9. Ticking Clock #2
“Yes. But not the part we could access.” Alaric frowned, tilting his gaze upward as he seemed to be picturing it in his head.
“I’ve only seen it once. Cal took me there once when we were kids, when his father was out of town.
There are two entrances. The one Cal showed me is through the mirror in the entryway to the main house. ”
He gave me a taut look. “You’d likely have to use that one, Leda. The second entrance lives deep inside the family part of the crypt, the part you and I couldn’t access. As far as I know, no one can access all of that floor but Malefic, and now Cal.”
Pressing his lips together, he shrugged. “Although that may have changed now, as you said. Malefic may even have guards posted. He also might have sealed the mirror entrance, or changed that in some way, as well.”
I nodded, fighting to picture it.
I’d seen that enormous mirror.
I’d used it to get back to Malcroix Bones near the end of our winter break. The thing was huge, bigger than even the castle’s massive front doors, and framed in solid gold. That gold was molded to depict snakes, vines, roses, bones, skulls, and had a large head of Anubis on top.
“Can anyone go through that mirror?” I asked. “Could they, when you went through?”
Alaric shook his head slowly. “I honestly don’t know. Cal was able to bring me through it. There was a password, but there may have been more to it than that. I was with Cal, as I said, and maybe you have to be with someone who already has access.”
Alaric pushed away his mostly-empty plate, including all of his utensils, after plucking off the last piece of toast with jam. He took a bite, his voice thoughtful as he chewed.
“Anyway, that was years ago, Leda,” he continued, waving around the toast. “We were only in middle school then. Even if a password is all that’s needed now, there’s no way Malefic wouldn’t have changed it in all those years.
And that’s assuming you can even access the mirror without Malefic or Cal being with you.
To try, you’d have to get the new password off Cal, and I doubt he’d give it to you even if he knows it. ”
“If I can find a way in, we could maybe do reconnaissance first,” I said.
“Even for reconnaissance, you’d need to be careful, Leda.
You’d definitely need to go in armed with something that could test the fields before you attempted entry, using some of your magic, maybe mixed with an enchanted powder, or something else physical that could test the boundary without risking your skin.
” His face scrunched into that uncomfortable look again.
“Honestly, though, I think it’s very possible you could get inside. ”
He cleared his throat.
“Usually spouses share their husband’s magic. Unless they are specifically cut out of a particular spell or chimaera, they should have their spouses access.”
I thought about that, and frowned.
“So you think Malefic removed his wife from the family chimaeras?” I asked, both unsurprised by this and disgusted.
“Yes,” Alaric said, matter-of-fact. “Again, it’s only my opinion.
You’d need a way to test it. And if it doesn’t work, you could try the password route.
Which also might not work without an escort…
not to mention I don’t know how you’d get the password in the first place.
Cal won’t help you. I can pretty much guarantee that. ”
I didn’t answer, clasping my hands between my thighs and staring into the flames. Remembering the way Bones felt when he’d been warning me away, I’d flinched, though.
“You can’t go through the crypt,” Alaric went on in a mutter, sipping his coffee as if thinking aloud.
“Even if the chimaeras let you in, without a map, or at least a rough sketch of the basic layout, you could be down there for a while. The longer you’re inside the chimaeras, the more likely it is that Malefic could sense you there. ”
He turned his gaze back on me.
“There’s some chance he’ll know the instant you breach the chimaeras. Your only chance would be to get in and out quickly, before he could react. Without a map, I think you’d definitely be caught.”
I closed my eyes, trying to remember the exact layout of those restricted sections of the crypt.
It had been dark. I couldn’t see the far wall.
Rows of bookshelves and trunks had obstructed the view even beyond the darkness.
There had been statues in there, artworks, china cabinets filled with jewelry and other family artifacts.
There were no straight lines, no obvious aisles that all went in a single direction.
Alaric was right.
If I went in there blind, I would be in there too long.
“What makes you so sure it’s the main one?” I asked. “The main dungeon?”
Alaric drank down his last few swallows of coffee and set his cup down on the table.
Wraith stretched out between the two of us now, and Alaric’s fingers found the back of her head and massaged between her ears.
The cat purred and stretched out on the red leather, her eyes closed as she leaned into his touch.
I stroked her little feet and she stretched her bottom half towards me, curling her tail.
“It’s deeper underground,” he said, still rubbing Wraith’s head as she purred.
“From what Cal told me, the one in the cemetery is harder to find, so that’s the advantage of using that one.
It has hidden doors, and is covered in illusions and reality-bending chimaeras.
Cal told me once that his father would put him there when he wanted to forget about him for a while. ”
I paled.
Alaric coughed, his own expression growing taut. “I suspect, in this case, he’d want Cal near him. He’d want him close.”
His words made sense to me. Once they sank in, I’d found myself nodding.
I’d also felt like I might be sick.
His words still rang true to me now. More than that, they felt true. They felt like what I’d been seeing and feeling in my dreams every night since.
Bones was underneath the Black Tower.
Which meant I needed to learn how to phase.
It was no longer simply an option or something theoretical; I had to figure it out, or I’d never get him out.
Cal was right. I couldn’t give Malefic what he wanted.
I couldn’t risk setting off the alarms by trying to walk through his chimaeras.
I had to bypass all of that, get in and get out, and the only way to do that would be by phasing.
In that same conversation, Alaric made me promise I wouldn’t do any of it alone.
“…I’ll draw you a map. I’ll help you research, and see if I can figure out that collar thing you told me about… but only if you’ll let Mocking, Nyx, and me help for all of it.”
At my raised eyebrow, he’d met my gaze, his words determined.
“I don’t know exactly what you have in mind, but I do know there’s a lot you’re not telling me.
Promise me you’ll let us help,” he demanded.
“Promise you’ll let Blackstone help, and Forsooth, if we all agree it’s safe.
Really, just promise me you’ll take as much help as we can possibly give you, and I’ll take you to Greythorne castle tomorrow, Leda, and show you everything I know about the family chimaeras. ”
My throat had tightened as I met his gaze.
The urgency and seriousness in his eyes had made my vision blur all over again.
I’d reached over Wraith and gripped his arm in my hand.
“I promise,” I’d said, and I meant it.
I’d kept that promise.
I’d been working with Alaric, Nyx, Jolie, and Luc on trying to find a way to break into the Bones mansion ever since.
So far, I didn’t feel any closer.
I’d considered dropping out of classes altogether, but Forsooth strongly urged me to remain enrolled and visible at the school.
He said the only reason I wasn’t being looked at more closely by the Praecuri, and even by the King, was that Forsooth convinced them I was harmless.
He’d also promised he’d keep an eye on me, and report back if my behavior changed, if I stopped attending classes, if my magic changed, if he saw me working magics related to Dark Cathedral, or he noticed any other anomalies.
Therefore, Forsooth explained, if I wanted to be free to pursue my “project,” as he put it, I needed to behave like an ordinary student, at least in public. I needed to very much not act like the wife of Caelum Bones, heir to Malefic Bones, leader of Dark Cathedral.
Caelum, I was soon to discover, had already joined their official list of wanted Magicals.
I’d tried to talk to my cousin, Valor, about why that was, but all I got was a cryptic note in reply, telling me to keep my head down and try to be patient.
He’d promised he’d be in touch when he thought there might be any movement on the ground, good or bad, but I hadn’t heard a word from him since, and too much time had passed now for me to believe him.
In his letter, he hadn’t mentioned my being married to Bones, and while that wasn’t incredibly surprising, I definitely got the impression it hadn’t been an oversight.
He wasn’t the only Magical in my life who clearly harbored opinions about my marriage to Caelum Bones.
I don’t even mean the royals who hadn’t mysteriously left school in the days before classes started, or the ones who remained and either hated me for what Dark Cathedral had done to their families, or hated me for polluting the blood of one of their oldest royal lines, or hated me because they hated Caelum Bones.
I didn’t really mean the ordinary Magicals either, who viewed me as a traitor who’d sold out them and everyone else.
No, I meant the people who were supposed to be my friends.
I’d still barely exchanged words with Miranda or Draken, although Jolie came and sat with us for breakfast on the first day of classes, and Draken and Miranda reluctantly joined us, even if neither of them really looked at me.