Chapter Fifty-Three
FIFTY-THREE
I WAKE IN THE PITCH black.
I am sitting in a chair in a flat, windless place that reeks of rotted wood and damp, mildewed soil peppered with spoiling mushrooms.
There’s something itching against my face, but when I try to raise my arms to scratch, I realize my hands are bound behind my back. I can see nothing beyond the blindfold.
Panic swells in my chest, I thrash my head from side to side when I feel that my legs are also tied.
I find that my mouth is already open, something stuffed inside it.
I call the magic to me, but it sputters.
A heaviness rests around my throat.
Concentrating, I bear down on the well in my core, yanking and twisting the magic to my arms, but it doesn’t come.
Vomit climbs my throat.
A shuffling behind me.
Hands against the back of my head.
Light—burning my retinas as it floods my vision when someone removes the mask.
“You’re awake,” a calm voice says.
When they come into focus, my blood turns to ice.
I try to call the magic again. I fail. Again.
“There’s no use,” Alastair Matsoukas says, crossing his right leg over his left where he sits in a chair across from me. “That nifty little iron collar around your throat should take care of whatever power you have left after that display.”
He’s holding a large syringe with a long, thick needle, the barrel filled with a deep red liquid.
There’s a throbbing ache in the crook of my arm.
Alastair replaces the needle cap, but not before a droplet of my blood leaks out onto his finger. He pops it into his mouth, and I gag. “I’m sorry things have turned out this way,” he says as he shoves the full syringe into his pocket.
“You know, when I invited you to tonight’s event, I envisioned a much more peaceful meeting. I’m normally a pacifist, you understand. But unfortunately, when people deliberately disrupt my carefully laid plans, I can’t ensure things will work out in the most ideal way.”
My brain is mush, the world sways around me like I have the spins. I curl my toes in my shoes and try to root myself as I take in my surroundings.
We’re in a dark room with a dirt floor.
It’s familiar, but I can’t place why. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing in here save for Alastair and me and a metal table with various-shaped blades.
He stands, pacing away from me.
“Harper, I’m going to tell you a story, is that okay?”
My eyes are wide, and my mouth hurts where it’s stretched at the edges.
When I don’t answer him, he nods his head. “Excellent.”
He turns, meets my eyes, looks like he’s going to begin, but then he stops, his gaze settling onto something behind me.
“Actually,” he calls into the void, “Mal, come closer. You should hear this too.”
I shake my head. Fuck. I’m trying to piece together what happened out at Hanging Rock, but it’s useless. Where is Lucas? I yell, but the words are too muffled to decipher.
I knew something was wrong when he didn’t show up in the clearing like we’d planned. Did his father figure out that he’d been betrayed? A well of sorrow opens at my core. Despite my doubts, Lucas was adamant that Alastair was good. And now, thanks to me, who knows what’s happened to him?
A figure stalks from behind me, near silent on his feet. I scan over his dirt-dusted, black metal leg and scraped-raw pale skin. His ripped, gray hoodie and scarlet hair. He keeps his gaze trained on Alastair, avoiding me.
I wrestle against my binds, but it’s no use.
“Kai, son, it seems like you need a history refresher. There is a reason why we do the things we do. And a reason for how we do them.”
When Malachi finally looks at me, his eyes are jade stones.
Cold. Hard.
Visions of him accepting the death I offered him back on that cliff—of him wanting it—bring the nausea back, but I swallow it down. There’s no evidence of that boy in Malachi’s face now.
“One hundred years ago,” Alastair starts, though I can barely hold onto his words as the room continues to spin around me, “my ancestors had a plan. First, you must know, we are not a greedy people. We are self governing. We have always had ranks and roles and rules, and for a long time, this order was enough. You see, our magic is a limited resource, and we had to have order if we were going to maintain our status as some of the most powerful beings in the world.” He holds out his arms as though he is speaking to a crowd instead of just me and Malachi.
The single, flickering lamp overhead sways as he talks, playing with his shadow. Maybe this is why it takes me a moment to realize that the shadow is alive. Skating across the floor, reaching out from him in tendrils. I recoil against the sight. The air is beginning to smell of sulfur.
“For years we curated the witch population in Earnest. We grew them, we pruned them, we primed them for the taking. But slowly it became clear that the witches knew something we didn’t. The tides were changing between our kinds. There had been rumors of revolt.
“We’d been planning a culling, attempting to perfect the foiled power transfer from Wilmington many years prior, and when my grandfather Bud made contact with a scorned witch named Lucille, those plans were finally put into action.
Thanks to her, we knew when your kind would gather.
We knew that there would be a great display of power—enough to crack the river wide open. ”
Nora had called Lucille a traitor. I guess this is why.
“So we marked twelve witches. Twelve witches for twelve seasons. My grandfather believed that if we harvested the Twelve all at once, the Holy River would bestow upon us the power that should have been ours all along. Where the Origin was a leader of the beginning, my grandfather was a visionary.
“On this night so many years ago, under a sky of falling stars, when the strength of God’s power was near limitless, we prepared to take what was rightfully ours.
“But when my ancestors arrived, they realized they’d been tricked.”
He turns and stares into my face. “It seems that Miss Lucille had a change of heart, though she had been promised a place among our ranks. A divine union with the benefit of power no witch had ever held. But this was only if she remained loyal to us. Instead, she bit the hand that fed her. She tipped the witches off. Gave them a chance to destroy their records and light their covenstead ablaze.” He shakes his head.
I glance at Malachi, but he mostly looks bored. Like he’s heard this all before. Too many times to count. Though it’s strange because Alastair’s version of what happened that night doesn’t quite align with what Nora wrote in her journal.
“At first we thought that perhaps someone else had beat us to the punch. Maybe some racist vigilante group had turned their violence against a colored school. We thought that the witches’ chanting spell was an effort to put out the fire, not stoke the flames.”
He tilts his head back, eyes closing as he continues.
“It was tragic, but fret not, we could still see our plan through. We needed the magic, not for ourselves, but for the Almighty.” He glances at me, and I peel my lips back from my teeth where they clench around the bind so hard, I taste the metallic tang of blood.
“Because it is our duty to rid the world of the abomination of unrighteous power.”
I want to scream.
“But these—these witches—” He practically spits the word, his cool demeanor finally beginning to slip. “They killed themselves right in front of our eyes. They framed my ancestors for a lynching they did not commit. And when the last witch’s heart stopped, a beam of light shot into the sky.”
The shadows move as one, stretching the shape of his body until he’s reaching toward the ceiling in time with his words.
“When their bodies were cut from the trees, their magic was gone. Distraught, my ancestors pulled a witch who had been watching from the woods and marked her right there, in front of everyone—only, the bind wouldn’t take.
Frustrated, he slit her throat, but her blood did not bear the fruit of her magic. ”
But it did spill, I think. And the river feasted.
It’s a story I’ve already heard and seen for myself, but my stomach turns listening to him recount the hunters’ version.
“We aren’t bad men,” he says, eyes pleading. “You must understand that.”
I swallow, the cool metal at my throat digging into my skin, a hollow, creeping dullness spreading from it in painful slashes.
My magic is still gone. Dormant. Waiting.
“You know,” Alastair says, gesturing to Malachi, “When Kai disobeyed me tonight and met you in the clearing, I thought that surely he was just overexcited to finally put His plan into motion, but now I know that his hunter instincts were simply too strong.
“I’m sorry that he tried to kill you, but that is simply his base nature. It is not what we’re here to do today. Cooperate with us, and no harm will come to you tonight.”
I whip my head to catch Malachi’s eyes, but he still refuses to look at me.
A tear swims down my face.
“I’ll admit, I was jealous. It has been a decade since I’ve been able to enjoy the chase.
For years I have followed in my father’s footsteps, tracked down the descendants of the Beaumont Clark School.
Together we have whittled the bloodlines near to the bone.
I have, over time, narrowed down the possibilities and exposed the truth of the so-called prophecy. ”
Their names come to me like a curse. Adiola, Sandra… Fiona. How many more are there?
This man is a lunatic.
“Though we can’t ignore the fact that what you did was extremely reckless, Kai. Certainly not the behavior of someone who claims to want a higher ranking.”
“Sir,” someone calls from the shadow of the doorway.
“What?” Alastair snaps.
“We need you! There’s an issue down in the west hall!”
“What issue?” he barks.
“It’s a code gray!”
“Shit,” Alastair mutters, running toward the door. “Kai, do not leave her! Don’t speak to her, and don’t let her try to persuade you with her little games.”
When he’s gone, I scream until my lungs give out.