Chapter 20 #3
“That’s not anything you need to worry about,” she said quickly. “The Durupinen have the Necromancers very much under control.”
“I hope so,” I said, and my voice shook. “If Sedgwick Cove has to worry about Necromancers on top of everything else—”
“You don’t. I promise,” Jess said. “One of the reasons Celeste and Catriona came in the first place was to assess that very possibility. There’s no evidence at all that the Necromancers are even aware of the Geatgrima in Sedgwick Cove.
And now that we know it’s there, we will be keeping a close eye on it.
Please try to put that out of your mind, Wren.
Seriously. You have enough things to worry about, and I promise I would tell you if this was one of them. Okay?”
“I… yeah. Okay,” I said, not entirely convinced, but trying to take her word for it.
“I’m only mentioning this to draw a parallel. The idea of partial souls is relevant here. If Ambrose traded away any part of his soul, he would no longer be a human the way we think of humans. He would be something different—something without the full humanity that living people possess.”
“And a person could live like that?” I asked, in barely more than a whisper.
“I don’t know. Like I said, I usually only encounter these things outside of a living body, so I have no idea what a living person with such a soul would turn into.”
“But you do, actually,” I reminded her. “You and I have both seen him before. Do you remember the young man from Sarah Claire’s memories?”
“Oh!” Jess huffed. “I assumed that was just a shape the Darkness took to lure Sarah Claire into trusting it. It didn’t occur to me that it might be its actual form.”
“Me neither. But now I think it might be.”
“You’ve seen him twice in these new visions, once with a whole soul, and once again with a broken one. How was he different?”
I thought about it. “When he returned that second time, he was less human. The first time I saw him, he was so full of emotion that he could barely function. Overwhelmed with grief. But in the second vision, he was colder. He was still full of emotion, but the emotions had changed.”
“How?”
“Well, if he was grief-stricken the first time, he should have been even worse the second time, after Isabel had actually died. But he didn’t seem sad. He was angry. Hostile. He was furious that he had lost her, but it was more… possessive. From heartbreak to ice-cold fury.”
“A perfect example of how the depleted soul twisted him,” Jess said. “From true love to possessive fury.”
“Exactly. And that’s why she walked into the sea. He wasn’t the same man anymore. He had saved her only to be unable to love her as he once did.”
“And that’s why you never bargain with something malevolent,” Jess said.
“Isn’t that what all the stories teach us?
Dealings like that never work out because a creature like a demon is never going to play fair.
They will always seek to trick, to manipulate, to cause pain and suffering for the pure delight in it.
I mean, I know shit about demons, and even I know that much. ”
“Ambrose probably knew better, too,” I said quietly. “But he was too unhinged to act on anything resembling logic.”
“There’s another factor at play here that you need to consider—that may be a part of how Ambrose became the Darkness, but I’m afraid that my knowledge is very limited about it.”
“And what’s that?”
“Witchcraft,” Jess said. “If Ambrose knew how to summon that demon, that means he was knowledgeable about witchcraft. There’s no telling what kinds of spells he may have used, or how they affected him once his soul was in tatters. But he was desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.”
“He changed so much,” I said. “From that first day in the woods with Abaddon, to the day he met Sarah Claire in the clearing. He had the form of a human…”
“But he clearly wasn’t human,” Jess said, and I could practically hear the nod in her voice. “The physical resemblance was the only human thing about him by then.”
“And that resemblance wasn’t even permanent. It was just one of many forms he could take,” I said.
“I know these visions must be upsetting, Wren. Disturbing. But they also sound incredibly important. You’ve learned more in the past few days than the covens of Sedgwick Cove have been able to glean in centuries.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I hate it.”
Jess’ answering laugh was heavy. “I bet you do. It sucks, doesn’t it? Being the newcomer and yet the center of all the drama?”
“You sound like you know something about that,” I told her.
“When you turn twenty-one, I’ll buy you a drink and tell you all about it,” she said. “In the meantime, though, can I give you some advice?”
“Please.”
“Don’t face this alone, Wren. Find some people you can trust and lean on them. I had my sister and some other good friends, too. I wouldn’t be here today without them.”
I thought of Nova, who came through for me even when it meant risking her own neck. I thought of Eva and Zale, who forced me to confide in them.
“I promise,” I said, “I’m not alone.” Saying it out loud wasn’t just a reassurance to Jess. It was a reminder to me as well.
I wasn’t alone. The Darkness couldn’t say the same.