Chapter 20
Silas wins the First Trial.
Not because he reached the surface first, although technically he did, even though I was the first to find the exit, but because he was the first to understand what the trial was really testing.
After the surviving claimants had been counted, Mr. Ashcroft explained to us that every trial measured two kinds of strength.
The obvious test was physical. The First Trial required us to navigate the underground tunnels and find the way out as fast as possible.
Hidden beneath that, however, was a second test: the strengths of Earth and North.
Those pillars were endurance, guardianship, and responsibility.
I solved the maze first, but Silas figured out the rest.
He understood that reaching the exit wasn’t enough.
I would’ve left him to rot in the tunnels if I’d had the choice, but Silas climbed to the top, untied the rope, and threw it back for me after he could’ve escaped alone.
According to Mr. Ashcroft, that single decision is what won Silas the First Trial.
I’m not sure I understand what the ability to navigate underground has to do with an ancient New England secret society, but I suppose I can understand why something like guardianship or responsibility might be valuable to the Veil.
Mr. Ashcroft said Silas acted as a guardian when another life was in danger, accepting responsibility for someone other than himself.
Described that way, it almost sounds… honorable.
But I do not believe it for a second.
Everything Silas does is calculated. He must have known what the trial was secretly testing.
Lucien could have told him, or perhaps Blackhollows grow up memorizing the structure of The Rites while ordinary children learn state capitals and multiplication tables.
Silas knew saving me would matter. He knew there would be more at stake than reaching the surface first.
That does not make what he did meaningless.
I know that.
I can admit, reluctantly, that he earned his victory. He could have watched the chamber collapse on my head and left me underneath. He could have climbed alone or picked someone else to save. There were plenty in the tunnel that needed saving.
Instead, he chose me.
I’m just not foolish enough to believe it was for kindness. Or compassion. Or “guardianship.” There was strategy behind it—I just don’t know what yet.
The First Trial taught me two things:
The Rites are every bit as dangerous as Charles Alden warned me on the drive back after Veil Night.
Everyone else is playing a game whose rules I still do not understand.
Jonah died because of that game.
Though I didn’t know him well enough to claim grief in the same way Wren and Lena can, I liked him. He was always kind to me, and he didn’t deserve what happened to him.
A few days after the First Trial, the rumors start to circulate that Jonah has taken an indefinite leave of absence from the university due to academic and personal concerns. I don’t know where they came from or who started them, but everyone accepts it without question.
The other missing claimants receive stories too.
One supposedly dies in a single-car accident during the weekend storm.
Another suffers a mental breakdown and returns home.
Another withdraws to study abroad despite the fact that the semester is already half over.
Someone else leaves to care for an ill parent.
Seeing how the Veil manages its secrets from the inside is eye-opening, to say the least. I start to understand firsthand how all the strange, unexplainable incidents at Salem’s Fall get covered up so easily.
It becomes obvious the Veil has been doing this for a very long time, and it is very good at it.
To be fair, the university is also large enough that students normally disappear from one another’s lives from time to time without a nefarious reason.
They change dorms, switch majors, drop classes, go home, transfer, or disappear into relationships.
In a town known for hauntings, occult tourism, unexplained accidents, and an unusually high tolerance for weird behavior, a handful of abrupt departures barely registers.
The week passes and then another without the next summons from The Rites appearing.
It should feel like relief, but the waiting around is also its own form of punishment.
Any footsteps outside my door make my heart jump.
Every unfamiliar number on my phone feels like a warning.
I find myself scanning my classrooms and lecture halls for my competition.
We lock eyes and all I can think about is whether they will try to kill me next.
Or will I try to kill them?
I cannot stop thinking about what the Second Trial will be. Will it be worse than being stuck underground and racing against time so as not to be buried alive?
Probably.
Paranoia and fear start to take hold. I can’t eat. Can’t study. Can’t sleep. I’m becoming a mess.
With nothing else to do but sit around and imagine increasingly horrific possibilities, I start spending more time at the gym, running on the treadmill and practicing jabs and combinations on the heavy bag.
I have no idea what the next trial will require, but being faster and stronger can’t hurt.
Neither can being better prepared the next time Van—or some other psycho—decides to come at me.
By Friday, I finally decide I need to get out and do something, anything, that resembles a normal life before I completely lose my mind.
Wren, Lena, and Micah invite me to Salem’s Fall’s annual Tree Lighting Ceremony, a holiday tradition that apparently the entire town turns out for.
I’m certainly not ready to trust Wren and Lena again, but it’s only one night. I need a distraction, so I say yes.
I park my car downtown and walk alone to Founder’s Square at the center of town.
Salem’s Fall looks different now than it did in October.
With Thanksgiving quickly approaching and Christmas just around the corner, all signs of Halloween have been stripped away, giving way to something like holiday cheer but much darker.
All along Gallows Street, orange lights have been replaced by strings of red and green, while evergreen garlands twist around iron lampposts, threaded with sparkly pinecones and darkened bells.
Above me hang banners advertising “Dark Christmas,” “Gothmas,” and “Hexmas,” along with activities like Yuletide séances, Winter Solstice portrait sessions, and cursed ornament exhibits.
The shops I pass have swapped their fall wreaths for ones woven from gnarled pine branches, black feathers, and even bones.
Instead of pumpkins and ghosts, their window displays now fill with winter witches and eerie, antlered creatures with names like the Winter Hag, the Hollow Saint, and the Bell Widow.
Their painted eyes follow me until I finally have to look away.
I pull my coat tighter against the early chill of the incoming winter as I approach Founder’s Square and weave through the sea of vendors.
Stalls that once sold pumpkin lattes now offer peppermint mochas alongside gingerbread, Yule log cakes, and iced sugar cookies shaped like witches’ hats.
Children dart around me, sipping eggnog and playing beneath statues of horned monsters, while a nearby band launches into a Christmas carol in a minor key, familiar enough to recognize but strange enough to leave me vaguely unsettled.
It is all undeniably creepy but also strangely beautiful.
I find Wren, Lena, and Micah standing near the old oak at the center of Founder’s Square.
The tree is enormous, its trunk split by lightning decades ago and reinforced with iron bands.
According to the plaque at its base, three accused witches were once held beneath it while awaiting their executions.
All three mysteriously vanished before dawn the day of their hanging.
Tonight, black ribbons stream from its branches alongside hundreds of small lights. A wooden platform has been built around the trunk, and townspeople crowd the square waiting for the annual tree lighting ceremony to begin.
“You came!” Micah waves eagerly when he sees me and envelops me in a big hug.
He’s wearing a festive green scarf covered in tiny pink macarons.
“I feel like we never see you anymore,” he says, making a sad face, and then shoving a paper bag into my gloved hand.
“Here, have some peppermint bark. I just made it this morning.”
“Sorry,” I say, taking a bite of the chocolate deliciousness. “I’ve just been really… busy.” My eyes flick toward Wren and Lena, and I feel a flicker of guilt. I still feel bad about hiding so much from Micah, though part of me envies his ignorance.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Wren says with a cautious smile. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come.”
“Me too,” I say, and I’m surprised to realize I mean it. Maybe I’m not ready to trust her and Lena again, but it does feel nice to be doing something normal with them, at least for a few hours.
“The tree lighting was always Jonah’s favorite,” Lena says softly, one hand wrapped around a paper cup she doesn’t appear to be drinking from. Her face has looked hollow since Jonah’s death. “He came every year.”
Wren grabs Lena’s hand and gives her a little squeeze.
“I’m really sorry about Jonah,” I tell them.
Lena’s eyes mist up and she blinks hard, looking away. “I miss him so much already.”
“Jesus, guys, relax.” Micah laughs and rolls his eyes. “It’s just a leave of absence. I’m sure he’ll be back next semester.”
Wren and I make agonized eye contact, but there is nothing more we can say in front of Micah.
He’ll never know the truth about Jonah’s death.
Either Jonah will just fade away, never heard from again, or if people ask too many questions, perhaps the Veil will give him a mysterious death next semester like some of the others.
A bell rings from the far end of the square, and the crowd shifts forward as performers in faux fur-lined dark coats enter carrying birch switches and iron chains.
Following them comes an enormous figure, nearly eight feet tall, covered in shaggy black fur beneath a tattered red cloak, with wickedly curling horns, cloven feet, and a grotesque face pulled into a permanent snarl.
A wicker basket is strapped to his back.
An involuntary shiver crawls down my spine, even knowing it’s someone in costume.
“What the hell is that?” I ask.
Micah gives me a bewildered look. “You don’t know Krampus?”
“No.” I frown. “Should I?”
“Krampus is the horned demonic counterpart to Santa,” Wren explains, gesturing toward the towering creature.
“Santa rewards good children, but Krampus punishes the naughty ones. Although the local legend in Salem’s Fall is a bit different.
” Her gaze follows the creature as it stalks through the crowd.
“Here, people say Krampus wasn’t a demon at all but a witch.
The townspeople cursed him into that shape, and every winter he returns to punish anyone who’s forgotten the town’s witchy ways. ”
Micah leans toward me. “Krampus is a big hit around here,” he says with a grin, eyes sparkling mischievously. “The kids love him.”
A little girl beside us bursts into tears.
“Clearly,” I say, and we all look at each other and laugh. It’s the first time I’ve laughed since Veil Night. The sound is small and fractured, but real.
It feels… nice.
When the tree lights ignite moments later, the entire square glows.
Thousands of colorful holiday bulbs spread through the black branches, reflected in nearby shop windows and wet cobblestones.
Bells ring from the church tower and a band starts to play “Silent Night,” while everyone around us joins in singing.
Someone passes around cups of hot cocoa.
“To Jonah,” Lena says, lifting her cup toward the tree.
Wren’s mouth trembles. “To Jonah.”
“To Jonah,” I repeat solemnly.
Micah snorts. “Really? You guys are so dramatic,” he says, but raises his cup and is a good sport about it. “To Jonah—I guess.”
For several minutes, surrounded by winter lights and holiday music, I forget the tunnels underground and the horrors of the past few days. Not completely. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget them fully, but the memory loosens enough for me to breathe.
Later, back in my dorm, I get ready for bed, grateful for one peaceful night and quietly wondering how many I have left.
I change into comfy flannel pajamas, wash off my makeup, and climb into bed with Ceremonies of the Veil open across my knees.
I have read and reread the occult books I borrowed from the library and Lucien’s home, searching for more references to The Rites, their rules, or anything that might help me survive. So far, I’ve come up empty-handed.
A few minutes before midnight, someone knocks on my door.
I freeze.
I remain in my bed, heart racing, dread coiling through my body as I wait for another Rites summons to slip beneath the door.
But no note comes. Instead, whoever is standing outside knocks again, harder this time, more impatiently.
Almost… annoyed?
I force my shaky legs out of bed and open the door, only to find someone I never expected standing in the hallway.
“Silas?”
His dark hair is windblown, his cheeks flushed pink from the cold, and tiny droplets of condensation cling to the shoulders of his cashmere coat.
He looks tired, though Silas’s version of tired is still more gorgeous than any man has a right to be.
The lines of his mouth are sharper and there are faint shadows beneath his eyes.
“Can I come in?”