Chapter II
II
Magic, to commandeer the layman’s term, has existed alongside time since its inception.
Early understandings of magic viewed the world as a binary split between chaos and structure.
Magic, then, was the organization of the world’s natural tendency toward chaos.
Men trained in the ancient arts could warp the unorganized energy around them into something tangible.
They could, through the use of conduits and ritual and their own innate abilities, bend reality.
According to the old wisdom, the world yearned for chaos, and men gave it what it wanted.
This chaos, once widespread, spawned vicious creatures that hunted and killed humans en masse.
These were the dark days, long before the rise of the Acheron Order.
We know now that magic is neither inherently chaotic nor inherently structured. Magic is simply energy, rooted in the physical plane whence it originates.
Modern practitioners discovered that there are two distinct physical realms: the world of the living (which these theorists, rather geocentrically, called Earth) and the world of the dead (Orcus, a term they borrowed from the Romans).
To maintain balance and preserve human life, the two worlds must be kept separate.
But the realm of the living and the realm of the dead were always connected, and would always be connected, because men would always die.
—William Ruskin, A History of the Acheron Order (New York, 1935)
Weakness, that was the shaky feeling in Vic’s hands. An awareness of her own vulnerability settled cold across her skin, brought to the surface by the stranger. She had stared into his dull brown eyes and felt, for the first time in years, small and fragile.
It was true that Vic’s survival instincts were…overactive. For years, she had watched the shadows like something might leap from them at any minute. She lived her whole life thinking she heard footsteps behind her, always a touch faster than her own.
After her mother’s death, mastering her weakness became Vic’s obsession. It took her first to the track, where she learned to run. But soon it insisted she find a gym, then a dojo, then a gun range. She could outsmart her weakness. She could prepare, and she could fight, if she needed to.
By the time Vic hit twenty-five, she’d spent almost a decade learning to fight anything that came her way.
But she didn’t know how to fight a stranger who carved his own skin.
Vic rushed home after he left, making no excuses to her colleagues for her absence. But the restaurant would forgive her, and if they didn’t, Henry mattered more anyway.
She wrenched open the door to the apartment she shared with her brother and sped into the hall.
“Henry!” Vic shouted, twisting toward the living room.
“In here, Vic.”
“We need to get out of here,” Vic said, breathless, as she stormed in. “A man came to the restaurant. I think they found us.”
Henry didn’t move. His eyes slid to the corner behind her.
Vic spun, her heart pounding.
The stranger from the restaurant sat in a velvet wingback chair in a dark corner of the room, untouched by the late-evening lamplight. His legs were crossed, and he examined his nails as he spoke.
“We’ve been looking for you for a long time,” he said, his voice bored and low.
“You let him in?” Vic asked Henry, panic in her throat.
Henry shook his head without taking his eyes from the stranger.
“Get out,” Vic told him, moving to stand between the man and her brother.
“My name is Nathaniel Carver,” he said. “I am an Elder of the Acheron Order, and I will not take instructions from you.”
“This is my house,” Vic said. “Get out.”
“I will leave once I’ve said my piece.”
Vic looked to the doorway beside him, weighing her chances of subduing him long enough to escape with Henry.
“I assume, given the intensity with which you have avoided this conversation,” the stranger, Nathaniel Carver, began, “that you already know what I aim to say.”
A muscle in Vic’s jaw jumped. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen. She’d been careful.
“Henry is a witch of his mother’s line. He must come with me to Avalon Castle and be trained in the ancient arts.”
“He’s not going anywhere with you,” Vic said, reaching back for her brother’s arm.
The stranger watched her movement.
“The dramatics are unnecessary,” Nathaniel said. “I will not hurt him. Or you, for that matter, unless warranted.”
“Our mother died in the service of your ‘Order.’ You can’t have him.”
A knowing flash in the stranger’s gaze was the only hint that her words had surprised him.
“What do you know of the death of Meredith Wood?” he asked, leaning forward slightly. The disinterest was gone from his tone.
Vic had the distinct sense that her answer to this question was important, though she didn’t understand why. What Vic did or didn’t know mattered to this man.
“I know she left and didn’t come back,” Vic said. She did not add the single fact that made her confident that her mother was no longer alive: Meredith would never have left Henry behind. Vic, maybe, but never Henry.
“And what do you know of how she spent her days?” Nathaniel asked, sharp eyes narrowing.
“She lied about being a nurse,” Vic said.
“She fought monsters,” Henry said behind her, his voice quiet.
Nathaniel’s gaze widened a fraction.
“So you know enough,” he said. “That’s annoying,” he added, almost to himself.
Vic’s hand tightened around her brother’s wrist, readying him to run. But she had no escape plan. She had no idea what this man was capable of, and she would not risk her brother’s safety testing it.
“I should not need to inform you that Meredith committed a very grave sin by telling you that,” the stranger said. “Nor should I have to remind you that spreading such knowledge would result in strict consequences.”
Vic wanted to roll her eyes. Like she would go around telling everyone about the secret society of witches her dead mother belonged to. Monsters hiding in the sewers, hunted by a woman in scrubs. Vic would have laughed if she weren’t so terrified.
“Time is of the essence, I’m afraid,” Nathaniel said. “Our newest class of recruits began training last week. Henry must join them.”
“He will not,” Vic said through her teeth.
“He is a witch. He belongs to the Acheron Order,” Nathaniel said, his annoyance clear.
“He belongs to me,” Vic said.
Nathaniel watched her for a long moment.
“Do you know what becomes of witches who are never trained, Ms. Wood?”
When Vic said nothing, he went on.
“No, Meredith would not have told you that. I see.”
His lips curled in a malevolent imitation of a smile, amused at Vic’s expense.
“Whether your brother can hear the language of the ancients is not in dispute. It’s preordained, in his blood.
Sooner or later it will express itself, if it hasn’t already.
In the best of outcomes, witches who are not trained risk exposing themselves to the human world, and in doing so endanger the stability upon which we all rely.
In the worst of cases, unchecked abilities lead to chaos. Chaos is untenable, Ms. Wood.”
Nathaniel rose from the chair slowly and approached the siblings, stepping into the light.
“The Order is tasked with the righteous mission of preventing such chaos,” he said, looking down his nose at Vic. “It was not only monsters your mother hunted.”
Vic swallowed. She didn’t feel Henry’s hand on her shoulder until he squeezed it, and she couldn’t stop herself from imagining him dead, murdered by a shadowed figure that looked an awful lot like their mother.
“I’ve compiled instructions on how to find and access the castle.” The stranger addressed Henry as if he hadn’t just threatened his murder. “Inside you’ll also find information on the upcoming courses and training requirements, a suggested packing list, and the like. For your eyes only, of course.”
In his empty, outstretched hand, a thick envelope materialized, and Vic heard her pulse in her throat.
Magic, real and pure as day, in front of her.
She had pictured it for years, ever since Henry told her his secret.
She’d waited for her brother to show his abilities, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
But she had never seen it before tonight.
“Do let me know if you have any trouble getting there.” At that, the stranger’s eyes flashed to Vic.
Henry had a puzzled expression on his face.
“Why would you go to my sister’s work?” he asked. “If you knew where we lived, why would you go there first?”
Nathaniel watched Henry’s face and said, “I wanted to see what kind of woman Meredith Wood’s daughter had grown into. I meant no harm.”
He turned his back on the siblings and marched from the room, his staid leather shoes making no noise on the linoleum.
Vic waited, breathing hard, for the sound of the front door shutting behind him, but it never came.
Silence filled the room for a long moment, until Vic rushed forward to make sure he was gone. She looked out the peephole, into the open-air hallway leading from the parking lot to their apartment door, but the world outside was empty and quiet. There was no sign of the stranger.
Vic walked back to the living room, her mind racing.
“We have to get out of here,” she said to Henry. “We have passports; we can leave the country. I have enough saved for a few months. We can start somewhere new—”
“Vic…” Henry sat on their faded leather couch, running his palms over his jeans, an anxious habit neither of them could break.
“You’re right. Leaving the country is a bad idea. Too complicated, too much security. Somewhere remote, then, off the grid.”
“Vic,” Henry repeated.
But Vic felt the past catching up with her, collapsing against the present like a wave breaking over the shore. The day her mother disappeared had been the worst day of her life, and she fought to shake the sense of history repeating itself.