34 | Silver
“I’m sorry, you did what?” I demand.
These idiots turn up, stinking of smoke and expect a blurted explanation and a couple of doe-eyed stares to be enough to appease us? Hell no.
Rook hasn’t got the look of innocence down at all. Instead, he scowls around the room, not quite meeting my eye. I can’t tell if he’s pissed at me or at the others, or the situation as a whole.
My orgasmic buzz hasn’t quite faded, but it’s now a pleasant hum in the background. And, right now, it’s probably the only thing that’s stopping me from biting their heads off.
“Explain to me exactly what happened after you got away from Simpson and the angry mob.”
“Nice job with that, by the way,” Seb says with a grin. “Ro explained how you single-handedly saved the city from evil.”
“Not quite,” I reply drily. If he thinks that he’s going to get away without explaining himself with a few compliments, he doesn’t know me at all.
“Fabian has people cleaning up the scene at the minute. And don’t think you’re doing a good job of distracting me. You’re not. Tell me what happened.”
“We figured we’d go the long way around, just in case there was anyone following us. Smart, right? But it meant we wound up going by Arcanum Heights,” Seb explains.
“When we saw the mansion Simpson had taken over, it made me super pissed,” Hanna says. “I was only going to set fire to some of the stupid hedges in the area. You know the ones that they have that look like witches riding into battle on a horse or whatever. Pretentious as hell. I figured that since a bunch of Nexus has been burning on and off for ages now, they’d probably just blame it on angry deviants, or whatever.” She gives an exaggerated shudder. “But then I had this weird surge of power and the flames wound up being way bigger than I expected. Anyway, they lit up like a tinderbox and the houses in that area must not be fire retardant, so the mansion was set on fire too. Then I figured we didn’t want it to look too targeted, so I kinda wound up setting other places on fire too.”
“It was so cool,” Seb says with a huge grin. He’s practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement.
I shoot a look at Fabian who has his arms folded and is giving off stern dad vibes which has Seb’s buzz cooling until he starts to look sheepishly at the floor.
“Was there anyone inside the houses? Did you check they were empty before you set them all on fire?” I ask, aghast. If I expected Hanna to take tips from anyone, it wasn’t going to be the idiots who have been setting Nexus on fire.
“Yeah, I checked, Silver. It’s not like I want to burn people alive, or whatever. Since it’s the middle of the day, there was no one around. There are just gonna be some people who come home to all their stuff as ashes. Might teach a few of them humility, you never know.”
“And anyone we did see on our way in or out, I wiped their memories so they won’t know it was us,” Seb says.
“Which gave us another idea,” Hanna continues.
I have a sinking feeling in my gut. This can’t get worse, can it?
“And that was what?” Fabian asks, stepping closer to my side until I can feel the heat of his body against mine. He links our fingers together so we can stand together as two disappointed pseudo-parents.
“We all had this crazy amount of power flooding through us and I wanted to see if I could do a memory wipe for people I wasn’t standing with,” Seb says. “You know how I normally have to see and maybe touch the person? Yeah, well, it turns out today I didn’t need any of that.”
My throat’s gone dry as I fight the urge to rub away the crease at my brow. “Whose memories did you wipe, Seb?”
“The Archarcans. Wiped every one of their memories of every one of us.” He beams at us, clearly proud of what he’s achieved.
I mean... it’s pretty astonishing, really.
“All of them?” That must be hundreds of people. Hundreds of powerful witches and mages.
Including my mother.
“Every single one.” He puffs his chest out. “It was weirdly easy. Most of them didn’t really know who any of us were, anyway. But I figured if we just wiped out all the memories of the people that might cause us problems, then we’re all free.”
He nods at me and at Fabian.
“That’s a shit ton of power,” I murmur. I guess it was the same power that came courtesy of the ghosts—the power which allowed me to control an angry mob and for Fabian to take down Simpson.
Without them, I’m fairly certain we’d all be Simpson’s little pets right about now.
“I reckon I could have gone further,” Seb says. “It felt like I could have wiped the entire city’s memories. I could do the same with Nexus for you, if you wanted,” he tells Fabian, who blinks at him. It’s like he can’t quite reconcile this is his little brother talking about wiping out memories from hundreds and hundreds of people.
“Unless the whole power boost thing was a one off. That’d be a bummer if it was.”
I shake my head. There are a lot more ghosts that I’ve made promises to and I intend to fulfill those promises—right after I’ve done some reading to confirm that I’m not sending them straight into limbo or something.
“Is that something you’d want?” I ask Fabian, a bubble of hope filling my insides. He’s put so much toil and sweat into being the next leader of Nexus, but whenever I think about him taking it over, it makes me feel sick with dread. The district is in chaos. There’s no respect. People actively dislike him... and me. And I can’t imagine that changing soon.
He looks down at me, a thoughtful frown marring his handsome face. “You know, I’ve been thinking about trying something new. I don’t know exactly what, since I’ve never really let myself think about what else there is. But after the past couple of years, I think I’m ready to do something that’s my dream instead of something that was forced on me.”
A fizzle of excitement stirs in my belly. “You’d seriously be willing to up and leave Arcanum? Maybe to Stoneraven or Willow Creek or Monster Haven?” Places I’ve only ever heard about and desperately want to visit. I turn to Ro, who is still splayed lazily on the sofa, watching as everything unfolds. “Ro, how about you?”
“You don’t even need to ask. I’d go just about anywhere with you, Silver,” he says. “You want us to fly to the moon? I’ll see how we can build a rocket.”
For the first time, it actually seems like a possibility to leave Arcanum. To start somewhere new without all the bullshit and the tainted memories of this place.
Fabian nods. “Somewhere new to start a fresh adventure sounds good to me.”
I squirm on my bare feet, even as Hanna lets out an obnoxious gagging noise at his sweet words. “We’d have to see if Dante would leave. He’s managed Second Circle for decades and he might not be willing to abandon it.”
Hanna scoffs. “If you think that vamp isn’t going to follow you anywhere too, you’re both blind and delusional.”
“You know what we need,” Ro calls from his spot on the sofa. “Family dinner. Lay out all the options. I’ll need some time to prepare, but I can have it ready tomorrow night.”
In an instant, he switches again to his dinner party alter ego. The one that expects everyone to be on time and with a healthy appetite.
Although, maybe this time, whichever idiot is first to mention board games can be designated peacekeeper.
I grin over at him, loving all the different versions of my hazel-eyed, joyful mage. “Family dinner it is.”
I spend the following day at the library, this time searching for books on necromancy. My ghostly librarian buddy reappears and she’s surprisingly helpful in pointing me toward the right section. One deep in the basement. I dragged Dante along with me and Zeph decided he wanted to come too. Like after spending so much time together, the two of them are now accustomed to coming with me as a dynamic duo.
I’m not complaining.
Pretty sure both of them are using it as an excuse to avoid the kitchen while Roscoe’s back in domestic god mode.
“So we’re heading to the forbidden archives again?” I ask the ghost librarian, my stomach sinking at the thought of having to go through that entire rigamarole again.
The ghost librarian shakes her head. “Just the basement. It’s a lot easier to get into. You head down the stairs and you should find the door is open since no one ever goes down there. It’s mostly forgotten storage boxes. That’s where you’ll find all the necromancy books. And the ghost books. We don’t get much attention, as you can imagine.”
The four of us find the staircase down to the basement through a shitty wooden door that’s right beside a storage closet. It’s unlocked, and the stairwell is barely lit, with the hint of daylight shining through a narrow slitted window at the very top.
It’s cobwebby and smells musty even before we get to the bottom. There’s the faint stink of mold and dust clogging up my nose.
“You could have brought us somewhere nicer to murder us,” Zeph says, carefully making his way down first.
“Seems fitting,” Dante murmurs as we reach the bottom. There’s a dome-ceilinged room that must be half the length of the entire library, with shelves stretching right the way along. It’s massive. My stomach sinks at the thought of having to sift through thousands of dusty old books before we find anything useful.
“How do you mean?” I ask.
“That the books on ghosts are kept down here. The books on my kind are in the forbidden archives, since we’re a species that’s so intent on hiding our vulnerabilities. But with all the information on ghosts and necromancy, they’re left down here. Forgotten.”
A pang of sadness goes through me as the ghostly librarian nods in agreement.
“The aisles aren’t labeled properly down here,” she tells me. “But you should find them on the third aisle to the right, shelves nine and ten from the bottom.”
I relay her words and the three of us head deeper into the stacks and dig into the pile of books. There are so many with beautiful leather bindings or gold embossed pages, which look like they’ve never been read. There are even more that are well-thumbed, with pages half falling out.
Still, they’re all abandoned here with a half inch of dust on their covers. That’s decades, possibly centuries, of neglect.
We’re quiet as we skim the pages, searching for any mention of necromancers or ghosts. A handy how-to guide of ushering lost spirits onto the next plane would be amazing right about now.
After about twenty minutes of searching, my head’s already dull and headachy thanks to the poor lighting and the lack of fresh air down here. I pluck another book from the nearest shelf and flick through, vaguely aware of the sounds of the other two flicking through their own books close by and of Dante murmuring something I can’t make out to Zeph.
The dust turns out to be too much for my nose and I sneeze three times in succession and groan, rubbing my face and smearing yet more dirt and dust onto my skin.
“Ugh.”
Then a cool breeze finds its way through the aisle, bringing with it a blast of fresh air. There’s the sound of hundreds of pages fluttering in an impossible wind and I feel like I can breathe again.
Glancing over at Z, I catch him watching me.
“Thanks.”
He nods, but doesn’t return to the book in his hands. Instead, he watches me with predatory interest, especially when I reach up to replace the book in my hands with another.
“It’s quiet down here.” The words come out as a rasp as his eyes flick down my body.
Then there’s heat at my back and Dante’s familiar honeyed tones. “Very quiet.” His breath brushes the back of my neck, sending tingles of sensation across my exposed skin.
“Almost like no one would hear you if you scream,” Zeph says, a feral look in his eyes as he saunters closer. I’m reminded of how much he liked the thought of that back when we were in the Dead Zone.
Dante trails a hand down my spine before cupping my ass and running his other hand around my front, tweaking my nipple until I gasp.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” the ghost librarian mutters.
“I don’t... maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” I reply breathlessly as Dante nips at the skin of my neck.
“No?” Zeph prowls even closer until he’s right in front of me. His wide chest is pressed against my own and one tree trunk thigh pushes between my legs, widening me up for him. “You don’t want to see how the two of us have learned to get along?”
“I—I had noticed that.”
Zeph nods, pulling away momentarily to meet my eye. “Yeah, the vamp here did me a real solid. I think we’ve come to an understanding.” His voice lowers to a seductive purr. “Are you sure you aren’t interested in experiencing our new teamwork in action?”
My breath stutters in and out of me in another lust-filled gasp. I never thought we would get to this point. I figured maybe the two of them would barely tolerate each other and I hadn’t really let myself hope for much more.
And this is so much more. It’s a horny fantasy come to life.
My argument of ‘but the books’ isn’t strong enough to hold weight against the sheer fucking magnetism of having the two of them pressed up against me.
“Okay,” I reply breathlessly. “You’ve persuaded me.”
That’s all the agreement they need before Dante is pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along my neck. He inhales deeply and lets out a deep groan.
“You smell fantastic,” he murmurs into my ear before nipping at the lobe.
Zeph works his way down my front, lifting my shirt and revealing my breasts. He unhooks my bra with a single move and cups them, pure lust burning in his eyes as he glances up at me.
He then presses his lips to mine in a kiss that takes my breath away. It’s devouring, his tongue tangling with mine. The kiss is made even hotter by the feel of Dante’s hard body bracketing me from behind. I have no room for movement and I just have to surrender myself to Zeph.
He presses his thigh into my pussy and I squirm, riding his leg like a bitch in heat. When he pulls away, he doesn’t give me a moment’s reprieve before he’s turning his attention to my nipples, sucking one and then the other into his mouth with a decadent groan. They’re hard peaks once he pulls away, laying one more open-mouthed kiss on them which sends a jolt of pleasure straight to my clit.
Then he drops to his knees. Unbuttoning my jeans and yanking them down my legs until my ass is uncovered.
“You like this, Little Witch?” he growls, his darkened eyes intent on my pussy before glancing up to meet my eyes.
“She smells like she does,” Dante replies. “So sweet. So perfect.”
“Let’s see if you’re right,” Zeph says while I just let out a helpless moan as he pulls my underwear down and runs one thick finger over my clit and into my soaked pussy. He lets out a feral groan and falls onto my flesh, his tongue lapping at my wetness before moving to my clit.
“This gorgeous cunt is fucking drenched.”
Dante’s hands roam every inch of my body, caressing me with gentle movements that he punctuated with a nip of his teeth against my neck or a tweak of my nipple. That mix of sensation, combined with Zeph burying his face in my pussy and feasting, is enough to send pleasure coursing through me. Zeph spears two of his thick fingers inside me and twists, massaging me inside as he laps at my clit.
“Now,” he murmurs, the words barely comprehensible to my pleasure-filled brain.
Then Dante tweaks my nipples and I explode with a scream. Pleasure courses through every inch of me down to the tips of my fingers and toes as sparks form behind my eyes. I jerk and judder in Dante’s arms as he holds me steady. Zeph doesn’t let up and my orgasm seems to go on forever, wringing my body into a state of bonelessness.
Finally, once I’ve come harder than I can ever remember before, Zeph pulls his fingers from inside me and sucks them clean. Dante presses a kiss to my pulse point.
Zeph stands and kisses me again, a sweet peck to my lips as he grins at me.
“Good work, team,” I mutter brainlessly, still keeping most of my weight on Dante as I struggle to regain feeling in my legs. “Really fantastic. Gold stars all around.”
He presses more kisses to my cheek, my neck, my shoulder, keeping me steady until I’ve found my feet again.
“Now, then. Is this the right book, would you say?” Zeph grabs one, seemingly at random, and thrusts it at me.
I flick through, expecting to find another book on ghost sightings by humans... and freeze.
“The rare gift of necromancy is one such solution, an escape from the eternal limbo of those trapped within the mortal plane. With appropriate training, the necromancer should be able to channel their often destructive, often maligned magic into an energy transfer. Something, something—yada yada.” I glance up at Zeph and Dante and continue, “—the necromancer’s magic can be focused to concentrate the spirit’s soul into an orb of pure energy. This soul-energy can then either be passed on to a Soul Reaper for processing to its next destination. Or the energy can be absorbed back into the world, sending the spirit’s soul on its way.”
Dante blinks his gorgeous amber eyes. “Sounds like you’ve been doing just that,” he says. “Concentrating the ghosts into orbs and then absorbing their power. I guess once the power’s released, the ghost’s spirit will be too.”
“You’ve been able to send ghosts to the next place?” The ghost librarian has reappeared, and she doesn’t seem too traumatized by what happened a few minutes ago.
I nod. “I’ve turned them into orb thingies and then those orb thingies have kind of melted, so from what this book is saying, yes, I have. I still have no clue where they go afterwards, but—”
She hums softly under her breath. “I recall reading that not even Soul Reapers know exactly where they are sending their charges.”
I haven’t ever heard of a Soul Reaper before, but I guess their name is pretty self-explanatory.
The ghost librarian takes a deep breath. “All right then. I think I’m ready.”
It takes a second for her words to sink in. She... wants me to absorb her into the world. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve been trapped in this library for long enough. I’m ready to see what lies beyond, even if it’s nothing. Even if it’s a feeling of peace. I’m ready.”
I nod and don’t waste any more time summoning my necromancy magic, which no longer feels so gross to use. Instead, it feels almost nice. Like a warm blanket, I wrap around myself as the tendrils of light extrude from my torso, reaching for the ghost. Her eyes widen, and I hear a sharp intake of breath from beside me.
“I can see your magic working,” Dante murmurs softly. “Like pure rays of silver light.”
The tendrils connect with the ghost and she disappears, replaced with another of the little orbs which I tap with my finger, popping it like a bubble. Warmth surges through me, although I feel some of the power flowing into the ring still on my finger. I pocket the book, in case it comes in useful later. It’s no how-to guide, but it’s more information on my necromancy magic than I’ve ever gotten before.
“We’re done then?” Zeph asks. “Because if we’re late for dinner, Ro’s going to be a real pissy pants.”
“We’re done,” I reply, feeling a sense of calm go through me. I know I have a bunch more ghosts that I’ve made promises to, but at least it seems like I’m not sending them straight into a bad place. They all seem perfectly willing to take the risk, either way.
As the three of us make our way back to The Spire on foot, the last of the sun’s rays are shining and the sky is glowing a dusky pink. It feels good. Like a nod from the Cosmos.
We’re midway home when I catch a glimpse of the sun glinting off a white-blonde head of hair and stiffen. There, just along the street, climbing out of a towncar is my mother. We have to walk right past her as she heads up the steps leading to a grand hotel. There’s a moment, as she crosses our path, where she glances up and our eyes meet.
My breath catches in my chest, heart banging away as I wait for some sign of distaste, of recognition. But when her eyes glide over me as though I’m no more interesting than a lamppost, my fists unclench and my shoulders drop.
Seems like Seb’s memory wipe worked perfectly.
Zeph takes my hand on one side, while Dante takes the other. My caring, careful vamp tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and checks my expression.
“I’m fine,” I assure him before he even voices the words. “Just another ghost laid to rest.”
A couple of weeks later, we head out of the city. Leaving Arcanum behind for the first time in most of our lives. Some of us were stuck because we had no ID and couldn’t get beyond the city borders. Others were trapped by duty. But we were all equally trapped.
We head out in a caravan of three cars, enough to fit all eleven of us inside, plus a couple of trailers for all our stuff—although that’s mostly thanks to my mages and Dante. They had three entire apartment’s worth of belongings which made my family’s duffle bags look pretty measly in comparison.
... and to fit Ember, of course.
We argued back and forth over whether we should bring him with us. He had no choice in it, which was a strike against him accompanying us. Hanna’s still not forgiven him, even though I’ve caught her more than once talking to him like he might be able to hear her through his frozen state.
But I figured if we were all going, then our entire family should go together. And maybe once we’re outside of the city, there will be people with more varied magic who can bring him back.
I guess all we can do is hope.
There’s a nerve-wracking moment when we have to get past a checkpoint to leave the city boundaries. My heart pounds as we get closer and closer, even though I have Roscoe beside me, patting my hand and telling me it’s all going to be fine. I bolster the glamor magic I’ve been pumping out ever since we first set off and focus it on all three vehicles, hoping like hell that I’m currently boosted enough from the ghosts I recently orbed for it to work successfully.
We sail through unnoticed and my shoulders drop with relief, even as I keep up the glamor in place.
“Told you it was going to be fine,” Ro says. “And if it wasn’t, we’d just get Seb to wipe us from their memories. Easy peasy.”
It’s not until we’re about an hour out of Arcanum, we pull over for a rest stop and I can’t stop grinning. Rook unfolds his massive form from the car he’s riding in and strides over to me, clearly feeling the same giddy sense of euphoria at leaving this place behind. He even graces me with the briefest of smirks.
“I guess we did it,” I tell him. “We got out.”
He wraps an arm around me in a side hug and tips his temple down to meet mine for just a moment. I can’t imagine the two scared little kids that escaped that cell would ever have thought we’d get here.
I turn to my family and watch as they bicker over which snacks to get and who gets to pick the music. Then my eyes go to the three mages and the vampire that turned my life on its head.
Kind of funny that I escaped my fate the first time by pretending to be dead. And this time, the official records will state that none of us ever existed at all.
But it was the only way for us all to move forward.
Not outcasts anymore, but a hodgepodge family. Heading into our new lives together.
Free to make our future whatever we want.