Chapter Twenty-Nine
My quarters weren’t quite what I expected.
I guess there was a part of me that assumed there would be gothic red drapes and a black mahogany four-poster bed that would swallow me up when I lay on it.
Instead, the room was less assuming. Ivory filigree drapes covered a small window that looked over rolling hills.
A small, corner fireplace would have kept the chill off most people, but I couldn’t shake the fact that I was in the heart of the Priestess’ compound.
I reached for the pouch Twobble had handed me and dumped out the contents to see several tiny pebbles. I shoved them in my pocket and warmed them in my palm as I squeezed my fist together and thought about Celeste. She was safe with everyone in Stonewick, and so was my mom.
Everything would be okay.
There was a small bookshelf with only a few large tomes tilted against each other. I walked over and slid the first from the shelf. The deep blue cover felt warm and soft under my fingertips, and a large, starburst-shaped symbol with curling smoke around it centered the cover.
I took it over to the small bed in the corner that was dressed in a cream duvet cover.
When I opened the book, something slipped out of the pages, and I let out a little gasp. My mom must have been here too and left me something. I quickly glanced around and drew a deep breath as my hand felt for whatever had fallen out of the pages and onto the comforter.
My fingers brushed something smooth and cold.
I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and lifted it from the folds of the duvet.
At first, I couldn’t make sense of it. It seemed like nothing more than a charm. It was no larger than a coin. It appeared flat and translucent, with a faint green tint at the edges, but when I held it close, I could feel my mother’s magic.
I knew it instantly.
The Priestess was right about us all leaving remnants of our magic…
The charm pulsed once.
I looked down at the open book, and words appeared in tiny silver letters across the page it fell from.
Maeve, if this finds you, don’t trust the pretty doors.
My throat tightened.
I pressed my other hand over my mouth before any sound could escape. The room seemed to tilt softly around me as the letters faded.
Of course, my mother would leave a warning that sounded like something from a fairy tale right in the middle of a nightmare.
I turned the charm carefully, but nothing else appeared.
I looked down at the book and flipped the pages, but the others were all written in a language I didn’t recognize.
Symbols curled across the parchment in long lines, some sharp as thorns, others soft and looping.
The drawings in the margins showed doorways, mirrors, wells, and strange circular rooms lined with vines.
The page where the charm had been hidden showed an archway with a star, a root-like symbol beneath, and a shadow.
It reminded me of the root-like symbol I had seen earlier in the silver veins running through the compound walls.
My pulse quickened as the charm pulsed again in my hand, and I blinked.
“Oh.”
My voice sounded too loud in the quiet little room, and I glanced at the door.
Nothing moved outside. There were no footsteps in the corridors or shadows sliding beneath the threshold.
I looked back at the charm, and it tilted again, pointing toward the wall beside the fireplace.
Not the door.
It was absolutely turning toward the wall.
My stomach twisted with the kind of nervous excitement I had no business feeling in enemy territory.
I slid off the bed and crossed the room, keeping one hand in my pocket around Twobble’s pebbles and the other wrapped around my mother’s charm.
I held the charm up near the wall, and it pulled my hand slightly to the left, so I followed.
It tugged me toward the plain wall where ivory plaster covered old stone. I pressed my fingers to the cracks in the plaster, and my shadow mark flared.
I jerked back, biting down on a gasp.
The pain wasn’t like before. It rippled outward, warm and unsettling, as if the mark recognized the charm in my hand and wanted to help, which was extremely worrisome.
But I pressed the charm to the crack, and the wall jiggled, revealing a beautiful door with inlays.
My heart pounded.
“The pretty door,” I whispered.
The charm grew cold, and my mother’s warning throbbed in my memory.
Don’t trust the pretty doors.
The door in front of me was undeniably pretty. Delicate carvings appeared along the edges as the opening widened.
I turned slowly and walked back to the bookcase, holding the charm near the shelves. It warmed steadily when I reached for a second book, a brown leather book wedged between two larger volumes. I pulled it free, and behind it, tucked into the back of the shelf, was a narrow black latch.
There were no intricate carvings or whimsical pulls.
I tugged it, and the entire bookcase gave a tiny click and opened inward.
A strip of darkness appeared behind it as my pulse went wild.
I glanced once more at the pretty door by the fireplace, which waited innocently with all the charm and none of the warnings.
No, thank you.
I slipped through the gap behind the bookcase and pulled it gently shut behind me.
The passage beyond was narrow and dark, but the charm in my hand gave off a soft green glow that reminded me of fireflies. Dust coated the floor, and my boots left tracks immediately.
That probably wasn’t great, but I couldn’t exactly sweep behind me as I went.
And then I realized I had a few spells up my sleeve for those moments I didn’t feel like cleaning.
“Cover what has stepped, hide what has passed. Let dust forget, and shadows move fast,” I whispered as the dust shivered.
My footprints blurred before fading completely.
Finally, I was becoming a Hedge Witch with a sprinkle of domestication on the side.
I moved forward as the passage sloped downward and curved behind the walls of the quarters. I kept one hand against the stone, counting turns and steps as I went.
I was hoping it wasn’t a direct route back to the Priestess.
The mark felt different without the pendant, more awake.
I didn’t like that thought, but there it was.
The passage ended, and I leaned closer, realizing where I was as the gallery of glass cases the Priestess had shown me earlier appeared. The artifacts sat silent behind the glass.
No one stood in the hall.
I found a small ladder carved directly into the stone wall, leading from the passage to a lower opening near the floor. I tucked the charm into my pocket and climbed down as quietly as possible.
The moment my boots touched the floor, a book flipped open, and I froze while trying to look for the Priestess. Was she controlling this without me knowing?
One page lifted slowly, followed by another as a line appeared across the blank page. Silver ink bloomed across the page, and my heart rate sped up.
She walks where she should not.
My stomach dropped.
I reached for the charm, and it warmed quickly, pulling me away from the glass cases and toward the far end of the hall.
The gallery felt longer without the Priestess beside me. I wasn’t as on edge and found myself connecting with the contents in the cases more easily.
And that’s when I noticed the bowl of water again. At first glance, it reflected the ceiling, next the floor, and for one alarming second, a room filled with people standing completely still in darkness.
I stopped, and the charm went cold in my hand.
The bowl’s reflection shifted again, but this time, I saw my mother.
The images weren’t of her in Stonewick now.
They were of her standing in the same sleeping chamber, wearing her favorite sweater, hair mussed, face pale but determined.
She looked toward the same bookcase I had found in my room and slipped the glass charm into the blue book with trembling fingers.
She glanced over her shoulder and whispered something.
But who was she speaking with?
I leaned closer, and the water rippled as I saw her lips move again.
The east root.
Root?
The image vanished, and I stared at the bowl.
“The east root,” I whispered.
The golden bell inside the next case rang once with a tiny, delicate sound that was far too loud in the silent room.
I jerked backward as the hallway lights flickered.
No.
No, no, no.
The charm in my hand pulsed wildly and pulled toward the opposite end of the hall. I hurried that way, keeping close to the wall, passing two doors I didn’t recognize and one I did.
The pretty door. It was the same one from inside my room, and my skin prickled.
“Mom?” Celeste’s voice echoed softly.
But that made no sense. She was far from here. Keegan had her. My parents were with her.
The charm in my palm turned icy until it nearly burned like frostbite.
Don’t trust the pretty doors.
I backed away as the voice came again.
“Mom, please.” Celeste’s voice came through again.
I closed my eyes. “You’re not her.”
The door rattled once, and the voice changed to my own.
“Maeve, open the door.” I sounded loud and harsh.
Too much like the Priestess. She’d gotten into my mind.
I turned and continued down the hall, faster now, as the charm warmed again.
I approached a narrow archway almost hidden behind a curtain of dead, black vines. The vines twitched when I neared, and my shadow mark pulsed in response as I stumbled to get away from them.
I knew better than to touch strange vines in a shadow compound while a murderous grandmother slept somewhere nearby.
Or pretended to sleep. Did the Priestess sleep? Probably not. She likely closed her eyes and plotted everyone’s demise for relaxation.
I pulled one of Twobble’s pebbles from my pocket.
It was small, rough, and faintly warm. I didn’t know what it did. Twobble had simply pressed the pouch into my hand with the gravity of someone gifting a crown jewel. It was meant for when things got worse, and they hadn’t really. Right?
Instead, I closed my eyes and reached for the magic within. There was something behind these vines. I waved my hands in front of the vines, and they recoiled.
I blinked my eyes open and quickly slipped through the opening before the vines moved back.
The steps in front of me were narrow, spiraling into darkness around a central column of silver-veined stone. The charm glowed brighter now, and my shadow mark throbbed with every step.
Halfway down, I heard noises, and my entire body froze. I wanted to run away. I should have run away, but I was here for a reason. I’d made the trade for a reason.
The sounds again…metal, breathing, a low voice muttering.
My hand tightened around the charm as the memory of the lower level returned. The Priestess had sealed those sounds away too quickly, too completely.
The cruelest of the cruel of Shadowick.
Even shadow villages have their limits.
I still didn’t believe her.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, my heart sped up even more as it opened into a corridor lined with roots.
Real roots. Thick and black, growing through the stone from somewhere deeper beneath the compound.
They pulsed slowly, feeding into the walls, winding around doors, disappearing beneath the floor.
The east root.
A mark had been scratched into one of the stones beside the nearest root. It looked like a triangle among shadows. My fingers moved across the mark, and a jolt hit me. This mark was from my mom.
The charm warmed as if agreeing with me.
A whisper brushed my ear as I rested my hands on the mark.
Find what she feeds on. My mom’s voice.
Feeds?
The east root feeds on something?
I stood slowly, and the roots pulsed again as the shadow mark answered, tugging me closer until I pressed one hand against the largest root. A rush of images slammed into me before I could brace myself.
The pit.
The foundation chamber.
The lower cells.
Shadows curled around people’s ankles while the Priestess stood above them with both hands raised, as fear was being pulled from their bodies.
I saw tears caught in a glass, as the compound drank it all through the roots.
I stumbled back, gasping.
That was it.
The compound wasn’t merely holding prisoners.
It was feeding on them, and the Priestess had wanted my tears, my mother’s, and Celeste’s tears.
Because the roots carried it all down…down to whatever waited beneath.
It wasn’t just about the stone. It was about feeding the compound, Shadowick, and the Priestess.
I turned to run back toward the stairs, but the corridor behind me had changed.
The stairwell was gone, and in its place stood the Priestess.
She wasn’t smiling.
For once, that was worse.
“My dear,” she said softly. “You were supposed to be resting.”