Chapter 31 The Hall of the Lake
Avons can cross.
St. Silas understood.
The message had been left for him by his father. Whether it was meant as a warning or a guide, it did not matter. What mattered was the diary. What mattered was finding Percival Avon’s ghost. What mattered was Weavingshaw.
At dawn on their final day, St. Silas went to the crypts alone.
He had learned the trick of the passages as a boy, and it was deceptively simple—one right turn for every three left ones. To survive, do not light the sconces. Do not open the barred metal doors. Do not cross the lake.
He’d made a mistake a few nights ago, and Rami had nearly been maimed.
Leena had nearly been possessed. The rational side of his mind—the one that schemed and plotted—could not help but be fascinated by how attuned she was to the remnant powers left by demons.
The other side could not forget how pale she had looked as she fought the possession.
How the fear had burned his own throat. It was that part he tried to deny, to starve out, to extinguish.
It was that part that would kill him if he allowed it.
He would not allow it.
The Hall of the Lake was undisturbed since they had left it last: the black waters, the penetrating darkness, the disfigured statues, the single raft.
It was demon-made. He’d spent enough time in the underworld to recognize the distant hum of their power, that sharp current in the air, so foreign, so wrong.
He’d felt it the moment he’d set foot here once again, for the first time since the age of twelve: the land humming beneath his feet, the hush in the trees, as if the very house had been plunged into worship by his arrival.
Of course it was. He was an Avon; this was Weavingshaw. They were one and the same.
This land could have only one master.
The lake would’ve drowned Martin had he attempted to cross it.
It would’ve drowned anyone who was not an Avon. Demon-cursed.
St. Silas understood that now, when before his father’s obsessive warnings to never cross the lake had seeped into his consciousness. He should’ve known never to heed his father’s word.
Martin could light a thousand fires in Weavingshaw, but the estate would remain cold to him. It was the demon that controlled that.
St. Silas knew snippets of what was inside the red diary. He was keen to see if there was anything more in there that could be of use.
The book told of his family history. Of how the 1st Marquess had brought the crypt-demon to Weavingshaw, how its magic had wrapped around the estate, protecting and shielding it from the rough elements that threatened to destroy it daily.
The north had been a different landscape nine hundred years ago, when the 1st Marquess was deeded the estate by the King.
It had been meant as a punishment; the 1st Marquess had displeased the King by trifling with his favorite mistress.
Weavingshaw had been a fortress back then, the last defense before the sea, invaded countless times by the neighboring warlords who hailed from across the rough waters.
Seven times Weavingshaw had been burned to the ground, and rebuilt every time anew.
Each time more savage than the last.
The demon had put an end to that forever.
St. Silas stood in the Hall of the Lake now, watching the still black waters beneath him, staring at his reflection distorted in the ripples.
It was in this exact spot that his ancestor, the 1st Marquess, had made the original bargain: The demon would protect the house against any foreign invaders who desired its complete annihilation.
In return, each new Lord Avon must swear fealty to the demon, promising to remain on the land, to bear sons to continue the bloodline—and, above all, to always feed the demon.
If the contract was broken, if the Avon line died out, Weavingshaw itself would crumble. The great house would turn into dust on the moors.
St. Silas hadn’t yet performed the ancient act of binding himself to the demon; he’d been taken away as a child before he could. And he could not do so now while still indentured to the Duke of Fray, for he could not serve two demons at once.
St. Silas took off his jacket, rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and left a single candle burning on the shore.
No matter how intently he looked into the lake, he saw nothing but the empty expanse of water, the demon hidden deep within.
Still, he felt its presence—a coiling energy that darkened these walls.
This energy could not feed on St. Silas without the initial rites being performed, and it was for this reason the demon had chosen to feast on Leena instead.
It did not succeed, he thought savagely, and not without a hint of pride.
His thoughts returned to Leena’s turbulent face in the cave, asking him to abandon his tie to Weavingshaw forever.
If St. Silas chose never to perform the ritual, then the demon would starve itself to death, destroying Weavingshaw alongside it. He could never abandon what was in his blood.
Already, without the rightful master ruling these vast lands, the demon had weakened to such an extent that it had allowed the likes of Martin to enter its halls, invading Weavingshaw just as decisively as the warlords of the past.
St. Silas would find the red diary, and then his father’s ghost, whatever the cost might be.
The seething anger that St. Silas had subdued violently over the years whenever he thought of his father simmered to the surface now, engulfing him with disgust. There would be no sentimentality when he finally saw Percival’s ghost, no words of endearment traded.
His only goal was to establish from Percival how to break the contract that had indentured him to the Frays eleven years ago—a contract forged by Percival’s own hand.
Once his bond with the Frays was finally broken, St. Silas would return to Weavingshaw as the rightful lord, reclaiming it from Martin by any means necessary. He would then cut his palm over the lake, allow the blood to drip into the water, tying himself forevermore to the demon and to Weavingshaw.
Then he would force the demon’s demise, eradicating it from these stones once and for all, purging Weavingshaw and resurrecting it anew.
St. Silas turned to the raft bobbing up and down on the water. The small craft might have been brightly painted once, but the ensuing years had stripped the color away. It creaked beneath his weight.
He took a candle with him, but it snuffed itself out every time he tried to light it on the water.
St. Silas cursed low under his breath: Damned demon.
The only remaining light was the tiny flame left on the land.
Otherwise, he was completely blind. It made no difference if he shut his eyelids or opened them; darkness was a sentry down here.
The raft glided through the waters. He rowed forward, entirely sightless, the only sound the slap of the oars hitting the water. The hum of the current grew louder, and he knew that he was approaching the place where the power was concentrated.
His thoughts drifted to her, as they often did now.
Leena knew he was an Avon.
She also knew about Weavingshaw’s demon. It was the risk he had taken, allowing her to be close. He had known from the outset she was clever, but as he got to know her more, he felt an odd pleasure at knowing exactly how clever she was.
Her knowing who he was hadn’t been factored into his plans. He had been a fool for thinking he could keep her in the dark until they found Lord Avon’s ghost.
Still, he would shift and adjust. Take what was needed, leave what wasn’t. Do what was necessary for himself and for the tenants of his land.
For Weavingshaw.
I will have to spend my days trying to release you.
He had stepped closer to her in the cave, his entire focus narrowed to the blush of her lips and how he wanted to submerge himself within her—to taste her in decadence, in starvation.
The silhouette of her soft curves even now played across his vision.
If what he could see was enticing, what he imagined was devastating.
He had wanted to shred to pieces the overcoat that she was wearing, or kiss it in gratitude for covering her.
Had it not been there, there would have been no secret, no request she could have made of him, that he would have denied.
He cursed under his breath, low and harsh. How, he thought, had she attained such previously unattainable power over him? He was not at all comforted by the fact that she did not know it yet. He was sure, sooner or later, he would reveal himself.
With effort, St. Silas restrained his thoughts.
He would be damned if he were to go further with Leena while the contract still stood.
The power shift between them was too great, and he did not want her to feel the weight of it forcing her choices.
If she chose him, she needed to do it of her own volition, within her own freedom. He would not touch her until then.
He, himself, lived under the cruel hand of a contract, and he knew what it meant to be choiceless.
St. Silas glanced behind him. The candle’s light was now a mere speck.
If that guttered out, then he would lose his direction.
He’d never known this sort of blindness—the kind that had depth, that swallowed, that smothered.
It was a trick designed to tug at the bleakness that rested in the consciousness of every human. To tempt them into the water.
Everyone except an Avon.
The crypt-demon needed the Avons.
St. Silas had heard stories of what Weavingshaw’s demon had done to his grandfather—slowly feasting on his soul day by day, until three decades later his grandfather had lost all semblance of himself, locked in his own head, wandering the grounds in madness and despair.
His father had told St. Silas once, when he was a child, that the Avons’ sacrifice was worth it, for the endurance of Weavingshaw.