I looked at the food I’d been poking at, and disgust rose in my throat.I was forgetting more and more about my life in the village. I’d forgotten about everything I’d been the day I arrived—starved and cold with grave dirt still under my fingernails.Feral, he’d said.Frozen, what was I recalled. That life felt far away, but this morning had reminded me how close it truly was. Pulling my chair to the table, I picked up a plum with my thumb and forefinger, squeezing the lurid flesh.
I didn’t think—not about how Renaud left me or how I’d left Dacia, only at how disgusting I felt. I put the plum in my mouth and grimly chewed. The juice rolled down my chin and I didn’t even bother wiping it away. Leaning over the tray as if it might disappear by the same unseen hand that laid it there, I stuffed every bit of food into my mouth.
I ate so fast my throat constricted and couldn’t seem to swallow. Not bothering to chew enough. Not bothering to slow down. I kept going, ignoring the clench of my body. Until it just left my throat. I vomited onto the tray and the food and then, I don’t know why, I feel the shame even now to tell you. I kept eating. The disgust was so strong, so consuming, that I ate as if it were the only thing that could save me.
The clatter of the keys slipping out of my pocket and hitting the floor broke me out of it. I blinked through the tears and the vomit, staring at them splayed on the floor. I suddenly remembered that Renaud had trusted me, had believed in me, had stood in this very room and ran his hands through my hair and rinsed me clean and pulled me from the water himself. If he saw me now, he’d be disappointed, so disappointed, and perhaps disgusted. This was not feral; this was shameful.
The keys, the trust they meant, brought me comfort and brought me back to my senses. The work. I dropped to the floor and clutched the keys tight, the bite of cold iron pushing into my flesh. I needed to throw myself into the work Renaud had left for me. Pushing myself up, I wiped my mouth. Already the tray had disappeared and the mess I’d left vanished. A new dress and a small washbasin of water lay on the table instead.
I should have been grateful, but I dipped my trembling hands intothe water only hoping that Renaud would never be aware of the shame that cloaked me now. I rinsed the sick off and brushed back my stray, sweating hair. Shucked and shed my clothes as if there were a way to dispose of myself in the process, then smoothing the clean dress over my body. Last of all, I carefully put the keys into my pocket.
For several hours I set myself to transcription work. The rain sluiced against the windows, and the stones seemed to sweat with the damp and the dull heat that gets trapped under heavy gray clouds. But with each stroke of the quill and the whispered scratch of the tip against the parchment, I forgot some of my shame and found more of my strength. I came to the end of the section and was nearly out of ink by the time I put down my quill.
As I glanced out the window, I thought about Perchta’s hut, wondered if she waited for me to return. But even if I’d been tempted to ignore my promise to Renaud, the hammering rain deterred me from taking the thought any further. I was confined to the château.
My mind was calmer now, at least. Taking the keys, I began roaming about the room, idly pulling out drawers and peering through shelves. I wanted to find something intimate or even shameful, as if that could relieve me of my own. But there was nothing. More ink. Quills. Some correspondence, but when I opened the parchments, I only found tedious documentation of properties or money. I put them back and slumped in his chair.
It was strange to live with both the seen and unseen. The immortal and the mundane. What manner of man or god was he? The forest called to my mind again, but I turned my back on the window and my thoughts and pushed up out of the chair.
I would explore the château instead.
Regret No. 1
By this time, I had figured out a comfortable route through the rambling halls, one the house seemed happy to oblige—my daily pathto the gardens, and to and from my quarters to Death’s. But the rest of the corridors and floors remained a mystery.
I tried several rooms at random, opening them hesitantly. But the doors I opened contained only empty bedrooms. They were as empty and desolate as the rest of the château, but yet there was no dust, no coverings, as if they were waiting for occupants.
I wandered for a time then, opening nothing, until I passed a beautifully arched set of double doors, set at the end of a long hall. I had to work to get them open, but once I slid inside, my breath left my chest in wonder.
I had assumed all the books in the château were in Renaud’s study, with his parchments and inks. That he simply pulled them all from thin air, like the food and clothes. Even at the nunnery, all the books were hoarded carefully in the Mother Superior’s chambers.
I had never seen a room like this, filled floor to ceiling with volumes. It was like finding a room full of gold. I couldn’t fathom the time and money that had gone into it. Hazy filtered light made its way in from the triplicate of arched windows all the way at the end of the long room, but between me and the window, the room sat in a papery, muffled dark. The library felt filled with spirits, those contained in the shape of paper and ink. It smelled as damp as everything else, but strangely none of the books I could see from the aisle showed any signs of mildew. Were they spelled? Then I realized,thismust be where the answers to all my questions—particularly the ones Death demurred to answer—lie.
If I could find a true summoning spell among these tomes, I might be able to bring Rochelle through instead of attempting to conjure her again, only to have her remain trapped in the mirror. Heart racing, I stepped forward into the aisle, skimming the first shelf.
Despite their gilded covers, the books on the first few rows had nothing to do with magic. I pulled several out and riffled through them, but they were only recorded deeds and financial records fromplaces I had never heard of. The Mother Superior’s records like these were sheathed and kept safe, not bound and displayed. With every page I turned the smell of mold and mildew increased—but the paper itself was dry to the touch, and it made me question which of my senses I should trust. Perhaps none of them, in this house.
I heard Rochelle in my mind again:Run. But I did not.
The darkness and stillness of the room compressed the air into something nearly tangible. Even my thoughts seemed to struggle against it. I knew I was proving exactly why he’d kept these things secret from me, but I couldn’t stop myself. If I could just see Rochelle again. Just to know where she might be or what had happened to her …
At the far end of a shelf, very near the floor, I caught sight of a book—nondescript, plain even—but a sudden longing leapt in my body to hold it. Rashly, I bent and pulled it out.
It was bound in an almost sticky leather. I felt a sudden distaste about touching it once it was in my hands, and yet I opened the cover as if compelled. Within, dense lines were scrawled in a language never seen before. I idly turned the pages, reading without understanding. The contents seemed strangely familiar, but as I looked it seemed the ink was also strange, and my mouth watered with a sour taste that I could not explain.
I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t understand it. But I couldn’t stop.
The minutes slipped past. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt myself recognize what was happening. The book itself was drawing me into a spell—pulling at the thread of my magic, siphoning it off for itself. I instinctively tried to jerk away, to drop the damned thing, but it was impossible. The longer I held the book, the more I read, the tighter the spell wove through me.
Panic spiked in my throat. I closed my eyes, scrambling for Perchta’s wisdom—the difference between myself and everything else. Summoning a great effort, I tore it out like an errant thread. My eyes released from the page. I slammed the binding shut. Even having broken themagic, I felt the book pulling at me, drawing me in. I suspected if I had not closed the book when I did, I might never have been able to close it.
Of course, Death would have strange texts such as these. I had been reckless to assume that I would be safe among them. I quickly shoved the book back and wiped my hands on my dress, unable to quite erase the sticky feeling of the leather.
The library was just as quiet and lonely as it had been, but now the silence bothered me, breathing down my neck, more oppressive than ever. I wished I had never come into this room, my earlier joy at finding it completely gone. I stood, checked to ensure the keys were still in my pocket, and turned for the door.
It was only a few steps before I realized something was wrong. At first, it was only a whispering, so faint I thought I imagined it. But then, a scrabbling of claws on polished wood.
I tried to simply walk faster, to outpace whatever hid in the shadows. But the sound came louder. Chasing me. Finally, I could bear it no longer and I glanced back. Ragged wings. Thin, scaly body. Neither man nor creature, but something in between. Lunging on all fours after me. My stomach twisted.
