Page 49 of Serpent and Shadow

Pain rippled out from my sternum. I started to shake.

Bones stood there.

Some part of me must have known he was in the room, standing so close. Maybe I’d avoided him, even more strongly than I avoided Malefic.

Maybe Bones felt me there and did everything he could to keep me out.

He was shirtless, barefoot, wearing only black pants. He’d lost weight, and his muscles stood out in his arms and chest. His body and face were bruised and cut, well beyond the scars he already wore from his youth. His eyes looked hollowed out, deadened. He stared at the man in the Anubis mask as if he couldn’t see him.

“KNEEL.”

That time, the word vibrated through my head as well as the air.

It did something to my very blood.

Malefic had pushed it out to my mind, to Bones’s mind, to the minds of every person witnessing whatever this was. I saw robed figures flinch and recoil around the near-circle surrounding the ritual space.

Bones dropped to a kneel. His eyes and face didn’t change expression.

I let out an involuntary sound, something close to a groan.

Be. Silent.

I’d forgotten Blackstone again.

The Oracle’s mind felt closer now, as if he sensed me on the verge of losing control. Blackstone suddenly seemed to be everywhere, even as his thoughts seethed with fury.

I fought to do as he said, because I knew he was right.

We couldn’t stop this. We couldn’t intervene. But we could try to understand it. If I freaked out, if I broke the spell, or let Malefic know we were here, we would come away with nothing. I would have even less information than I had now to help Bones.

I focused back on Malefic, holding back my magic with an effort.

I struggled to view this logically.

We weren’t truly there, in what had to be a secret, underground temple on the Bones property, possibly the same crypt Alaric told me about, the one that lived in the family cemetery. We were here via some telepathic thread Blackstone hijacked between me and Bones. While I didn’t know the limits of that exactly, I couldn’t stop this. I couldn’t.

Blackstone’s presence continued to half-strangle mine.

Watch, he hissed softly. I can only see what you see.

I immediately focused my attention back on Bones.

He hadn’t moved from where he knelt before his father. His bare head was bent, his gold eyes even more unfocused. The stone pit with its green flames burned between them, rising nearly to the ceiling without leaving any burn marks on the stone.

Panic hit me.

Whatever was about to happen would be bad. It would be so, so bad.

We have to stop this! I thought at Blackstone. We have to fucking stop him! NOW!

Be. Silent… you ignorant little fool!

We can’t let them complete it! I thought back frantically. They’re going to use him to resurrect someone, or––

No, Blackstone cut in. That is not what this is.

His voice had shifted, like something in my words partly dissipated his anger. His tone grew maddeningly indifferent, which was somehow worse.