Chapter 31
The Dark Solstice arrives on a snowy morning in Salem’s Fall that would seem like any other December day if I didn’t know there was a real possibility it might be my last.
Snow has been falling since sometime before dawn, covering the university’s slate roofs and stone courtyards in a soft white layer that makes campus look peaceful, almost innocent, despite all the darkness underneath.
No summons has appeared beneath my door yet, but I don’t need one to tell me what’s coming tonight.
The Fourth Trial.
With three trials down and one more to go, I have a pretty good idea what to expect. South. Fire. Whatever shape that takes.
The Dark Solstice is the longest night of the year and, according to my collection of occult books, one of the most dangerous.
Like Halloween—or Veil Night—it’s another time when the boundary between worlds is thin and the dark powers are strongest. Several of the older texts warned against the dangers.
One book described the Dark Solstice as a door standing open in a house, waiting to see what entered inside.
Naturally, the Veil has chosen tonight for the final trial of The Rites.
At least, that’s what Silas had told me—back when we were still talking. He’d said The Rites always ended on the Winter Solstice.
I take a drink of coffee, grimace at the bitterness, and set the mug down.
My dorm feels unnaturally quiet. Finals ended days ago, and by now most of campus is almost empty.
The last students remaining drag suitcases down the residence hall stairs and through the snow while parents idle at the curb with trunks open and engines running.
Excited voices carry across the courtyard wishing one another “Happy Holidays” and making promises about New Year’s parties and seeing each other again in January.
There is something painfully surreal about seeing people move through an ordinary life while mine has become entirely unrecognizable.
Their biggest worries are airport traffic or disappointing grades.
They don’t know the terror that exists just beneath the surface.
They don’t know that tonight I may be expected to burn someone else alive—maybe even a friend, maybe Silas—for the privilege of winning a competition I’m still not sure I fully understand.
And that’s being optimistic.
Most likely, I’ll be the one who burns.
My suitcase is packed in the corner. A few sweaters, jeans, toiletries, and my laptop are crammed inside. If I survive tonight and the Veil allows me to leave for break, I want to be ready to go home and spend Christmas with my mother.
But I’m not counting on it.
By early evening, hunger finally drives me to Winthrop Commons. I’ve had a hard time remembering to eat, my appetite all but gone since finding out about Josh’s death and Silas’s betrayal. But if I’m headed for some terrible battle-to-the-death tonight, I shouldn’t go on an empty stomach.
The kitchen has prepared an elaborate holiday meal for the students still on campus, and the rich scent of butter, roasted meat, garlic, and fresh bread fills the high-ceilinged room.
Desserts crowd a separate table beneath the windows: apple pie, gingerbread pudding with bourbon sauce, and a peppermint cheesecake that looks almost too perfect to touch.
It’s the sort of meal designed to make people feel cared for.
Or fattened for the slaughter.
I take more than I normally would and sit beside one of the tall windows overlooking the quad. If this is my last meal on Earth, I plan to enjoy it.
For several minutes, I allow the warmth and richness of the food to distract me from what’s coming.
Then I notice Lena also sitting alone across the room.
She looks up as though she feels me watching and meets my eyes across the mostly empty dining hall.
Neither of us smiles, but after a moment, she gives a slight nod.
I return it. She doesn’t come over, but I understand why.
We may have become friends during our time here, but we are competitors tonight. I finally see The Rites the same way the others do—not just something to survive but something I must win.
For Josh.
If The Rites forces us to fight tonight, I don’t think I can kill her. But I also know I won’t surrender my chance to win if victory brings me closer to my brother. Lena would make the same choice, and the fact that we both understand this is the reason neither of us crosses the dining hall.
By the time I return to my dorm room, the daylight is gone. I pick up my phone and scroll through the log.
No new messages.
No calls.
I don’t know if Silas has tried to reach out since we last spoke. I blocked his phone number.
My thumb pauses over Mom’s name.
I stare at the empty message field, trying to decide how much to say. I can’t explain that I’m walking into something tonight that I may not survive, and I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth about Josh.
Part of me has wondered ever since Lucien told me about my father if I should ask her about it all.
But she’s so fragile, I decide against it.
I worry that forcing her to talk about this would only push her over the edge.
She’s had twenty-two years to tell me about Salem’s Fall.
If she hasn’t done it yet, there’s a reason.
So instead, I type the only thing that matters.
I love you, Mom. I know I don’t say it enough, but I do.
Then I hit send.
After everything that’s happened in the past few months, I’m starting to understand my mother better.
She was never a real provider for us, never fully present.
We were always one second away from losing the house or having the lights shut off again.
Even when we did have money—money I now know came from Lucien—she spent it frivolously on a fancy takeout dinner or expensive wine or a new TV we didn’t need.
But she never left us.
She never disappeared, even when staying must have required more strength than I ever understood.
She worked terrible jobs for terrible pay.
She came home exhausted and tried again the next morning.
She wasn’t a great mother, and there are memories I may never be able to forgive completely, but I no longer believe she failed because she didn’t love us.
Sometimes people experience something so painful they just break, and no matter how much they want to, they can never fully put themselves back together again.
The realization hurts more than my anger ever did.
Eventually, the Fourth Trial summons appears beneath my door, telling me where to go for what might very well be the last night of my life.
Just before midnight, I find myself back at Strega’s Hollow, standing beneath a winter sky so clear it feels unnatural.
It had snowed the entire drive here, thick flakes swirling across the windshield until visibility had been reduced to little more than the glow of the headlights.
Then, somewhere between the main road and the narrow trail leading into Strega’s Hollow, it had simply… stopped.
Not slowed.
Stopped completely.
There are many things I don’t like about The Rites, but locations that seem to ignore the rules of Mother Nature have climbed surprisingly high on the list.
Six other remaining competitors wait alongside me in silence, gathered at the entrance to the woods, the museum and gift shop buildings off in the distance.
A full moon hangs directly overhead, enormous and impossibly bright, casting silver light across Strega’s Hollow until every bare tree throws a sharp black shadow across the frozen ground.
The air feels strangely still, almost expectant, as though the forest itself has drawn a slow breath and forgotten how to let it out again.
In front of us, six wooden stakes have been driven into the frozen earth in a wide circle at the center of the clearing. They’re each nearly eight feet tall, rough-hewn from dark timber, and positioned with unsettling precision.
Just six stakes for seven people. There should be eight of us, but Van is conspicuously absent. I know why. Whether the Veil knows is another question. Silas certainly does, though I have no idea what he did with that information.
What I really don’t understand is why there aren’t even enough stakes for those of us who are here.
Something about that numerical discrepancy nags at me, giving me an ominous sense of foreboding.
Not to mention the issue of the stakes themselves.
I have an increasingly terrible feeling I know exactly what they’re for.
I survey my remaining competitors, wondering if anyone else feels as sick with dread as I do.
The icy-eyed blonde woman whose gamble during the water trial cost her partner his life looks numb.
Wren is visibly trembling. Lena, stoic. Rowan, anxious.
And Georgina—predictably—looks perfectly composed.
Of course she does.
If someone announced the world was ending, Georgina would probably only look mildly inconvenienced and ask whether there was time to freshen her lipstick first. She catches me watching and gives me a small, knowing smile.
A Blackhollow always knows.
I’d dismissed her warning about Silas as manipulation. Now I can’t help wondering if I should’ve listened. Not that I think she ever had my best interests at heart, but it would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.
A movement on the opposite side of the clearing draws my attention.
Silas stands beneath the moonlight, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark coat, his expression as unreadable as ever.
To anyone else, he probably looks perfectly calm, but I know better.
His jaw is tighter than usual, his shoulders too rigid.
Our eyes meet, and something like sadness flickers across his face.
He starts toward me, but I turn away, deliberately looking past him as though he isn’t there.
Whatever he wants to say to me, I’m not interested.