Chapter 12 #2
“The courtyard is open to the sun,” she says. “We’ll be safe there.”
Before I can ask a follow-up, she takes off again.
Her steps are quicker now, more determined, as if she’s expecting me to back out of our deal.
It wouldn’t be the worst idea. Finding vampire blood is not an easy feat, but there has to be another way.
Ways that don’t include betraying Mama and aiding Vulce’s army.
Then again—and I wouldn’t admit this to anyone, not even Henry—I think sunwalker spells are far more humane than my mama’s curse.
The vampires clearly spiraled out of control twenty years ago, but forcing them to burn in the sun forever?
It feels unjustly violent. Sunwalker spells are a happy medium: the vampires can’t easily kill, but they also won’t instantly die.
Henry lurches to a stop. This time, he doesn’t let me pass. He throws his arm in front of my chest, and I crash against it.
“Is that…” he trails off, frozen beside me.
It isn’t until he’s spoken that I notice the figure at the end of the corridor. I’d been lost in my thoughts, carelessly so, and I’d missed the obvious predator watching us from the shadows.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Cora informs the man.
It’s enough to draw a surprised breath from my lungs. I may not have seen Sebastian Vulce since I was a child, but I’ve heard stories of him in the years since Mama cursed him and his kind.
He is a monster. A villain. A cruel and vicious leader.
My pulse spikes. This man publicly hurt my mama. Made an example of her, of us. And yes, she’d put him in his place…but not without enraging him. Not without giving him a good reason to kill us without a spare thought.
Cora assured me we’d be safe here. She promised no harm would come to Henry or me, so long as we helped with the sunwalker spells.
Now, that feels like a foolish hope.
“I am not here to watch you,” he tells her. There’s something strange about the way he looks at her. His expression is one of concern and thinly veiled adoration. He looks at her as if she were a child. His child.
I shake my head, forcing the thought away. Vampires are many things—evil, violent, dangerous. They are not paternal or protective or gentle.
“No?” Cora asks. She crosses her arms over her chest, glancing back at me and Henry as we cower like children. “Well, then if you don’t mind, we’d appreciate privacy. You’re terrifying my guests.”
I grind my teeth and force myself to stand at full height. Mama would be repulsed at how I’m acting. I straighten my shoulders, step forward in a brief surge of confidence, and close the distance between us.
Sebastian is a frightening man, but he’s shorter than I am. I’m nearly a head taller, and I focus on that tiny, inconsequential detail to ground me.
“Elliot Lyrie,” I say, extending a hand.
Sebastian stares at my hand, face blank. His green eyes shift to mine, then to Cora’s. A flicker of something crosses his face, but it’s too quick for me to decipher.
“Sebastian Vulce,” he finally returns. Rather than shaking my hand, he tilts his head, regarding me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “How’s your mother?”
Magic pulses through me, shooting from my chest and through my limbs.
It coils in the base of my fingertips, desperate to slice through Vulce’s throat.
I clamp my teeth and tighten both hands into fists.
It’s taking everything—slow breaths, clenched muscles, steady eye contact—to keep from reacting.
From launching every ounce of magic straight through Vulce’s chest until his heart lays at my feet.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Cora says. She steps between me and Sebastian, capturing my wrist in her hand. Her skin is soft and delicate, but her grip is strong. She pulls hard enough I have no choice but to follow after her.
Henry is only a step behind, giving Sebastian a wide berth as we step into an open-air courtyard. I slip out of Cora’s hold, feeling a rush of relief as I step into the cool air. Sebastian remains in the doorway, half his face cast with sunlight.
We don’t know how many vampires have sunwalker spells.
Mama’s been trying to figure out a number for years, but her spies have reported anything from five to a hundred.
I mentally add this to my to-do list. Maybe Mama will be less infuriated if she knows I found useful information while risking my life.
Not if she knows I helped increase their numbers.
I take a deep breath and try to shake the anxiety from my lungs. It’s bad enough being here. But being around him feels like an unnecessary torture.
Cora leads us to a large stone table in the corner, positioned next to a vine-infested stone wall and a strip of elongated windows. Without taking my eyes off Sebastian, I sit beside Henry nearest the stone wall. Cora remains standing, turning away from us to nod at the vampire king.
“Master,” she says. Despite her nauseating nickname for the vile man, her voice is hard. Almost as if in warning.
“Signal if you need anything,” he says. His green eyes flicker over Henry, then me. His lip snarls before he forces his attention back to Cora. “Don’t give them your back again.”
If Cora responds, it’s not out loud. She sharply faces me and Henry, cheeks stained pink with blush. I’m so busy watching her, it takes me several seconds to realize Sebastian is gone.
“I told him not to come,” she says, glancing between us. Her blush grows darker, and it’s inexplicably charming. She’s apologizing for this terrible man like she’s a teenager being embarrassed by her father.
Murderer, I remind myself. Both of them. Murderers.
“You call him master?” I ask. I’m not sure why. The question slips out, and my judgment is so loud even I flinch.
Surprisingly, Cora doesn’t.
Her face hardens though, lips folding into a flat line.
“We’re doing the sunwalker spell first,” she repeats. Any lingering embarrassment washes from her features as she removes her bag. She takes a collection of items from its main pocket. “Once we’re done…”
She trails off, eyes darting toward Henry.
“He knows,” I say, answering her unasked question. “I told him what you did.”
The disgust is heavy in my voice, and that same pink blush from before lights her face again. Cora clears her throat, and too soon, the color disappears.
“We’ll do your memory second,” she says. With her attention on her bag, she adds, “I even brought two, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“How generous,” I deadpan.
Cora glares at me, nose wrinkling.
“This is the deal,” she says. “If you don’t want—”
“I do,” I interrupt her. “Let’s just get it over with.”
So we do. We work the next several minutes in tense silence, only speaking for instructions or questions.
As time passes, the atmosphere changes. Softens.
Henry is undoubtedly better at spellcasting than I am, and it’s clear Cora is pleased.
She doesn’t smile, exactly, but her lips tilt at the edges, as if she’s tempted.
Even with me dragging us down, we make impressive progress. In a matter of two hours, we’ve done it. An entire vial is filled with a loose, furious protection spell. The stringy orange magic thrashes in its glass container.
“Wow. We’re done,” Cora says. Like last time, she seems utterly untouched by all the magic we just produced. Henry is struggling, but not nearly as terribly as I am. I’m sweating, gasping, unable to catch my breath.
“I’m much better with potions,” I say. I’m not sure why, other than to prove I’m not a complete loser. “And biological magic, obviously. I’ve done…I’m good with surgeries. But this is not my…”
I trail off. Henry claps a hand over my shoulder, laughing gently.
“No one is questioning your witchcraft,” Henry says.
“I am,” Cora says. Another unimpressed lift of her eyebrow. She does that too much. Looks at me like that too much. With the way her lips twitch, it almost looks like she’s teasing me. But no. This woman is a monster, and she’s obviously judging me.
“Who knows,” I snap, “Maybe I was once good at spellcasting. Maybe you stole that from me too.”
Cora drops her eyes and swallows. I see it, the way her throat tightens. I wait for her to defend herself, but when she doesn’t, I feel like I’m the asshole.
“So,” Henry drawls. He pats the edge of the table, looking almost as uncomfortable as I feel. “Speaking of memories…do we want to look?”
Without responding, Cora digs through her bulky bag again.
She keeps her gaze down as she removes a shiny black stone and a drawstring velvet bag.
She places the stone at the center of the table and removes a strange collection of objects from the little bag.
As she lines the items—I spot a mermaid scale and an animal claw—I frown.
“What is this?”
Cora looks up from what she’s doing. Her eyes are wide, and in the sunlight, I can see all the different shades of brown. Soft and hard, light and dark, all surrounded by long, thick eyelashes.
“A memory stone?” she says. It comes out more like a question, and her gaze darts between me and Henry. “Mrs. Raekes showed us. Second year—”
“I want my memories back,” I interrupt. “I don’t want to watch them, and I certainly don’t want to watch them with you.”
She flinches, eyes locking on the stone instead of me. This woman is a literal murderer, and still, my stomach sours at the way she’s curling in on herself. As if expecting me to hurt her.
“Just give it to me,” I demand. I hold my palm out, keeping my eyes on her, even as she refuses to look at me. “Secora.”
“Don’t call me that,” she says, eyes snapping to mine. “I told you I don’t like it. So don’t. Be pissed all you want, but don’t disrespect—”
“Really?” I ask. “You’re going to talk about disrespect? You stole my memories. They’re mine. You have no right to them, and you’re acting like you’re the good guy for doling them back, one by one.”
“Let’s take a breath,” Henry says. I don’t know when he moved, but he’s closer now, hand heavy on my shoulder. “We’re all friends here.”
“No. We are not friends,” I growl. I shove his hand off me, twisting to face him.
“She murdered my friend. She stole my memories. I’ve agreed to her fucking requirements to get them back.
I’m not leaving them with her, so she can keep my thoughts in her twisted little collection, watching them whenever she’s bored. They’re—”
“I haven’t watched them since the night I took them,” she says.
Her voice is level, devoid of emotion. It is only the slight curl of her upper lip that gives her away, that indicates there’s something more behind her icy mask.
“I’m not some obsessive stalker, all right?
I was going to give it to you. But I figured you wouldn’t have a memory stone.
You can’t just go sticking random things in your head, Elliot.
I could’ve fucked with it. You have to watch it like this first. Which you know. ”
I grind my teeth. I hate this woman. I hate more that she’s right. I do know better than to stick a random strand of magic in my head. It could be laced with poison. It could be manipulated. It could be a lot of things, and if I didn’t check with a memory stone first, I could have killed myself.
I just assumed Cora wouldn’t care if I did.
I assumed she’d leave it to me to find a memory stone, not that she’d offer up her own.
“But you don’t have to use it,” she says. She grabs the ingredients from the memory stone, shoving them back into their velvet bag. I don’t remember much about memory stones from school, but I know these ingredients are hard to come by. If I ask Mama for them, she’ll know I’m up to something.
“Wait,” I say.
I can feel Henry watching me, but I don’t take my eyes off Cora. She’s paused her movements, and her stormy eyes stare up into mine. If they weren’t so angry, they’d be pretty.
Fuck. Even angry…
“I’m sorry,” I say. It feels like I’m choking on the words as I speak them, as if I’m personally stabbing my mama with this tiny betrayal. Apologizing to the henchman of my mother’s greatest enemy. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I…can we still? Please?”
She doesn’t respond. I can see her jaw working. She’s grinding her teeth so hard I’m surprised I can’t hear it. She doesn’t move to put the ingredients back, but at least she’s stopped taking them away.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, harder.
Cora lets out a shaky breath. She’s going to agree—I can see it in her softened expression. I’ve already won, and yet, I find myself continuing anyway.
“You can watch it too, if you want.”
Without looking, I can see Henry’s shock from my peripheral vision. Both blond eyebrows are raised as he stares at me.
“She’s probably memorized them anyway,” I say. More as a way to convince myself than him.
“I haven’t,” she says. Her words are level, steady.
I don’t respond, and she somehow knows I’m not going to.
She lines the ingredients once again onto the black stone and removes two jars from her bag.
Both are labeled with silky ink and the same description: Elliot Lyrie, age 12, Ochre Primary School.
Within each jar, a vibrant memory thrashes against the glass.
One is blue. The other is somewhere between orange and red.
“How many?” I ask. My voice is hoarse, almost unfamiliar. “How many jars do you have?”
“A hundred, maybe more,” she says. “Only some are yours.”
“Only,” I repeat. Nausea pinches my gut, threatening to eject this morning’s breakfast. Part of me wants to lash out, to tell Cora exactly what I think of her and her cruel, twisted games.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion from spellcasting. Maybe it’s the surreal realization I’m about to learn something new about my own life. Either way, I’m too tired to fight.
“All right,” I say. “I’m ready.”
Cora carefully places the memory onto the stone, and an instantaneous burst of blue smoke surrounds us.
I can’t see Cora or Henry. There is only a thick wall of blue around me, slowly dissolving into a past world.
By the time the smoke has cleared completely, I am no longer in the present.
Sebastian Vulce’s courtyard is gone, replaced by the outer fields of my primary school.