Chapter Twelve
Helspira
GREAT. THEY WERE GAMBLING now. What if they didn’t get the scroll? Sikras would never send Ben into a dangerous situation without a failsafe.
Maybe that was his plan all along. Ben had confessed outright that Sikras was a compulsive liar. Was this whole journey one big ruse? To delay incarceration for his crimes and continue avoiding a showdown with Vessik? Helspira chewed on one of her claws, making a mental note to file it more later.
Slaughter the wizard and take the scroll.
Nerves sunk Helspira’s stomach as she gawked at the game.
A dozen little marbles nestled in a dozen little holes, and a myriad of other cavities surrounded the hexagonal board.
She had never seen anything like it. Hoping Ben could shed light on the game’s objective—and Sikras’s odds of winning—she lifted her gaze to find him.
He stood across the room, outside the threshold of Theodore’s arcane collection, seemingly fixated on the contents inside.
Before she could guess what he was doing over there, Theodore plopped the last marble into place.
“Go ahead,” the wizard said absent of generosity. “I’ll even give you the first move.”
Sikras examined the board. “Uh-huh. Interesting.” He reached toward an amethyst marble but left his hand hovering over it.
He waited.
And waited.
After waiting some more, he hovered over a different marble—a glossy, blueish one. “Yes, I think it’s obvious what the first move should be.”
“Then, make it,” came Theodore’s impatient reply.
“See, I think you think I’ll move this one.” Sikras pressed the pad of his index finger atop a frosty green marble. “But that would be much too obvious, wouldn’t it?”
The soft yet familiar sound of grinding teeth came next. “Just make your move.”
“Why the rush, Theodore? Do I sense a little fear?”
“Not from Siaphara’s reigning Metamorphose champion, no.”
Sikras tapped his chin and launched into a series of long, calculating noises of consideration. He smacked his lips before nodding to himself, tapping each marble to a tune he seemed to make up in his head. “One, two, three, which will it be?”
By the time Theodore slammed his fist atop the table, jostling marbles and board, Ben pulled away from the door and walked back toward the festivities. Helspira caught him and Sikras exchanging silent nods.
After, Sikras continued posturing.
“For the love of Entra,” howled Theodore, “make your bloody move!”
“Perfection takes patience.” Sikras chose a marble and moved it. “There we are. Top that.”
Theodore raised a brow. “That’s your move?”
“That’s my move.”
Theodore’s look of disbelief transformed into a laugh. A flurry of marble movement followed, lasting all of four seconds, before he shouted, “Ha! A Metamorphose master, are you? Pathetic. I haven’t won in a single move since I was a boy.”
“You won already?” Sikras’s words came out curious but even-toned. He surveyed the board and blinked. “Well, shit.”
A muffled hum rumbled inside Helspira’s clamped lips, and she raked her fingers into her scalp. “You lost? I thought you said—”
“A deal is a deal.” Theodore tapped Mr. Tibbons’s box. “Resurrect him. Now.”
Sikras offered Helspira a smile, but it failed to comfort her in any way.
Lost. They had lost. No scroll. The banneret would murder her, then throw her and her parents back into Chthonia.
No doubt, in that environment, her mum would enter another demonic state and lose what little of herself remained, and her da would be doomed to watch the love of his life deteriorate into a mindless beast. Some small part of her rejoiced at not having to send Ben into dangerous territory, but—
“A deal is a deal, indeed.” Sikras clasped his hands together. “Let’s get this over with.”
Theodore scooted toward the edge of his seat. “Hurry. The days have been too quiet without him.”
Helspira halted her panicked pacing and hugged her torso.
The longing in Theodore’s voice was palpable.
If he wasn’t such an ass—and if she wasn’t busy lamenting over her future—she might have pitied him.
She watched Sikras flex his fingers, flick his hands, and close his eyes.
One whispered spell later, black mist appeared in his open palms, and his body snapped from the sudden lash of recoil.
The marbles, still nestled in the board’s indentations, clattered like rain on a tin roof as the table rattled.
Sweeping his trembling hand, Sikras pried off the box’s top and tossed it across the room.
Sunlight through a nearby window caught particles of floating dust as the bones twitched in their makeshift coffin.
Despite the absence of ligaments to hold its pre-death shape, the skeleton adopted a noticeably feline appearance—at least as feline as a pile of fleshless, furless bones could possibly look.
The cat’s skull snapped toward Theodore, and though its jaws parted in such a way that would indicate an irritated hiss, no sound emerged.
“Mr. Tibbons.” Theodore’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, but a sneer soured his expression. “Why does he sound like that?”
“Like what?” came Sikras’s sluggish, slurred reply as he rubbed his temples. “Quiet?”
“Yes.”
“Vocal cords cost extra.”
The answer appeared unsatisfactory to Theodore, but his concerns swiftly shifted to another matter. “And you can’t return his flesh?”
“I deal strictly in the intangible, my friend: souls, essence, and spirits only. Throw a mink stole on ole Mr. Tibbons if he gets too hard to look at.” As Sikras slid his chair backward with a scrape, Ben appeared at his side to help him stand.
With Ben’s lack of flesh serving as proof of Sikras’s limitations, Theodore accepted the disappointment with a relenting nod, then proffered his hand toward the corpse. “Hello, Mr. Tibbons. I missed y—”
The bones swatted his hand, back arching.
In the face of the violence, Theodore smiled. “Classic Mr. Tibbons. That’s him, all right.”
“Yes, well”—Sikras stumbled, but Ben caught him—“touching as this reunion is, we best be on our way.”
“Sikras.” It pained Helspira to trouble him when he had already suffered the sting of magical backlash, but she gripped his arm. “Perhaps we can think of another way to convince Theodore to relinquish the scroll?”
“Now, now, Helspira. We’ll find another way.” His cold hand gave hers a squeeze, then he faced Theodore. With Ben’s assistance, he dipped into a halfhearted sardonic bow. “Good game, Metamorphose master. A loss is a loss, and I accept my defeat. Off we go. Come along, Benjamin.”
“We’ll just scoop up our weapons on the way out,” Ben’s disembodied voice called out over his shoulder.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Helspira stuttered as she trailed the men outside the door and into the hallway. “We’re leaving? Just like that?”
“Yes,” Sikras whispered, strained, “quickly, quickly, quickly. Benjamin, I think I can stand for ten whole seconds. Be a dear and collect our weapons, will you?”
“On it.”
Sikras steadied himself against a wall as Ben hastily returned with an armful of weaponry. With the scythe in Sikras’s hands to serve as his crutch, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Helspira grumbled as she returned her sword to its scabbard. “Sikras, we need that scroll.”
“And we have it. Don’t we, Benjamin?”
“We have it,” Ben confirmed.
“What?” Helspira’s incredulousness sounded ridiculous when it came out as a strained whisper. She looked over her shoulder to ensure Theodore didn’t follow. “How?”
Pale-faced and struggling with each step, Sikras beelined for the main door.
“While I was busy pretending to know what Metamorphose is, Benjamin was waiting for our little soulless stowaway to bypass Theodore’s arcane barriers and steal the scroll.
Fuck me”—he panted—“was his hallway always this long?”
Stunned, Helspira faced Ben. Peering from the small opening when Ben parted his jaw, tucked into the hollow cavern of his mouth, an undead rat appeared, clutching the delicate scroll between its claws like a rolled cigar. Helspira gawked. “What did you ... How did you ...?”
“Like I said”—Sikras smirked—“why do your own bidding when you can delegate?”
“Wait.” Helspira hustled down the staircase, past the paintings and statues. “I’m still processing all this. You’ve never played Metamorphose before?”
“Played it?” Sikras huffed. “I’ve never even heard of it. And if I’m being honest, it lacks all the dignity of Rack and Ruin. We should walk faster. Can you walk faster?”
Helspira’s footsteps quickened. “Aren’t you afraid Theodore will notice it’s missing?”
“Not as much as I’m afraid he’ll discover I stuffed his cat’s corpse with the soul of the poltergeist who was trapped in that creepy vase.”
Ben scoffed. “I doubt he’ll ever discover the difference. Cats and malevolent spirits are sort of on the same level.”
“With a name like Mr. Tibbons,” Sikras said, “that feline was entitled to its anger. Substituting its soul with a poltergeist may have been a mercy for Theodore.”
Helspira’s pace slowed as they rounded another corner. “I don’t know how I feel about this. Don’t get me wrong, Theodore’s a prick, but trust me, it’s not wise to earn a wizard’s wrath, unless you want to wake up missing a few body parts.”
Sikras turned and caught her in his gaze. “That bastard said you weren’t a person. That you deserved to have your eye ripped out. I held my tongue in his presence at your insistence, but he’s earned whatever fresh fuckery that poltergeist intends to give him.”
Helspira drew in a sharp breath. “You ... You did that for me?”
“Of course.” Sikras flashed a weary smile.
“Though, I did briefly connect with Mr. Tibbons’s spirit in Enos.
He told me that if he had to spend another minute in Theodore’s presence, he’d hunt me down and make me beg for Death’s sweet embrace.
I believed him too. Cats don’t make idle threats, living or dead. ”
His words were a distant echo to Helspira, as she was too lost in his jade-colored eyes to process them.
Stuffing a cat’s corpse with a poltergeist never topped her list of adoring gestures, but somehow it bolstered her heart.
Unfortunately, the look of paranoia on Sikras’s face pulled her to reality.
Their exit waited within their line of sight.
Sikras stepped toward it, but Helspira’s hand on his arm stopped him short.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He blinked, looked at his arm, then at her. “Do you know the best way you could thank me?”
A burst of nerves rippled through her. “H—how?”
He slid his hand atop hers and grinned. “Resuming that hurried pace we’d set earlier. Theodore may look a bit weak in the arms, but he could probably still kick my ass if he caught me.”
She pulled away her hand with a short, breathy laugh and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry. Ben and I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, would we?”
“Not on my life,” Ben said. “And yes, I realize the irony. Let’s face it, if I’m willing to stuff a dead rat in my mouth, there’s not much I won’t do for you.”
“An undead rat,” Sikras clarified.
Ben huffed. “You say that like it somehow makes the situation better.”
“Apologies, Benjamin. Let’s hasten our pace so we can clear your jaws of that decaying carcass, shall we?
” Sikras took one last look in the direction they’d left Theodore, then dashed out the door, through the bustling streets of Everferd, and into the forest to reforge their path toward Stow’s Peak.