Chapter 34
ESME
“Neither would be preferable,” Dayn replies, his tone jarringly calm.
Salome’s eyes narrow at Dayn’s cool response, the bone sickle pressing just a little deeper against his throat. Blood trickles down in a thin line, but he doesn’t flinch.
“You’ve got nerve, dragon,” she hisses. “Most who find my home don’t live long enough to speak.”
I clear my throat, trying to ignore the cold energy hovering at my heart. “Look, we didn’t come here to cause trouble. We’re just seeking help.”
Her gaze slides to me, those eerie blue eyes assessing. “Help? From me? Child, I stopped helping your kind centuries ago.”
“My kind?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “You mean witches? Because last I checked, that’s what you are too.”
Something flickers across her face—a brief crack in her mask of cold fury.
“I am nothing like you,” she says, but there’s less venom in it.
“Aren’t you?” I press. “A witch who draws power from the shadows, from the spirits, from the dead? Someone who knows exactly what it means to draw strength from between worlds? You may predate the mage schism, but you’re still a mage.”
The pressure of her magic eases slightly against my chest. I can feel Dayn’s tension beside me, his muscles coiled and ready, but he’s letting me handle this. Smart dragon.
“The world has changed since you’ve been hiding in here, Salome,” I continue. “The Ides have been unleashed. Dominic Merlin’s Ide first, but others are following. They’re inhabiting darkblood hosts, rebuilding covens. Things are... shifting.”
Her eyes widen fractionally. “Ides?” The sickle lowers just a hair from Dayn’s throat. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I was there.” I meet her gaze steadily. “I was the conduit for Merlin’s Ide.”
She studies me for a long, uncomfortable moment. I can feel something in her probing at my spirit, at my essence, like cold fingers sifting.
“Hm,” she finally says, lowering her weapons. “I don’t believe you’re lying.”
She turns abruptly toward her cottage. “I’ve a kettle on. You might as well come inside while I decide what to do with you—and before you tell me how the world is ending. Again.”
Dayn and I exchange a look of caution tinged with surprised relief, before following her through the cottage’s ancient door.
The interior of the structure is larger than it appeared from outside. It’s a strange, organic space where wood and stone blend seamlessly. Herbs hang from the ceiling, and bottles of mysterious substances line shelves carved directly into the walls.
She gestures to a table made from what looks like a single massive tree stump. “Sit.”
We obey without question. She moves to a hearth where, true to her word, a kettle steams over a blue flame.
“So,” she says, her back to us as she prepares three cups, “the Ides are free. Merlin first, you say?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “During a ritual at Darkbirch.”
She brings the cups to the table, setting them before us. The liquid inside is amber-colored and smells of earth and something sweeter. “Drink. It won’t kill you. If I wanted you dead, you’d be fertilizing my azaleas by now.”
I take a cautious sip. It tastes like honey and woodsmoke.
“If the Ides are free, it means a shift in balance,” she says, settling across from us stiffly. “Tell me what you know of death, child.”
I set my cup down. “I know the basics. When people die, their spirits either enter the darkblood covens’ spiritual grids—becoming ancestors, guides, protectors—or they pass on completely to... whatever comes next.”
“Heaven? Hell?” she prompts, her eyes sharp.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s beyond the scope of what we’re taught. But some spirits never make it to either place. They get stuck, wandering in a kind of limbo.”
“The Ides?” she prompts, though I’m certain she knows more than I do.
I nod.
Salome nods back. “They were the first to forge the path between life and death. The original waymakers, so to speak. When they died, their spirits didn’t follow the same rules as others.
They exist in a state between states. Lost souls, drifting in a kind of purgatory…
Until someone offers them a tether. Though the stories go that Merlin deliberately found a way to become an Ide, drawn by his theory of untapped power in the Ides realm… ”
She takes a long drink from her cup, eyes going distant. “But now they’ve found hosts again. Bodies to inhabit. An outlet for their power.”
“They’re supposed to be helping us,” I say. I can’t help glancing toward the window, to the forest outside. “These spirits you’ve bound here, they’re different from anything I’ve encountered.”
Her mouth curves into something that’s not quite a smile. “I built my own kind of spiritual grid. Darkblood covens aren’t the only ones who can do it.”
“And you’ve done it to isolate yourself here,” Dayn says. “For what purpose?”
She traces a finger around the rim of her cup. “I’ve seen enough of the world’s cycles to know they never truly change. Powers rise, powers fall. Wars begin, wars end. Only to begin again. After years, one grows... weary.”
“Well, we’re not here to probe into your life story,” I say carefully, “unless you want to tell us.”
In truth, I’d love to know the details of how she became this.
How she went from a presumably ordinary witch to casting such powerful runes that would preserve herself for so long.
How she built this sanctuary, tethering this many spirits of various creatures all on her own.
Who she was before, where she lived, which coven, if any, she belonged to.
Dayn had said she predates even the mage schism, when clearbloods and darkbloods first became two factions of magic.
But I also don’t know what she might decide to do if she gets bored. It seems the wisest is to try to keep this short and sweet. Curiosity’s known to kill cats… Maybe another time.
I lean forward. “Salome, that’s why we’re here. We need your help with something that… apparently might help break the cycle.”
She scoffs. “And what might that be?”
Dayn reaches into his pocket and withdraws his grandfather’s scale, placing it on the table. I follow suit with my wooden bird.
“We’re performing a retuning ritual,” he explains.
“To restore Esme’s connection to her full self.
Parts of her were… blocked, locked away by her grandmother’s spirit.
First, we have to retune her spiritual frequency to mine, then restore it to her own, and we need a third element to complete the triangulation—someone who can bond these personal items together with a spiritual thread. ”
“A neutral magical,” I add. “And someone who understands the connection between spirits and the living, possibly better than anyone, will be very useful.”
Salome stares at the objects, then at us. For a moment, I think she might laugh in our faces or throw something at us. Instead, she exhales slowly.
“You think fixing one darkblood witch will change anything?” she asks. “The world will continue its bloody dance with or without you, girl.”
“Maybe,” I concede. “But it’s no skin off your nose, is it?
What harm would there be in helping us? You can go back to doing…
whatever it is you do, afterwards. But if there’s even a chance that you could help change something about the world that so exhausted you, surely that’s worth a few minutes of your time? ”
Salome is silent for a long moment. Her fingers still on the ancient wood of her table. Her pale gaze holds mine—distant, deep, like it’s weighing something I can’t see.
Finally, she speaks.
“You mistake me,” she says, quieter. “I am not exhausted by the world.” Her thumb drags once along the grain of the wood. “I am exhausted by hope.”
Her response catches me off guard. I wet my lips, trying to maintain composure.
“We’re not asking you to hope, Salome,” I say, matching her quiet tone. “We’re just asking you to help. Though we’ll happily let you know if anything comes of it.”
Another pause, as her gaze continues to scan me.
“You’ve got Salem eyes,” she says unexpectedly. “I knew your ancestor, Galia Salem.”
“Galia?” I ask.
She nods. “Before she became a matriarch. Before she hardened into the weapon everyone remembers.”
This takes me aback. Galia was my great, great grandmother—Helena’s daughter, and not one of Dayn’s favorite people, if I recall…
“You knew her?” he asks quietly.
“We were friends, once.” A shadow crosses her face. “Before she chose power over everything else. Before she decided the only path forward was through blood and sacrifice.”
I swallow hard. “That’s the path my grandmother set for me too. But I want to choose my own way.”
Something softens in Salome’s expression, just in the slightest. “And what way would that be?”
I glance at Dayn, then back to her. “I don’t know yet. That’s why I need to be whole again. To make that choice with all of myself, not just the pieces others decided I should have.”
Salome studies me for what feels like an eternity. Then, finally, she reaches out, her fingers hovering over the wooden bird and the dragon scale.
“This kind of ritual,” she says slowly, “is not simple. It requires opening doorways that most prefer to keep closed. Are you prepared for what you might find when all those doors are unlocked?”
My hands tighten in my lap. Ready or not… this is something I have to do.