15
absolutely and all at once
A gust of winter air wrapped the veil about Sera like invisible fingers meant to keep her from going. She embraced the cold and walked out of Barrington’s home to where a black carriage waited. A brown-haired boy stood before it, not much older than she. He was tall and lanky, awkward like he didn’t know what to do with his long limbs.
“Miss Dovetail, this is Lucas Davenport. Our coachman,” Barrington said. “Don’t let his age fool you. He will get us out of trouble, both of the magic and the non-magic sort.”
The boy tipped his hat. “A pleasure, miss.”
Sera paused. It was not his age that would have fooled her but rather his frame. Slip thin, he looked incapable of surviving a strong gust of wind. Inclining her head to say hello, she entered the carriage. She of all people knew not to judge one by appearance and circumstance. If Barrington trusted him, she would as well.
Barrington followed behind and sat opposite her.
“Why don’t we transfer there?” she asked as he opened the black curtains at either side of the carriage.
He tapped on the roof with his walking stick. The wheels groaned, and the carriage jerked into motion. “Large spells and use of magic leave remnants of power. We try our best not to leave any traces near crime scenes, nothing that can lead the Aetherium to us.”
He crossed one leg over the other and settled in for the ride. Reaching into his coat breast pocket, he drew out the small notebook.
Sera bit the inside of her lip. Should she have brought something to write on?
He reached inside his pocket again and took out a writing instrument. She frowned. She hadn’t brought anything to write with. What if she saw symbols? Worse, what if she didn’t see anything at all? Perhaps the door that had unlocked in the binding chamber had since relocked itself and she lost the sight. Professor Barrington was risking his career because she had the sight once, and yet she hadn’t seen anything else since then. She hadn’t even felt what Timothy did when near the dungeons. She pressed fingers to her lips. This could turn out to be a disaster.
Barrington lifted his eyes and lowered his pencil. “You look rather ill, Miss Dovetail.” He pressed his lips tight, a look of disgust washing over his features. “You’re not going to be sick, are you? I’ll admit, I’ve seen my share of gruesome things, but vomit is my undoing.”
“I’m well, a bit worried is all, but nothing vomit inducing.”
“Glad to hear it.” He turned back to his notes and brushed a lock of his disheveled hair into place with his pencil. “A dead body is nothing to fear. You may see and hear spirits, but they can’t harm you.”
“I fear that I won’t be able to see anything again.” Her list of questions became a tidal wave that rushed to the forefront of her mind. “Has anyone ever lost the sight?”
He hummed in question while perusing his notes.
“The second sight. I stared at the picture for days, but nothing happened until I unlocked it somehow.”
He arched a brow from over his book. “Unlocked?”
Sera nodded and divulged all that had happened that night, from the drain of magic, to the gates, to the burn mark that had since healed over. With each of her words, Barrington slowly lowered his book until it rested on his lap.
Moments after she had finished, he had yet to speak. The horse’s hooves beat on the earth, and disturbed ravens squawked, but Barrington remained silent, his gaze fixed on her.
“I take it from your silence that this is also a mystery?”
“A seventhborn’s second sight, like the ability to perform certain spells, manifests as your powers and reserves increase,” he said finally. “I was certain you had reached the threshold. When I first asked you to look at the photos and you were unable to see anything, I thought it was your temper and impatience that blinded you, but now you tell me your powers were in fact bound.” He tapped his chin in thought. “You mentioned there were many doors?”
“Gated doors, yes. Black ones. More doors than I have years.”
His eyes narrowed. “Peculiar. Sadly, binding magic of that caliber is an ability beyond my expertise.”
Sera sighed and molded back into the plush velvet seats, dejected. “Yet another mystery to add to my list.”
“I said it was beyond my realm of knowledge, Miss Dovetail, but I’m a scholar. Quite a fantastic one at that. If there’s something I don’t know, it will not remain a mystery for long. Don’t lose hope. We’ll uncover what it all means.”
The carriage stopped rocking. Barrington slipped the pencil and notebook into his inner pocket. “But, my little anomaly, it appears your mystery will have to wait, as we have arrived.”
The scent of fish and cold met her nose, as did the sound of roaring oceans her ears. Lucas opened the door, and she lowered her veil. Murky puddles reflected the moon on the pier, the flags atop the ship sails waving like phantoms. It had been a long time since she’d been to a harbor. A shiver tore down her body, bringing with it very present memories and pain. She took hold of Barrington’s offered hand and stepped out of the carriage.
A darker expression claimed his eyes, his look no longer that of a scholar but of a man alert and ready for danger. “Whatever you do, keep your veil down, your gloves on, and mind your magic. You must listen to what I say, and do only what I ask. There is no room for argument. Is that understood?”
She swallowed deeply. “Yes, Professor.”
“Well, well, if it isn’t the great Barrington,” a deep voice spoke from behind.
A man leaned back against a waist-high stone wall, a ramp behind him leading down to the pier. Curls, blond and unruly, peeked from beneath his hat. He flashed a smile and walked over, his rakish, confident air preceding him.
Barrington met him halfway. “Rowe. Thank you for meeting us here.”
“Whatever Gummy wants.” He turned emerald-green eyes to Sera, and his smile widened. “Now, Barrington, you know better than to bring a lady to these affairs.”
Barrington cleared his throat. “This is my assistant, Miss Dovetail.”
“A pleasure, Miss Dovetail. Tell me, what on earth possessed you to work with Nik of all people?” Rowe leaned closer to Sera and said in a stage whisper, “I heard he can be quite moody.”
Sera grinned, to which Barrington arched a brow. “I thought we were here to discuss something about a body. First time one has been found away from a cemetery. What made you think to contact me?”
“Yes, yes,” Rowe said. “You shall see.”
He led them down the damp stone ramp and onto the pier. Docked ships dipped in the water that sloshed against the port pillars. Briny breeze wheezed past, then thrust them into an echoing quiet, cut only by their respective footsteps.
“Any word from the Aetherium?” Barrington inquired.
“They’re just as baffled as the last time we met and can’t fathom why these witches are so adamant about raising these bodies when their results have been dismal.”
“Then they’ve gathered nothing from the impressions? No identifying facts about a culprit, perhaps?”
Rowe shook his head, to which Barrington gazed down at Sera and nodded once, a small grin at his lips. Warmth bloomed in her cheeks, and she mirrored his smile. They were ahead of the Aetherium in their investigations, and it was all because of her summoning abilities.
“All they know is that the witches aren’t alone, since the scenes are cleansed afterward,” Rowe added.
Cleansed. Sera gulped. Only one beast was known to devour lingering magic. A Barghest. She knew about these hellhounds, demon dogs said to be tortured into submission by warlocks who used them for their own dark deeds. Rumor was magicians rarely lived after an encounter with them, and those who did were haunted by nightmares of them forever.
They rounded a corner to a gated tunnel. Two questionable characters stood beside the gate. The men were haggard, their beards wild and unkempt, and their coats, riddled with holes and muck, hung from their gaunt frames.
Rowe stopped a distance away and jutted his head toward the men. “These are the two who discovered the bodies and reported it to Gummy.”
Barrington handed him the small velvet bag to which Rowe tipped his hat. “One second.” He walked to the men.
Sera eyed the men’s dingy and wan appearance. It seemed unlike someone of Barrington’s standing to associate with vagabonds. “How do you know these men?”
“The two there are employed by Gummy. Rowe was a friend when I was in the Academy. After some…incidents, he was the only one who remained true. Some years later, he encountered problems of his own and, well, it would be terribly wrong of me to leave him in distress, no?”
“Then he’s this friend you have within the Aetherium, the one who secured you the impressions?”
“He’s not a magician—well, not a magician anymore. Now he’s a thief-taker and a drunk, amongst other things, but a damned good source. I wouldn’t work with him otherwise.”
She nodded, pity settling in her heart for Rowe who seemed to be a sibling of hers in ill fate. To have been born and raised in magic only to come of age and lose those powers was nearly as difficult as being a seventhborn.
She spoke no more of it and turned to where Rowe shared some words with the vagabonds. He handed them the bag. They pulled it open and surveyed the contents. Satisfied, they handed Rowe their lanterns and walked away.
Rowe waved them over. The gate screeched as he pushed it aside. He turned the knob at the base of the lantern, and shadows came alive along the stone walls. “Just through here.”
Lantern raised before him, he ushered them into the tunnel cut by streams of light. In one of the patches of light, Sera noticed Barrington had, at some point, drawn his wand. She quickly drew hers as well and held it tight at her side. Her other gloved hand she pressed against her mouth. The stench of mold, urine, ash, and brine burned her nostrils and squeezed at her stomach. Not to mention these soft mounds and fetid puddles she was stepping in.
Several minutes later, Rowe held out his lantern, and Sera’s hand dropped from her mouth. Whereas in the previous crimes, the burned victims lay beside the graves of the exhumed corpses, the scorched figure before her now rested beside another dead body in perfect state, that of a young woman with her throat severed. She lay slumped against a wall smeared with her blood, vacant eyes glazed over in death.
“I told my men to let me know if anyone came round asking about burning witches or necromancy like you instructed. They say this girl here, Isobel Weathers, went to the Aetherium, claiming she had information on the exhumed graves and dead witches but refused to speak to anyone but the chancellor. She visited offices in nearly every province, demanding the same. Most thought she was mad and turned her away, but she claimed her life was in danger.”
Barrington gritted his teeth. “Damn it.”
“Sorry, Nik. I tried to get to her as soon as I heard, but it was too late.”
Barrington approached Rowe and the corpses, but Sera stared at the streaks of blood and the charred corpse, unable to will her body to move.
“So she was killed, and then our necromancer tried to raise her instantly,” Barrington said.
“Not just killed.” Rowe moved his lantern and shifted open the girl’s cloak. “She was tortured as well.”
Sera recoiled beneath her veil. Cuts split the girl’s skin in various places, the other parts of her skin marked by bruises and burns. The scent was disturbing, but no more than the thought of the poor girl screaming as the criminal sliced her skin coupled with the seventhborn’s cries as she burned to death.
Barrington illuminated his wand and surveyed the body. His scrutiny stilled over the signet of a dove on her cloak sleeve. His brow gathered. Straightening, he pulled out his notebook and flipped through the pages, examining each sheet with a finger. “Yes.” Another sheet. “Yes, yes, of course. The files mentioned a bird on the headstones, another had a bird necklace, but it wasn’t just a bird. It’s a dove.”
Rowe arched a brow. “And that matters because?”
“It’s the signet of the Sisters of Mercy—a group of nuns devout to the seven guardians of magic. They helped shelter many seventhborns during the Persecutions. In short, they were sworn enemy to the Brotherhood, but they’re an enigma. You do not find them unless they want to be found—or so it’s claimed, as I doubt this Sister wanted to be found, much less killed. It seems all the bodies our necromancer has raised have been Sisters.”
“Do you think it was a vendetta?” Rowe asked.
“No, this is more than a grudge. Torture and necromancy are both extreme ways of getting information by force, one while alive, the other while dead. Our victim here was tortured and killed, and then”—he pointed to the burned seventhborn—“our necromancer forced this seventhborn to raise her. Whatever the Sister refused to talk about in life, he forced it from her in death. Just as he’s done with the other exhumed corpses. There is some valuable knowledge our necromancer seeks, and the Sisters of Mercy have it.”
He looked at Sera, a small smile on his lips, but her mind could process only the girls.
Barrington straightened, awareness in his stare. “A minute, Rowe, if you please.”
Rowe nodded and walked down the tunnel to an iron ladder a distance away leading up to a manhole cover.
“I know, I know, I will see things that will shatter and break me,” she said before he could speak, “but how are we supposed to control our emotions when someone felt it okay to do this?”
Barrington reached into his coat breast pocket and retrieved a vial of Rhodonite dust. “We remember that their pain is done, and our job is to find their killer. These victims have trusted you. I trust you.” He met her eyes through her veil. “You can do this.”
She nodded and took the vial. She could do it. She had to.
“What do I channel my magic on? Before, I used the impressions.”
“It was more than the impressions, Miss Dovetail, but what was in them. Their pain, their blood, their deaths—that was your link to them then. That is your link to them now.”
Sera uncorked the vial and sprinkled the crystals over the bodies. She slipped off her wand casing and handed it to Barrington. “I am here. I am your anchor,” he said, folding his hand over her casing. “Focus and let them come.”
She stooped beside the girls and held her wand between them. Her magic churned in her belly, but she hauled in a calming breath and forced her heartbeat to steady. She looked at Isobel. At the burned seventhborn. They were different, yet the same. Witches. Murdered.
Pain, blood, death…
She gazed down at the girl, at her vacant expression.
Pain, blood, death…
At the seventhborn contorted and charred.
Pain, blood, death…
She eased her grip on her magic. It pulsed out from her stomach, up to fill her chest and her limbs. She directed it down toward her wand, and her fingers burned. She hissed at the magic gathering in her fingertips but swallowed down her discomfort. The bodies before her had endured more pain. The fibers of her wand ignited, every strand white and filled with her magic. Smoke whirled out from the tip slowly.
Pain…
Her magic covered the bodies, and the Rhodonite crystals illuminated, shading the tunnel in pink.
Blood…
The fog encircled and shielded the world around her.
Death…
Her own memories threatened to invade her mind, and her pulse quickened. The crystals brightened, but she pushed her memories aside. They had no place here. Neither did Noah. The crystals dimmed to a steady, pink glow.
“Wonderful,” Barrington whispered, but his voice sounded far away, lost to the smoke that washed out the world from around her.
Pain, blood, death…
Her body felt like it would dissolve around her, leaving her but a soul in the sea of warm mist. Ciphers floated in the fog, but unlike before, the ciphers were linked together as they floated past. Sera trailed them, committing every loop and line to memory.
A whisper breezed past. Puppet, puppet, puppet.
She spun and gasped. A shadowy figure lingered in the shadows. Fear gripped her bones. It wasn’t Noah, and if it was, she would order him to leave.
Puppet, puppet, puppet…
“It’s okay,” she whispered. She would not force it. “Come to me. I am listening.”
The mist pulsed and billowed, revealing a young girl not much older than Sera. She was lovely, with a heart-shaped face and golden-brown skin. She wore a simple brown dress, her hands clasped before her. A seventhborn tattoo marked her wrist.
Ophelia Crowe, she whispered, though her mouth didn’t move. She lingered by the mist, as if afraid to step out.
Sera reached a hand to her. “Come, Ophelia Crowe, you can trust me. I’m listening.”
Ophelia’s eyes lifted, and she slid her hand into Sera’s, cold and firm. Show you…
Cold washed through Sera’s veins at once, and she sucked in a breath, feeling her soul pulled within Ophelia. She glanced down. She no longer wore her black dress and veil but Ophelia’s brown dress and golden skin.
“What is this?” Sera stiffened and struggled to get out of the vision. The wall of fog encircling them trembled and pulsed, agitated like Sera’s heartbeat. “What did you do?”
Show you, Ophelia spoke into Sera’s thoughts. Though she could barely breathe through her panic, Sera nodded. She could do this. Barrington would bring her back if she fell too far into the vision. He was her anchor, and he asked for her trust. He wouldn’t fail her.
Warm fingers wrapped around her wrist, a firm, savage hold. She gasped and looked down. The same hand from her previous summoning held her. She gazed up to a tall, cloaked figure wearing a plague mask. She struggled to pull her hand away, but black binds whipped around her wrist, tethering her to the necromancer. Nausea clenched her stomach, his magic worming into her consciousness. She felt him everywhere—in her soul, in her blood, in her thoughts. Her will to fight waned, and her magic grew cold and acrid—foreign. Not her magic anymore, but his.
No longer in control of her body, Sera reached to the other side of her and gripped something firm, warm, and slick. She turned her head, and a scream wedged in her throat. Isobel stood beside her. Streams of blood poured from her severed throat and melded with the blood seeping from her other wounds. Sera wished to release her, to no longer feel Isobel’s open skin and blood beneath her fingers, but her intentions fell into a void.
Tell me the secret you keep, the hooded man whispered into Sera’s mind, his voice ragged and raspy.
“Tell me the secret you keep,” Sera echoed aloud, compelled to repeat it.
Isobel shook her head. Blood spewed out with each wrench of her neck.
Tell me your secret…
“Tell me your secret.”
Isobel turned her face away, her mouth clamped shut. Sera winced, sharp pressure pushing down on her temples. She wished to release Isobel, but her body didn’t understand the command, and if it did, it had no power to execute it.
The hooded man growled. Your secret, now! I order you.
“Your secret now, I order you!” Sera cried out, her pain that of a thousand knives being stabbed into her stomach.
I raised you, you cannot deny me. What is the secret you keep?
“I raised you,” Sera struggled to say, her lungs collapsing within. She coughed out sprinkles of blood. “You cannot deny me. What is the secret you keep?”
Isobel clutched Sera’s arm, her chin trembling. A tear spilled onto her cheeks, and in her stare was an apology, echoes of regret, and stark fear. “My broken oath, your broken life.”
Tentacles of fire crawled from where Isobel held Sera. Whips of fire wound about her arm, dug into her pores, and wrapped around her bones. A scream grew in Sera’s chest as the flames broke her bones and melted her joints. Fire, blue and white, engulfed her. Consumed, she screamed until empty of air and her throat raw.
Her guttural cry became the shrieks of many in her ears, a chorus of agony and laments. The mist shivered and rippled as the shadows writhed within it. Peaks formed in the fog as hundreds of dead spirits reached for her, and Sera knew deep within that they wanted her to understand their anguish. But she couldn’t bear that much pain, or she would die, too.
“Release the spirit, Miss Dovetail,” Barrington screamed from somewhere in the mist. But Sera couldn’t see him—only the shadows and the licks of flames as her body burned. “You must order it to leave!”
Sera clenched her teeth, another feral scream gathered in her chest. You…are…released!
The flames vanished with a hiss, and the vision burst into wisps of smoke and fading cries. Air rushed into Sera’s lungs, sharp and burning, and she rounded upward with a deep gasp.
Barrington wound an arm about her waist to keep her upright, and with his other hand he frantically lifted her veil. “You’re safe. Listen to my voice, I am here, and you’re safe.”
She closed her eyes briefly, anchoring herself to him—to his strong hands holding her as her body shivered with the aftershocks of pain. To him towering above her, shielding her from terrors he’d never see and pain he didn’t understand. To his soft tenor of voice as he whispered, “Feel me, Miss Dovetail. I am here.”
He pressed a cool hand to her cheek. The trickles of his magic curled along her skin and bones and chased away the memory of them breaking and burning. Proprieties aside, she clawed her fingers into his arm and rested her head forward onto his chest as his magic reached her limbs that slowly gained feeling. His heart thundered beneath her ear, a welcome reprieve from her screams and those of the dead haunting her mind.
“I saw them,” she said, her voice hoarse. She clutched his lapels, frustration and anger roiling in her belly. He didn’t deny her and clasped his hand above hers, squeezing it gently. “I know why they showed me the hand.”
She pulled away and glanced back at the bodies, hot tears in her eyes. “That bastard, he turns seventhborns into puppets. He not only lets their bodies burn, but he takes away their will.”
She explained her vision quickly, and Barrington paled with each word. “That is why there are two binding ciphers in the spell. One is for when the necromancer grabs the seventhborn. The other is for when he forces the seventhborn to grip the Sister of Mercy. They form a chain, and using the seventhborn, the necromancer forces the Sister to break her oath.”
“Not just an oath, but a blood oath,” Barrington muttered. “If you break a blood oath, you forfeit your life. Usually an oath breaker bleeds to death, but seeing as the Sister was already dead, whoever forced her to break her oath suffers her penalty, which in this case was burning in the fires of the Underworld, I presume. That’s why he uses these seventhborns—to form a bridge between himself and the bodies. And once he learns the Sister’s secret, he leaves the seventhborn to suffer the consequences.” He met Sera’s eyes. “Tremendous work, Miss Dovetail.”
She swallowed through a thickened throat. “Thank you, Professor. Would you like me to take note of the ciphers now that they’re fresh in my mind?”
His brows gathered. “You’ve done enough. I don’t want to push you.”
She gave him a weary smile and held out a hand. She would do anything to find this necromancer and make him pay. “I can manage.”
“I know.” He slid out his pen and notebook and handed them to her. She jotted down the chained ciphers.
Barrington leaned in close beside her. “The ciphers were linked and not scattered?”
Sera nodded, careful to depict them correctly with shaking hands. “Why does it matter?”
Barrington snatched the notebook from her hands and stuffed it in his pocket. “When a Barghest cleanses a scene, the symbols are disrupted.”
He met her eyes at this, the answer glaring in the panic there.
Her stomach dropped to her feet. “It hasn’t been cleansed.”
“Precisely. We need to go—”
The sound of ice cracking silenced him.
They spun to the wall where frost vines spread out from a pinpoint. The ice fractured the damp stone as it traveled along the surface like a spider web. The hole at the center enlarged, and the pungent scent of rotten meat and sulfur engulfed them.
Sera stumbled back into a puddle, her fingers stiff on her wand. Barrington swept in front of her and held out his hand. Magic whirled from his palm and gathered before him. With each second, the magic spread and formed a translucent wall.
Rowe ran up alongside Sera. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
“Take her to Lucas,” Barrington ordered, “and regardless of what you hear, neither of you is to turn back!”
“You mean to stay here?” Sera asked, her voice a frantic whisper.
“They will chase us and will not stop,” Rowe said, already retreating. “Compared to the scraps left behind in these victims, our magic is a feast, even my measly bit.”
“But—”
“I need to stay and reinforce the protection barrier,” Barrington said. “We don’t know how many of these beasts mean to come through, and this protection spell may not be enough to hold them.”
Fear wrapped itself tight about her limbs, suffocating her veins. “What if it isn’t and you’re here?”
Barrington held her stare. “I can hold them back, but I can’t fight them and protect you at the same time.” A light sheen glistened at his forehead, the strain of controlling his magic wall already taking its toll. He drew the notebook from his inner pocket and pressed it into Sera’s hands. Folding her fingers around it, he gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then released her. “You must go.”
Sera heard him, but she couldn’t look away from the red eyes that glowed in the growing hole.
A loud crack resonated. Black fog exploded outward from the pinpoint that was now a doorway. The smoke doubled and stretched until a shadowy figure materialized in its depths, a massive reptilian-like dog with a bear head. Black tar dripped from its fangs and sizzled when it met the earth. Sera gasped, but it was soundless, overpowered by the beast’s growl.
“Miss Dovetail, we must go now!” Rowe touched her elbow. Torn from fear, Sera nodded frantically and trailed him down the long tunnel. Forgoing the route they used to get there, Rowe ran straight. “There is a manhole cover just down this way. You’ll have to climb, but it’ll leave us closer to Lucas.”
A feral howl resounded. She glanced over her shoulder just as the hound lunged for Barrington. It crashed against an invisible barrier that glowed white when it slammed against it. The symbols of Barrington’s protection spell glittered in the fog.
A rope of dread tangled down her spine, around her legs, and forced her to stop. Focused on the hound before him, Barrington was blinded to the wall that was turning to frost behind him.
“Miss Dovetail,” Rowe hissed, “the professor ordered us to go!”
“We can’t just leave him here!”
Another doorway exploded open in the wall. A beast lunged out, the frozen ground cracking beneath its feet. It crouched behind Barrington, oblivious of Sera and Rowe a distance behind it.
Barrington spun, his eyes wide. He lifted a hand, but the beast growled a warning, and Barrington stopped. Sera’s heart pounded. There was no way he could create another barrier before the beast attacked. And use of his magic against this creature would weaken his hold on the other.
“We can still leave,” Rowe whispered. “It hasn’t sensed us yet.”
The beast’s spiked tail whipped the air around it as it hunched low, prepared to attack. Barrington swept his gaze beyond it and met Sera’s eyes. Her hand flinched to her wand, but he shook his head no and mouthed for her to go.
She mirrored his gesture and drew her wand. A flare of white snapped from the tip. It slithered down the tunnel like a snake and exploded at the beast’s feet.
The hound whipped around. A long split tongue glided from its mouth. It licked downward, frantic, and devoured the sparks of magic. From behind, Barrington instigated it, thrusting magic and insults at the beast, but the hound’s red eyes narrowed, its gaze fixed on Sera.
What on earth was she to do now?
The hound lunged toward her. Sparks darted from its claws that hit the stone with each step closer.
“Go, miss!” Rowe snatched the wand from her hand. “I will hold it back. Run to Lucas!”
Sera looked at the panic in Barrington’s stare, at the beast slamming itself wildly against his magic, at the one that drew closer to her by the second, at the ladder some yards away.
Rowe aimed Sera’s wand at the approaching hound. A small orb gathered at the tip of her wand, but fizzled with a poof. “Damn!”
The beast roared, lunged.
Sera shoved Rowe out of the way. With its speed, the hellhound tripped past them and tumbled down the tunnel, its momentum not allowing for a clean stop. It thrashed against the walls, splashed and splayed in murky water.
Forgoing the ladder, Sera darted into the tunnel to the left, Rowe quick on her heels. They rounded the bend that split the tunnel in two. Sera shoved Rowe to the right. “We have to split up. It can’t follow us both.” She knew who the beast would favor. She yanked her wand from Rowe, gave him a shove in the opposite direction, and rushed away before he realized this as well.
The howls echoed through the tunnels as the beast chased her left, right, right, left, until she was lost in the stone web. A low growl snuffed out her breath, a cold sweat dampened her shift. She stopped and speared a blast of magic down into the water, breadcrumbs for the villainous beast. As long as it chased her, Rowe was safe and Barrington able to focus his magic into defeating his own beast.
She turned her ear. Puddles splashed and the tick-tick of the beast’s sharp nails on the stone answered, growing closer. She sent another flare of magic down the tunnel to the left, then dashed down the right one.
Her legs kept moving, running, carrying her away from the beast. She darted a glance over her shoulder. The orb of magic bounced and collided against the walls, the ceiling, giving off a faint light that haloed it in the darkness.
The beast dove into the intersection and caught Sera’s eye in the distance. The orb sizzled, but before fading, the Barghest leaped toward it, snaked out its devil tongue, and slithered it up, taking the bait. It was too hungry not to.
She shot another bit of magic and turned. Gathering her skirts, she ran. There was no chance to look back. Not this time. Sweat beads rolled down her back, her breaths quick, harsh, raw.
She spun to the right and ran—
The light of her wand reflected against the sleek wall before her.
A dead end.
Sera turned, made to run in the opposite direction, but the Barghest pounced into the intersection and slammed down into the murky water. It growled, its sound bouncing off the walls. Sera set one foot behind her and then the other, until flush against the wall. Trapped. Caught.
The Barghest lowered onto its front paws, its hind end arched upward. Her heart pounded. There was no way out.
Sera aimed her wand.
The beast roared, then lunged.
She held up her free hand and shielded herself. Eyes shut tight and face averted, she braced for death.
A rush of heat seared her palms, as intense as the redness that shaded the darkness of her closed eyes.
Sera opened her eyes. Her breath cut short. Luminescent light, silver and white, sparked out from the tip of her wand like wings of frosted fire. It chased the darkness from the tunnel and illuminated the beast before her. Its wet pink nose was an inch away from her wand but, bound in white ropes of her magic, it could move no farther.
“Good God…” Rowe stumbled into the tunnel, eyes wide. He slipped off his hat and raked a hand through bushy curls. “How are you doing that?”
She didn’t answer, her focus on the hound whose claws scraped the earth as it attempted to free itself. A growl rumbled in its chest, the desire to tear her apart palpable. Her anger flared, and she clenched her hand around the wand. No one would hurt her again.
Her magic responded to her rage. The beast’s growls died to screeches, the binds of magic sizzling as they bored into its scaled skin. Its stare met hers. In its eyes was all the fear in the world. Fear of her, fear that she could break him if she wished.
“Miss Dovetail!” Barrington called from afar, his voice an echo in the tunnels.
She ignored him, lost in the potent sensation of magic that coursed through her veins uninhibited, unchecked, wild and free. It pricked at her skin, a paradox of pleasure and pain. It promised to consume her and possess her, to cleanse and avenge her, to drag her higher and higher until all else ceased to exist.
“Miss Dovetail!” Barrington said again, much closer this time. Sera refused to look away from the writhing hound. She’d controlled her magic when refusing to exact revenge on Whittaker, and in the end, Whittaker and his sister had walked free. But not this beast.
Winds tore through the tunnel and whipped wildly around her. Frozen on this thin line between madness and what was right, she closed her eyes a moment. Barrington spoke of control, but would it be such a bad thing if she just let go and embraced the intoxicating rush? She could make them all suffer, make them pay—every last one of them, from the Whittakers, to the necromancer, to every person who hurt a seventhborn.
Memories made every scar on her body pool in pain, and her hold tightened around the beast. It howled and screeched and toppled over.
“Seraphina!”
Hearing her name, her gaze flicked to Barrington. He stood a measure away, clothes in shreds, a gash over his brow, but still very much alive.
“You don’t want to kill this hound,” he said. “Control it. Banish it to the darkness it came from.”
Tears salted her lips, yet she turned back to the beast and clenched her hand tighter around her wand.
“We do not kill when we can,” Barrington said. “We kill when we must. This beast is at your mercy. Its fate is in your hands.”
She lowered her eyes to the hound. All animosity was gone, but the pitiful excuse of a beast remained. It was an animal. However magical and hellish, it was nothing but an animal. Yet her hand shivered. How could he ask her to let it go when she hadn’t ever felt this free, this powerful? When in this moment, no one could hurt her? When if she embraced it, no one could hurt her again?
He neared her, steps slow and steady. “Banish it.”
A sob caged in her throat. She shook her head no.
Closing in beside her, he said into her ear, “Show it the mercy that’s not shown to you. Banish it.”
She heard him close, his words tugging at her conscience. If she killed this beast, she’d be just as bad as everyone who’d ever persecuted a seventhborn. Like her, the beast could not help what it was. She pressed her lips together, and with the need for abandon clawing at her insides, she conceded. “I don’t know how.”
Barrington came around her and framed her extended arm with his. “Repeat after me,” he said, his breath a fog at her ear. “I banish the body. I banish the soul. I send thee to the darkness that is thine home.”
“I banish the body,” she whispered. The whips of magic she held around the beast vanished, and its body curled away as smoke until once again immaterial, a spirit in a black fog.
Dimmed red eyes in the cloud met hers, and where the thirst for magic had been before, now there was gratitude.
“I send thee to the darkness that is thine home.”
A red-rimmed hole appeared on the ground. The cloud of fog twisted into a funnel and seeped into the hole. Within moments, the beast was gone. The hole shrunk until only a smoky burn marked the ground. The faint peal of harbor bells resounded through the tunnels, but aside from that and the trickle of water on the walls, all else was quiet.
Fatigue rolled through her limbs in a violent wave, her reserves depleted. With the weight of magic gone, exhaustion buckled Sera’s knees, and she collapsed against the wall. Strong arms came around her in an instant.
“Don’t touch me.” She tore herself away from Barrington’s hold and pressed her hand against the wall to keep from falling.
“Your reserves—”
“I’m fine,” she said, a blatant lie to anyone who wasn’t blind. The tunnel spun around her, and the ground waved beneath her feet, though they were both still. “My reserves are fine.”
Barrington stiffened, and his eyes steeled, but respecting her decision, he didn’t help her, though on their walk back to the carriage, he didn’t remain far from her side. His shadow melded with hers for the entire journey, of which Sera was both glad and ashamed.
Once inside the carriage, she snatched off the veil and hauled in a deep breath, unbearably hot. Her shift stuck to her skin, sweat the glue. The air was heavy like dirt packed tight around a coffin.
The door swung open. Barrington entered the carriage and sat nearest the door. He slipped off his hat, soundless. His hair was damp, matted to the sides of his face with sweat, his hands stained with mud. His trousers were torn and shoes indiscernible through the thick layer of muck. The drain of magic rendered his skin milky white. But he wasn’t spent. His magic hummed in the air. Or perhaps it was anger?
Deflating with a sigh, he rested his head against the plush leather, his knuckles white and fingers tight around his walking stick. Decisions weighed heavy on his brow, and he stared at the darkness above as if the answer were hidden there.
“Damn it all.” He pushed the door open and leaned out. “There’s a change in plans, Lucas. To Rosetta’s.”
“Yes, sir,” Lucas called down.
Barrington slammed the door shut and sat back once more. He pounded twice with his walking stick, and the carriage groaned to life.
Sera braced. There was no need for pretext. She knew what was to come, and the look of him told her he knew as well. Everyone schooled or employed by the Aetherium was required to provide a sample of magic for official records. No doubt once the bodies were discovered, the Aetherium would investigate and find her signature within the magic used in the tunnel. Worse, Barrington’s. And even if they were found faultless of the crimes, there was still the question of her relationship with the Alchemy professor.
She lowered her eyes to her dress, leaded by whatever putrid substances layered the tunnels. And blood. A dead girl’s blood. A dead girl she would never avenge because she couldn’t control her emotions and her powers.
“I…” she started, but the words died to the stiff silence. What explanation could she possibly give? What apology could she utter that would make any of this better? He’d asked her to go, yet again she hadn’t listened. Now not only was her place at the Academy at stake but also his career, and when the scandal of their involvement broke, so would his investigative work. His quest at clearing his family’s name.
Pain gripped her, spreading through her veins with each breath. He hated her. No doubt he regretted hiring her and ever meeting her. And as much as those days meant to her, he would grow to despise their time spent together, those evenings practicing magic and the comfortable silences they shared. He would leave her life as quickly as he’d come, and she would no longer wake up happy, knowing that whatever hate and prejudice she encountered during the day, that night she would see him and be around him, learning and growing in magic while drawing smiles from him and giving them in return. No longer would she be a balm to his moodiness and sadness and he a comfort to her memories and the ill she thought of all men. No, their partnership was dead now, and there was nothing she could do about it…
…but perhaps she could do one more thing for him.
“I’ll tell them that…that I ran away,” she managed finally, her voice low yet somehow still too loud in the small space. “I’ll say that you saw me and tried to keep me from boarding one of the ships…”
Barrington’s jaw clenched. “I will fix it.”
“…but when I saw you, I ran into the tunnels and hounds were there, and we were forced to protect ourselves.”
“I will fix it.”
“But the Aetherium—”
“I said I will fix it!”
Sera recoiled and heat pricked her cheeks from within, his tone and anger unfamiliar.
His sigh washed out the echo of his previous outburst. “Miss Dovetail,” he started, much softer, but moments later, he had yet to say another word. Forcing her face to the curtained window and away from him, Sera succumbed to the same contagious silence.
…
The carriage rolled to a stop. Lively music resounded somewhere nearby, broken by laughter and chatter. Barrington straightened and retrieved his hat.
The door opened to reveal Gummy leaning against the doorframe of an establishment whose doors read Rosetta’s. Her dress was cut dangerously low, and she lifted a hand to her waist, unashamed. Another woman dressed in a similarly revealing manner entered the building, leading a gentleman by the hand.
Barrington descended and turned at the carriage door, his eyes downcast. “Lucas will see you to the house.”
They were simple words, yet Sera’s fingers tensed on the folds of black tulle. Ache became an invisible hand. Its fingers laced into the hollows between her ribs and squeezed. She pressed a hand to the seat, grinding her teeth together to master the pain and the urge to clutch his arm and drag him back. To talk things over. To find a way to fix things, together.
She let out a shuddering breath, and a warm tear spilled onto her cheek. It wouldn’t make a difference. This was it. She had proved all the naysayers right. She was untrainable, erratic, and Barrington was done with her. Now he would enjoy one last tumble before the world crashed down around them, his dreams finished and hers as well.
He started to close the door, and Sera winced, the imminent goodbye a jagged knife fraying her soul. Worse was knowing this was their final farewell, and he didn’t even look at her. No doubt he no longer saw her, just her violence and lack of control when she hurt the Barghest. But she was more than that, he had to know. She wasn’t cruel or evil or unfeeling like Noah. Barrington couldn’t think this of her.
Sera stared at his back, struggling to breathe past the painful knot jammed in her chest. Look at me.
He had to turn and lift those eyes to her one last time. Perhaps if he saw her tears, he would know of her remorse and the shattered condition of her heart. One last glance and he would see her as he once did—the girl whose trust he’d asked for and sought with kindness. He would know the fear in her soul—fear of losing her dream, her freedom…losing him. But of all, he’d remember that in spite of the marks Noah left upon her skin and of what she did to the Barghest, she was human. He had to know that.
“I’m not a monster,” she said just above a whisper. Barrington paused, turned. “What I did… I’m not a monster.”
“I never said you were,” he said over his shoulder, his face shadowed by his top hat. “Good night, Miss Dovetail.”
He walked to Gummy, who held the door open. Her eyes lit up, and she draped herself against him and ran a finger along his lapel. He murmured something, and she tilted her head inside. Catching sight of Sera in the carriage, Gummy pursed her lips and entered the brothel.
Barrington lingered at the door, and after a moment, he had yet to move. His fingers folded to tight fists, hesitation clear in his frame. Sera inched to the edge of her seat, her pulse quick. Look at me.
He started to turn, but shaking his head to himself, he followed Gummy into the brothel.
No…
Still, Sera watched the entryway, clinging to her veil like a lifeline. The door was still open, and with it, a chance that Barrington would turn back to her, that they could still fix this. This wasn’t their end. It couldn’t be.
A second lurched past.
The front door closed and proved Sera wrong.
A broken breath left her, and the curtain slipped from between her fingers.
Though her insides vibrated as though she were about to crumble, Sera clenched her jaw and brushed away her tears, seizing what anger she could muster. If he wanted to leave, fine. She didn’t need him. She swallowed tightly. She didn’t need anyone. Curling her fingers into a tight fist, she punched the carriage wall, prompting Lucas to drive them away.
“Goodbye, Professor.”
The carriage lurched forward and reality descended swiftly. Their partnership was finished, and he’d never even looked at her.
A gale of pain consumed her then, absolutely and all at once. Pressing a hand to her stomach, she clamped her lips shut to smother the cry born in her chest and rising into her mouth for release. It was useless, and as the carriage rolled forward and drew her away from Barrington, Sera doubled over and cried tears of shattered dreams and a broken heart.