Iwoke sick and bruised and tormented in every part of my body, my memories hazy. But I had managed to keep ahold of one thought—I was in danger. I didn’t know why, but I knew I could not let Death talk me back into a stupor of safety—no matter how much I longed for it, no matter how sweetly he spun things.
An amber autumn moon shone outside my window, warm and heavy over the trees. As I sat up, Schneid’s lamp eyes opened and stared at me from his little ball at my feet. Before moving, before even another breath, I told the space around my body not to notice me. I did not want him … or the house … tracking me. Schneid nodded and turned to lick his paw. Sliding out of the bed, I took the keys from under the mattress and crept out into the hallway. The first torch flickered as I passed and I froze, foot still lifted at the threshold.
I could not explain the way the house bent around me. In part, I think I stopped trying toknowand simply accepted that it was. But now, I needed to understand. Taking a deep breath into the bottom of my stomach, I pulled the air in around me, imagined pulling it closer and tighter. I folded myself upon myself, a stream of nothing. The house had its hooks into me—deeper than the library or the test rooms. But I was me, and the house was the house, and I tore away just enough to see how deeply it was tied inside me. I suspected that the curse marks on the château’s foundation were the source, pulling atthe magic from the forest casting a spell I was somehow part of. There was no simple way to pull it out of me. I pulled further, just enough to hide away from the spell for a moment. Then I took a cautious step forward inside that thread of magic that was purely my own. The torch burnt steady. No flicker.
Staying inside that thread, I crept along. It took awhile to find, as I had to rely on my memory and not Renaud or the pull of the house. But finally, I reached the doors of the chapel and let myself inside.
It was colder and more terrible in the dim morning light than it ever was with Renaud. I rushed, wanting to spend as little time in this horrible room as possible. Up at the altar, the accoutrements of the night still littered the steps—as if he’d left them in frustration to clean up later. I picked up the empty cup, coated with remnants of the draught he’d given me, but then paused and crouched, distracted by the book. I recognized it.
It was the book from the library. I quickly moved my gaze to the side, afraid even to look at it, feeling the ghost of its sticky binding on my palms. Suddenly I realized that the symbols on the château and on the hourglass were not there alone, they were also what he’d drawn on my stomach and etched onto my thighs. That’s why they’d all seemed familiar. How had he tried a spell from this book, and it had not worked? They worked too easily! I clutched the cup to my stomach.
There was part of me that filled with an impotent rage, a betrayal, but mostly I was confused, lost. For what purpose had he done this to me? And for all he had done, why could he not perform the spell. It seemed so strange, so troubling.
Leaving the book behind, I crept out of the chapel.
Outside, my garden was heavy with dew and the breeze from the wood smelled crisp and carried the spice of rotting leaves. Winter was not here, but I could feel the earth longing for it, waiting for it. I picked my way through the plants, my body aching. I found the spot where the vervain I’d planted grew. I picked the leaves and piled them into asmall stone bowl, then I spelled a fire and waited as the heavy smoke began to twist up into the air.
While I waited, I picked up the cup I’d taken from the chapel and smelled it. It smelled like I remembered—bitter and dark and sweet enough to drink. I touched the sides with my pinky and tasted the remnants. Most of the herbs I’d worked with tasted green and medicinal—bright or sharp. This reminded me of the belladonna berries Perchta had me bite and spit. But mixed with other things. Poplar buds? Yew? I thought I could taste both. He had given this to me before. Every time he’d laid me on the altar, he’d given me this draught. And I felt sure that every time, he’d tried to use a spell from that book.
An owl hooted from deep in the forest and I put my head on my knees, breathing the vervain smoke through the nausea and the pain, fighting to stay alert.
I could not run, I knew that. I could not scurry down some tunnel into the universe. For a moment, I thought maybe my only way out was to walk into the abyss and never come back. But I kept my head pressed into my knees and laid my palms open in the grass. The wet leaves and earth tickled my hands. I took deep breaths of the vervain smoke and the fog over my mind began to clear and some strength returned. I remembered then that Dacia had been taken, and her spelled ring was still in my room, waiting for me to find her finger.You cannot save anyone until you save yourself, I heard Perchta in my mind. The crows began to call, and the owl finished its song. I pulled the magic back to me to hide myself, and just as an angry red dawn began to rise beyond the mountain ridges, I crept back inside.
In my room, I buried into my bed, the keys under my pillow for protection. I waited as the crimson simmer of a cold fall day washed over the blue walls, turning them as purple as the bruises on my body. I heard the stallion’s hooves ring out on the cobblestone, and I breathed a little easier.
I had time.
The silence … the emptiness … of the château reverberatedaround me. A faint pulse, even, as if his hidden heartbeat called me. I stood and gathered myself. Taking the keys and the giant’s unwavering lantern, I headed for Death’s quarters.
The torches were dead as I passed, and I slipped into the familiar study, through his sleeping quarters, until I stood before that strange door set into the stone.
I clutched the tiny key in my hand so tight it left an imprint on my skin. The lantern’s light illuminated the keyhole, but did not pierce the darkness within.
Now that I stood on its threshold, I began to doubt. If he found out. If he caught me. I should not be doing this. Once I opened it, there would be no going back. I would have to live with whatever I found therein. My heart roared through my body, and I couldn’t remember the logic or the confidence in my decision. All I knew was that faint pulse of a heart, the faint pulse of knowing inside me that I must.
I simplymust.
XXXIII.
The key turned with a soft click. My heart stopped. I held my breath. The room opened.
XXXIV.
Abreath of air came out of the darkened room—so foul and so heavy, I took a step back and nearly retched.
But there it sat. Open. Waiting for me to enter. Renaud did not appear. The house had not told him, had not called him back. At least, not immediately. I couldn’t see anything from where I stood, but I was terrified to step any farther. I felt suddenly that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
I might have gone no farther. I might have turned around and shut the door and crept back to my room. Except for the moan. A woman’s moan. Soft. Alive. Desperate. I could not breathe.
Without thinking of the consequences, I lifted the lantern and crossed the threshold. I moved as if compelled. I must know. I walked straight into the foul mouth of knowing and the lantern light flooded the small, airless chamber. With all I expected, I still could not have prepared myself for what I saw.
In that room the bodies of many women were hung like furs on their hooks, tied by their wrists on the wall. There was blood everywhere, the scent of it, the stick of it beneath my bare feet. Some of the bodies were skeletons. Some of them were rotting, their long hair the only thing not putrefying. Nightmare could not describe it. The house had shown me many nightmares since I arrived, but none had prepared me for this bone-deep horror, this ocean of sorrow to drownin. It was beyond any nightmare creature or terror. A thing that could never be summed up in words. Beside each dead woman clung a quiet, tormented spirit. They did not look at me. Did not move.
I had never seen ones like this. So broken themselves, trapped here. I recognized some of the spirits right away—girls from the village who had gone missing. Odette. And others I did not know, but who must have come from other villages. I nearly lost my stomach again, but I was too focused, too sure. I had to find that moan. One of these women was alive.
The giant’s light glistened on the wet bodies and slick blood, and everything was dark, decay, and terror. I had fallen into hell. Or something worse. But I covered my nose and mouth with my arm and kept looking. Finally, in the darkest corner, I found her.
“Dacia,” I whispered, franticly pushing back her hair, desperate for her to look at me.
