by Cate Corvin
Locke has picked up a thin object I recognized as the Lockheart sword. He held it out to me hilt-first, and I silently drew the rowan sword from its sheath.
Silver spirals and whorls patterned the blade, shining like it had been forged and enspelled that very day. “Use it for the Rite,” Locke said. “This is yours to use now, sunlight.”
It was perfectly balanced in my hand, the wood warming under my palm.
The cornerstone was a flat slab of glassy stone, roiling with faint flashes of internal light like a heartbeat. The blood flaking from its surface stained the floor around it black, and a dense little object laid on top of the stone. I pushed a tongue of wildfire through the sword, illuminating the corner’s stone filthy surface, and the object glinted rusty red.
It was a tiny bag sewn with Albrecht’s hair, the sort of fetch a witch created to work sympathetic necromancy on. Dom’s lessons on necromantic rituals from over a month ago ran through my head: as above, so below. Destroying the fetch on both sides cut the link between Life and Death.
The fucker had taken Dom’s arm, so I would use his dagger to destroy the last of Albrecht’s work on this earth. Tongues of wildfire licked the rowan blade in my left hand, and I plunged it into the heart of the fetch.
I felt the last of the magic surrounding it shatter, sending a tiny shockwave through the air as the bag burst into flames. The acrid scent of burning hair filled the air.
The Lockheart sword shimmered with latent wildfire, and I swept the blade over the cornerstone, igniting the layer of dried blood coating the obsidian. It crackled to life, black smoke billowing into the air, the cornerstone humming as it broke free from its binding.
I pushed more of myself into the blade, channeling a storm of flames.
The light within the stone moved faster, like fish in a pond, flashing as Josephine’s magic-binding blood burned away and revealed the glassy black surface of the stone.
The cornerstone pounded against my mental wards, thrumming in my mind in a steady, bone-quaking drumbeat. It was free, desperately lonely and searching for a covenmistress to bind with. I felt it searching, touching my mind and asking a tentative question.
I took a deep, shaky breath, inhaling smoke and ash. It was sloppy, off-the-cuff, and completely against the traditions outlined in the books, but if I completed the Grand Rite without losing my mind, I would be a part of this house, and every sliver of wood, every pebble down to a grain of sand, would belong to me.
I flipped the rowan sword to the sharp edge and ran my arm over the blade. Blood welled and spattered on the stone, bubbling from the heat. I squeezed my eyes shut, lowered my mental wards, and reached out towards the cornerstone’s battering, searching force as I pressed my palm to the cornerstone.
Please, Aradia, Hecate, Diana, don’t let this kill me.
It instantly felt like my mind was hit with a train, every thought of my own pummeled into darkness as Cimmerian’s consciousness invaded mine. It was a massive force, such a titanic thought-construct that the massive slab of the cornerstone suddenly seemed tiny in comparison. How could it hold so much?
Thoughts, images, emotions slammed into my head, memories that weren’t mine spooling out in a long reel through my mind.
An older man with a long beard and a young man with a head of thick black hair stood in a dripping cavern, cutting their hands over this exact slab of stone as the leylines thrummed through the rocks around them. “We will call it Lockheart,” the older man said. He drew a hissing breath as a faint crimson light came to life in the heart of the stone. “This will be our home for all our days. The leylines are strong enough to shield us.”
The two men faded.
A young witch with dark hair cried into a handkerchief as they laid the older man’s body on the cornerstone and cremated him with witchfire, sending his spirit on to become part of the covenstead. I recognized her older brother, now with lines cut in his face; he’d helped lay the cornerstone with their patriarch.
Then I saw that same witch, seconds later and years older, communing with the cornerstone as a small child clung to her skirt. From the swell of her belly, there would soon be another sibling, and the mansion was filled with their love and contentment. The cornerstone radiated happiness.
The memories began to blur, but the cornerstone was warm with contentment, feeding visions of a happier time.
I saw every Lockheart who had ever lived. Finally, I saw Locke, his eyes still dark, skin still warm with living blood, cutting his own hand over the cornerstone. He and Josephine performed the Rite for themselves and became the master and mistress of Lockheart, grinning at each other the entire time.
When I saw Josephine next, my entire body flinched, curling in on itself.
Albrecht forced her over the stone, his hand tangled in her hair as she screamed. He drew a knife across her throat and shouted the words of the binding ritual. The cornerstone’s light went dim under a gush of arterial blood, and her magic wrapped around it against her will.
“We will call it… Cimmerian,” he said, cool and contemplative as his wife bled to death on the stone under him. “The land of the shades.”
Her fear crashed through me, woven through with strands of red rage and betrayal.
My limbs were shaking as the cornerstone flashed through Albrecht’s life for me, showing me the creation of the fetch, the building of the Cage, the mirrorwalker who supervised the creation of its deadside-half and their subsequent death at Albrecht’s hands.
Its anger over the betrayal built into a massive rage that thrummed through every fiber of my body. I felt the cornerstone’s emotions clearly: if it had been free to act, it would’ve brought down every beam of the mansion itself to crush Albrecht alive.
I saw myself, kneeling before Albrecht’s wheelchair as Patricia flung my blood across the cornerstone. A bright point of hope grew in the darkness of the cornerstone’s heart when it tasted the wildfire in my blood.
The residual fear of that night washed over me and the images finally began to fade. My mental wards felt heavier, like the cornerstone had filled my skull with lead, and a new awareness began to blossom at the back of my mind.
I physically felt the cornerstone, the mind of the mansion itself, and the skeleton of the home far overhead. It had been made as a refuge with loving hands. A home, not a butcher’s slab. Every beam, every wall and door and window were part of that awareness, sinking into the depths of my mind. I felt the mansion’s pain like my own, walls torn by vines, the Helping Hands choking the flow of magic, every blade of grass and the trees extending out onto the grounds.
The wall surrounding Cimmerian was a black ring in my mind. It had once been a protection, maintained by the Lockes themselves, and I almost doubled over as I felt what the cornerstone told me: the Gilts had walled skeletons into the stone, binding them to serve as angry, unwilling guardians. I felt their fury at their imprisonment pummeling against my wards.
The cornerstone’s raging touch finally gentled, soothing my mind after the onslaught of emotions and memories, and it began to settle into me. It melted against my own mental wards, sank into my bones, until I could no longer tell that it hadn’t been an essential part of me before.
I opened my eyes. The cornerstone’s touch soothed me as hundreds of ghostly faces looked back.
Every Locke, the family who had created this home with their love and been burned on the cornerstone upon death… except for Josephine and Elijah. Her remains had been burned away from her home, and he lived a second life.
But I still had two of Josephine’s bones in the mansion overhead. It might be enough to let her rest with her family.
I held out my hands and concentrated on what the cornerstone whispered to me, how to move the mansion to fit my will. Everything in it was mine to rearrange as I saw fit.
Pearls of sweat broke out on my forehead, but after several long minutes, the bones materialized in thin air and fell into my outstretched hands.
I
laid the ivory pieces on the cornerstone’s surface and conjured the tiniest flame of wildfire on the tip of my finger. Just enough to reduce the two small finger bones to ash.
They burned in seconds, and another shimmering face materialized in the crowd of Lockes. Josephine sighed, touching her whole, unmarked throat, and melted into the welcoming embrace of an older man and woman: their parents. A thousand arms of her ancestors reached out to embrace her.
The Lockes slowly faded, some reaching out to touch me as well before they vanished back into the cornerstone.
I lowered the Lockheart sword, my limbs shaking with exhaustion and stress.
It was done. I’d performed the Grand Rite of Initiation on the fly and survived. The wound I’d carved across my hand and wrist has sealed, the scar already looking years old.
But the hand with the broken finger was starting to throb, and Dominic’s rowan dagger clattered to the floor. Roman was at my side in an instant despite the lingering heat, his skin turning pink as he held me upright.
“You released her,” Locke said, picking up the dagger and taking the sword from my limp fingers. “Thank you.”
I pulled him against me, kissing him as hard as I could until my own mouth hurt. Then I grabbed Roman and did the same. Both held me for a long moment.
“Everyone here will be put to rest,” I whispered. Through the cornerstone in my mind, I felt thousands of blots of death throughout the mansion and grounds. The task of releasing all the spirits trapped here was an enormous one.
But we were already well on our way. Roman and Locke supported me as we turned towards the door where Shane had gone before us. I looked up at the legs of the Vita Machina towering overhead, felt the terminal overhead where the leylines intersected with the machine.
Albrecht’s headless body laid beneath it. I tugged on the wards, and the terminal shattered. The legs groaned as they began to collapse, the massive lengths of steel plunging downwards.
A bright red flash moved through the room as Annabelle threw herself over Albrecht’s corpse. I didn’t have time to shout for her before the Cage collapsed entirely, burying both of them under it.
I felt the remnants of their deaths through the wards, dark and violent splotches in my mind.
Roman’s lip curled back in a grimace; Locke just shook his head. We continued on in silence.
Now that we were fully entwined, the mansion’s wards and I dismantled each curse, every cantrip, destroyed the sigils of guardians, and released spirits as we passed. It wasn’t perfect, but no one would die descending to the cornerstone again.
Ivy’s dead, glazed eyes watch us pass. Her remains were tangled with a warped guardian. I closed my eyes and concentrated, and the mansion absorbed her corpse into the floor. I asked it to leave her near the remains of the conservatory, and from there I would send her body back to Springbloom to do with as they pleased. I didn’t want her buried here.
By the time we caught up to Shane and Dominic, the lingering heat on my skin had cooled. I ran my fingers through Shane’s fur, kissed the cream star of fur on his forehead, and walked alongside Dominic as we made our way back to the surface, my hand resting on his shoulder. The faint, thready pulse of his heartbeat under my palm was reassuring.
With each level we ascended the weight of responsibility grew heavier on my shoulders. Each step reminded me that our journey hadn’t ended; it had just begun.
Locke stopped when we passed his abandoned chains. “The sun,” he said, and I stopped, rising on my toes to kiss his cheek.
“No. You’re not living in the basement anymore. You’re one of us, and you belong with us.”
The wards responded to my touch when I closed my eyes and concentrated, changing the mansion to suit a vampire.
When we stepped through the black door, the only light in the halls was the old-fashioned bronze lamps. Every window in the corridor had vanished, replaced with solid walls.
Demonseed came yowling down the hall, launching himself at Roman’s leg and climbing until he was perched on his shoulder. He even deigned to purr frantically when Roman scratched his ears.
We needed an infirmary and a healer, neither of which Cimmerian was equipped with. I opened the door on the first classroom, replaced the windows with solid walls, and asked the wards to move one of the beds in here.
We moved Dominic as gently as possible, but his eyes flickered open, his pupils wide. The hazel was brilliant against his bloodless skin. “Lucrezia.” His lips moved, but hardly a sound came out.
“Shh, don’t say anything. I love you and I’m going to get help, okay?” I cradled his head, lowered him to the mattress and brushed a faint kiss over his lips. I was afraid to press any harder. He was strained to the absolute limit.
I left Locke with him and took the twins, my heart galloping in my chest as I pushed out the front doors into the sun. The grounds were a sea of churned earth and burned brambles. I picked my way through them, pricking my bare feet on the odd stray thorn, and found the white stone circle set in the ground. Black roses wilted on its brown-stained surface.
“Stay back,” I said, stepping onto the waystone.
“It could take years to clear it,” Roman said, cradling Demonseed against his neck. “We might have to consider turning him, Blondie-”
“It can’t take years,” I said, tears prickling the back of my eyes. Dominic’s life depended on this. “This will work. I know who I’m looking for.”
I crouched and splayed my hands across the warm stone. Wildfire gushed from my palms, eating through a hundred layers of blood. The wards pulsed with sadness when it reached the final layer, a wash of Josephine’s blood. Her spirit, now part of the wards, felt itself and reached out to brush the remains away.
Finally, the waystone shone a clear bright white again, the runes sparkling faintly. I gathered the wards in my mind and pushed them down, reaching inside the stone.
It felt like falling into a web with bright points of light in the distance: other covensteads, their consciousnesses reaching out to feel me in return. I sorted through them, finding the one that felt most familiar, its essence once embedded in a runestone.
I sent a call through that web, a desperate plea to Whitefawn’s sparkling beacon, asking for aid for someone gravely injured.
It responded to Cimmerian’s call, tentative at first, and then reaching out with increasing sense of curiosity and amazement. They knew we were here. Now all I could was wait.
I broke the connection, gasping for breath, amazed by the sheer number of other covens out there. Many of them had turned towards Cimmerian as I reached through the web, the weight of their regard pushing against me.
Roman gripped my arm as I stumbled from the waystone, and a shout echoed from the forest.
Daphne and the Cinder brothers stumbled from the trees, their eyes wide as they took us in. I hadn’t given much thought to our state, caked in ashes, blood, and grime, but now I realized that most of the wedding dress had flaked away, and the twins looked like they’d crawled through a battlefield.
Everyone was fresh off death’s doorstep.
“What the fuck happened, Darke?” Daphne took us in with wide eyes, flinging out an arm to stop Leon from coming any closer. “The mansion went batshit and the ground was shaking…”
The waystone chose that moment to light up like a supernova, flashing bright white and winking out again just as suddenly.
An old man stood in the center of the circle, the air sparkling around him. His beard nearly reached his knees, braided with sticks and feathers, and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose enlarged his green eyes to nearly three times their natural size.
He blinked at us and we stared back at him, and those massive eyeballs roved around the demolished grounds and the groaning mansion. He didn’t move a single step from the waystone, eyeing us warily when his gaze fell back on me and the twins.
“Covenmaster White at your service.” He sounded like a bullfrog, belying h
is narrow stature. “What in Cybele’s name happened here? Are you injured?”
Those massively magnified eyes landed on my swollen, broken hand.
I stared at him blankly for a moment, unsure of how to answer that question, but I couldn’t just shrink back and let everyone else handle my business anymore. Every inch of this place was now a part of me, and everyone here was under my protection. “I’m the covenmistress. Lucrezia… just Lucrezia, for now.”
I wanted to give him a coven name, but I was no longer the Lu Darke who had walked in, and I would never call myself a Gilt again as long as I lived.
“I performed the Rite.” I swallowed hard, fighting back the exhausted tears that desperately wanted to burst out. “Someone’s been badly hurt, and we don’t have a healer…”
Covenmaster White’s mouth twitched as he took me in, a mess from head to toe, and he finally stepped off the stone. “Lead the way, then.”
“We’ll stay and guard the waystone,” Daphne said, standing in front of it with her arms crossed. Now that it was open, I would need to pull the wards back over it to prevent other covens from traveling through at will, but I didn’t want to alarm Covenmaster White by trapping him here.
I led Covenmaster White back to Dominic as quickly as possible, but he shooed us out as soon as he took in the damage, his face paling, and closed the door in our faces. A moment later the door opened again, and Locke was shoved into the hallway as well, looking defiant.
I sighed, collapsed against a wall, and closed my eyes as the twins surrounded me. I was so tired I felt like I could sleep for years. The mansion creaked and groaned, adjusting to its newfound freedom, and I felt every one of those creaks in the marrow of my bones.
All I wanted to do was rest, but there would be no sleep until I knew Dominic would pull through.
The mansion reached out to me, directing my attention to two blots of consciousness, trapped in an upstairs broom closet that had suddenly found itself lacking a door when I took control: Anthony, Gilt’s servitor, and the stitchwitch, who was exhausted from screaming her lungs out. Professor Gray was unconscious in a hallway, her wrists bound with magical shackles.