3. Questions
Questions
“Are you all right, my dear?” a familiar voice asked gently.
There was a lag, an instant of nothingness noticeable only once it passed.
For the entirety of that silence, I forgot he was gone.
I even felt considerably better, because that endless, screaming abyss, the last thing I remembered before I’d lost consciousness, no longer held me in its grip.
My pure relief at it being gone made me forget everything else.
That breath of silence, of peace, ended so quickly my heart slammed violently in my chest.
I remembered.
The visceral images I’d happily forgotten choked off my air, my ability to think.
It wasn’t like before, like falling into that endless abyss.
This felt like regular grief, something horrible and painful and anxiety-inducing, but something I could still problem-solve through, and think through, and make decisions, and feel. I wasn’t going to black out.
I didn’t feel like I was going to die.
It was bad, though.
Maybe it wouldn’t kill me, but it was bloody painful.
I almost wished I could fall unconscious again, but I knew that wouldn’t help me, much less help Bones. My only consolation was that I doubted his father would kill him. He’d make Bones suffer beyond my imagining of it, but he wouldn’t kill him.
Malefic was far too practical for that.
My mind tried to wipe that knowledge away, to shove it somewhere so I didn’t have to think about it right then. My body had less luck dealing with that overload of memory.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Breathe,” the man above me urged.
No one was going after him.
No one was going to even try to save him.
Rather than chase down Malefic and his evil cult, the Praecuri wasted time dragging me in front of the King.
All for what? To scold me? To accuse me of using “bad magic”?
To force me to admit I’d somehow found myself married to Bones?
Whatever the purpose of that exercise had been, it accomplished nothing.
Either they were idiots, or they had no intention of going after Malefic or anyone in Dark Cathedral.
Meanwhile, Malefic was going to hurt his son.
A lot. He were going to hurt him so much.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“Breathe, Ms. Shadow. We are not abandoning Mr. Bones.”
The concern grew more audible in his voice, but a harder promise framed his words.
It didn’t change the fundamental truth, a truth I knew with absolute certainty, probably because Bones knew it. His father, that woman, Sirena, Christian Orrin’s father, the other ghouls in black hoods, they would all derive enormous pleasure in––
“Drink,” the voice urged.
A cold rim of metal touched my lips, which dutifully parted.
Something cool but spiced filled my mouth and I swallowed. It warmed my throat and tongue and I could feel the heat travel down my torso to my stomach. It brought me back to the room and I honestly couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
I blinked to find myself slumped in a high-backed armchair.
The enormous hall with its gilded, white, bejeweled lions, was gone.
A familiar, kind-looking face hung over me, framed by a cloud of brown, bushy, wild-looking hair.
His dark eyes peered into mine, punctuated by iridescent, star-like glimmers of pearlescent color.
His golden bear peered up at me and sniffed me with its nose, its wide paws resting weightlessly on top of my knees.
It raised one of those paws to wave at me, its dark eyes concerned.
I tried to wave back, but only fluttered my fingers.
“One more swallow,” the wizard urged, raising the cup back to my lips.
I choked down a little more of the spiced, mead-like taste. It flowed down my throat, soothing everything in its path.
It also managed to penetrate the fog around my mind enough to remind me why I’d passed out.
I let out a low gasp as the realization gouged deeper, constricting my chest, making it impossible to breathe for a second time.
I fought panic, not fully conscious that I’d tried to get up until large hands held me firmly in place.
“She’s not rational,” a colder voice said in disgust. “What more evidence do you need she’s been compromised, Forsooth? That prick of an heir has clearly warped her mind and her magic to make her behave so completely––”
“I’ll hear no more on this,” Forsooth warned.
His voice lost every hint of the gentleness he’d aimed at me.
“All of you. Get out. The King released her for now. Even he does not think her behind this. Go and take care of the northwest tower, and let me know when you have finished. If you still believe it necessary, the Praecuri can question her in a few days, once she’s recovered from what you did to her. ”
“That’s not––” the other voice began angrily.
Forsooth cut him off.
“With Headmaster Voltaire indisposed and likely compromised, I make decisions at this school right now,” he warned.
“This is still a crime scene––” another voice weighed in.
“It is,” Forsooth said at once. “But she isn’t. Make her quarters safe. Change whatever you need to in the chimaeras, and register those alterations with my office. Then do the same for the dormitories housing all of my other students.”
Before they could answer, Forsooth added, “I might remind you this is still a school. The grounds of which, incidentally, no longer belong to Malefic Bones, but to his son, Caelum… and, it should be noted, Caelum’s wife.”
A louder silence followed those words.
Forsooth continued to glare around at whoever stood there.
After a long-feeling pause, he aimed his gaze back at me.
“Your obvious ploy to get the King to your side has failed,” he muttered in anger. “You’ll have to find another scapegoat… or another excuse for not going after Malefic yourselves. Now I suggest you do as ordered and help to secure this school.”
Forsooth’s stare swiveled left before it grew more pointed.
“You too, Valor,” Forsooth said. “Corvid, stay.”
When I realized my cousin was there, listening to all of this silently, I struggled to sit up.
Once I managed to pull myself more vertical, I focused numbly on the fire blazing in the hearth.
A large raven stood on the high back of the chair across from me, where a black-haired, gaunt, strangely emotionless figure sat, watching me with blind-looking, white-blue eyes.
Corvid Blackstone.
Of course.
As for where I was, I’d already known that, even before Forsooth mentioned our being at the school.
We were back in Forsooth’s office, and I was sitting in one of his velvet chairs in front of the fire.
From the view through the windows, the storm had worsened from when I’d last looked.
The sky was dark, making it impossible to gauge the time.
The air was filled with driving snow and gusting wind that blew and groaned around the windows and stone walls.
I focused on Blackstone, my Magical Objects professor.
His long, dark hair looked like it always did, thick and wavy and pushed behind one ear. Silver jewelry caught the firelight on the same side of his head, dotted with dark green emeralds. His angular face remained inhumanly still, utterly without expression.
Between that and those eerie, white-blue eyes, he didn’t look alive.
Then he reached up to feed the raven a strip of meat, and the illusion broke.
The raven swallowed the meat whole and grumbled, muttered, and clicked in what sounded like thanks. The translucent blue raven that was Blackstone’s primal stood on the fireplace mantle, watching the living bird and Blackstone from a few feet away.
I glanced over when Forsooth rose to his feet and moved a few steps from my armchair. His bear remained by me, its flat paws now resting on the green cushion next to my leg. The strange creature continued to peer into my face, examining it with worried eyes.
It lifted one paw in a wave and that time, I waved back solemnly.
Satisfied, the bear sank back onto its rear end, but continued to watch me closely.
I didn’t realize the room had emptied of everyone but the three of us until Forsooth cleared his throat.
I looked over at where he stood between me and Blackstone. Forsooth performed a graceful hand mudra and murmured a soft incantation to persuade a third chair to move closer to ours. The new chair faced the roaring fireplace, its velvet upholstery dark blue.
It struck me that I felt strangely cold.
My whole body hurt.
That anxious, restless, panicked feeling of needing to do something hadn’t dissipated. I thought about Varya, and my previous feelings of anxiety worsened. Was Varya still there, at the Black Tower? Was she trapped there with Bones?
If his mother hadn’t yet left for Russia by the time Malefic returned, there was no way Malefic would have let her leave freely. The thought had bile rising to the back of my throat. My eyes closed against the images that wanted to rise.
“Ms. Shadow.” Forsooth cleared his throat.
My eyes shifted mechanically to his.
His eyes gentled. “We must discuss a few things before we can proceed.”
Forsooth’s words came out cautious, measured. I knew he must see something in me, and obviously he heard at least some of my thoughts, but I couldn’t decide if I needed to do anything about that. I wasn’t sure if I could do anything about it.
“Unfortunately,” the professor added gently. “The conversation cannot wait.”
Movement by the fireplace pulled my eyes.
The color in the room abruptly changed, morphing from orange, gold, and red, to midnight blue, violet, and green. I looked towards the statue-like figure of Corvid Blackstone, now standing fully upright, his angular outline half-illuminated by dancing flames.
He’d done something to the fire.
The burning logs outlined his black robes. One of his hands rested on the mantel as he stared into the jewel-toned flames. Despite technically looking younger than Forsooth, something about him suddenly struck me as older, perhaps significantly older.
I could feel the unnerving invasiveness of his attention.