by E. E. Holmes
But then, another thought burst to life in my head. I raised my head from my shaking hands and looked Simone in the eyes.
“You said ‘if.’”
She frowned at me. “Pardon?”
“You didn’t say ‘when’ the counter-Casting is performed. You said ‘if.’ Why did you say ‘if?’” I repeated.
Simone smiled at me, a sad, pitying sort of smile. “Oh, Jessica. I really ought not to be surprised. After all, you were not raised in the Durupinen world. And despite your time among us, I fear you do not really understand it at all, do you?”
“I… guess I don’t,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to enlighten me, High Priestess.”
“Look around you, Jessica,” Simone sighed, gazing around enraptured at her marble halls, at her vault of treasures. “Look at all we, the great sisterhood of the Durupinen have built—all we have achieved. What do we stand to gain if we give up that which has enabled us to attain such heights? What profit we to face this Reckoning that has come upon us?”
“I… was not under the impression that it was about gain or profit,” I said through tightly clenched teeth. “I was taught that our gift was about serving and protecting those who could not protect themselves.”
“And a noble sentiment it is, too,” Simone said with a patronizing smile. “I do find it endearing, truly, to see the way our Apprentices soak up the rhetoric in those early school days, before the realities of our duties overtake their lives. We have sacrificed, have we not? We have struggled and fought and defended, have we not? We have earned the gift that runs now within our blood. Every drop of it, we have earned, and we would be foolish not to reap our reward for all we have done.”
“And what is our reward?” I asked, my voice rising now. “Leeching the life out of spirits who trust us with their safe passage? Sacrificing them for our own vanity? Is that what you think we’re owed?”
“Oh, my sweeting, you don’t honestly think this to be about mere vanity?” Simone asked, and her tone was truly disgusted even as she stood there, shining like a beacon of almost indescribable beauty. “Vanity is easily satisfied. You neglect to connect beauty and youth to their true source: health. Vitality. Life.”
“Life? You mean, like… what, immortality?” I asked, incredulous.
Simone shrugged, looking unconcerned. “I’m not sure if any person really wants to live forever. But to choose the manner and time of one’s death? To have that level of control—that level of power over the mechanisms of life and death? Who would not desire such a choice in forging one’s own destiny—in shaping her legacy?”
I took an unconscious step back from her, wanting nothing more than to put all the distance I could between myself and the gleam in her eye, which looked a little less like beauty now and a little more like madness. “The only people I’ve ever heard spouting rhetoric like that were not Durupinen at all. They were Necromancers.”
Simone laughed lightly—the sound was like a shard of ice right through my heart. “It is most amusing, isn’t it, that hundreds of years of trying to protect the Gateways from the Necromancers could result in ascribing to their very philosophies? I promise you the irony is not lost on me, Jessica. I would never have believed, even a few short years ago, that a Necromancer and I, of all people, would have anything in common. It was, to be sure, a true surprise to find ourselves very much on the same page, was it not, Mr. Parker?”
“Indeed, it was, High Priestess,” came a familiar voice from behind me—a voice I knew but had hoped never to hear again. I spun on the spot, every defensive impulse heightened.
Charlie Parker walked out of the shadows, a satisfied smile upon his face.
Ş
“Hello, Jessica. I was hoping I might have the chance to see you here,” Charlie said pleasantly.
I felt as though all the air had been sucked from the room, as though the very walls were caving in around me. He couldn’t be here, walking so casually toward me, within the most hallowed walls of the Durupinen world. It just couldn’t be true. Not taking my eyes off him, I threw my next words back over my shoulder at Simone. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“But of course, there is no need to introduce you, is there?” Simone said. “It is my understanding that you two are already acquainted.”
“If by acquainted you mean he drugged me, tied me up, and attempted to torture me, then yes, we’re acquainted,” I snapped. “And you haven’t answered my question. What is a Necromancer doing at Havre de Gardiennes?”
“Simone, you… you haven’t… this man is not a Necromancer, is he?” came Marguerite’s weak bleating from her corner, where she still knelt upon the ground, watching the scene play out in front of her like a woman unable to wake from a nightmare.
“Silence, Marguerite. Sister knows best, mon petit,” Simone said with a tight smile, and Marguerite, rather than displaying resentment at being told, in essence, to shut the hell up, looked nothing short of blissful to be directly addressed by her sister in this manner. She bowed her head again and resumed an expression of sycophantic attentiveness.
Simone turned back to me and answered at last. “A few months ago, when the coup was discovered at Skye Príosún, I demanded the masterminds behind the plot be brought before me. I wished to mete out justice personally.”
“But Charlie wasn’t captured in the coup at Skye,” I cut in. “He escaped.”
“And so imagine my surprise when he arrived at the gates of Havre de Gardiennes to turn himself in,” Simone said with an amused smile. “I thought him a fool, and was determined to make an example of him, but when Mr. Parker and I came face to face, he made a proposal that intrigued me. Rather than beg for his life or his freedom, as his pathetic co-conspirators chose to do, he offered me information. Information, he said, that I needed to possess if I hoped to maintain my position and my power. ‘What threat are you to me anymore, Necromancer?’ I asked him. ‘Your life is in my hands.’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘But the Necromancers are no longer the threat you should fear. It is from within your own ranks that the serpent has sprung.’”
I was still staring at Charlie, unable to look away, every muscle tensed, every sense working overtime, trying frantically to work out how I would get out of this room alive.
“I had her ear, then, and she heard me out,” Charlie said. “I told her how I learned in Skye Príosún of a spirit called the Tansy Hag, a spirit who held the key to the origins of the Durupinen’s power. It was a core belief of the Necromancers that the Durupinen’s control of the Gateways was a coup—an abomination in the natural order of things. And here in the depths of their mightiest fortress, it was said, was a spirit who could prove it. By the time I had arrived, the mission to subvert the Caomhnóir and turn them was already well underway. It was almost too easy to find a Caomhnóir who would be willing to bring me to the remotest of the spirit cellblocks to visit the creature, and to begin to probe her for what she knew. She remained tight-lipped at first, but the symbol she had scrawled all over her cell gave us our first hints about who she might be and what she may know, if only we could convince her to speak. And then, deep in the Catacomb archives, we found some of our own ancient documents, stolen many centuries ago when our Brotherhood was first forced underground. There, we discovered our own accounts of how the Durupinen had stolen their gift.”
He smiled a gloating smile at me, as though I had personally left the documents for him to find. My hand twitched with the urge to reach out and slap him as hard as I could. I clench my fist to fight against the impulse.
“It was my intention to bargain with the Tansy Hag, to trade her freedom for what she knew, but, most inconveniently, our operation at Skye was uncovered and we were forced to flee before such a bargain could be struck. I do believe you were rather instrumental in that little—ah—hiccup in my plans, weren’t you, Jessica?”
“I do what I can,” I said with a brave attempt at airiness. “I’ve got to make y
ou work for it, after all, Charlie.”
Charlie laughed, a hearty sound that nevertheless lacked any hint of warmth or real humor. “After that, we had to do some damage control. Some of us had gotten ahead of ourselves, overplayed our hands and said too much. One of my men, overcome with excitement over our impending victory, had foolishly bragged to the Durupinen traitor about what we knew. We made it a priority to have her dispatched before she was able to reveal too much. She turned out to be much more of a liability than we had anticipated, and several attempts to deal with her were unsuccessful.” He shrugged and gave a theatrical sigh. “Ah, well. Better late than never I suppose.”
“Her name is Lucida Worthington,” I hissed through tightly gritted teeth.
“Was Lucida Worthington,” he corrected, a savage note of pleasure in his voice. “Once we were able, through both prisoners and guards, to reinfiltrate the prison, we learned that we were not the only ones on the quest for information from the Tansy Hag. Miss Ballard yet again had insinuated herself most inconveniently into our plans, forcing us to take action much sooner than anticipated. We garnered what information we could from the Tansy Hag in exchange for her freedom. We were now racing, it seemed, toward the same goal, Jessica: to reach the gates of Havre de Gardiennes with the Keys of the Reckoning in hand.”
I turned back to look at Simone, the keys still swinging in her hand. What would happen, I wondered, if I simply lunged at her and snatched them back. But then what? What did I do with them? What did they open? I’d be dead at the hand of a Caomhnóir before I could find my way out of Simone’s labyrinth of chambers.
“Not knowing how far you’d gotten, the Necromancers spread out,” Charlie went on. “We set out for the Traveler camp, the Dering Woods, and Havre de Gardiennes all at once. Only here did we manage to beat you to the punch.”
I longed to ask, but could not bear to ask, what had happened at the Traveler camp and the Dering Woods. Whatever havoc the Necromancers had wreaked there, whatever violence they had rained down upon those we had left behind, it was my fault. All my fault.
“And you listened to this man?” I asked Simone venomously. “This man, who has tortured your fellow Durupinen and fought to undermine everything we stand for? What could he possibly have to say that would merit your attention?”
Charlie clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Jessica, I think you might be a bit prejudiced to think ill of me,” he said, smirking at the shock and anger that broke over my features. “We’ve had our disagreements, certainly. I, for one, will never forget the momento of our last encounter.” He reached up and lightly brushed the top of his left ear with his fingertips, where I had torn away the top edge with my teeth. The memory made me cringe. “But the High Priestess has proven to be far more reasonable. She does not allow her passion to rule, but takes a far more practical approach.”
“Practical?” I said, laughing hollowly. “There’s a word for selfish I’ve never heard before.”
“Don’t be a fool, child,” Simone snapped, and for the first time, her calm and ethereal voice was tinged with anger. The effect was unsettling. “What profit we to throw away everything we have built? One does not allow a great empire to simply slip through her fingers like sand through an hourglass.”
“Don’t use metaphors you don’t understand!” I cried, feeling hatred for the woman rise like a tide within me. “Time means nothing to you. You’ve stopped time out of fear and vanity, and would watch the world burn if only the flames would warm your hands. How dare you speak of profit and empires when your very own sisters’ lives hang in the balance at Geatgrimas all over the world and the spirits you are supposed to protect could be trapped forever.”
“The Sentinels make a worthy sacrifice,” Simone said callously. “They have willingly devoted their lives to the protection of the Gateways. Their role now is the ultimate fulfillment of that destiny—an honor and a privilege. They will be revered from this day onward.”
“They don’t want to be revered, they want to be freed!” I shouted.
“And they shall be, someday,” Simone said. “The Necromancers have spent centuries studying the mechanism of the Gateways. They have experimented and pushed the boundaries of what we can be capable of in our manipulation of the spirit world. We were foolish to demonize their work. With their help, we will be able to use the Gateways in ways we never dreamed possible.”
“You’re mad,” I whispered. “What have you done? What have you promised them?”
But it was Charlie who answered. “A partnership of sorts. We will lend our men and the full force of our knowledge to the High Priestess as she exerts her authority over the world’s Gateways. We will help to quell resistance wherever she meets it. We will bring the full network of Geatgrimas under her control, so that she has full reign over their powers and possibilities.”
“And why would you make such an offer to her?” I asked. “What do you get in return?”
“What we have always desired,” Charlie replied, a mad glint in his eyes. “Equal access to the mysteries of the spirit world. A Gateway of our very own and the freedom to control it.”
I could hear myself gasping, but the air did not seem to be reaching my lungs. “You can’t do this,” I wanted to shout, but the words came out in a breathless cry. “You’ll never get away with it. The rest of the Durupinen will never agree to this. They’ve devoted their lives to the spirit world, and they won’t stand by while you destroy it. The Caomhnóir will never—”
“The Caomhnóir at Havre de Gardiennes are the finest skilled fighters in the world,” Simone said with a smug confidence. “They would run themselves through with a sword without hesitation if I commanded it of them.”
“If you doubt where their loyalties lie, I suggest you ask yourself why it was so easy for my men to ambush you at the outpost,” Charlie said brightly. “Ask yourself why the most highly trained soldiers in the world simply walked away from their guard post, leaving it vulnerable to infiltration and attack.”
I felt my heart sinking. Finn and Catriona had both been suspicious about the whereabouts of the guards. They had known immediately that something was very wrong.
“The Northern Clans will fight,” I said fiercely. “And the other clans, too.”
“If they are foolish enough to do so, they shall be decimated,” Simone said in an almost bored voice. “The Necromancers have already deeply damaged the Caomhnóir fighting ranks with their infiltration at Skye Príosún. The other High Priestesses will see reason, I have no doubt, when they see themselves outflanked. After all, many of them have grown accustomed to the power and privilege they enjoy.”
“We saw firsthand at Fairhaven what that kind of power and privilege could do,” I said, fighting my mounting fear and digging deep for a confidence I did not feel. “Finvarra and the others, they used to be like you—but when they saw what it had done, the damage they had caused, they recommitted themselves to their true duty. They will never go back.”
“And where is my dear friend Finvarra?” Simone asked, in tones of mock curiosity. “Oh, that’s right. She’s dead, so full of foolish nobility that she lacked the courage even to save herself from the ravages of human frailty. So weak I cannot even pity her.”
“It is not a weakness to face death,” I hissed. “You are the coward. You and every Necromancer who follows you.”
“Give it a bit of time, Jess Ballard, and we’ll see just how much courage you have,” Charlie said, stepping forward so that he was standing offensively close to me. Every defensive impulse I had was screaming at me, but I did not move. “I will take immense pleasure in walking through the gates of Fairhaven and taking that Geatgrima for my own. I can only imagine Neal Caddigan would be proud of his protégé, wouldn’t you? Just a few short years of following in his footsteps and I’ve achieved what he could only dream of.”
“I’m not sure if people can feel pride while they’re busy burning in hell,” I replied smoothly. “You’ll have to ask h
im when you get there.”
Charlie smiled. “You really are most amusing, aren’t you?”
“And you’re not worth the effort it would cost me to spit in your face.”
A sudden ringing of a bell behind me made me jump away and I turned to see Simone replacing a small gold handbell on a table. “I think it’s time you made your acquaintance with our dungeons, Miss Ballard. I’ve grown weary of your recalcitrance, and anyway, you’ve outlived your usefulness, though I thank you for bringing me the keys.” She dangled the keys toward my face for a moment before turning and placing all three of them in the safe behind her and snapping the door shut.
A moment later, the door through which we had entered swung open and two Caomhnóir entered, snapping to attention and looking to Simone for instruction.
“Escort Miss Ballard to the cell we have reserved for her in the dungeons,” Simone said with an ingratiating smile, as though she were instructing them to invite me to high tea. “I take it you’ve already seen to it that her companions are comfortably settled into similar quarters?”
“Yes, High Priestess,” the taller of the Caomhnóir replied. They both marched forward at once, and before I could even cry out, then had seized me by the arms and began dragging me toward the door.
“This is where I bid you adieu, Miss Ballard. And thank you again, for your message. Agnes Isherwood chose her messenger well. You’ve been most helpful.” And she patted a hand against the door of the safe.
I cursed and struggled fruitlessly against the powerful grip of the Caomhnóir as they pulled me effortlessly over the threshold. From the far corner, I could hear Marguerite’s confused whimpering, like a trapped and frightened animal. The very last thing I saw before the door slammed shut was the satisfied smile breaking like a sunrise over Charlie Parker’s face, and the triumphant gleam behind his wire-rimmed spectacles.