I nod, taking another deep breath, and begin again. “Audite me. Spiritus…ultra velum.”
My voice is stronger this time. I try to reach inward, to feel some pull of magic, and I’m surprised when something sparks to life inside me. Something calling to the unfinished spell. Or the unfinished spell calling to me.
“Rumpe limen…reforma nexum.” A shiver runs through me. A prickling sensation that comes from the inside out. Like something lives inside me and is trying to break free.
“Magicae fluit per…medullam profundam.” Wind rustles my hair. An owl hoots in the distance.
“Ex…per…giscere…nunc e somno…aeternum.” A sudden rush hits me. Not the wind this time but something very much like it. I feel my hair lift, then my body with it, like a string is tied to my heart and pulling me upward until my toes barely skim theground. I barely notice as the codex falls from my hand. The spark inside me bursts to life, clawing at my chest. My vision goes white, and when I speak this time, there’s some otherworldly quality to my voice.
“Audite me, spiritus ultra velum.”
I am filled. I am whole. Light shoots from my toes, my fingertips, burns bright inside me.
“Rumpe limen, reforma nexum.”
I see Credence’s soul now in my mind’s eye. I see it struggle among the pile of her remains. I see it gasp in delight as it finds purchase.
“Magicae fluit per medullam profundam.”
I see bones stitched together with tissue, sinew and veins forming, stretching out along the pathways of a body. Organs, then flesh, then skin, all the crude materials that make up a body knit themselves together. Muscles contract. Lungs fill. The heart beats. Eyes flash open.
“Expergiscere nunc e somno aeternum.”
The final line echoes through the cemetery in a voice I don’t recognize, though it came from my own lips. As soon as I’ve finished the final syllable, my body drops to the ground. I land on my knees.
Silence falls. No more owls hooting, crickets chirping. Not even the wind dares make a noise.
I wait.
The grave is still.
“Maybe we should—” I start, but then Rook is dragging me back, and I finally see movement.
The earth is shifting and crumbling. A dull groan sounds from under the dirt. Rook still has his arm around me, and I feel both our hearts thumping in time, each breath no more than a quick inhale.
Finally, a pale dirt-encrusted finger emerges from the soil.
“She’s here,” Rook says, releasing me.
I watch as the single finger becomes a whole hand, then two, clawing at the damp grass. Slowly, agonizingly, more of her appears. A forearm. An elbow. A second arm. Then the crown of her head emerges, pushing through the dirt. It seems an eternity before her entire head is free. She gasps in a breath, eyes wild.
Her naked body is smeared in mud as she pulls herself free from the grave. Rook is already beside her, throwing a velvet robe around her shoulders and helping her stand.
And she does stand. Whole and alive.
Resurrected.
I did it.
Oh my god, I did it.
Not only did I do magic, but I didthemagic. I brought someone back to life. Someone who had been rotting beneath the ground. Her soul had been tortured in Tartarus, and now she’s here before me. Alive.
She stands taller than her brother, brushing dirt out of her hair, and I realize it’s much lighter than I first thought. A pale blond. The robe is tight around her thin form, but she doesn’t seem cold. She seems elated.
“You did it,” she says to Rook, her voice a breathy rasp.
I did it, I selfishly want to say, but I don’t. I turn to give them their private reunion and try not to think about how I should be having a similar one with my brother.
