I chuckled. “I think so.”
“Do you think they’re here for the exam?” Genie gestured to a determined duo of young women, around our age, with ponytails so severe their lacquered hair looked fake. They marched along in pressed pants and combat boots, so focused that even the black-suited regulars moved out of their way.
My insides turned to mulch. We were going up against that?
“Why are they holding folders?” she asked, noting the thick binders in their hands.
I turned to Kes. “I thought you said this was mostly physical?”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean you can’t study for it.” He shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about a couple of cadets? I’ve given you everything you need to know. As long as you read most of it, you’ll be fine.”
“Cadets?” I looked back at the hallway, and spotted a few more militant looking guys and gals, ranging from our age to twentysomethings.
“Didn’t I mention that?” Kes shoved his hands into his pockets sheepishly.
Genie grabbed his sleeve. “Start talking, kid.”
“Well, there are some covens around the world who run cadet courses for this kind of thing. Feeder covens, if you like.” He wouldn’t look us in the eye. “They’ve probably been training for this exam for a… couple of years.”
“Are you kidding?” I wanted to turn around and sprint straight back to the mirrors.
Genie let go of him and looped her arm through mine, pulling me into her side. “Look. I’m right there with you, but we’re going to make the best of this. We have to. And hey—some of my best grades have come after a single night of cramming.”
I couldn’t reply. It was like Kes had pointed out a spot on someone’s face, and now I couldn’t stop seeing the cadets everywhere. Many of them carried weighty binders, filled with all the tips, tricks, and intel they could possibly need to get through this first round. And they all walked around as though they’d already gotten into the Institute, their heads up, shoulders back, marching to the beat of a victory drum. The only real difference between them was the color of their uniforms, no doubt signaling the coven they’d come from.
Kes floundered. “In my defense, I didn’t think it’d be helpful to tell you.” He bowed his head, but I was too busy panicking to spare him any sympathy.
Closing my eyes and raiding my mental library for anyone who might help me push through this, my brain settled on the wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
I opened my eyes. “We’re doing this.”
I dragged Genie along before I could change my mind. My heart pumped with adrenaline—the fuel I needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And, with each step, the dream of walking these halls as a resident instead of a potential trainee grew bigger, until it took up every neuron in my brain. I had no room, and no time, for anything else. I had to do the impossible.
Hurrying past Orion’s bow and the stained-glass Artemis, our trio hurtled along the last corridor until we reached the towering set of double doors that the stern man had mentioned. Benches were tucked against the wall, all of them filled with silent, intimidating wannabes. Countless eyes made rapid judgements, a few smirks lifting the corners of sour lips. We looked out of place, but I no longer worried about standing out. We were different from the rest. But we were going to best them anyway.
Taking our seats on the only bench left, we waited.
After the most agonizing ten minutes of my life, the double doors opened with an unnerving screech of metal on stone, and two figures emerged. The first was a frazzled assistant with her shirt untucked and glasses slipping down her nose, overloaded with heavy stacks of binders.
But behind her stood possibly the most striking woman I’d ever seen. Not beautiful in the traditional sense, but with an aura that made it impossible to look away. Her short, strawberry blonde hair was buzzed at the sides, but the top was swept back effortlessly, hitting the balance between renegade and sophisticate. Her black eyes were too big and too dark, her nose too narrow, her lips too pale, her bone structure too severe, but it all came together in a way that made sense. In fact, she looked positively otherworldly—as though she’d come from a different planet altogether, to live amongst us mere humans.
She stood in front of the open doors, her arms behind her back to make her six-foot-something height even more imposing. On her willowy frame, a black suit had never, well, suited anyone so well. Although, on second glance, I wasn’t sure it was black at all. More of a navy blue, paired with a shirt that had just a hint of gray—a subtle twist on the Institute’s uniform.
“That’s her…” Kes’s eyes bulged. “Victoria Jules.”
Genie looked similarly gobsmacked. “Wow.”
I nodded slowly. “I think I get the hype now.”
The students filed into the room beyond the double doors at some silent signal that we’d clearly missed. I’d have thought the assistant would open her binders to check off names, but she didn’t. Weird, considering these weren’t just any binders. They were the magical sort, used by pretty much every magical educational institution worldwide. They automatically filled with real information as students presented themselves, fueled by the same technology as the Krieger detector, tapping into the magical world’s network and delivering all the necessary info in real time. But the students, mostly the cadet variety, passed through without so much as a roll call. Following suit, the three of us jumped up and scurried for the entrance. Genie and I passed by with no problem, but Victoria’s hand shot out to snag Kes before he could join us. She barely exerted any effort, one arm still behind her back.
“No children. Wait here.” She released him before turning to stride through the doors, her entire being brimming with power and authority. Kes must’ve been desperate to see what lay beyond the threshold, but he didn’t move a muscle. He just stared after his idol until the doors closed in his face.
Sorry, Kes. Maybe in a few years.
Another cavernous, cathedral-like hall stretched ahead, the ground making booms out of our footsteps. To my disbelief, this one was even higher and wider than the entrance hall. It might have been more beautiful too, with a downpour of oceanic light dappling every speck of the floor and stained-glass depictions of triumphant heroes gracing the walls.
In a lot of ways, it fit the magnitude of what I was up against. An ancient seat of warriors and heroes and legends, this hall trembled with the ghosts of past battles. I might not have felt like much of a warrior myself, but I was determined to be the hero of my own story. My entire future depended on it.
Throw whatever you’ve got at me… I drew in a deep breath. I’m ready.
Twenty-Three
Harley
I’d left the apartment earlier than usual, under the pretense of a work backlog. In a way, that wasn’t a total lie. I was dealing with a backlog—an emotional one, to help Persie. Checking my phone, it read half past seven: the coven’s slowest time of day. And the earliest I could’ve gotten away without alerting my husband’s suspicion. Wade had made an early start too. But he’d be on the other side of the SDC by now, at the infirmary, comparing notes with Krieger and Jacob. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Wade with me on this, but if things went awry and I ended up getting hurt, I needed to be sure there was one fighting fit parent to look out for our daughter. And if Wade knew, there was no way he’d let me go alone.
I paused up the corridor from the Bestiary and concentrated on a spell, a concealment hex from Finch’s Grimoire.
Tobe will be on his morning rounds. He’ll start with the northern halls and work backward. A creature of habit, his schedule was easy to follow. His rarest creatures were kept in those northern halls. All but one. The dirty black mark in his menageri
e that he kept confined to the east wing of the Bestiary.
I placed my hands on my chest. Slivers of powerful Chaos slipped through my skin, as I recited the words from Finch’s Grimoire. “In tenebris. Conversus caecus cculus. Et per mundi labyrinthum dissipati praemisit. Ego celatur. Et in tenebris ambulamus. Et erit tamquam umbra. Quod lux caeli. Quod atmosphaera quietam. Ego celatur.”
A shiver ran over my body. I looked to the mirror on the wall beside me, and nothing looked back. The spell had worked. I smiled, but I couldn’t see the reflection of it. Finch, remind me to tell you how much I love you and your sneaky ways.
My hypocrisy wasn’t lost on me. I’d nearly lost my mind when I found out that Persie had snuck into the Bestiary. But I was the one with the power to do something about him. It was my duty to protect her. As her mom, and as the one who’d gotten her into this mess in the first place.
My body shivering from the concealment spell, I headed into the Bestiary. Stealing along the avenues of glass boxes, I sent out a faint wave of beast control to keep the critters quiet. I couldn’t have them summoning Tobe back. I was breaking two of his rules: entering covertly and with the aim of compelling a monster without provocation.
He’d understand. I know he would. But my actions said otherwise. If I’d truly believed that, I’d have asked for permission. The trouble was, I couldn’t have risked him saying no. I usually suppressed my beast control while I was in the Bestiary, ever since having a chat about fairness and free will with Tobe. Never mind the fact that all these creatures were caged in boxes. The Beast Master had every right to set boundaries, even if the foundations were a bit shaky. But things had changed. Leviathan had crossed my boundaries, and desperate times called for desperate measures.
As I hurried to Leviathan’s private hall, the Purge beasts stayed silent. Twenty years had honed my beast control to new heights. But it took concentration and focus. In moments of high pressure and higher emotion, the finesse evaded me. I’d dropped the ball with the hydra. I’d made up for it, though, with the rest of the creatures Persie had Purged, each one diving into the Mason jars at my instruction. And I wasn’t going to drop the ball with Leviathan.
Closing the door to his hall behind me, I strode up to the enclosure. I took deep breaths to steady my racing heart. Up ahead, Leviathan had been frozen inside his box. Yet his energy—a pulse that came from behind the glass—filled the entire room.
“I know you can hear me in there,” I muttered. “You’ve done something to this box. The freezing thing isn’t cutting it the way it should.”
The frost thickened across the pane.
“Is that your idea of an answer?” I glared at the crystallized patterns. “It’s Persie, isn’t it? She’s your link to the outside world.”
No reply.
The question had nagged at my mind. This kind of stasis had kept his mother locked up, and she was more powerful than he’d ever be. Yet, he continued to break out. Maybe not physically, but in other ways. He’d managed to speak to me at the pool, and then visited me at the infirmary. He’d spoken to Persie on her birthday, and then somehow taken control of her mind to trick her into coming here to free him. It had to be Persie. She was his bridge.
Realization suddenly dawned. The deal broke the stasis… Our deal had been written in Chaos, and that was stronger than any hex Tobe could put on this box. The moment Persie had been created, it’d loosened the restraints on Leviathan. He’d spoken to me because she’d existed within me. And he’d come to cement the deal when she’d been born, loosening those restraints a little more. Since then, he’d lain in wait, until their bond matured with her age.
“But you still can’t get out, can you?” I quelled my nerves. “If you could, you wouldn’t have needed to try and trick Persie into freeing you. And she’s not coming anywhere near you ever again.”
The frost cracked, and the atmosphere sparked with menace.
Hit a nerve, Leviathan? I glanced at the door to his enclosure, making a decision. I couldn’t risk opening it and accidentally letting him out.
Damn… Controlling beasts from outside their glass boxes was always harder than controlling them while I was also inside. And Leviathan would be the biggest challenge I’d ever faced.
“I’m going to need you to stop pretending that this ice means a damn thing.” I waited but nothing happened. The frost stayed, and the energy in the room darkened. “Leviathan, you owe me an audience.”
The frost receded, melting away rapidly. Black smoke coiled inside, filling the box from pane to pane.
“If you think I’m going to speak to a bunch of mist, you can think again,” I said coolly. In this form, he’d be harder to influence. Black mist was tricky to get any kind of hold on. I needed him solid.
With a tangible air of reluctance, he slowly unfurled. “The Merlin girl. Not a girl anymore. You’ve aged.” His edges solidified until he swayed in front of me on his snaky coils.
“Mortals have a nasty habit of doing that,” I shot back.
“It was no insult. To age is to grow wise.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I wondered if you might visit. I am honored.”
“Save it.” His sarcastic flattery grated on my ears.
“This is hardly fair.” Leviathan came closer to the front pane. His eerily human eyes squinted out. “You ask me to reveal myself, and do not do the same?”
I made no move to drop the concealment spell. “It’s necessary.”
“Ah, of course. You do not want Tobe to find you here.” He grinned, his rows of teeth crunching together. “Do you intend me harm, Merlin girl?” His laughter resounded through his glass enclosure.
I wasted no time. I lunged forward and pushed my palms flat to the glass. Concentrating with every fiber of my being, I pulsed strands of Chaos into his box. They rushed forward and dissolved into his scaly chest. Two hair-thin lines still glistened in the air. A physical connection between me and him.
“Obey me,” I snarled. The words scraped up my throat like knives. “You’ll do as I say!”
He stared down at his chest in sudden alarm. His claws raked at the hair-thin strands that connected us, but his hands just passed through them. Five years of research and controlling every beast I’d ever come across… I hadn’t known this situation would arise, but the universe had prepped me for it, anyway.
“BOW TO ME!” I bellowed. A metallic taste slithered into my mouth: blood from my throat. The sound of my voice shivered along the hair-thin strands like a guitar string. And his chest provided the acoustics. I watched his body respond to the word, his arms locking and his neck cracking. He resisted my command as best he could, his face straining.
“You are… forbidden from… doing this,” he rasped.
I ignored him. “BOW! Better still—unravel those coils and lie flat on the floor!” The order expanded my lungs until they burned, shooting pains up the sides of my ribcage.
His eyes widened in shock as his body obeyed. His serpent coils unraveled beneath him, and his torso tilted forward until he was all the way down. He fought it, groaning and growling with every involuntary movement. His limbs spasmed and his tail lashed, but the impulse to submit was stronger than his willpower. At last, he lay on the ground, his chest and hands flat.
He lifted his head and glowered at me, locking onto my position despite the concealment spell. “This is… immoral. You are breaking Tobe’s rules.”
“If you’re planning to snitch on me, I know he’ll understand.” I swiped away the beading sweat on my forehead. “Don’t forget where his loyalty lies.”
“He is… a coward!” Leviathan spat, globs of gunk hitting the glass.
I smirked. “If he needed to, you can bet your slimy ass he’d send you right back to Chaos himself.”
“Is that… what you have… come to do?” For a split second, he looked genuinely afraid. But it was likely a tactic. This monster wasn’t helpless or quick to cower. He had ancient power up the wazoo and a knack for subterfuge.
“I’d love nothing more, but it wouldn’t fix anything. Persie is stuck with your curse, and you’d just pass it to some other creature if I ended you.” I held onto the atoms of his being with every ounce of strength I had.
His tail lashed frantically, still trying to escape my clutches. “Then why… are you here? To show… your power? It makes no… difference.”
It does make a difference! He’d messed with my daughter, and now he was due a taste of his own medicine. Though I had to tread carefully. This wasn’t just about vengeance.
“I’m here for the truth, Leviathan.” I slammed a palm against the glass and the whole thing shuddered. “I know all about your little scheme for Persie, but this isn’t ancient Greece and she’s not your pawn. Your mother and I made a deal for a name; nothing else. Now, the part I don’t know is how you’re planning to bring about your vision, and what you’re plotting for Persie. So spill your guts, or I’ll spill them for you.”
He raked his claws along the glass, the piercing sound sending a shiver through me. “I will not… tell you anything.”
“Have it your way.” I delved into my reservoir of Darkness. Grasping hold of shadowy tendrils, I urged them down the glinting magical wires and into his body. He writhed in pain as my mouth moved, uttering a spell I promised myself I’d never use. A curse I had in the depths of my mind, dumped there by the Merlin Grimoire. It had been one of the possible ways to hurt Katherine during her earlier rituals, but by the time I got that information, it was too late to use it.
Speaking of Katherine, I’d learned enough in life to realize that evil never truly left this planet. It only got replaced with new and improved types. I’d hung onto the curse in case I ever faced evil again. And here it was. Trying to take my daughter as his monster bride.
“Adducere tenebris. Mutare animum. Adducere monsturum. Liberum insaniam. Unleash infernum. Pluet in obumbratio. In tenebris. Tormentum. Formido. Insaniam. Apud inferos realem mundi. Ut convertat animum. Hoc erit non ferenda. Ostende nullum misericordiae. Audite verba.” Trying to hold three different Chaos channels at once hurt like nothing else. My shirt stuck to my sweat-drenched skin and my breath came in short, sharp gasps. Something would have to give soon, but I hoped I’d have my answers by then. Determined to fight to the bitter end, I focused on Persie and let her image bring me strength.
Harley Merlin 18: Persie Merlin and Leviathan’s Gift Page 20