Chapter 19
C HAPTER 19
RUBY
“Textbook Death magic.”
Hector is squatting down next to the driver who’s exactly where we left him last night. Hex is at his shoulder, like a second examiner, and they both are far too close to the man’s ruined face. “God, such an ugly magic. Turning people into moldering fruit to kill them. Completely unnecessary.”
He’s not wrong. And I’d agree with him if I wasn’t supposed to be so offended. The driver’s worse in the daylight, and the coffee and croissant slosh violently in my gut, half-digested.
I look away and immediately find myself connecting with Auden’s calm expression. His eyes only slide my way for the briefest of moments, not betraying anything we discussed last night.
“It is ugly,” Evander agrees, “which is why he was very obviously covered up by an invisibility spell.”
I can’t tell if Evander knows Auden was the one who obscured the body, or if he assumes Marsyas did. And I don’t know how to defend him if it comes out.
Wren, however, keeps to the only script we’ve got.
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this,” she repeats, disbelief in every syllable. Her body crumples just enough, her shoulders caving, fingers curling into her palms. “I didn’t hear him say a bad word toward her. Just offered us cinnamon candies and still water and kept to himself as drivers do. Had the partition up most of the way. Lavinia,” she turns to me, amber eyes expertly teary, “you didn’t notice anything else, did you?”
Solemn and meaning it, I shake my head.
Evander clears his throat. “Are you suggesting you were unaware Marsyas had used her magic to murder this man and escape before Ursula’s spell put Hegemony Manor into lock-down?”
Wren takes a step forward, nailing Evander with the doe-eyed innocence she used to weasel out of a speeding ticket on the last day of school while driving Dad’s car.
“Evander.” His name is delicate on her lips. “Don’t you think we would’ve told you if we knew? We had no idea Nona—”
“Bullshit,” Hex exclaims, rising from where he’d been squatting.
“Language, Junior!”
We all turn, and there’s Luna Starwood, sour-faced as she holds fast to Infinity’s arm as the pair of them navigate the driveway bricks. The front doors are thrown wide, the painted foyer of Hegemony Manor exposed and open to the real beauty rendered across its plaster.
“I apologize, Luna. I, just—you didn’t notice it last night?” Hex asks us, but he’s watching Auden. “When you were out searching for Nona and Auden marched you back inside from this direction ?”
Aw, shit. Everyone rotates toward Auden.
Hector rises from his crouch to place an affirming hand on the back of his son’s neck, while Sanguine crosses her arms over her considerable chest, and Ada smirks.
Evander and Winter are harder to gauge. The cousins don’t look much alike, but their expressions are the same temperature—icy.
Luna and Infinity are silent, waiting.
Auden weathers it without a reaction that’s obvious to me, but it’s evident in the slight hardening of Evander’s jaw that he’s reading something in his cousin that the rest of us can’t distinguish.
“Is that correct, Auden?” Evander prods. “You walked them up the drive, past this driver, and didn’t notice? I saw this obscurement spell a mile away. Surely you would have too, even in the dark.”
“We were very distressed.” I can’t cry on command like my sister, but I’m so stressed my voice helpfully frays and scatters like light refracted. “So far from home, and then suddenly Ursula’s dead, and Nona’s missing, and we… we panicked and just ran around screaming her name.”
I grab Wren’s hand, which she clutches tightly to her chest—a little melodramatic but probably perfect—and look Auden straight in his too-handsome face with genuine appreciation. “Auden was a gentleman and guided us back to the house. Honestly, if we’d found this man, one of us would’ve probably fainted.”
I realize I’ve gone too far when Luna swipes a dismissive hand through the air. The woman could take out an eye with her sudden gestures. “Oh, none of you are the fainting type. No witch has been the fainting type since Salem. I don’t care what Marsyas did to wipe your memory and knowledge banks, you’re not built to be soft no matter what’s happened to your minds.”
Hex, though, has a much different angle of criticism.
“You were distracted and distressed, sure. But Auden wasn’t.” Hex pauses, letting the accusation sink over us like bonfire smoke. “Auden was observant enough to locate you both very quickly on the grounds. In fact, he was observant enough to be the first of us to realize you’d left the room.”
He has a point.
“I,” Sanguine says, voice like ice cracking in a cold glass, “find it hard to believe that you came out here looking for Marsyas at all. That story never made sense, and the timing was even more strange. You knew we were about to read the first clue, and you slipped out? Just to see if you could find her? Why then? Why not after the reading of the clue? You had all night. You’ve had all morning.”
“Because they weren’t looking for Marsyas,” Ada answers her mother, just adding to the pile-on. “They were probably supposed to cover up her tracks. Maybe perform a spell on this poor bastard and, I don’t know, supercharge their gross bracelets with his death rattle, then use that power to escape somehow because they were left behind as part of Marsyas’s plan.”
I don’t know if we can “supercharge” our rabbits’ feet, and therefore I don’t deny it. In fact, I don’t say anything at all. Wren is silent too. We’re holding hands and it doesn’t escape me that though she’s putting on an amazing front, she’s trembling beneath my grasp.
Evander sighs, hands on the hips of his workout shorts and big shoulders slumping enough to strain the seams of his Walton-Bridge jersey. I realize then that even without magic, he could haul both Wren and me off and there’d be nothing we could do about it.
“I hate to say it, but I agree with this line of questioning.” Shit. “I don’t think you were looking for Marsyas. I think you know where she is, what she did, and you were simply executing part of the plan.”
Now I think Wren might actually cry.
“Evander, no. That’s not true.”
He scoffs, teeth bared and bright for the flash of a second. “My cousin here hasn’t said a word, which means he knows at least some of it is true and he’s not stupid enough to lie right now after being caught in one by Hex.”
Evander glowers at Auden who, to his credit, doesn’t look away.
He is in trouble. It’s our fault. And now we all look guilty.
Panic catches me by the throat. This is not how we should repay the kindness of his healing magic, no matter what prompted it. I can’t let Auden go down for this. I drop my sister’s hand and step a step forward. “No—”
“I’ll submit to a truth spell!”
I stifle a gasp and turn to Wren, who’s pleading with the group at large, desperate and reckless. “We didn’t know this was going to happen and we have no idea what Nona had planned or even where she went. Ask me. Ask me right now!”
I’ve gone as pale as one of Wren’s ghosts, I can nearly feel the blood draining and there’s no use in hiding it.
My sister has just offered us up like lambs to slaughter.
We’re not who we say we are and the second they find out, we’re goners. It doesn’t matter that we’re innocent, we’re also knowledgeable now about something we were never supposed to know.
And that might be worse.
Still, Wren goes on, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright as she makes her case like she’s under a spotlight in front of a packed house.
“I don’t care which of you does it. I will prove to you that we are innocent in three questions or less,” she announces, guessing the format based on what we learned last night. “Then we can stop with these games and questions and insinuations. You’ll know what we know, and we can get on with finding the relics and sorting out the murderer because though we can all agree this man is Nona’s handiwork, I’m not convinced she killed Ursula. And I can affirm to you that if she did, we had no idea it was going to happen nor had anything to do with it.”
Wren’s planting questions in their heads. Giving them topics. She’s leading them like a lawyer in cross-examination. Wren is an excellent improv partner, but this won’t be enough.
It’s a good idea, but it’s not magic .
And I don’t know how I can reasonably help.
Though it’s seventy degrees and the air is as dry as a bone, I start to sweat.
“I’ll do it,” Ada offers, already advancing with a twist of the ring on her index finger. Like Hex’s, the hidden point within it springs out like a rose thorn of a switch blade, ready to take Wren’s blood and make it dance.
“No,” Winter snaps. She’s still as a statue, the buttery fabric and light colors of her high-end yoga clothes at odds with the sharpness of her voice, her brow, her words. Decisive and without the ragged marks of hesitation. “Evander should do it. He found this body. He’s the one who wanted to interrogate the Blackgates last night. It should be him.”
“It should be Evander,” Hex agrees. When his entire family turns on him, he shrugs. “What? Don’t you want to see how the Elementals do it? I, for one, want to know if he’s going to light her skin on fire until the truth blows out.”
Winter curses. “Jesus Christ. I was being facetious when you brought that up last night.”
Hex smirks. “I know.”
And that’s it.
As Ada frowns and stows her ring, Wren whirls on Evander. “Three questions. That’s all.”
I expect the eldest Hegemony to shake his head and inform her that’s not how it works. Or perhaps to haggle—going for five knowing they’ll compromise at four and he’ll buy himself a question for the trouble.
Instead, Evander takes my sister’s slender hands in his meaty ones, mindful of her bunny bracelets, and flips both of them over, palms up. “Look at me.”
Wren does as she’s told, shoulders back, and chin up, expression remaining cut clean with defiance. She is the picture of calm and collected. She doesn’t fidget, she doesn’t even smile in that automatic way she can’t seem to help when making eye contact. The air around both of them appears to still, matching Wren’s demeanor.
I want to will myself to draw on it, copy it, glom on to it. But I can feel my blanched cheeks going clammy under a fresh layer of perspiration. My heart rabbits in my chest against my immobile lungs. I try to force myself to take a steadying breath, but my body only does that little under protest, preferring to be as stagnant as possible beyond my heart. Like I’m watching a careening car and waiting for the crash.
Everyone around me has gone fuzzy in my periphery, and it’s just Wren and Evander in focus. Dark hair and hazel eyes and a sliver of blue sky between them. Their eye contact is as tangible as Evander’s grip on the backs of Wren’s hands.
Slowly, deliberately, Evander places Wren’s right-hand knuckles to the palm of her left, forming a gentle basket. He cradles it from below, and continues to look Wren straight in the eye.
“The Elemental truth spell works like this. I’ll create a flare of energy between us. I’ll ask you three questions. If the flare turns green, it detects truth. If it turns black, it detects an equal amount of truth and lie and the question is recast. If it turns red, it detects a lie.”
My stomach knots. I can’t believe our lives hang in the balance of what sounds exactly like the magical equivalent of a mood ring.
“Kaysa, do you understand?” She nods. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” The sound is still confident but small and controlled.
“Watch your hands.”
The moment Wren’s eyes narrow on her own palms, Evander whispers under his breath. As the final word falls from his lips, Evander snaps his fingers.
A ball of fire appears in Wren’s hand.
Smokeless, orange, and completely spherical.
My sister doesn’t cry out in pain, she doesn’t react at all except the tiniest flare of her eyes as she hooks onto the light, unblinking.
Under its spell.
“Did Marsyas Blackgate kill Ursula Hegemony?”
“I don’t know.”
Immediately, the ball shivers from where the base touches Wren’s hand, flaring green as an emerald.
I try to swallow, but now my throat doesn’t work along with my burning lungs, traffic-jam gut, and my eyes, which don’t leave my sister’s hands. I suppose I should be thankful I can actually see this color change, if not whatever magic is behind it. Just like with Hex’s hunt spell and Auden’s disguise of the driver last night, I can see the effects, if not the actual work going into it.
Evander asks his second question, his concentration sharp under the heavy furrow of his brows.
“Did Marsyas Blackgate tell you or your sister about her plans to disappear, or instruct you about what to do after she left?”
“No.”
The fire flares back to orange and my knees lock. It’s possible Marsyas pulled Wren aside. It’s possible the old woman put a spell on my sister and drew her into her plan. It’s possible she’s lying without knowing.
All those possibilities pound in my ears as I watch the light as if under compulsion myself, unable to look away.
But then, the ball flares green.
A muscle in Evander’s jaw twitches.
“Ask if they killed Ursula,” Hector stage-whispers.
“Or if they know who did,” Sanguine adds.
“And use her first name to preface the question, it’s much more accurate,” Ada sniffs.
Winter, Auden, and Infinity all turn to shush them. But I can’t break my gaze from the concentration of my sister’s eyes on the fire ball, and Evander watching her.
Finally, he asks his third question. “Where is Marsyas Blackgate right now?”
There’s a groan from the direction of the Cerises at Evander’s choice not even to consider their advice, as spelled Wren answers again, in a strong voice. “I don’t know.”
Three of the four Cerises toss their tracksuited arms up in frustration as, again, the ball shifts from green to orange to green.
Evander nods at the final color change, whispers, and again snaps his fingers. The ball disappears. He’s left holding Wren’s hands as she blinks herself awake—at him, at me, at all our faces.
She clasps both Evander’s hands in hers. “I passed?!”
“You passed.”
All the air in my lungs leaves me in a slow leak, my chest burning as I smother a sigh of relief.
“I mean, obviously. Because I’m telling you the truth.” Wren hugs my arm and yanks me to her. “We’re both telling the truth.”
“Perhaps, but we know nothing new about Ursula’s death,” Hector argues. “We have no definitive answer about if Marsyas murdered Ursula, only that the Blackgates don’t know if Marsyas murdered her.”
“We know that we can trust them,” Auden says, “and that’s valuable to them and to us. We know the Blackgates aren’t planning anything nefarious with Marsyas. If anything, they’re pawns and victims like the rest of us. That’s what we learned.”
“Thank you,” Wren says, pointedly to Auden. “Now can you all stop looking at both of us like we’re walking landmines with excellent hair?”
She squeezes me one more time before freeing me to stand on my own. But I feel like my knees are about to give out.
Hector scowls. “I wouldn’t go that far. These two could’ve cooked up plans to kill Ursula as revenge for their father’s death, and Kaysa’s answers would’ve pulled the same results from those close-ended questions.”
“No,” Evander says, definitive. “If they were involved in Ursula’s murder, the answer wouldn’t have come out so clear. We all know there are shades of truth, and every answer was definitive. I felt Kaysa’s intent in each answer. She and Lavinia are not involved in Ursula’s death.”
That declaration is a small relief as my nerves jump with the thought that he could feel Wren’s intent through their connection. Could he feel her lack of magic too? Her lie? Our lies?
We’re threading the needle here with a margin of error so small I can’t believe we’ve made it out with all our blood on the inside. My anger flares at Wren. This was too close.
It wasn’t worth it.
“Then it was Marsyas,” Luna concludes. “You saw her—she walked to the table with Ursula. Had plenty of time and opportunity to spell her with something during that stroll. It took near a millennium for them to approach the table—Marsyas is nearly as slow as me and she has her original knees!” There’s some nodding—Hector and Sanguine bobbing like marionettes on the same string, the twins a half step behind; Evander, Winter, even Auden. “Then she killed this man for his car and drove off.”
I meet Wren’s eyes because it all makes sense… except for the fact that Marsyas already had the man’s keys. We’d both seen her drop them in that wretched raven’s-body clutch. Jangle, thud, zip.
But to everyone else, it adds up.
It should.
Neither of us says a word about Marsyas’s key possession. I can’t explain why, but I want to keep that bit to myself. I don’t trust them with it. Not yet.
“Now, hold on. Wait.” Hex’s features are scrunched up like he’s eaten too much ice cream too fast.
“Get that thought out or your face’ll stay that way,” Winter mutters under her breath.
Hex’s eyes shoot to the youngest Hegemony, but not with disdain, that flirty smirk back for a ghost of a second before he asks, “What if this is a diversion?”
“It’s a mess is what it is. A hurried, panicked mess of a murderer.”
“But what if it’s on purpose?” he asks, gesturing indulgently at the man on the ground. “We all know talented witches, like, say, members of the High Families, can all disguise our magic to look like another line’s.”
My gut twists—that’s why my instinct was to hold back about the keys. If someone imitated Marsyas to set her up for the driver’s murder, they both don’t know about it and they’re likely standing right here.
“Yes, and the best comp to Death magic is Blood magic, genius,” Ada seethes, punctuated with an elbow to her twin’s kidney. They’ve confirmed what we learned in the reading room last night—a fact I’m sure these other witches know. “Are you saying me, or Mama and Papa did it? Or you?”
“What? No. But I am saying we can check the magical signature.”
“Oh,” Winter exclaims. And it’s a surprise when she clarifies Hex’s thought for him. “You mean, glean the magic and see if the person who cast the spell on this man is still on the grounds?”
“Yes?”
“Why can’t we do that to Ursula?” I ask slowly, trying to sound as magically incompetent as they expect me to be. “Wouldn’t that be the best way to make sure Nona did it?”
“Because of the victim’s shroud,” Infinity answers, not unkindly. “That sort of magic is considered tampering when it comes to another witch. But a normal old dead guy? Should be fine.”
That does not make sense to me, but I don’t probe more. What I’ve broached is already dangerous enough.
“Go ahead, son, let’s see what you’ve got,” Hector says. Sanguine gives an encouraging nod, while Ada stews silently next to her. I’m getting the idea that chances for both compliments and opportunities are few and far between in that household.
“No—it should be someone who can’t mimic the magic so easily,” Auden suggests. Hex’s mouth drops open to argue, but Sanguine grips his wrist and he immediately steps back into line with the rest of his family. “Luna? Infinity?”
Luna dislodges herself from Infinity and stands on her own. “Go ahead, child.”
As Infinity steps forward and kneels to the man, I find Wren’s pinky and twine it with mine. I don’t know what this magic will do or how it will work, but this is the best I can do for the pendulum to swing the other way after her success with the truth spell.
On their knees, Infinity draws up their hands to the sky, letting the bare sunlight soak into their palms. Then, with the precision of a piano player, all that gathered power and magic sluices into the tongueless mouth, to the vacant eye sockets, to the maw of the driver’s throat.
The body immediately seizes.
Infinity presses both hands down, pinning the man and his spinal column convulsing wildly against the brick. All the while, they bend and whisper in the dead man’s ear.
The driver shudders in one, two, three more huge flailing movements before he jerks to a sitting position, throws his head back, and spews black smoke from gaping lips.
At first it’s a plume, then it spreads out horizontally .
The gaseous horizon begins to dip and swirl but stays parallel. It doubles back on itself and straightens in places, and then it stops.
And… it’s readable.
Not a symbol, calling card, code. An actual, literal signature, straight from the victim’s mouth to the rest of us.
Marsyas Lavinia Blackgate.
“Well, that’s definitive,” Luna concludes. “Good job, child.”
Infinity smiles weakly at their grandmother and looks up at the rest of us from their spot, still kneeling at the man’s side. “Should we bury him? Or perhaps give him a shroud? It seems so uncivilized to leave him to rot on the driveway.”
“I can give him a shroud,” Auden volunteers. “Just like Ursula’s—nonpermanent but private. It’s the least we can do. Murdered over a set of car keys.”
“No.” Luna’s tone is completely inflexible, her usual orneriness evaporated. “He’s not a witch. Shrouds are not for non-witches, no matter how unfortunate or magical their end. Cold storage. Safely inside. Away from here.”