Gift of the Darkness (The Gateway Trackers Book 7)

by E. E. Holmes

  “Milo! What are you doing here? Jess, how did you…?” He couldn’t even finish his question. He was now staring at Marguerite in absolute bewilderment.

  “We can answer all these questions when we get somewhere secure,” I said. “Marguerite, is there such a place? Can you bring us somewhere in the castle where we won’t be discovered?”

  Marguerite bit her lip and considered this a moment, then nodded. “My chambers. No one will look for you there,” she said. “But we must move quickly.”

  “What about Hannah and Celeste?” Milo piped up. “We can’t leave them locked up either.”

  Marguerite whimpered, as though she was already regretting her decision to help us. “Very well. You will go to my chambers and wait for me there. I will go release the others and bring them along with me as quickly as I can.”

  “But how will we find your chambers?” I asked. “None of us have ever…”

  Marguerite raised a hand to cut me off. “I shall enlist one of the spirits to guide you there.”

  “The spirits?” Milo asked, looking doubtful. “Are you sure…”

  But Marguerite was already hurrying toward the nearest staircase and beginning to climb it. She turned and waved frantically to us. “Come along! Rapidement! We could be discovered at any moment, don’t you see, and then all will be lost!”

  We all looked at each other before turning and following. Marguerite led us down what could only be described as a backroad route through the castle. None of the halls we traversed were like the wide marble ones we had walked through while on the way to my audience with Simone. They were narrow and dark, with obscure entrances through tapestries and behind portraits that swung outward on hinges like doors. Marguerite was like a little mouse who had burrowed into the walls and created her own secret labyrinth she could traverse safely without ever encountering a soul. Well, at least, not a living soul.

  After the third portrait we stepped through, we encountered the spirit of a young girl dressed in a maid’s uniform. She couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve when she passed. Her cheeks and eyes were hollow and her arms thin as twigs. She was struggling under the weight of a spectral bucket.

  “You, there, come here,” Marguerite said, in an imperious tone that did not at all suit her. It was as though she were doing a poor impersonation of her sister. It worked, however; the spirit halted at once, staggered back toward her, eyes empty, expression vacant.

  “Take these visitors to my quarters and do not tell anyone you have seen them,” Marguerite said. “Take the servants’ routes. Avoid all Guardians.”

  The girl did not reply or indeed acknowledge that she had even heard Marguerite’s words, but turned at once and floated in the direction we had been traveling when we had come upon her.

  Marguerite looked at us all in surprise that we were still standing there. “Go on, now! What are you waiting for?”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Milo cried, blurting out what the rest of us were thinking. “Why are all the spirits here so… empty?”

  Marguerite looked genuinely puzzled. “They serve the High Priestess,” she said.

  “Yeah, Fairhaven has spirits that serve the High Priestess, too,” he said. “But they aren’t like… like this.” He gestured to the girl, who had paused in her drifting down the hallway and was now completely stationary, waiting for us to follow. “Are… are they Blind Summoners, or something?”

  Marguerite stared blankly at him. “Blind what?”

  “Never mind,” Milo muttered.

  “I’m sorry, but you really must go. Make haste, please. I will endeavor to bring the others to you, if I can,” Marguerite said, shooing us along until we were all trotting behind the spirit of the maid.

  The girl, who surely had been familiar with the discreet servants’ paths in her lifetime, continued through the obscure passages and narrow staircases, until, at last, we emerged at the top of a rickety wooden staircase. We climbed it in near-total darkness, then pulled aside a tapestry and found ourselves staring at a stretch of wall that contained two busts of beautiful women set in niches and, between them, a door.

  The girl did not speak to us, or even acknowledge that she remembered we were there, but she came to a stop with her nose about an inch from the door and froze, as though waiting for further instruction.

  “I… I think that must be Marguerite’s room,” I said when no one else spoke. “Let’s just get in there quickly before we’re discovered.”

  But Finn, clearly taking nothing for granted, would not simply allow us to enter the room. Signaling for us all to stand back, he approached the door and listened intently with his ear against the wood. Then he eased the door open and slipped past the ghost of the maid and went inside. We all waited, breath held, until he poked his head back out and gave us the all-clear that it was safe to enter.

  The chamber was not the same as the cold, peerless marble rooms down below. This room was warm and comfortable, with rich silks adorning the windows and a massive four-poster bed in the corner. Shelf upon shelf of books filled the walls, and there was a gold-framed oil painting hanging in pride of place over the fireplace: two little blonde-plaited girls in matching blue satin dresses, with white gloves and white buttoned boots, holding hands with each other and gazing imperiously out over the room. One held a book in her free hand; the other, a parasol.

  The door safely shut behind us, Finn sank into the nearest chair, ran his shaking hands through his hair and said to me, “Okay, now can you please tell us what the bloody hell is going on?”

  Everyone listened raptly as I explained, in as much detail as I could recall, my meeting with Simone, the unexpected arrival of Charlie Parker, my reunion with Milo, and Marguerite’s shocking decision to free us all. Aside from a violent torrent of expletives from Catriona when I explained about Charlie, no one spoke a word or interrupted me until I had talked myself out. A deeply uneasy silence followed the conclusion of my story. Ileana was the first to break it.

  “If the High Priestess of the International High Council has fallen to the whims of the Necromancers, there is no hope for the rest of us to get out of this alive,” she said. “This castle is the most secure of fortresses. There is no chance that we will escape the place. We are simply delaying the inevitable by waiting here.”

  “Well, sure, with that attitude,” Milo muttered under his breath, so that only I could hear him. I couldn’t help but trade a tiny smirk with him.

  “I wouldn’t say that just yet,” Finn said. “After all, Marguerite has gotten us this far, hasn’t she, and that should have been impossible. I’d written us off the moment we’d been locked up downstairs, if I’m honest, but here we are, free—at least for the moment. It is clear that Marguerite knows as much about this castle as anyone alive. We ought to take any help she can give us.”

  “She’s also half-mad with adoration for her sister,” Catriona said. “So, we must be careful about how we discuss Simone in her presence. If she thinks we’ve turned on Simone as much as the Necromancers, she’ll be running for sister dearest before we can correct ourselves.”

  I nodded. “Cat has a point. Marguerite really believes her sister to be hoodwinked or under some kind of spell or something. We have to help support that delusion if we want to keep Marguerite on our side. We have to make it sound like we want to help her sister as much as anything else, even if what we really want to do is bitch-slap the Leeched beauty right off her face.”

  “We’ll need to stay clear of the ghosts as well,” Annabelle added. “It doesn’t matter when they’re just wandering around all empty, but once they get the orders to search for us, there will be no reasoning with them.”

  “And there’s no doubt the whole lot of them will be used like an army once it’s discovered we’re gone,” Finn agreed. He made a quick circuit of the room, checking all the doorways and windows. “This room is thoroughly Warded, at any rate, so for the moment, I don’t think we need to worry about spirits finding u
s.”

  “Also, it seems they follow orders from Marguerite, not just Simone,” Catriona said. “But I can’t imagine that anything Marguerite says can override what her sister may demand of them.”

  “Is that spirit she ordered to bring us here still just waiting outside the room?” I asked suddenly. “It would be a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think, a spirit just standing out there staring at the door?”

  Finn ran a hand through his hair again. “Blast it, you’re right. Do you suppose there’s any way to—”

  He was halfway to the door when it burst open and Marguerite, Hannah, and Celeste hurried through it. Marguerite murmured something to the spirit still waiting outside, and we saw the girl vanish on the spot as Marguerite closed and bolted the door behind her. Hannah did not stop, but pelted straight across the room and threw herself at me, nearly knocking me flat.

  “Oh, Jess, thank goodness, thank goodness, I thought I’d never… I thought you…” she couldn’t complete the thought, her words swallowed up in a great heaving sob. I wrapped my arms around her and allowed myself a moment to bask in the completeness of being near her. Breathing in her scent was like the first breath of fresh air after being underwater. Finally, she pulled back and looked at me, placing her hands on my face like she was trying to memorize me with her fingertips. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t dare use the connection. I was afraid that if you knew I was here, you would do something stupid and reckless to get to me.”

  I grinned at her. “Who, me? Making stupid and reckless decisions? You must have me confused with your other twin.”

  She gave a laugh that almost immediately became a sob and buried her face in my neck again. I looked up at Celeste, who had sunk down into a chair and was trying to catch her breath.

  “Celeste, I’m sorry,” I said at once. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Please understand that I was only trying to do what Agnes told me to do.”

  Celeste looked up at me and though her expression was still harried and tense, she nodded. “I won’t pretend that I’m happy about it,” she said, “but I do understand. And, to be frank, I gave you no cause to trust me. It must have seemed that I was very eager to hang on to my power, the way I refused to bring the news of the Sentinel to Havre de Gardiennes.”

  “Well, yeah, kind of,” I said with a sheepish shrug. “I just knew that the more important, the more invested a Durupinen was, the less likely they’d be to believe me or want to help. I couldn’t be sure of anyone’s response. I think Agnes knew that, and I think that’s why they created the keys and kept them so secret.”

  “They were wise to do so,” Celeste said. “Though, it seems they put too much trust in the highest among us. Is it true what Marguerite has told us, about the Necromancers?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking at Marguerite and nodding. “Simone has been… compromised. We don’t know exactly what the Necromancers have said to her or done to her, but she took the keys and locked them away, and has chosen to ignore the warnings about the Reckoning.”

  Finn stepped forward, giving Celeste a meaningful look. “Marguerite loves her sister very much, and she is quite sure that Simone would never do such a thing unless she had been tricked or was under extreme duress. We quite agree, don’t we?”

  Celeste, thank God, was extremely quick on the uptake. She adopted a very solemn expression and nodded sympathetically at Marguerite. “Oh yes, certainly. Whatever the Necromancers have done to Simone, she cannot be held responsible for this terrible turn of events.”

  Marguerite looked at us all with tears in her eyes, nodding gratefully. “Yes, indeed. Her goodness and her wisdom shall not be impugned. She is without compare in her commitment to the spirit world. All she is and all she does is in service to our sacred gift.”

  We all made a show of agreeing with her, some of us more successfully than others—Ileana’s face was stony as she nodded along, and Catriona looked like she would quite like to punch something, but these details slipped past Marguerite unnoticed.

  “So, what do we do now?” Hannah asked, when Marguerite seemed sufficiently placated. “We can’t just stay here. It’s only a matter of time before it’s discovered that we’ve escaped—they may already know.”

  “They will not look for you here,” Marguerite said, sounding surer of this fact than anything I had heard her say since we’d arrived.

  Finn looked skeptical. “Surely they will look for us everywhere,” he said gently.

  “Not in my chambers,” Marguerite said. “They will not conceive of my helping you.”

  “Why not?” Catriona asked.

  “Because I have never disobeyed my sister,” Marguerite said, her mouth twitching with emotion. “She believes me incapable of it. They will not look for you here.”

  “But even if that’s true, we can’t stay here indefinitely,” I said. “We’ll have to leave at some point. And even if, by some miracle, we manage to get out of here, I still don’t know what to do with these.” I held up the three keys now hanging around my neck. “We can’t restore the Gateways or save the Sentinels unless we figure it out, and Simone is the only one who knows.”

  “No, she’s not. I know what you must do,” Marguerite said, almost casually.

  My mouth fell open. “You… you do?”

  “Oh, yes. You must bring the keys to the Geatgrima,” Marguerite said, so quietly that I wasn’t even sure she had spoken at first. “The three Keys of the Reckoning must be brought to the Geatgrima at the heart of Havre de Gardiennes. There, they can be used to reveal the counter-Casting that will restore the Gateways to their rightful place,” Marguerite said, sounding as though she were carefully reciting something she had memorized.

  “How… how do you know that?” I asked breathlessly.

  Marguerite wrung her hands anxiously, as though afraid she had already said too much. “Simone explained it to the Necromancer while I was still in the room. She told him that this was why the keys needed to be destroyed—that the Reckoning could never come to pass without them. She… she said they ought to thank you for gathering them together for her.”

  “Do you know what we’re supposed to do with the keys if we get them to the Geatgrima?” I whispered.

  “No. She did not elaborate further than that,” Marguerite said.

  I looked at Finn, whose mouth was hanging open. Everyone was just staring wordlessly at Marguerite, who was looking rather alarmed with herself now.

  “Marguerite, can you… do you think there’s any chance that you could get us to the Geatgrima safely, without being discovered?” I asked.

  Marguerite looked terrified at the very thought. “Oh, I… I don’t know…”

  “It’s the only way, Marguerite,” I said, kneeling beside her and taking her hand—it was nearly as cold as her sister’s. “If we don’t find a way to bring about the Reckoning, your sister will remain in the Necromancers’ clutches.”

  Celeste stood up. “I have known your sister for many years, Marguerite. She has been a great defender of the Durupinen. She has made many wise and judicious decisions that have upheld the great mission of our sisterhood. You know this.”

  “Yes,” Marguerite said, tears springing into her eyes. “Yes, I do.”

  Celeste nodded sagely and went on, “She would not want this to be her legacy—her gift, meant to be a great light in the world, twisted to terrible darkness. You must help us, Marguerite. You must help us protect your sister and her reputation from this great travesty. Say you’ll do it. Say you’ll try. For Simone.”

  For a moment, it seemed that Marguerite’s sorrow for her sister would consume her. And then, suddenly, whatever fount of courage she had discovered within herself to help us in the first place buoyed her yet again. She met Celeste’s eye with a look of determination and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I will try to help you. For Simone.”

  “Thank you,” Celeste said. “Thank you, Marguerite. And I know that your sister will thank you, too.”

  I gave Celeste a gratefu
l smile and turned to the group at large. “Well, then. We need to figure out how we’re going to do this.”

  “It’s only the most secure and heavily guarded place in the Durupinen world, should be a cakewalk,” Milo said with a slightly manic laugh.

  Marguerite stared at him with a curious expression, as though she had never seen anything quite like him before—which, judging by the behavior of the spirits that haunted the halls of Havre de Gardiennes, she likely hadn’t. I patted Marguerite’s hand to regain her attention.

  “We will defer to you, Marguerite. We are all strangers here. We do not know the castle or its defenses. Surely you know the safest route to the Geatgrima.”

  Marguerite brought her trembling hands to her face, cupping her cheeks and falling into deep consideration. “Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, I believe I know a route we can take to the Geatgrima where we will meet no opposition from the Caomhnóir. But there will be spirits along the way, and they will surely have been ordered to search for you. I do not think we can avoid them.”

  “I may be able to help with that,” Hannah said, speaking up for the first time. “I am a Caller, after all.”

  “Of course!” Milo cried, his face breaking into a relieved smile. “If Hannah Calls the spirits, they’ll do whatever she asks!”

  Celeste raised a cautious hand. “There is something you must understand about the spirits here at Havre de Gardiennes. They are not simply obedient to the High Priestess. They are controlled by her.”

  “Yeah, we noticed something wasn’t quite right with them,” Finn said, arms folded. “We thought they might even be Blind Summoners, the work of the Necromancers, like at Skye Príosún during the coup.”

  But Celeste shook her head. “No, but you’re not far off. The spirits here have been in the High Priestess’ control for many years.” Here, Celeste threw a cautious look at Marguerite, and it was clear that she was choosing her words very carefully. “Finvarra was most concerned about the situation and had hoped to address it with the leadership of the various clans before she passed away. The High Priestess has used the spirits to… maintain her fitness for her duties over the duration of her reign.”