Chapter 17 #2
Rowan was wearing one of those masks the night I was kidnapped. Same as Silas. Same as Van. Same as every masked figure standing in this goddamn chamber. Of course he’s Veil. He’s always been Veil.
All those times I’d watched him play dumb, feigning that same bored, blank ignorance every time the Veil came up, like with Professor Pemberton and Professor Endicott, asking questions he already knew the answers to, letting me flounder around for information he probably had memorized before he could walk.
It was all a performance, and I bought every second of it.
This entire time, Rowan has been playing me for a fool. His plan was never to help. He’s simply been waiting for the right time to deliver me to them. And Silas—
Silas may have claimed to my face he doesn’t hate me, but everything he’s done says otherwise. He and Rowan must’ve planned this together. One played protector, the other enemy, both nudging me toward the same ending.
Another horrible thought hits me then with terrifying certainty.
This must’ve been what they did to Josh.
My brother had probably stood where I stand now, realizing far too late that everyone he trusted had already chosen his fate.
Whether he is still alive somewhere or dead at the hands of the Veil, I still don’t know, and I don’t think I’ll make it out of tonight to find out.
Georgina’s parents step forward.
“The law also permits exceptions under special circumstances,” Georgina’s father says, his expression stern but measured.
“The unclaimed outsider may be removed before blood is spilled if she was brought here against her will.” His eyes fix on mine.
Not harsh like some of the others but not necessarily kind either.
More like a judge trying to ascertain the truth, without any emotion in the exercise.
“Tell me, child, did you come here willingly?”
I don’t know what to say. I guess I foolishly did come of my own free will, but I didn’t know what I was walking into. Something tells me anything other than the truth is a bad idea.
“I… I did,” I stammer. “But I didn’t know—”
“She admits it. The knife demands blood,” Van insists.
All eyes turn toward the Blackhollows, everyone curious to see what they will say. Lucien is silent, his attention resting on Silas. He appears to be waiting to see what his nephew will do.
Silas steps forward. His face is hard and cold as he looks at me. Not a trace remains of the intoxicated man from the ballroom earlier. I wonder now if that was all part of the performance. There’s no doubt in my mind whatever he says next will damn me.
“She crossed willingly,” he says. “By the laws of the Veil, she is forfeit.”
I close my eyes, knowing it’s over for me. Just as I thought, he has reaffirmed Van’s position and sentenced me to death without so much as blinking.
A beat of silence passes.
“However,” he continues, and my eyes fly open. Something almost imperceptible has shifted in his expression. “There is also a third option. Any claimant, outsider or not, who willingly crosses the threshold on Veil Night may invoke the right to enter The Rites.”
Shocked gasps echo through the chamber, and the room explodes into temporary chaos, the objections beginning immediately.
“But she has no blood here,” Jonah’s mother says.
The older man with Van’s eyes steps forward. “I must agree. She simply cannot—”
“I don’t recall asking for opinions,” Silas says, cutting the man off with a look of such icy contempt that he immediately falls silent. “The rules are quite clear. Anyone with a claim may enter The Rites. The Veil does not decide legitimacy. It is decided by the trials.”
Lucien descends one step from the altar, the silver markings on his robe catching the firelight. His gaze moves slowly over the gathered families before finally settling on me. His lips turn upward slightly, almost into a smile.
“My nephew is correct,” he says. “It appears Jacqueline Mercer has properly invoked her right to compete in this year’s Rites. The trials alone will decide whether she is worthy. That is the old law.”
The room changes around me in ways I cannot interpret.
Some faces, like Van’s, show outrage. Others calculation.
Wren, Lena, and Jonah look frightened for me while Rowan watches on with rigid stillness I don’t know how to interpret.
I’m not sure if he’s upset his plans for my death have been thwarted or whether he’s already moved on to plotting his next attempt on my life. And Silas—
Silas Blackhollow has just prevented an entire room of dangerous, bloodthirsty cult members from killing me, and I cannot for the life of me understand why.
He finally meets my gaze, his expression unreadable. I think back to all our interactions since I arrived in Salem’s Fall. All the times he warned me to leave town. To stop looking for Josh. Not to come to the ball.
What if Silas has not been working against me all this time like I thought? What if his real objective all along was to keep me from this? The possibility unsettles everything I believe to be true about him.
He is still cruel. Still deceptive and a liar. Still immensely dangerous. Just… maybe not to me.
I don’t know what that makes him. Not good. Not safe. But perhaps not the monster I thought he was.
Then again, maybe he simply wants to keep me alive long enough for something even worse.
I suppose I will find out soon enough. Whatever Silas has done, whatever game he is playing, it appears I will live to see another day. I am not going to die on the altar—at least not yet.
“Tonight, we begin The Rites,” Lucien says, opening an enormous ledger bound in cracked black leather.
The chamber seems to draw inward, every figure becoming more attentive.
“Every fifty years, a willing claimant may enter The Rites and challenge the current Veil Leader’s rule.
All claimants forfeit the protection of house, law, and blood.
No grievance arising within the trials may be carried beyond them.
” He reads as though the words have been long memorized.
“Death within The Rites is neither murder nor grounds for vengeance.”
My short-lived relief begins to drain away at that word again—death.
Lucien turns a page and continues. “The Rites will last for fifty-two days and fifty-two nights and will conclude on the Dark Solstice,” he says. “Only one claimant shall be victorious.”
Around me, heads bow in acknowledgment. No one reacts. No one asks what he means because every person in this room other than me already understands.
“To the North, I call upon the Watchtower of Earth.” Lucien pauses, his voice dropping lower.
“To the East, I call upon the Watchtower of Air. To the West, the Watchtower of Water. To the South, the Watchtower of Fire. This is the Invocation.” Lucien lifts his hands and raises his eyes from the ledger.
“All claimants will now acknowledge the law.”
“I acknowledge,” Silas says.
One by one, the words are repeated throughout the chamber in solemn succession. Lena. Jonah. Wren. Georgina. Van. Rowan. Some others I vaguely recognize from around campus. Some I don’t know at all. A few are hidden behind masks.
Lucien’s gaze settles on my face.
“Jacqueline Mercer.”
“I acknowledge,” I say softly, because what else can I do?
Suddenly, a young man steps out of formation. I’ve seen him before in my Financial Accounting class, though I’ve never spoken to him.
“No,” he says. “I withdraw.”
Unease stirs through the chamber. The older woman beside him grabs his arm. “Thomas, don’t,” she cries, shaking him, but he doesn’t look at her.
Lucien closes the ledger with a quiet snap. “There is no withdrawal after the reading of the Invocation.”
“I didn’t understand,” the man—Thomas—says, his breath growing ragged. “My father said The Rites were ceremonial. No one said anything about death.”
An instant later, he cries out, dropping to one knee. At first, I think he has stumbled, but then I see the blood running down the front of his robe and the knife protruding from the side of his throat.
I never even saw anyone throw it.
Thomas claws at the handle, eyes widening in animal panic. Blood spills between his fingers and splatters on the ground. The woman beside him makes a broken sound but does not go to help him.
No one does.
My stomach turns violently as he collapses onto his side, legs kicking once against the stone before going still as the life fades from his eyes.
“The law has been acknowledged,” Lucien says, looking down at the body without any visible emotion. The room is silent as two masked attendants drag Thomas from the circle, leaving a dark streak of blood behind.
I am not sure why Silas wants me in The Rites, but I no longer feel grateful for his intervention.
Maybe a short reprieve from death is mercy by Veil standards, but it feels like I only won myself a prolonged, possibly more painful execution in a competition where death is expected, withdrawal is impossible, and everyone knows the rules except for me.
I am most assuredly still going to die, just not immediately.
I am not sure which is worse.
Lucien lifts his ritual knife from the altar, its polished edge shining in the candlelight.
The chamber bows as one, black robes whispering across stone, and the chanting from earlier begins again until it reaches a fever pitch.
Then in one sharp, steady movement, he slices his palm open and lets the blood drip onto the book before slamming it shut. I feel his gaze settle on me once more.
“Let The Rites begin.”