Chapter Thirty-One
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
EMBER
Dark Witches cannot be Siphoned and are difficult to imprison, complicating the means by which we are able to punish them.
— Jaxan D’Oron, Echelon to the
School of Dark Magic
Highgrave Avenue, the street the portstop spit me out on, was cold, gloomy, and rain-drenched.
I dodged puddle after puddle, but the wet and cold seeped through my shoes anyway.
Streetlamps flickered as a howling wind blew through the overhanging tree cover.
Branches rattled, casting eerie, lurching shadows over the street.
Who knew how many more shadows lurked behind windows?
Gnarlton was all Gothic architecture, made up of stories upon stories of tall, pointy cast-iron structures, the antithesis of welcoming, the atmosphere oppressive.
Monochrome. Sharpened spires. And — there were children here.
Groups of them. A child waving a wooden stick in the air like a tiny ringmaster.
Others splashing in puddles, stomping their muddy tracks across the concrete, giggling, free, and happy.
So out of place, given the city’s general appearance of winter’s starvation.
Withered trees leaned ominously. Long, bare branches lurched in the gray gloom.
Frail branches, yet somehow they were sturdy enough to support an occupation of crows.
Loitering black bodies perched on thin branch strips.
A murder, a group of crows was called. I tried not to read into it as I turned east, away from the portstop and toward the catacombs.
I didn’t recognize any of the several sets of footsteps in the background, but I knew it in my bones.
I was being followed. Sounds jabbed, the hairs on the back of my neck raising at the multiple low, male voices, whispering in the background.
I sped up. So did they. I crossed the street, splashing through mud to get to the uneven sidewalk.
They splashed through the same section of street, crossing after me.
My focus had been on getting to the catacombs, but I hadn’t really considered the logistics of being in Gnarlton now that I was living in Creatus, staying at the Creation Academy, aligned with a school of light magic.
Dark Witches wouldn’t want a wannabe light witch here, wandering through their safe haven.
My shoulders were tight as I fixed my gaze straight ahead.
My one hope was that, maybe, these weren’t the type of Dark Witches who went into the catacombs, and possibly I could lose them there.
“Grab her,” their leader ordered.
He circled around to my front, and the first thing I noticed was his eyes, flickering with vengeance. I thought he was in his mid-twenties, but the lower half of his face was covered by a black neck gaiter, so it was hard to tell.
And while his covered-up appearance was threatening, I couldn’t feel fear through my rage.
He was standing between me and Leland, and was currently in the way of me finding out why Leland’s bloodied footprints had been identified in the catacombs.
Where Leland was — it was the only threat I was capable of processing until I found him.
From behind, someone apprehended me.
“Let me go,” I said firmly, trying to jostle out of their grip. “I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just looking for the Truth-Teller.”
“That’s funny,” said the leader. “We also happen to be looking for the prince. As it happens” — rough hands on my hips jerked me back — “it’s why we’ll be taking you.”
I knew then that I had to attempt to get free and run. I jabbed my elbows backward, but I was outnumbered. I let out a yelp as I was wrenched painfully backward.
“Go ahead and scream. Something tells me it won’t be long before your prince appears to collect you.”
They hoisted me off my feet, and in the next instant, the rainy streets disappeared in a spiral of swirling shadows, chaotic Shadowcurrents coming at me from every angle.
By the end of the dark journey, I was limp and weakened. And when the tumbling smoke of shadows at last cleared, I crashed to my knees in a dark and narrow corridor, where only a thin shaft of light flickered from a long distance away. My lungs gasped out for air.
I scanned the long path to the exit as my satchel was torn from me, then they tossed me into a hard chair. I kicked and twisted, but a Dark Witch bore down on me and drilled his hands forcefully into my shoulders, restraining me from twisting out of the chair.
Was this the catacombs? I didn’t feel Leland here.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“Catacombs,” he said. “That’s why no one’s coming to help.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “Why do you want the Truth-Teller?”
“Rye Cackrin.” He retrieved a figure eight of rope from a shadowy crevice with his gloved hands.
The fingerless kind, the worn knit cut off below the top knuckle to expose the tips of his brutal fingers.
“We lost him around four this morning. But don’t worry, half witch.
Your prince will return as soon as he hears from his spies all about how we’re torturing you.
Not that we’ll stop.” He chuckled darkly, sending his Shadowcurrent rushing into my mouth to make me gag.
“Your pretty little tongue will be the last thing we take. So there’ll be plenty of time for you to say goodbye, while he watches me get even with him. ”
I jerked my face away from the Shadowcurrent. “What does that mean?”
“Means dead,” someone said, and the coven erupted in heartless laughter.
Rye ordered them to stop standing around and search my satchel. My satchel — I ground my teeth — with the Everblade in it.
Rye crouched in front of me, his fingers deftly moving to unspool the length of rope with efficiency, reminding me of Leland and stoking the pain of missing him. My anger burned hotter as Rye tied down my wrists.
“I meant,” I said, enraged to have to break it down for them, “what do you mean you lost him at four? Leland was here? He was in the catacombs?”
My one flicker of hope was this: if Leland left the catacombs at four, he could’ve been back in Creatus when the shadows were seen thirty minutes later, which meant he could be with the missing Sevens, as Loree had said, as I originally thought before Jaxan planted the catacombs in my head.
Not dead, but alive in Helen’s Shadowrealm.
“He was,” said Rye, “physically.” More low chuckles sounded in response.
This close, I spied red splatters like sprays of flying blood all over his dark clothing.
And snapped. There was something unsettling about me in withdrawal.
Something on the precipice of calamity when my blood churned, a deep, buried darkness rising to the surface to burn, and the Ember who usually ran to get out of the way wanted to stay and play and be destructive.
I aimed a kick at Rye’s groin, but he dodged it with a laugh, then ordered his coven to tie my feet, just as the rustling through my satchel ceased.
“Er . . . Rye?” I heard it in their voice, the weight of the Everblade in their hand.
“The Everblade,” Rye said, his eyes flashing sinisterly as he reached to take it. He looked at me with revulsion. “You had this on you, and you didn’t try to use it?”
“Yeeep,” I said. “I told you. I didn’t come here to start anything. I came to find Leland.” Though the longer this went on, the more that was changing.
“You should’ve used it,” he tutted. “I’d tell you to remember for next time, but — ” The knife point hovered a breath away from the small divot in the middle of my collarbone. “There won’t be one.”
I was stock-still as Rye lifted the blade to admire his reflection in its gleam. “What do you know about it?” he asked, angling the knife to catch his side profile. “It cuts through everything automatically? Or does it depend how its wielded?”
“Only one way to find out,” one of his coven laughed.
“I was talking to the half witch.”
“I don’t know,” I said bitterly. “I’ve never seen it used on a person. I’ve only seen it destroy an artifact and a flask.”
Rye took the blade to the neck of my shirt and applied the finest amount of pressure, drawing the point in a slow semicircle that arced a deep U down my chest and back up again.
I glowered at him as the cut piece of fabric fluttered to the ground, cold air leeching warmth from my freshly exposed skin.
He pressed the knife tip back to my skin, drawing a trickle of blood that rolled down my sternum. I knew he wanted me to scream for Leland, but this wasn’t worse than how it felt to lose him. And I knew Leland wasn’t coming. If he could, he’d already be here.
Rye carved a long slice down my arm, opening my skin in a narrow papercut starting at the knob of my shoulder. A few times, he pretended to lose control, the knife slipping. He found this more amusing than I did.
“You know he said you were a job?” Rye murmured. “It’s how I figured you were special to him. Perhaps not as special as his other lovers. But special enough. For now.” Slowly, he dragged the knife back up the opening he’d made, deepening it. “Until he finds another who’s more interesting.”
The turmoil that had been brewing within me since I walked across the marble bridge intensified into the same hot feeling of possessive jealousy I got when I needed to claim Leland as my own.
The burning sensation just like the one that came before I evaporated.
I was furious, boiling. Ready to rip free.
I wanted to snatch the knife and gut Rye Cackrin.
But more than that, I wanted Leland.
Otherwise, I would’ve paused to savor Rye’s mystified expression as the ropes around my wrists and feet slipped free, all of me disappearing in a singular moment. Without the magic suppressants, I’d skipped flickering and went straight to invisible. I was ether now.
Rye didn’t know what to do.