Braeden nodded, knowing she was right. “But when will we be back together again?” he asked, clearly alarmed at the idea of separating from her.
“We’ll meet tonight, very soon,” Serafina said. “Did you put the cloak back where it was?”
“No,” Braeden said. “I moved it to a different spot.”
“Good,” she said. “To be safe, don’t tell Rowena or me where it is. After the ball tonight, when the clock chimes half past one, go collect it and bring it to the place where the three friends once stood beside the stone hunter. Do you know the place I mean?”
“I know it,” Braeden said, nodding his head. “Are you sure about this, Serafina?”
“No I am not, but it seems like it’s our only path. Be careful.”
“And you be careful, too,” he said.
With this, Braeden slipped through the concealed door that led into the Smoking Room, and then on through the next concealed door into the Billiard Room. Serafina followed him just long enough to see him walk out into the main corridor and rejoin his aunt and uncle at the ball.
When she returned to Rowena in the Gun Room, she said, “Well, we did it. We convinced him.”
“It seems we did,” Rowena agreed with satisfaction.
“Now, there’s just one more person we need to convince, and he’s not going to be so easy.”
“Oh, no, we don’t need him!”
“He saved your life!”
“He’s still a cat! There’s no getting around that!” Rowena shot back, feigning annoyance, but her voice betrayed the nervous uncertainty of meeting someone she owed a debt that she knew she could not repay.
“We include him or it’s off,” Serafina said fiercely.
“You’re turning into quite a stubborn little grimalkin,” Rowena said.
“Better stubborn than dead,” Serafina retorted.
“You’re already dead.”
“I thought we agreed I wasn’t totally dead quite yet.”
“My characterization of you being dead was less a comment on your current state than on your future prospects.”
“Enough of that,” Serafina said in annoyance. “Let’s go find him.”
A short time later that same night, after Rowena had shifted back to her normal appearance, Serafina guided her to the dell of ferns where she and Waysa sometimes rested. He wasn’t there, or in the next place they checked, but they kept looking.
She finally spotted her friend standing in human form gazing at a rocky gully in the forest where a powerful gush of water had rushed through, ripping at the earth and trees, tearing away everything in its path. The flooding was getting worse each night.
Serafina led Rowena to an area of open, rocky ground out of sight from Waysa.
“I don’t know how he’s going to respond when I approach him,” Rowena said. “He may be angry or violent. He helped me when I was wounded, but he’s not going to trust me now.”
“You can’t approach him. He’s a catamount. You have to get him to approach you,” Serafina said. “Let him know you’re here, from this distance, but don’t scare him off.”
“How do I do that?” Rowena asked.
Serafina knew that Waysa’s reflexes were incredibly strong, that if they approached or surprised him in any way, his first instinct would be to fight or flee. That was how he’d survived so long. She needed to get his attention in a way to get him to think before he reacted.
“Make the sound of a blackbird and then wait,” Serafina said.
“But your blackbirds here don’t come out at night.”
“Exactly. When Waysa and I are in human form in the daytime forest, the blackbird’s click is one of the secret calls we use, so if he hears it at night, he’ll not know what to make of it.”
Rowena nodded, then made the clicking sound of a blackbird.
Within a few seconds, Waysa began moving toward them through the forest. He stopped at the edge of the trees when he saw Rowena standing alone out in the middle of the open area.
“Good. Now stay perfectly still,” Serafina whispered to Rowena. “No threatening movements.”
Doing exactly what Serafina said, Rowena did not move.
Waysa studied her from a distance, and Rowena studied him, the two of them gauging whether they could trust the other. It was as if the two of them were looking for the marks of their shared past, the battles they had fought against each other, and the care he had shown her.
“You’ve come back,” he said warily to her from his position in the trees.
“Talk to him, convince him,” Serafina said.
Rowena slowly nodded to Waysa. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I came to thank you for what you did.”
Waysa did not move or speak. He just watched her.
“No one has ever helped me like that before,” Rowena said, and then paused.
After a long time, Waysa finally emerged from the trees. He walked slowly toward her until he stood some twenty feet away.
“Why did you save me, Waysa?” Rowena asked gently, her voice soft and uncertain.
Waysa frowned at the question, looked at the ground to collect his thoughts, and then looked back at her. “I do not wish to get lost,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked him.
“I will destroy the conjurer and make sure those I love are safe, but then I will cleanse myself of blood and fight no more. My heart is on a journey from where it lives. But I must remember my way home.”
Rowena stared at Waysa, seeming to understand what he was saying. “I’ve come here tonight to help you,” she said finally. “And to ask for your help once more.”
“I’ve already helped you,” Waysa said, as if, despite what he had just said, there was still a part of him that regretted the foolishness of giving aid to his sworn enemy.
“I know you helped me,” Rowena said, “and you have no reason to trust me, but I have a plan to help your friends.”
“What are you talking about?” Waysa said, his eyes narrowing.
“Tell him what I told you,” Serafina said to Rowena.
“If you need me, winter, spring, or fall, come where what you climbed is floor, and rain is wall,” Rowena said. It was the riddle that Waysa had written to Serafina so that she could find him.
“Where did you get those words?” Waysa asked, stepping toward her.
“This is good,” Serafina said.
Waysa stared at Rowena, his brown eyes blazing with intensity. He was ready to fight her if he had to, but there was curiosity in his expression as well.
“I want you to tell me. Where did you get those words?” Waysa pressed her again. “And the clicking sound you made…”
“I will explain why I’ve come, and how I know these things,” Rowena said. “But first, I want to tell you what I have seen in the past of your people.”
“What are you talking about?” Waysa asked again.
“Long ago, many members of your tribe were driven by force away from their homes to the barren lands in the west, but a few stayed behind in these mountains, unwilling to leave their homeland. And you came into this world from them.”
“You speak my grandmother’s truth,” Waysa said, “but how do you know this?”
“When you were taking care of me, I used my powers to look into your heart, to see your past and the past of your people. I know that my father killed your mother, your father, your brothers—”
“And my sister,” Waysa said bitterly.
“And your sister,” Rowena said, nodding. “I saw it all. I felt it all, for it is cut deep into the print of time. And once you see something with your own eyes, once you feel something, it becomes part of you. But my father didn’t just kill your family. He killed many of the catamounts in your tribe. You may be the only one of your clan who survived. But you must remember what your grandmother taught you about injury and rebirth. It is the way of our kind—the catamounts and the owls and the other shifters—that when we are severely injured, w
e fight through it, we suffer, but we come back stronger than we were before, changed, but more powerful…more who we are.”
“Yes, I understand…” Waysa said, as he moved closer to her. They were just a few feet from each other now.
“You saw the peregrine falcon strike me from the sky,” Rowena continued. “I was close to death, but I did not die. You saw what was left of me after my father punished me for losing the Black Cloak to our enemies. Again, I was close to death, but I did not die. With each and every wound, every moment of pain, every night of suffering, I got stronger inside. I changed. Injury and rebirth, struggle and ascendance, these are the cycles of our kin. What I’ve been trying to say is that my powers have changed, Waysa. And my soul has changed as well. I am becoming more of who I am.”
Waysa was listening to everything she said. “My grandmother called it ta-li-ne u-de-nv, second birth.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Rowena said.
“But you spoke of new powers…”
“I can see visions of the past, and I have the power to hear and speak.”
“You mean with those who have gone on—”
“—and those who are in between.”
“You’re talking about Serafina…” Waysa whispered in astonishment. “Her a-da-nv-do…She’s lingering…”
Rowena nodded very slowly. “Now you’re truly beginning to understand.”
“Where is she?” Waysa said. Suddenly, there was so much hope in his eyes.
“Do not worry, she is close, here with us,” Rowena said softly.
“She’s here with us now?” Waysa asked in surprise, looking around them. Unlike Braeden, who had resisted the idea, Waysa didn’t seem to doubt that it was possible that spirits existed.
“Serafina and I have spoken with Braeden, and the three of us need your help,” Rowena said.
“Tell me what I need to do,” Waysa said.
Rowena hesitated.
“Tell him what I said or it’s off,” Serafina demanded.
“Understand that your instructions come from Serafina, not from me,” Rowena said. “She asked that you go to Biltmore tonight and join Braeden. Watch over him. Protect him from my father. But more than anything, protect him from me. If I begin to do anything at all that might harm him or you, then you are to immediately claw my eyes out.”
Waysa smiled. “That sounds like the Serafina I know.”
“Those are her words,” Rowena said.
“I’ll do it,” Waysa said.
“Good, he’s with us,” Serafina said in relief.
“Serafina says she’s happy to hear that,” Rowena said.
“You’re speaking to her now?” Waysa looked up excitedly. “Can you tell her something for me?”
“She can already hear you,” Rowena said.
Waysa looked around up into the sky where he imagined an a-da-nv-do might float.
“No matter what happens, Serafina, you stay fierce, my friend, you stay bold! You hear me?”
As tears welled up in her eyes, Serafina said, “Tell him that I hear him.”
But wanting to say more, she moved her hand just so, and a gentle breeze of air blew through Waysa’s long dark hair, lifting it for just a moment, then letting it drop down again. I hear you.
A few hours later, Serafina sat and waited in the darkness on Biltmore’s front steps. The summer ball had ended. The Vanderbilts and all the guests who were staying in the house had gone up to their rooms to bed. The others had departed in their carriages. The servants had cleared the tables, and the musicians had packed up their cases and gone home. The house was dark and quiet now. Everything seemed so different from before.
But in her heart, she felt a new sense of contentment. She had finally managed to talk to Braeden and Waysa, and she had seen the smiles on their faces when they came to understand that she was still here. She realized there were many more challenges ahead, and she knew full well that some of them might be insurmountable, at least for her, but at least they were climbing together now. At least they were on the same side, come what may, and as long as that was true, she could keep going wherever she had to go.
Braeden emerged from the house, slipping quietly out the front doors and closing them gently behind him, carrying an old leather knapsack slung over his shoulder. By the size and shape of it, she thought he must have the cloak inside. Braeden stood alone in the darkness on the front terrace, gazing out as if he wasn’t sure if he should proceed.
Serafina was relieved that he’d come like they’d agreed, but she felt qualmish in her stomach. It was a grave and dangerous plan to ask him to trust Rowena and give her the Black Cloak. There were a thousand ways it could go wrong. But Serafina knew that she’d run out of time. “Get the cloak tonight or I’ll kill the boy myself!” Uriah had blared at Rowena when he attacked her in the bog. Rowena had been holding her father back by telling him that if he killed Braeden he’d never find the hidden cloak, but Rowena’s threat had run dry now. Uriah had grown impatient. There was no doubt in Serafina’s mind that, one way or another, Uriah was coming for Braeden.
She wished she could talk to Braeden here and now, but without Rowena she couldn’t. All she could do was follow him.
Braeden sighed in discouragement when he gazed across the long expanse of the Esplanade and up toward Diana Hill in the distance, where she had asked him to meet her. Serafina knew what he was thinking. Before he’d been injured, he had climbed that hill easily. He’d had fun doing it. But with his bad leg, it was going to be a long way to the top. She wished she had picked an easier spot for him to reach.
Braeden’s hands trembled as he tried to fix and adjust the metal brace on his leg. It appeared that one of the metal brackets had broken, making it even more difficult for him to walk.
Pulling in a deep breath, Braeden began his journey. He made his way along the length of the Esplanade, then started the climb up Diana Hill. He breathed heavily and his pace slowed as he trudged, one step at a time, dragging his bad leg behind him.
Then the dark shape of a catamount emerged from the forest.
“Waysa!” Braeden said in surprise. “What are you doing here?” And then he realized. “Serafina asked you to come…”
Serafina smiled, glad that Braeden had figured it out so quickly.
Waysa walked in lion form over to Braeden’s side, and in a gesture of friendship, hunched down.
“Thank you,” Braeden said appreciatively, and climbed onto his back.
Waysa leapt forward with a great bounding leap and ran. Braeden clung to the lion’s back as Waysa sprinted straight up the slope of the hill, the cat’s powerful legs nothing but a blur.
Now that’s the way to travel, Serafina thought, jealous of her friends. She broke into a run in pursuit.
When a breeze stirred, she felt herself getting light on her feet. There was a part of her that thought she might be able to turn into wind the way she had turned into water the night Braeden put on the cloak, but she was too worried that it would only hasten her fade.
She missed running as a panther, racing Waysa through the forest. But she was happy to see her friends together again, and to be with them, at least in spirit.
With the Black Cloak strapped into Braeden’s knapsack as he rode on Waysa’s back, and her running along behind, the three of them made their way toward Rowena’s lair deep in the forest bog.
A haze of white feathery clouds shrouded the glowing moon as it slowly set and disappeared behind the western mountains. As the darkest shadows of the night fell through the forest trees, Serafina crept with Waysa and Braeden into Rowena’s encampment.
The small habitation had been damaged by Uriah’s attack a few nights before, and many of the surrounding trees had been destroyed, a grim reminder of why the four of them were there.
The sorceress emerged from the ravaged remnants of her lair wearing the dark hood and robes of her ancient druid kin.
Waysa waited with claws out just a few feet away, as Braed
en stepped toward her.
“We’ve come as you asked,” Braeden said. “So what do we do now?”
“You can watch everything I do, but you’ll need to give me the cloak…” Rowena said.
“What are you going to do with it?” Braeden asked, stepping back from her. “How do we know this is what Serafina wants us to do?”
“Tell him that chicken and no grits is my favorite food,” Serafina said, “and that raspberry spoon bread is his.”
When Rowena repeated the words, Braeden said, “But tell me what you’re going to do with it.”
“I am going to try to repair it,” Rowena said.
“Repair it?” Braeden asked in confusion. “Are you going to give the cloak to your father?”
“That would be the end of us all,” Rowena said.
“Then what? What will happen when you repair it?”
“If all goes well, then it will begin to function the way it was designed.”
“Which means what?” Braeden asked. “You’re going to start sucking in people’s souls and stealing their powers for yourself?”
As Rowena and Braeden talked, a dark and foreboding fear soaked slowly into Serafina. She was beginning to see Rowena’s plan.
“When the cloak was torn during the battle on the Loggia, Serafina was splintered out into the world along with the black fragments,” Rowena said. “They are the remnants of the cloak’s innermost darkness. If I can repair the cloak properly, then it may pull those remnants and Serafina’s soul back into its black folds.”
“I don’t understand, what do you mean may?” Braeden asked. “Aren’t you sure?”
“No, I’m not,” Rowena said. “The cloak is severely damaged.”
“And if it doesn’t work, what happens to Serafina?”
“If I fail,” Rowena said, “I suspect that her spirit will disappear and she’ll be lost forever.”
“But if you succeed, it’s even worse!” Braeden said. “Her soul will be trapped in the cloak.”
“Yes,” Rowena said.
The frightening image of Clara Brahms’s stricken face flashed through Serafina’s mind. The girl in the yellow dress had screamed in horror when the cloak absorbed her. Serafina didn’t want to do this. She definitely didn’t want to do this. She hated this plan. She had been running and fighting, biting and clawing, all this time to escape the Black Cloak, to rescue people from it, to protect people from it, to defeat it. There was no way she was going to let herself get sucked into it. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than being trapped inside the Black Cloak. She’d rather die. She immediately started trying to figure out how she could communicate with Braeden and Waysa, how she could stop this.
Serafina and the Splintered Heart Page 15