9. Ticking Clock
Ticking Clock
Igripped his hand tightly, fighting to calm his magic when I saw his eyes and chest glow a sharper gold, illuminating the darkness of the stone floor and lichen-covered walls.
“Please.” My chest clenched. I fought to breathe. “Please, Bones. Please.”
He closed his eyes, and I felt that pain on him worsen.
“Gods, go away.” He buried his face in his arm, his voice pained but angry. “Why the fuck won’t you just stay away, Leda?”
“I can’t.” I said it without thought.
Was it true? It felt true. Maybe to distract myself, I fought to look around. It was dark, but not as dark as I remembered. More than anything I could feel the largeness of the space.
“Where’s Varya?” I asked. “Where’s your mother, Bones?”
He shook his head, his damp head coming to rest on stone.
“I told you… I woke up here. I only remember here. She’s not here. If she’s still in the castle, I don’t know where he has her. I don’t know, Leda.”
I swallowed, not knowing how to answer.
There was nothing to say to that.
Anyway, I could feel what he was thinking, and he knew I was thinking the same.
We were both desperately hoping Varya had left before Malefic returned, that she’d gotten to Russia, that she’d left when Bones begged her to, and not done what she’d said she would do and remained at the Black Tower for a few weeks longer after we returned to school.
I had no way to track Varya, though, no way to give him news.
I didn’t know how to answer that question for him, and he couldn’t answer it for me.
“Please, just try to explain it,” I coaxed softly. “How does it work? Forsooth said we share magic now, and magical abilities. Even Blackstone implied I could, if I practiced––”
“He’s wrong.”
He forced out the words, breathing into the wet stone.
I didn’t believe him.
I tried to remember what he’d done in Bonescastle that night.
“Explain it to me anyway,” I cajoled. “If you’re right, and I can’t do it, what does it matter? Tell me how you do it, Bones. Do you just think about the place you want to go and run at a wall? Do you cast? Use mudras?”
He shook his head on the stone, and I saw that he’d started bleeding again.
Blood trickled from under his hairline down his cheek and to his jaw.
That was new. He must have gotten that today.
That, or my mind added it in, maybe because I feared it whenever I saw him.
“I can’t tell you,” he growled.
“Won’t, you mean.”
“Can’t,” he said, harsher. “I’ve always done it.
I did it on accident first. When I was afraid.
” He swallowed, and shook his head. “How can I explain something I don’t understand?
Something I did accidentally, that stops working if my emotions are too volatile?
If I’m tired? Or hurt? Or if I’ve drunk too much? ”
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to call him a liar again.
I changed tacks.
“But you must intend to do it, right?” I prodded. “The times it works?”
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “I intend to do it. I feel a part of my magic. A kind of buzzing, fast-moving part. I feel that, I gear into it, and then I think about where I want to go. I think about it really hard, or there’s a good chance I’ll end up somewhere else.”
“No mudras? No spells?”
“They can help me focus,” he said into his skin. “They’re not necessary. Like you said, sometimes it just works when I fall into, or run into, or get thrown into a wall. Or a window. Or a closet door. Or once, a shrub.”
He hesitated, and I felt him regret having said that much.
He looked up at me with those glowing gold eyes.
“It’s dangerous, Leda. I couldn’t control it at all, not for years. I ended up in strange places. Non-Magical places. Different times. Places that nearly got me killed.”
He closed his eyes, and I saw a pained look cross his face.
“Gods, please just leave me here. Please.”
“I can’t.”
He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, either. “You’ll want to, soon enough,” he growled. “You won’t want anything to do with me, Leda.”
I gripped his hand, fighting to put more magic into him.
“You’ll hate me,” he said coldly. “He’ll make sure that you do.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
“You will.” He spoke with deadened certainty. His eyes closed where his face rested on the stone. “I’ve already told him I’ll do it. I’ve already agreed.”
I felt my stomach drop as I looked into the darkness.
“Do what?” I whispered. At his silence, my heart thudded painfully in my chest. “Why would you agree to anything he wants? You know he won’t stop hurting you. You know he’ll just find another reason. Why would you help him, Bones?”
He let out a humorless grunt, but didn’t open his eyes.
“Why do you think, wife?” he murmured. He squeezed my hand tighter, and brought it to his lips. Kissing my knuckles, he pressed his face against my palm.
“Why do you think?” he asked, softer.
A shoulder slammed into me, throwing me into Alaric, shoving him into Luc.
I saw Luc look over first, eyes angry, and when he saw that the cascade of hits had started with me, his eyes went from startled and annoyed to worried, then even more furious.
His blue eyes searched the crowd, looking for who had done it, but I waved him off subtly with one hand, telling him to leave it alone.
Every time I undressed for the shower now, I found more bruises.
That was even with how I’d revised my schedule to avoid being seen.
Hexes, curses, and outright physical hits shadowed me as I walked the halls, and even inside some of my classrooms. I’d learned to hit back fast when I saw who’d done it, and to ignore it when I couldn’t identify the source.
I didn’t have time to hunt them all down.
Dealing with the various asses at Malcroix was hardly my priority these days.
Anyway, that one had been my fault.
I’d let myself get distracted.
Worse, I’d left my back turned towards the main corridor, something I’d mostly trained myself out of doing.
The same was true of leaving my back facing open and unlocked doors, open rooms, open windows, really anywhere that would allow someone to sneak up on me, or get in a curse before I could block or retaliate.
No matter how much I had on my mind, I couldn’t afford to lower my guard.
Some days it happened anyway, though.
Lately, I’d struggled to focus on where I was, what I was doing.
Weeks had gone by.
It was nearly February, and I felt like I’d gotten nowhere.
My mind wandered in class, unless something in the lecture or discussion touched upon something I thought might help me in my quest to help Bones.
Every second I sat in one of those rooms felt like a second I should be working on breaking into the Black Tower in a way that wouldn’t get him killed.
I’d thought about little else since the morning after Bones got taken, when I’d woken up after enough sleep that I had at least some of my mind back.
I’d grilled Alaric over breakfast, on every aspect of the Bones Estate, everything he knew about their family chimaeras, everything he knew about the various entrances and what might prevent me from using them.
He’d answered all of my questions faithfully, but I’d seen the hesitation in him, and the way he looked at me when he thought I didn’t notice.
“Obviously, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to get in at all,” I’d admitted at one point. “Even if I’m now technically ‘family.’”
Alaric looked over sharply at that, and I flushed.
I hadn’t yet talked to him about my marriage at that point, and while I’d strongly suspected he knew, he hadn’t directly asked.
Seeing his expression as he looked back at his breakfast of kippers, toast, butter, and strawberry jam, his fork and knife gripped in his hands, I’d bit my lip, feeling my stomach sink.
“You don’t think I can get in,” I said finally.
Alaric made a face without looking up from his plate.
He finished raising the forkful of kippers to his mouth, and chewed. Leaning back a moment later, coffee cup in hand, he slowly shook his head as he stared at the fire. His eyes grew thoughtful as his mouth pursed, but he didn’t look over.
“I suspect you can get in,” he said slowly.
“You do?” I asked, surprised. “Then what? What’s wrong?”
His mouth hardened.
“I suspect you’ll get in because that’s exactly what Malefic would want you to do,” Alaric said, looking over at me only then.
“I think he’ll leave the door wide open for you, Leda.
There’s nothing that twisted, sadistic prick would like better than to have you there to play with.
Especially if you really are sharing magic with Cal.
” His brow furrowed. “You know that would kill him, don’t you? Cal? It would destroy him, Leda.”
I’d bit my tongue, harder that time.
Briefly, I struggled with whether I should tell him about the caelum ignis thing.
Bones had been so adamant that no one else know. He’d even called out Alaric specifically at least once, along with Luc, Nyx, Blackstone, and Forsooth. But now the two professors knew, and I had to wonder if the Praecuri knew, too.
It was beginning to feel like something that needed to be factored into any discussions about Malefic and Dark Cathedral.
I genuinely couldn’t decide if it would help or hurt to have Alaric know.
At the time, I’d chosen to change the subject.
“Where do you think they have him?” I’d asked. “You have an opinion. You must.”
Alaric exhaled, looked over at Wraith when she minced towards us over the leather couch. “Probably the main dungeon,” he said reluctantly.
I stiffened. “There’s more than one?”
Alaric nodded. “Yes. There’s two on the estate.
One under the mausoleum, on the castle grounds.
The estate has its own cemetery, and the mausoleum is there, on the side nearer to the house.
The main dungeon, which is significantly larger and better fortified, lives under the crypt in the central structure of the castle.
Right under the part that’s an actual tower, between the north and south wings. ”
“The same crypt we were in over Yule?” I clarified.