36. Morwormer Hall
Morwormer Hall
Ileaned against the wall, drained, exhausted, and silent, and watched as the massive hall began to fill up with more black-clad forms.
I tried to look at every face as they entered through the double doors, but there were too many to make a note of every one, much less to decide how many of those faces I actually recognized.
I mostly was looking for my friends, half-waiting for them to be dragged into the hall in chains, but no one I cared about ever appeared.
It was the only genuine relief I experienced while sitting there.
A few among the crowd I did recognize, unfortunately.
Sirena entered the room and made the rounds in a sweeping red gown under her black cloak, wearing a headband with a skull of Anubis in gold at her forehead.
She walked for a time with a tall, bearded man who must be her husband, Sergius Calvarias, and bowed and held court as the two of them parted the crowd on their way to their place near Malefic.
When she got closer to the stage, she saw me and grinned widely, sauntering in my directly on high heels, her lipsticked mouth matching her hair, which had changed to scarlet and black since I’d last seen her.
She conjured magic from her primal, a gold-headed jackal that walked along beside her, making the magic crackle with power by the time she stood directly over me, a manic grin on her face.
She tossed some of that magic at me… once…
twice… three times, before Malefic glanced over and tut-tutted at her, and she relented with a faint pout.
Each bolt of her magic made me writhe in pain, and caused my nose to bleed again, but I hated the gratitude that rose in me when Malefic waved her off.
She leaned down towards my face instead, and grinned, looking me over.
“Not so pretty now, are you, mongrel?” she hissed.
She bent closer, so that her lips nearly brushed my ear.
“I’ve been meaning to thank you for lending me your pretty Caelum to play with all these months,” she breathed silkily.
“He’s been so very, very naughty for me…
you really have no idea. But I suppose I have you to thank for leaving him so hungry. ”
My jaw hardened, but I didn’t speak.
When I wouldn’t look at her, she tossed more magic at me, a soft, blown kiss compared to the fire she’d thrown at me those first three times.
I would have preferred the fire.
The instant her magic touched mine, I saw Bones chained to the wall, his face taut, the gold collar holding him to the wall.
Disgust was etched in his expression, fury, but every time his magic tried to expand, the collar glowed white and he groaned in pain.
He was sweating, and panting, and I watched as Sirena sat astride him, naked but for a gold chain around her waist.
I shook my head, letting out a half-cry, in spite of myself.
“Such a good doggy,” she purred in my ear.
“And your brother so loved to watch. If he’d been just a little older, and your Caelum a little less enticing, I might have given little brother the benefit of my experience and wisdom, too.
But Caelum seemed so jealous and needy whenever I offered to bring him into our playtime… ”
I looked her in the face when she raised her head. I stared at her, oblivious to her appraisal, struggling with a rage unlike anything I’d ever felt.
She laughed at whatever she saw in me, and then rose back to her feet, straightening to her full height. She prodded my chest with the toe of one of her high heels.
“That’s the spirit, mongrel,” she smiled, winking at me.
I struggled not to react, to push it back, to erase what she’d shown me, but the images seemed burned there. I watched her walk away, then closed my eyes, fighting again to blank my mind, but only half succeeded.
I’d known, hadn’t I? I’d known.
Telling myself that didn’t help anything.
I saw a few other Dark Cathedrals I recognized from the vision walks I’d done with Blackstone, and from that morning in Malcroix Gardens, when they’d taken Bones.
I also saw our old headmistress, Darica Voltaire, wearing a robe and the giant Malcroix Cross around her neck I remembered from the first time I’d been in Morwormer Hall.
They were all holding glasses.
They were all drinking.
Corvid Blackstone was another face in the crowd that caused me to suck in a breath.
I stared at him as he walked around the room, holding a wine goblet of his own.
He didn’t look at me. I might not have existed at all where I sat crumpled against the wall, but stopped to bow politely to a number of other Dark Cathedrals, engaging them in conversation as his raven primal perched on his shoulder, its head tilted as if listening.
Then a shadow fell over me, and I blinked, my eyes shifting up.
Elysia Warrington stared off to one side, her expression bored.
She held one arm folded over her chest so her other elbow could rest on it, propping up the hand that held her own golden goblet.
She wore a pale pink dress under her black robe, and her pink faerie primal buzzed around her head only to alight on her shoulder.
“Well, you look disgusting,” she commented, her voice as bored as her face.
A perverse part of me wanted to laugh, but I didn’t quite have it in me.
I only sat there instead, watching her glance around the room, her eyes uninterested.
She stood a few feet away from me, even now, like she was afraid I might bleed on her.
That impression only strengthened when she glanced down at me, seemingly almost against her will, and her lip curled in disgust.
“They’ve managed it,” she said. “In the kitchens.”
I blinked at her. My mouth pursed. “What?”
“The distraction.” She took a sip of her wine, again looking bored, and staring around the room as if she’d rather be anywhere else. “What you’d meant to do at the Tower, apparently. That sexy one of your bunch. Not the actor. The other one.”
I stared at her, utterly bewildered. Luc? Did she mean Lucifer Mocking?
Elysia Warrington thought Luc was fit?
She might’ve told me elephants flew out of her arsehole that morning.
“Any messages back?” Elysia asked, still speaking low, her voice bored.
I swallowed. Was this a trick?
I couldn’t afford to ignore it, even if it was.
“Where’s Alaric?” I blurted.
She exhaled out a long sigh, sounding even more bored, still rocking on her heels, her elbow balanced on her arm.
“Was that supposed to be a message?” she asked drily.
I fought to think, to make my mind work.
“He’s going to take my magic,” I said, low, frantic, but talking fast. “Malefic. He wants what Caelum is. He needs part of my magic to stabilize it first. You need to get Caelum out, while he’s busy with me here.
” I swallowed, glancing up at her. Her lips had firmed, but she wouldn’t look at me. “You don’t have much time.”
She waited another beat after I spoke.
“Is that it?” she asked coldly, taking another sip of wine.
When I didn’t speak, she walked away without another word.
Her feet balanced on even higher heels than the ones Sirena had worn, her long legs striding gracefully across the marble floor, her robes and dress swishing behind her.
I felt like I was going to be sick, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Had I just hallucinated that? Or had that been real?
I looked around at the Dark Cathedrals all around me, and saw them all holding goblets.
Had that thing about the kitchens meant what I thought it did?
I couldn’t think about it, on the off chance it could mean what Luc, Nyx, Alaric and I had thrown around in our plans to break into the Tower. If it was real, I couldn’t risk having that in the forefront of my mind, not surrounded by Magicals trained in seer arts.
Not with Blackstone there.
After Elysia left me, all the faces seemed to blend together.
I don’t know how long that lasted, either.
Eventually, the swirling crowd, the Dark Cathedrals that ventured closer to me to gawk and murmur to one another behind their hands and hoods, the goblets being refilled and clinked together, the gradually rising hum of voices and laughter and excited murmurs…
all seemed to go still and silent at once.
Malefic once more positioned himself at the head of the room.
He stood at the base of the stairs, next to a low table covered with a scarlet cloth, just outside the two ritual circles painted on the black marble.
A bottle stood on the satin cloth, next to a silver bowl, a very human-looking skull, and several talismans made of bones, feathers, gold, and jewels.
Panic started to hit me, as he stood there, his hands outstretched.
I focused on the gold bracelet I still wore around my wrist.
I’d tried to activate it before, when Quicksilver first threw me over his shoulder, but I’d been unable to move then, so incantations had been out of the question.
Malefic was close to me now. It might be my own real chance to try again, but I still couldn’t feel my sun primal, as hard as I strained.
I moved my right hand slowly and carefully so that it reached under my sleeve, finding the golden head of the snake. I fought to relax, hoping like hell no one would notice me opening my magic. I focused on the snake bracelet and rubbed the top of the snake’s smooth head.
“Maam rakshatu,” I mouthed soundlessly.
An image of Bones came to my mind.
Thinking it was from my connection to the golden snake, I tried to conjure the feeling of his magic, his specific presence. I rubbed the carving of the gold snake’s head with my thumb.
“Maam rakshatu,” I murmured.
Nothing.
I didn’t dare speak louder, not with how quiet everyone was now, but Blackstone had always told me the incantation was just a focusing tool at base, that it was the power and will behind the cast that gave it its power.
I rubbed the snake’s head again.
Maam rakshatu! I thought at it, trying to put more magic behind the intent.
I repeated the attempt to conjure Bones.
Again, nothing.
MAAM… RAKSHATU! I projected loudly from my mind.