Chapter 20
Jacob’s progress through Hell Gate was measured in screams. Agonized wails raced down the hall and then cut off, one then another, and another, punctuating the silence like macabre exclamation points.
When I was young, I’d spent countless nights staring sleeplessly at the shadows roaming the ceiling. I’d had repeating nightmares about the Wards finding me and descending on Hell Gate. They’d killed my parents, and they’d finally come for me.
The screams in my nightmares sounded just like this.
The creatures at the edges of the room shifted and stirred. They moved like the inky shadows on my ceiling all those years ago.
Another scream died. It was enough to make the blood in your veins shrivel and your heart cower. The sound yanked out a primal instinct that shouted, Run! Run! Run! There’s a monster in the dark!
I locked my muscles and turned to face the entry.
“Which Ward?” the Bard demanded. He lifted his hand, and knots floated above his fingers as he held an illusion at the ready.
Luvic still bloody, inched to the right, placing himself between me and the doorway. A rattling noise—almost too quiet to hear—rumbled in his chest.
Unlike the Bards, the Clarks seemed to enjoy the sound of screaming.
“The new principal? Who is that? Connor?” the Clark asked, his gaze lustful and greedy.
I’d forgotten. None of them knew Jacob was still alive. They believed Darin had killed him. Connor was a second cousin and next in line after Jacob and . . . me.
I felt Jacob before I saw him.
It was the same tearing, shredding, ripping feel I’d felt in the games when I thought Jacob was trying to crush my heart. It beat violently, shuddering and protesting.
The rope that coiled between us spasmed and twisted. It was illusion but not. A connection formed before either of us was born.
I dragged in a pained breath.
A violent wind gusted through the dining room, extinguishing all the candles. It blew against me and snapped the silk of my dress so it flew around me like great, violent storm clouds.
The dining room was devoured in darkness. The only illumination was from the old chandeliers humming and flickering as the wind swung them wildly from the ceiling. They creaked and groaned like rusty swings on an abandoned playground.
Jacob stalked through the doorway, his golden features bathed in shadow and crackling with a violent luminescence. The wind tore at his clothing and his hair, wrapping him in a whirlwind that nearly lifted him off the ground.
His green eyes glowed with an otherworldly light.
The slipshots and shills dropped to their knees and screamed, terror contorting their faces.
The spirits and figments flickered, cutting in and out of reality.
Without looking at them, Jacob swiped his hand through the air, and all of Jagger’s creatures lining the walls dropped to the floor.
Unconscious? Dead? Their screams were cut off.
Even the spirits crumpled into boneless heaps.
Shadow and light pulsed around Jacob. It expanded and retracted, making a strange whoom-whoom-whoom sound in my ears.
“Jacob,” the Clark said. It sounded like a curse.
Jacob didn’t look at the Clark. He didn’t look at me or Jagger or Griff or Justice.
When he’d first stepped through the dining room doorway, he’d scanned the room, discarding everything and everyone until he found the person he was looking for. Once he’d found him, nothing and no one else existed.
He stalked across the hall, the wind ripping at him and roaring.
I’d once, years ago, seen a growling driven mindless with bloodlust. Growlings were predators by nature, with very little restraint, but if you starved them and then tossed a creature their way, they’d lose what little control they had.
Nothing, not even bullets or electric shocks, could keep a growling from tearing a creature apart in the middle of its bloodlust.
Jagger had once used a growling’s bloodlust as entertainment. The growling had displeased him, so he’d starved it, induced bloodlust, and then laughed as the creature tore apart its own mate. It was so focused on the kill it didn’t realize what it had done until it was too late.
Jacob had the same predatory bloodlust intent as that growling.
Darkness leached into the hall, and a cold wind ripped across us.
How long had it been since the first scream? Twenty seconds? Thirty?
“Luvic,” Jacob said, and his voice was a terrible ringing gong.
Last flinched and covered her ears.
“Ward,” Luvic snarled. A growl sounded low in his throat. If he’d had hackles, they would’ve been raised.
But then the rattling growl was cut off.
Luvic screamed.
It tore out of him. It ripped through his throat and tore away every pretense he’d ever had.
It was agonized, mournful, terrified. It was the scream of a man locked in a coffin, buried beneath the earth, his fingernails ripped free as he tried to claw his way to freedom.
And couldn’t. It was the scream of a man forced to live a million agonies; a thousand torments.
The sun was eclipsed, and it was never coming back.
His scream shredded me. It raked fingernails down my skin and left me bleeding. It felt like the moment I’d gripped the knife, thrust it into Finn’s heart, and watched the life leak from his eyes. It was the agony of knowing I’d killed the one man who trusted me with his life.
“Stop!” the Bard screamed. “Stop!”
He twisted his hand, thrusting a nightmarish miasma at Jacob.
Jacob conjured a blinding ray of light that swallowed the nightmare. Still, Luvic screamed. He collapsed to his knees. Blood dripped from his mouth.
“Stop him!” the Bard shouted at me.
I shook my head. “He’s not . . . he’s not conjuring.”
He wasn’t. There was no illusion. There were no knots. It was that same darkness—the anti-illusion I’d sensed in the north. Whatever Jacob was doing, I couldn’t stop it.
The Bard stumbled back, shoved by the wind.
The Clarks kept their distance, hunched underneath the whirlwind’s barrage.
Luvic’s voice broke. He gripped his head in his hand, his eyes unseeing. His shoulders shook as he kneeled on the ground.
Jacob stood over him, his head tilted like he was listening to something.
I reached out along the rope that connected us, tapped at the swirling maelstrom pulsing along the line.
I couldn’t discern anything. I didn’t know what was happening.
Jacob cocked his head as if he’d heard something interesting.
Luvic crouched on his knees, breathing in heavy, gasping tugs. His eyes were closed, pressed tightly together, and he shook his head violently back and forth. A low whimper escaped.
Jacob straightened. His lips parted, and he drew in a surprised breath. “Well,” he said, so quietly I don’t think anyone but me heard.
Then, along the rope, the maelstrom stopped and snapped out of existence. The wind died. Overhead, the chandeliers slowed to a creaky, whining stop.
Luvic shuddered and collapsed to the ground.
No one moved.
Jacob turned to Jagger and gave him a polite smile. “Thank you for the invite, but I don’t think I’ll stay for dinner.”
He was turning to leave, stepping over Luvic, when the Clark spoke.
“Principal Ward? A moment. I see you are mourning your father. But it is not the Bards who killed him. Why not seek revenge where it is due? We Clarks and Bards are aligned against the perpetrator. Join us. Hell Gate holds a weapon that can defeat the Smith.”
Jacob paused and slowly turned back to the Clark.
While he looked at Herman, I felt his attention on me.
He sent a tap along the rope between us, knocking on the locked door in my chest. Then, as quick as the wind, he snuck through the locks and was standing inside the room, peering at all my locked-away good.
“A weapon?” he asked, his voice pleasantly curious.
He’d tucked away the terrifying power and was once again the soft-spoken college student in a wrinkled T-shirt, torn jeans, and grubby sneakers.
He still looked tired, but not death’s-door haggard like he’d been on the water.
Instead, he looked like he’d pulled an all-nighter studying for an exam.
His blond hair was mussed from the wind and fell over his forehead.
He’d shaved since I’d last seen him, so he was now smooth-skinned and pink-cheeked.
This was the Jacob everyone recognized.
The conjurer’s bogeyman.
“Yes. A weapon. A creature of solange,” Primus said, his voice sardonic. “She will break the Smith.”
The Bard stepped forward. “Not a truth seer. We would not suffer a truth seer to live.”
Jacob finally turned to me and stared at me with dispassionate green eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Is she one?” Last asked, sounding excited at the possibility. “If she is, you’ll kill her, won’t you?”
On the ground, Luvic made a slow snarl. Jacob scowled and then, with a vicious kick, slammed his heel into Luvic’s head. Luvic’s skull hit the stone floor as his head snapped back. The snarl died.
The Bard made a noise of annoyance and frowned at the fresh blood dripping from Luvic’s nose. With a disgusted snort, he turned away from his son.
“Ward. Will you join us?” The Bard always spoke with his hands as much as with words.
He gestured widely, painting a picture. “The Smith did not win the duel. He died before the duel finished. Therefore, he did not win the games. He was not declared winner by the four families. He was not crowned. Whatever came back is not a conjurer but an abomination. The crown is rightfully the Clarks’.
It is our duty to oppose the Smith and retrieve the crown.
” His hands slowly opened in a conciliatory palms-out gesture.
“Your father was in agreement before he was savagely murdered by the Smith. Will you join us? Will you do your duty?”
“Hmm,” Jacob said, still staring at me. He tapped his hand against his right leg, thinking.
On the outside, he looked like he was reading a textbook, bored and dispassionate. But as he explored the locked space in my heart, he sent a quiet, comforting reassurance.
Finally, Jacob’s hand stilled, and he turned his gaze on the Clark and the Bard. “Thank you, but I believe I’ll have to decline.”
Jagger stepped forward. “You side with the Smith?”
I was surprised Jagger had brought notice to himself. His creatures were unconscious or dead. Jacob had just shown that he could do things I couldn’t unknot. But Jagger didn’t seem afraid—especially when he towered over Jacob’s slight build.
It was one of Jagger’s faults. Even after being proven otherwise, he still equated physical strength with overall strength.
Jacob stared coldly at Jagger, noting how he’d stepped threateningly forward. “The Smiths? No. I side with the Wards. Always.”
My throat tightened. I curled my fingers into my palm.
“Then you take no sides,” the Clark said.
“But my own.”
Jagger laughed, and it startled the conjurers. They looked at him, and he gave them a sharp-toothed grinned.
“A selfish opportunist. That I understand.”
Primus cut his hand through Jagger’s amusement. “Opportunist? No. Principal Ward lost the games because he is a coward. He will lose his life for the same reason. Take note. If you never take a stand, then you live life on your knees.”
Jacob smiled at them all—a sweet, pink-cheeked look. Then he walked away, calling over his shoulder, “It’s been nice, but I have somewhere I need to be.”
We stood in silence as screams followed him out of Hell Gate.