic, even threatening.
It also felt inescapable, like it had sunk into every crevice and stone.
I seemed to breathe it in and out of the dank, heavy air.
I thought I heard things at times. Screams. Distant wails of grief and pain.
It wasn’t a comfortable place to be.
I’d never really thought much about places that were haunted before, nor about ghosts, but I felt them in there. I swore I felt fingers brush my skin, whispers of clothing and hair. The sensations were so visceral, I’d had to bite my lip to keep from screaming more than once.
No one but a Bones could take anything out of the crypt.
Large parts of those cells were impassible to me altogether. Varya had been extremely clear about what lines I shouldn’t cross, setting up magical, mist-filled barriers so I wouldn’t accidentally go somewhere that might end in my death.
Unfortunately, for the types of things Luc wanted me to research for his project, I hadn’t any choice but to go down there sometimes. Things like diaries, auric imprints, magical family trees, and family mythologies all lived under lock and key in the crypt.
But right now, I was reading a different type of book.
I’d been in regular correspondence with several people in Malcroix since I’d gotten to the Tower. Luc was one of those people. So were Nyx and Alaric.
I’d also been corresponding regularly with Professor Forsooth, despite my frustration that he hadn’t come to the Tower to meet with me in person.
I’d been extremely careful in my letters.
Even so, I could feel a nervous energy around my line of inquiry with him, in a way I hadn’t when requesting information about Luc’s specific needs.
I suppose that was mostly because I knew how insanely intelligent Forsooth was.
He, of all people, could possibly guess my real motives, not to mention the specific subject of my research, if I didn’t keep my questions extremely vague.
I was still trying to understand Bones’s magic.
My research during the previous school year, when I’d spent far too much time in the library on campus, reading about things that didn’t have very much to do with my classes, I’d gotten a fairly broad idea of the different types of magical maladies out there.
I only had a few things to go on from Bones himself.
He’d told me, in passing almost, that his father said his “condition” was illegal.
According to Malefic, Bones should have been euthanized at birth.
It sounded crazy to me, not to mention utterly barbaric, but I’d noted it down as a possible clue.
Bones also said he got the impression from his father that most mages, witches, and even dark sorcerers in Magique considered his condition to be purely a myth.
That gave me three broad lines of inquiry. I kept the categories broad on purpose, and did my best to make them seem unconnected when I asked Forsooth for references.
Medical afflictions. Dark mythologies. Ancient wizarding law.
Forsooth, friendly as always, had given me a generous list of books.
He’d given me three different lists, in fact, one for each topic, and recommended I read them in the order he’d listed them.
I’d been relieved as I scanned the lists, and increasingly glad I asked him, as only a few were texts I’d found on my own, whether at the library or in Bonescastle or London.
Forsooth somehow managed to offer a nearly unique list of resources compared to what every other professor and bookshop owner and librarian had given me.
I’d started on what I perceived as the more “serious” books, meaning the law and magi-physician texts. Somehow it had seemed important to go to the meatier subjects first, so I’d already made my way through a good chunk of those two lists.
There was no way I was up for that today.
I was too tired and wrung-out to read a dense magi-physiology text, or anything filled with arcane Magical legal language. I didn’t have the patience or the focus, especially knowing Bones was awake upstairs, which was making me anxious as hell.
I opted for a book from the mythology pile, instead.
I hadn’t started that subject yet, which meant I’d be reading the very first book on Forsooth’s list. Unfortunately, the first book on Forsooth’s list was a thick, encyclopedic tome on dark magical myths that predated the ninth century wars.
I wasn’t certain that would be much better than magical science.
I’d try it. If I couldn’t deal, I’d go upstairs and take a bath.
I made a few quick mudras in the shape of a rune, like Varya showed me, and a tea set appeared, steaming, on the low table in front of me.
I poured myself a cup, knowing it would be steeped and ready to drink, and settled back in a leather couch in front of one of the library’s three fireplaces, the thick book open on a pillow in my lap.
After looking over the gold-foiled endpapers which depicted a number of magical beasts and godlike creatures, I paused long enough to glance at the title page, which read: Magical Mysteries and Abominations of the Pre-Modern World, by Joran Davilisk, foreword by Ewald Forrester, Master Healer, published in 1936.
I flipped past a few more gilded illustrations.
Then, still taking my time, I ran a finger over the table of contents, looking for a chapter that might be a little lighter as a place to start.
I stopped on the thirteenth chapter, and blinked.
Caelum Ignis.
A prickling sensation rippled up my spine.
I’d run across the term before, at least two other times in the course of my research.
I think I’d even seen it mentioned in the Magical Maladies book I’d stumbled upon at Miranda’s family beach house last summer.
I only remembered the name for the obvious reason, it was Caelum’s name.
I didn’t bother looking into it beyond those few references; I think I dismissed it out of hand, because who would name their actual child after a condition they suffered from?
Anyway, there’d never been any detail on what it meant.
Something made me flip to the thirteenth chapter, anyway.
Once I found it, I pulled my legs up to sit cross-legged on the couch, resettled the book on a pillow in my lap, and began to read.
As I made my way through the first page, my uneasiness worsened.
The feeling didn’t get better as I read through the second.
By the time I’d reached the third, I felt light-headed.
…Perhaps the most infamous of the magical maladies to have been recorded in the early histories, whispers of “caelum ignis” and the beasts the condition produced became significantly more real for much of the Magical world during the medieval period in Europe, when an afflicted witch killed over five hundred people in a rural area of Germany.
Officials attributed those deaths to bubonic plague at first, perhaps in error, perhaps in an effort to avoid causing a panic, or perhaps due to skepticism around the number of dead and reported cause.
Whatever the reason, the truth came out when the witch in question began murdering publicly, often in broad daylight and in front of crowds, such that the truth could no longer remain hidden.
Driven insane by the condition, she is believed to have killed indiscriminately for over a year before committing suicide at some point in 1353.
Her suicide brought a great relief to the surrounding cities and towns, as officials were unable to stop her rampage on their own, despite repeated attempts in which many law enforcement agents and praecuri were murdered.
I re-read the entire passage.
The author hadn’t actually described the affliction really, other than to say it drove the witch insane. I looked for her name, thinking I might research her further, but there wasn’t one. Had they not known it? Or was omitting it some attempt to protect the family?
I tried to remind myself this was a book of myths.
It probably wasn’t real. It hadn’t happened.
And why would it make me nervous, even if it had? I had no reason to think the affliction had anything to do with what might be wrong with Caelum.
My heart beat harder as I continued to read.