Cinderella Necromancer
Page 24
He didn’t. “Who told you to bring it here? Why isn’t a page presenting it? Or bringing it in with the other—”
“I’m to put it in his dressing room, sir, before His Highness arrives at the chapel. Simply to ensure it’s there if he needs it.”
The gentleman shook his head. “No, no, no. That’s not right. I can’t let you in this way, there are guests here and they can’t see you. Come away from the door. Better yet, I’ll take it.”
He lunged for the coat, but I had the advantage of remaining calm, while the poor man had clearly been flustered by such a sudden and unexpected event.
“And leave your post? I very much doubt that’s a wise idea.”
“You can’t go in.”
“Then I’ll be sure to tell His Highness’s page exactly who it is that denied the King’s son a bit of comfort on this, a most tiring and stressful day—”
“All right!” The man threw his hands in the air, looked over his shoulder, and pointed to the side of the chapel. “Go around to the back and find the far door. Knock three times and tell them what you told me. His Highness and His Majesty are due to arrive at any moment, so you’ll need to hurry.”
“Thank you, kind sir.” I curtsied and sped to the rear entrance, for I couldn’t allow the King or William to see me yet. Should William recognize me as Ella before Victoria made her appearance, my efforts might be foiled. The entire task would have been made much easier, I thought, if I had use of Curson to hide myself and my doings. But of course I couldn’t call him. I had no knowledge of what my actions the previous night had done to his spirit form in this world … and yet the thought and memory of his presence made the very tips of my fingers tingle and my stomach—
“Mistress … ”
I could have sworn the earth shook. That voice, like the voice on the night I’d opened The Book of Conjuring for the very first time.
I couldn’t have heard it, but oh, my body thought otherwise.
“Command me, mistress … ”
“No!” I shouted despite myself and spun around, heart pounding, only to find a wisp of black smoke that dispersed on the evening’s breeze.
I had dreamed it. Imagined the voice and the feeling, for there was no way that could be possible. No book, no key. Call one forth by will?
That should not be possible.
But if the spirits should be bound to me, somehow … oh, how my soul ached at the thought, for even an instant of death touching life could mean Edward’s last breath.
Do not think about spirits.
I knocked on the door, though I must say, it is a rather difficult thing not to think about something once you know that you are not supposed to, under any circumstances, think about it.
The doorman who answered allowed me inside the chapel without delay, as I suspect he worried that the royal family might arrive at any moment and find tasks left undone. I slipped inside and made haste toward the room identified as William’s, though upon arrival, I checked to ensure no one watched and instead continued along the hall toward the sanctuary.
The sanctuary was filled with guests buzzing with quiet fervor amongst themselves concerning this thing or that. Like bees to honey are the privileged to the affairs of the rich and powerful—regardless, it seems, of the possible threat to one’s person. Do they perhaps hope that some measure of that power will be given unto themselves? I wouldn’t have wished to be one of them, even if I were not standing in the shadows with a dagger up my sleeve. My preference swung to a book, a warm fire, a chair, and a friend to share them with.
Despite their presence in a holy place, even the gilded crosses, pews, draperies, and altar were not enough to reveal an out-of-place young woman with a bundle in her arms. I slunk among the crowd, invisible to distracted guests who bickered over seating arrangements and Lord knows what else. As each person finally settled into place, I slipped into the final pew at the edge of the row, nearest a corner shadowed by the balcony above.
Here I waited, biding my time until the bride and groom’s arrival.
Soon enough, the whole of the assembly rose to its feet with gasps and murmurs and reverent groans.
The King, the Queen, and their son walked the aisle of the chapel. I strained to catch a glimpse of William’s face, but too many bodies stood firmly in my way. They reached the front of the sanctuary and took their places, with the King’s chosen priest standing in center to conduct the wedding mass.
And as William turned to face the crowd, garbed in white and gold with a purple robe of the kingly line, I saw it. I had expected to see it, and yet, I felt the surprise of truth all the same. Yes, I loved him, in the way a woman begins to love a man—slowly, hesitantly, and piece by piece. And he? Despite his own will, he believed he loved another.
We remained standing though my legs grew weak, for she had arrived.
The bride. My stepsister.
She entered escorted by Celia, who stared with eyes forward, focused on the men who stood at the sacred altar. Her arm, she kept rigid and stiff, with Victoria’s hand touching only her forearm with a gloved hand.
Victoria’s gown, however, stole the attentions of everyone in the room. Ivory and blue with pearl accent, layers upon layers of the most luxurious material, reaching to the floor and split down the center to reveal a rich, deep blue velvet brocade underneath. Her bosom spilled forth from the top of the corseted bodice, and doubtless every lady with a man on her arm gave a swift elbow to the middle if she saw his attention stray. I noticed at least several gentlemen clutching their sides as the bride passed.
I could never have imagined such an elaborate gown for someone whose betrothal had occurred only the night before, and I suspected Celia had planned this for some time without sharing the knowledge. I would wager my left arm that the dress had been complete for days now, if not longer.
While not typical of brides I have seen, Victoria had also chosen to wear a veil—a filmy, flimsy garment that might as well have been sliced from one of Celia’s curtains. I wondered why she’d chosen it, but I also wondered whether perhaps her lapses in self-control as of late had caused some aspect of her true self to remain visible beyond whatever illusion she wore each day.
Perhaps the veil was for us.
And although the attentions of those in the chapel remained riveted on the bride and her attending parent, I didn’t take my eyes off the doorway.
I waited for Father, wishing and desperate to see him alive and well, but praying that he might stay away for only a time longer, that I might take our family’s fall and leave himself and Edward free and safe and well.
But he did not walk through the door, and the attending priest began the mass the moment Victoria took her place.
The priest greeted the assembly and we responded, and our voices rose as one to sing Gloria to the Almighty. I noticed that Celia did not sing. Nor Victoria, beneath the veil.
When we finished, the priest bade us bow our heads and kneel in prayer before—
“No,” said Celia.
No? My gaze flew to the altar, where Celia stood with hand upon the priest’s neck. I wish I could say I looked at the scene in disbelief, but I did not. Her actions were far from surprising, despite the fact that she had interrupted her own daughter’s wedding.
“No,” she repeated, her voice echoing throughout the room, rising above the growing murmur. “There will be no mass today. No catering to the Divine. You think He cares for us? Think again. The vows, priest.”
I looked to the King, whose features I expected to contort with rage at the audacity of this woman, but he too appeared pacified as Celia—without reservation—crossed the stage and thrust out her hand to place her fingers across the clasped hands of His Majesty.
“The vows.” She looked to the priest, and although the guards bent to strike her down, the King raised his right arm to cease their advance.
“The vows,” he repeated in a voice so barren, so devoid of
life, that I knew with certainty he, too, had fallen to her touch.
No longer was only William’s future at stake, but something else became abundantly certain: Celia, in devising this marriage, had greater plans. Plans which involved subduing the King to her will.
My time had come.
I slipped from the pew into shadow and crept toward the center aisle. With guards looking outward for intruders—and, I assumed, my father—and guests looking forward at the caricature of a ceremony at front, none looked to the center aisle. No one noticed a girl in a rose-colored dress who stalked toward the Prince and his bride.
Those who did see me, once I passed, did nothing. They gasped and stared but they didn’t move. Would no one think to act? Would none dare interfere? Perhaps they feared causing a disruption worse than that already under way. Or to bring attention to themselves, especially after the events of nights prior. No matter, it made my task easier.
Yes, I was afraid—I planned to interrupt one of the most sacred rites of the church and one involving royalty, no less—but with my soul already damned, what else did I have to fear but the loss of my own life? So long as the ones I loved remained safe, I could forfeit all else.
One more step forward, I told myself. This one for Miss Mary. The next, for the butler and stable boy. Our house staff. The next for Gretel, and the next for Liesl and her brother, who I hoped were still strong and whole.
And then I found myself drawn alongside Charlotte, who quaked in her seat. A curious thing, for although I could so clearly recall her unearthly appearance two nights ago, this time, she appeared all the more like a jealous sister.
Jealous enough, I wondered, to help me?
“Charlotte,” I whispered. “Don’t turn. Stay where you are.”
Of course she glanced back. With a sigh, I returned her stare.
“Why are you here? How did you get in?” She glared with a deep ferocity.
“I’m here to stop the wedding.” I offered a pleasant smile in return. “Would you like to help?”
Without another word, she stood, causing murmurs and ripples among those seated. “It should be me up there.”
“Of course,” I agreed, trying to keep my voice low and hoping she would follow suit. Would she truly assist so readily? We were not friends. Her trust should not come so easily.
“Mother promised.” She glanced over her shoulder at Victoria, and back to me. “She promised me first, not that sorry excuse.”
I realized my mistake.
Charlotte wouldn’t help me.
She simply needed an excuse to help herself.
I moved to lay a hand on her arm, to discourage what would surely turn my plan on its head, but she spun around faster than I could anticipate. Her eyes had become black, empty pools. Her fingernails, growing, lengthening, sharpening. Her mouth, full of teeth like knives, gaping—
And she shoved me backward that I might release her arm.
“I won’t go back,” she hissed from behind a mouthful of daggers. “He’s mine. She promisssssed.”
Then, with shocking speed, she ran—ran!—down the aisle, toward Victoria, toward William, and I knew beyond all doubt that if she couldn’t have him, no one would.
I didn’t think. I merely acted. Who can blame me?
For as I leapt to my feet and cried out for her to stop, I pulled the blade from my sleeve and hurled it with all my strength—strength which I’d gained from cleaning the stables, the chamber pots, sweeping the hearth—toward my stepsisters.
I no longer cared which one it struck, only that it might stop one or both of them from hurting anyone else.
In that instant, several things happened at once.
As she reached the altar, Charlotte leapt from the ground and released an otherworldly shriek that pierced my ears, her arms outstretched toward her sister. As she came into Victoria’s view, my veil-covered sister screeched in return and, in the space of half a breath, both stepsisters exploded into mist and reformed, but no longer as the girls I knew.
Screams rose from the crowd as two black, sinuous creatures, taller than two horses stacked high—with talons longer than an eagle’s span and leathery wings protruding from torn flesh on their backs—appeared where my sisters had stood. They beat their wings and flew toward each other, even as my dagger continued its path through the air toward their now-changed forms.
The chapel erupted into madness.
I screamed William’s name as I watched these things unfold and when I saw, with growing horror, that he remained under Celia’s spell and could not act, I screamed louder and with every ounce of force in my body, and could not help but think of the horde of demons that had descended upon the ballroom the night before.
And then from all sides of my outstretched hand, from which the dagger flew, came the shrieks of a horde of tortured souls pulled forth from their resting places to do my will.
The ground shook and I dug my heels into the floor, even as from the air above us came the crash of a thousand panes of glass shattering at once. I watched in dismay and terror as a crack appeared in the floor of the chapel, pulling my gaze away from my sisters.
It grew and grew and grew, opening wider than the aisle, becoming a great, gaping maw that stretched down into the earth.
And as my sisters collided, the sound of screaming filled the air as hundreds—no, thousands, or tens of thousands—of demons surged forth from the pit and filled the chapel with their deafening cries.
A great heat rose from below and the ground shook once more. I stumbled and fell forward, a wail on my lips, seeing my own death in the fires of the Abyss. Yet as I closed my eyes to the world, my feet landed on solid ground. I opened them to the realization that I stood whole on the other side of the pit.
Oliroomim, the spirit child, stood before me, sadness in his eyes—a true sadness, of the kind I had never seen. “You called, mistress.”
I didn’t understand. How could it be possible?
“No,” I said, “I didn’t. I don’t have The Book. I didn’t draw a circle, or speak your name aloud—”
He glowered at me, and I shuddered at the sight of it. “You no longer need it, mistress. No one does, in the end. Behold your power.”
And I did.
Guests streamed out of the chapel, scrambling, trampling, weeping, and clinging to each other in escape.
Charlotte and Victoria—or whatever they were—ripped and tore at each other’s throats, my dagger’s path long forgotten. The scent of rotted flesh and dung filled the air as legions of the dead dove and struck and ripped chunks of blackened tissue from my sisters’ bodies.
William, and the King, had not moved.
In the midst of it all stood Celia.
Staring.
At me.
Her face contorted with rage as our gazes met for the first time.
“You,” she said, voice rising to a shriek. “You!”
I held my ground and didn’t move. She stepped closer.
“It’s you?” Disbelief clouded her exquisite features. “You have done this?”
I admit, I felt a surge of power. Of satisfaction and yes, of pleasure.
“Indeed,” I said, folding both arms across my chest.
With a primal scream, Celia lunged at her daughters, pulled them from one another by brute force, and hurled them toward me. “There is your undoing, my daughters,” she yelled above the din. “Kill her and you’ll both escape the pit. There is reward enough for the both of you!”
They landed on the ground, mere steps away from me in the aisle. I felt their hot breath as they moved before me and the scorch of the fiery pit behind.
I’d been trapped.
Oliroomim stood beside me still.
“What do I do?” I asked.
Calm as a summer’s day, he replied, “Simply command.”
“But I cannot.” Edward. “My brother. He may die. He may be dead already.”
> The spirit shrugged as if he had no care in this. And how could he? The dead do not care for the living. “Your choice, mistress. Your brother’s life for the lives of many. These ones will not go easily, now that they’ve tasted this world again.”
I swallowed hard, the heat of flames burning my ankles, the stink of my sisters’ breath choking mine. “Why can’t I command them?”
Oliroomim sighed, exasperated by my ignorance. “They’re not yours to command, mistress. They’re hers.”
He pointed to Celia, whose breathing had turned labored where she stood. But I couldn’t focus on her, no—I had to face my sisters first.
“Kill her, you cowards,” she screamed. “She stands in your way.”
“Pretty princesssss,” hissed Charlotte, using the title Victoria gave me on the day of the first ball. “Look how she shiverssss.”
“Delicious,” purred Victoria. A thick glob of slime trailed from her open jaw as she slunk toward me. “But so thin and bony … not like the little waif, so plump and juicy … ”
I shuddered at the thought, and although the unbidden demons swooped around us and plummeted at my stepsisters, it did not slow their advance. “You won’t have him.”
“Tender,” Victoria continued, “supple. And so easily broken.”
“Together, sister?” Charlotte nudged Victoria with her great, scabbed head. “This one first?”
“Together, indeed.”
And as one, my sisters lunged toward me, claws outstretched, jaws reaching toward my neck to surely rend me in two.
They might take my life today, but I wouldn’t go without a fight. They could tear my body limb from limb, but they could not have Edward.
Their massive forms descended toward me and with a final cry, I thrust my hands forward and thought of Edward, my father, my mother, of William, of everyone I had ever loved and lost, of all those who had perished for no reason beyond the selfishness of these creatures before me.
I thought of meeting William in the graveyard. I thought of holding Edward in my arms as we read his favourite stories. I thought of Father, our jests, our days of happiness before Mother’s death, and the strength we found in each other after. And I thought of Gretel, who did not judge but whose only fault had been to help me before herself.