28
Of two things I was certain. One: the darkness had swallowed me, and it had spit me back out. I had survived. Two: there truly was a limit to how much magic I could wield.
When the darkness engulfed me, I had no idea how long I had been down there. When I woke, I was in an infirmary of sorts, though different from the one at the safe house. In the end, I hadn’t given my last ember of energy to Nik. I hadn’t needed to. Liss had broken the connection between us before I had the chance and healed him.
Zion and Puck had found her.
My first words were for Nik, asking where he was. If Liss had made it in time. I couldn’t describe the immense relief I felt when they told me she did. Nik was still weak, and I hadn’t seen him, but he was alive. The dread I had felt in that moment, when he had stopped breathing, had threatened to consume me.
To tear my heart from my chest.
I hadn’t even realized how strong my feelings were before that moment, before the threat of losing him had almost drowned me.
My second words were for my jacket, which had been taken from me when they had washed me and dressed me in a hospital gown. The key spell was still tucked away in the jacket pocket, and I would be damned if we almost lost that, too.
I was weak from pulling on the ember of my life and was in no position to travel yet, but one thing was certain: we needed to get out of Prins as soon as possible. Saanvi and Kenna had confirmed that the streets were flooded with Nightshade soldiers searching for us. They had collected our dead while I had been unconscious, and it made me sick to think I hadn’t been awake to help.
To see how many had given their lives for our cause.
To defeat Donika once and for all.
I would never get those two days back that I laid motionless in the hospital bed, drained of energy and magic. Donika knew where we were now, and we needed to collect our dead and move on before she sent another force after us.
They had laid Tyr to rest, and I hadn’t been there for that, either. I said a silent prayer that he would forgive me, if we ever met again. That the mother would protect him and watch over him. He was innocent, and he deserved his final rites. He had been only a boy, and his life had been needlessly snuffed out.
As had so many others.
It wasn’t lost on me that I had killed our own when my storm had turned on me, controlling me and filling me with a bloodlust I had never known before. The grief from those events weighed on me each and every day I spent recovering in the hospital. That I was no better than Donika…that I had killed innocents, occupied my every thought.
We had lost a lot of lives during the battle, but Donika’s army had lost more. We knew her numbers were much greater than those she sent to fight us, but the thought of her remaining soldiers returning with their tails tucked between their legs brought a small smile to my lips.
Liss had a place in Siraleth where we would be safe, and Donika wouldn’t be searching for us there. We were splitting up, most of the resistance staying here in the city, and the council and a few other members traveling to Siraleth. Siraleth was still in ruins. There wasn’t enough housing there for all of us.
Isaac’s friend had secured several safe houses to split up the remainder of our numbers here in Prins, but we would need to keep a low profile. Liss’ place in Siraleth was close to the portal, so we could use that to our advantage if need be. One thing we could be certain of after all of this was that Donika herself wasn’t able to travel to the mortal realm.
Her soldiers could follow us there, but she couldn’t.
We needed time to heal and regroup, and we couldn’t do that under the watchful eyes of her spies. I was desperate to see Nik, but they hadn’t let me leave my hospital bed in days. I still felt weak, my limbs heavy, and my magic was almost…sore. As if it hurt to pull on it, and it needed its own time to heal.
When I first awoke, I felt nothing, and I feared my magic would never come back to me. That it would rebuke me for trying to give it away in order to save Nik’s life.
As it turns out…my magic had a soft spot for him, too.
Tess had returned to the town house with a heavy guard to retrieve the grimoire. It hadn’t wanted to go with her at first, giving her quite the difficult time, but it eventually relented. It was safely tucked beneath my hospital pillow, and it was the only thing I truly needed when we traveled to Siraleth.
I had tucked the key spell back into the front of the book, and the next time I had gone to open it, the spell was right where it should have been all along. There was no longer a tear in the pages, as if it had never been missing at all. Liss had some knowledge about this particular spell, and I couldn’t wait to get to Siraleth to pick her brain about it. I wasn’t good at staying put and resting. I was anxious to get back to work. To regain my strength, master this key spell and find a loophole to bind my magic, and come up with a new plan of attack.
I wouldn’t let Donika win.
I had killed Fletcher, and I hoped at least that had sent her a message.
I was not backing down.
The members of the resistance felt the same, their thirst for Donika’s blood renewed by the blood she had spilled that night in Prins. I still needed to find more literature on dream walking, and how Corian was able to find us in the first place. Liss said there was a library left untouched in Siraleth, filled with old tomes, and I was anxious to get my hands on them.
Tess hadn’t left my side in the hospital, and I was happy to see Isaac and Zion’s faces when they had visited me. Liss had visited me as well, but most of her time had been spent by Nik’s bedside, healing him. It had taken a lot of her energy, too. She had been healing everyone since the battle, and she needed to let her magic recuperate. We were all feeling weakened and worn down in the days that followed.
A part of me wondered why Donika hadn’t sent any Noctani or Araneoch to do her bidding. With her monsters in tow, she easily could have wiped out our entire resistance. Had she sent this force of soldiers as a test? To see how many of us there were that would stand against her?
Word had spread about the resistance after the battle, and our numbers were growing by the day, more and more Shades joining our forces. Those that had lost a loved one in the battle had chosen to take up arms against her, and we were thankful for those that chose to step up.
“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” Tess asked, glancing at me over the top of her magazine. She had her long legs stretched out in front of her on the hospital bed across from mine.
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get any rest with these fluorescent lights beaming into my eyeballs,” I told her, crossing my arms and glaring at the ceiling pointedly.
Tess laughed, tossing the magazine to the foot of the bed. “Have you found anything in the grimoire about the dream walking?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I searched all morning and came up with nothing. I’m hoping the books Liss has in the library in Siraleth will help.”
Tess nodded. “I, for one, can’t wait for you to get better so we can get out of here.”
“It isn’t only me that is still weak,” I reminded her.
“I know,” she replied, swallowing hard. “There are so many here that aren’t strong enough to travel.”
But we wouldn’t have to wait on them, since there was only a small contingency of us traveling to Siraleth.
The others didn’t know where we were going. We wanted to keep our location as secret as possible, which meant only those of us going knew the details.
“When do you think we will leave?” I asked.
Tess got up from the bed across from me and sat at the end of mine with a deep sigh.
“I guess that all depends on you,” she pointed out.
“And Nik,” I added resolutely.
“I overheard Liss and Isaac talking. They said maybe we should go ahead without him, he hasn’t healed enough to travel yet.”
“We can’t leave him here unprotected. He betrayed Donika, she will be searching for him as much as she is searching for me,” I replied, my chest tightening.
“I know, but we might not have a choice. His injuries were…grave. You should be ready to go in a few days…and the longer we wait, the higher chance of her finding us again. Her Nightshade soldiers are crawling all over this city, it’s only a matter of time. We have to get you out of here,” Tess replied, giving my leg a squeeze over the blanket.
“Will they at least let me see him before we leave?” I asked, my voice hopeful despite myself.
I hadn’t been strong enough to leave the infirmary myself, but Nik also hadn’t woken yet. Liss had him heavily sedated to accelerate the healing process.
“I’m not sure,” Tess replied honestly. “You know he hasn’t woken yet and hasn’t spoken to anyone.”
I nodded, swallowing back the emotion that threatened to choke me. Isaac and Liss hadn’t left his bedside, and I knew he was in good hands, but I wanted to see him myself. I couldn’t help the guilt I felt that I had been able to heal myself but not him. That I hadn’t listened to them…and burned my magic out in anger over Tyr’s death.
Tess could guess the thoughts behind my eyes, and she met my gaze with a serious expression.
“We have to talk about what happened out there, on the battlefield.”
“I know,” I replied, fidgeting with my fingers in my lap.
I pressed my nail into my thumb hard enough to distract me, to hold back the tears that threatened to fall.
“What was that?” she asked, her voice soft. “It was almost like you couldn’t hear us, like you weren’t yourself.”
“I wasn’t,” I admitted, meeting her sympathetic gaze. “It was as if my magic had completely taken over me, I couldn’t think of anything but revenge. I was mad with rage.”
“Another wonderful side effect of using too much storm magic? Like the storm turning on you?” she asked.
“I guess so,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders. “We don’t know enough about my magic to be certain. All I know is…I was completely taken over.”
Tess nodded in understanding. “You said Liss will be able to help decipher the key spell?”
“Yes, she said she has seen it before,” I replied hopefully. “Let’s hope she can also find a loophole to the whole bloodline thing.”
“Maybe it only needs a witch’s bloodline, not necessarily the witch being bound,” Tess suggested. “If that’s the case, Nik and Warrick would work. They are blood.”
I nodded, “I hope so. But they are cousins, not technically a direct bloodline.”
“True,” she replied, “but neither you nor I are fluent in Latin, we can’t be sure.”
“Also true,” I laughed, hoping she was right.
“The sooner we figure that spell out and bind your magic, the better. We can’t afford any more incidents.” She glared at me pointedly.
Incidents. As if that’s all it was.
I had struck Shades down where they stood, with a mere thought.
I met her gaze. “The sooner the better, indeed.”
In the end, they didn’t let me see Nik before we traveled to Siraleth. Liss and Isaac insisted that he needed his rest, and promised to stay at his bedside until he was ready to join us. That left Zion, Puck, Warrick, Saanvi, and Kenna to escort us across The Shadow and to our new residence in Siraleth. The portal in Prins was still being watched—we would have to make the journey to Siraleth on foot.
Zion knew the place we were going.
After a week I was still drained from having expended so much magic, but I was strong enough to make it the distance to Siraleth. Zion knew his way through The Shadow as well as anybody else, and at this point we had spent so much time passing through it I was beginning to know the way on my own. I recognized the places we had gone searching for Phineas Wolfe as we passed them and desperately hoped we didn’t run into him or anyone from his crew.
Luck was on our side today and we made it through The Shadow without incident. We picked up a few new items of clothing and added some food and water to our packs on the far side of Prins before crossing the border into Siraleth.
There would be no merchants where we were going.
I recognized the twisting cobblestone streets as we made our way through the abandoned city, curious which of the houses that still stood would become our new residence. I was surprised when we stopped in front of a familiar wooden door.
A door that had once haunted my dreams.
I initially dreamed of this door leading to the laboratory where I found the book of shadows, but in reality, it was the doorway to an old white cottage.
Zion shouldered the door open, leaving his packs by the entryway. If I remembered correctly, this house served as an exceptionally strong magical tether, and it only had one bedroom.
“You know this place?” I asked Zion as I stepped over the threshold, the wave of magic traveling from my toes all the way to the top of my head.
As it had the first time I had been here, I sensed the magic in this place deep in my bones. Zion turned to me with sad eyes, his expression full of an emotion I couldn’t quite place.
“This is where I raised Donika.”
“Where you what?!” Tess asked, immediately stepping back out onto the brick front steps. “You don’t think she would ever come back here?”
“She can’t,” he replied with a shake of his head. “This place is heavily warded with magic. She is never welcome back here.”
Tess’ expression was as shocked as I felt, but there was no denying the magic that surged through this cottage. Through the back window, above the kitchen sink, I could see an old willow tree that still stood in the backyard. A broken swing made of wood swayed from its limbs in the soft breeze.
This was where Zion had raised Donika.
Where he and my mother must have built a life…before Osiris.
I had questions bubbling to my lips but I choked them back, reading the expression on Zion’s face. This was difficult for him, but he knew we would be safe here.
Safe from his daughter.
They had all claimed she wasn’t always like this. I tried to imagine a younger Donika, playing with toys on the hardwood floor of the tiny bedroom, or swinging from the old willow tree out back. No matter how hard I tried to picture it, I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe an untainted version of Donika had ever existed. Her soul was blackened beyond measure, and there was no coming back from that.
I wondered if I dreamed of this place because of the link it held to my mother. She had lived here, once. She had returned here with me, before she had hidden me in the human realm, with a human family, to keep me safe from the war that raged in Istmere.
Zion stood in the foyer, but his mind was elsewhere.
Tess and I took our packs to the small bedroom off the entryway and settled them onto the bed.
My eyes immediately traveled to the small closet where Nik and I had hidden from the soldiers in Donika’s army.
Where we had kissed.
Where I had first admitted my feelings for him.
Tess followed my line of sight, and a knowing expression crossed her face, but she said nothing.
“Where will Warrick, Saanvi, and Kenna stay?” Tess asked, glancing around the tiny cottage as if another bedroom might appear out of thin air.
When Zion didn’t respond she stood before him, waving her hand in front of his vacant eyes. “Hello?”
“My apologies,” Zion replied, his hand on his chest as he snapped back to reality. He was likely thinking of my mother. This would have been one of the last places he ever saw her. “This way.”
We followed Zion to the back of the house and out the door to a small wooden porch. Zion knelt, his hand on the wood as he whispered a spell I had never heard before. As he finished the words, a trap door appeared in the porch wood. He tugged on it, descending a small set of stone stairs.
The walls were cinder block, and at the bottom of the stairs was a wooden door identical to the one at the front of the house. My heart stopped in my chest as I watched it swing open beneath Zion’s touch, leading to a long, dark, corridor.
This was the door I had dreamed of.
I knew where the staircase at the end of the hallway would lead, down, down, down to a laboratory. My mother’s laboratory. Where she left the grimoire for me to find. A hot tear streaked across my cheek, and I hastily brushed it away with the back of my hand.
We followed Zion down into the darkness, down the spiral staircase. As I had dreamed, the laboratory door was built seamlessly into the masonry. What I hadn’t dreamed was that there was more than one door here. There was a window at the top of the corridor that let light spill down, illuminating the space in the afternoon sunlight. Torches against the wall flickered to life as Zion walked onward down the corridor.
We passed a library which had my heart pounding rapidly in my chest. Was this the library that Liss had been talking about? The one that would have all the answers I was searching for?
We turned a corner and several bedrooms branched off from this corridor. They had thick red curtains pulled back to allow the sun to stream in. The beds were canopies, draped in rich fabric and accented with delicate woodwork that wove together as if they were serpents. It reminded me of the staff Donika had carried the last time I saw her.
“Was this always here?” I asked as we continued onward.
This hidden section of the cottage felt entirely different, and much more gothic.
Zion shook his head, but didn’t glance back. “Most of it was, but we added to it after the war, as a haven for Shades remaining in Istmere. Came in handy when we started the resistance.”
I was happy to hear Donika had never stayed here, never walked these halls.
Never slept in these beds.
“You can choose any room you’d like,” Zion called over his shoulder.
We reached the end of the hallway and Zion held his hand to the stone. Without whispering a spell, the stone opened beneath his touch, revealing a circular opening that led to a narrow, dark tunnel.
“If there are any problems, you’ll escape through this tunnel, do you understand?” His eyes were trained on me as he held his hand to the stone.
I nodded in response. I didn’t relish the idea of running, but we would have small numbers here in Siraleth. It was smart to have a hidden escape route.
“Where does it lead?” Saanvi asked from behind me.
“Out,” was all Zion replied as he removed his hand from the stone.
The rock moved back into place, and it was invisible once more.
Tess and I decided to let Zion take the bedroom in the upstairs cottage, not wanting to stay anywhere shadowed by the memory of Donika. We chose rooms next to each other in the downstairs wing.
The bedrooms were nicer than anything I had ever experienced before, similar to an expensive gothic hotel. Each room had a window that overlooked the backyard, which must have been a spell since we were certainly underground at this point. The canopied beds were accompanied with matching wooden dressers, night chests, and each room had its own washroom.
The claw-foot tub was black as well, with the curling feet of a creature I couldn’t quite identify. There were ample towels and toiletries available, and plain tunics and riding pants in each dresser. I used my magic to light a fire in the grate, thankful for the warm sensation that coursed through me again.
It had taken so long for my magic to come back, I was scared for a moment that it wasn’t going to come back at all. I had spent days in the infirmary without any magic.
I took a long soak in the claw-foot tub, wrapping myself in one of the luxurious robes hanging on the back of the door. I hadn’t wanted to spend the night alone, so I had convinced Tess to spend the night with me in my chosen room.
She crawled into the bed beside me, her hair still wet from her bath and leaving streaks of water across the silk pillowcase.
“I finally have a room all to myself and you make me share…again,” she laughed, turning the lamp off on the night chest.
“It’s only for tonight,” I promised her.
The room was thrust into darkness and I closed my eyes, willing sleep to take me. I tossed and turned for hours, unable to find the rest I so desperately sought.
My only thoughts were for Nik, and when he would wake up.
If he would wake up.