Midnight

by Christi J. Whitney

  ‘No,’ I snapped back. My head felt like a beating drum. ‘I don’t. I’m selfish and I’m blind. If I was smart and discerning, like you say, then I would’ve seen that Quentin was working with Augustine the whole time, right behind my back, and I wouldn’t have been so stupidly naive.’ I waited for my aunt’s reaction but, to my surprise, she barely even blinked. I sank onto one of the benches and clasped my hands in my lap. ‘You knew.’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘You are wise for your years, Josephine, but you’re still young and learning. I’ve been Queen for a long while. You’ll find that being in such a position teaches you to read people. Quentin is a man of ambition, which is not a bad thing. However, he is also not as clever as he presumes. He needs to be guided, of course. But he can make a worthy husband for you.’

  My head spun so fast I pressed my fingers to my temples. This time, it wasn’t because of my tender skull. I felt like I was being pricked by thousands of tiny needles. I’d ignored everything about my secret for so long that now, I was being buried alive in it.

  ‘Tell me why you really made that promise to Augustine.’

  The Queen lifted the edge of her dress and descended the stairs. ‘I know you came here to plead your guardian’s case. But there is something you must understand.’ She seated herself across from me, holding me firm in her gaze. ‘Gargoyles are traitors, Josephine. They are demons, both on the outside, and within. They’ve been allowed to infiltrate our clans under the guise of protectors. But they care nothing for us.’

  I looked up at the massive painting of the cathedral, letting my eyes take in each and every statue. This was our legacy, written so clearly in front of me. I shook my head adamantly. ‘Where is this coming from? All our legends, our stories … how can you not believe them?’

  Her eyes hardened. ‘Those legends killed my father.’

  I felt as though dark fingers curled around my throat. ‘What?’

  ‘The King or Queen of the Gypsies has always possessed three guardians. It has been this way since the Sundering. They were bound to protect my father, as they had my grandfather before.’

  ‘Anya, Matthias, and Thaddeus.’ The names were painful to say.

  ‘I covered up the murder,’ she continued. She placed her hands on the table, as though holding herself in place. ‘Augustine had already stolen my father’s sclav, and he controlled the gargoyles. He gave me no choice.’

  ‘It was really Augustine that did it.’

  ‘The creatures made their choice,’ she said, her words like acid. ‘The gargoyles may have been acting under his orders, but they willingly murdered a Roma. The protectors of the throne took the life of the one who held it. After my father’s death, I swore I’d never allow another gargoyle to be sealed to anyone within the Court. The creatures can’t be trusted, no matter how honorable they appear.’

  ‘You should know,’ I said, working to keep my voice level. ‘Those gargoyles aren’t a threat to anyone, anymore. My guardian made sure of that.’ I blinked away the image of Sebastian standing over Matthias’ stone corpse. ‘He’s a protector, and he’ll whatever it takes to make sure our clan is safe from evil like that.’

  The Queen tucked one edge of her scarf neatly behind her ear. Then she sighed, a firm sound of resolve. ‘I cannot set this gargoyle free. Shadowen are simply too dangerous, and I refuse to have Outcast blood on my hands. Augustine presented me with a solution I could not refuse. He brought the Sobrasi. And they are capable of dealing, not just with this gargoyle, but with all shadowen that continue to plague our realm.’

  ‘We have Marksmen,’ I said.

  ‘We do,’ she agreed. ‘They’ve kept us safe for decades, but the scourge remains, threatening us every day, and their numbers seem to increase every year. It’s time to bring an end to it all. The Sobrasi can provide that end. They have the power to turn these demons to stone.’

  My heart kicked up a notch. ‘And you mean all shadowen.’

  ‘Yes, Josephine,’ she replied. ‘All shadowen.’

  It was exactly what Quentin wanted as well. They were on the same side, both using Augustine to get precisely what they wanted – the end of the shadow world, both the evil and the good.

  ‘Sebastian isn’t your enemy.’

  She reached across the table and clasped my hand so fiercely my fingers stung. ‘Your gargoyle is no different, Josephine. I know you’ve seen what he can do. Threaten him, and he will strike back. What if it’s Roma blood that he spills next?’

  ‘Never,’ I replied bitingly. ‘I know him better than anyone else.’

  ‘He is but one shadow creature, Josephine. I have to look to the safety and welfare of our entire community. This is the critical lesson, and it is the one you must master, if you are to one day take my place.’

  ‘And where does this leave Augustine?’

  ‘He wants this gargoyle for the Sobrasi’s purposes. He can have him. Letting the marimé go is a small price to pay for the reward they offer. The grotesques will be exterminated, the Sobrasi will return to Europe, and our kumpania will finally have peace. Is that such a terrible thing to desire?’

  I wrenched my hand from her grasp. ‘If the Sobrasi can turn all the shadowen to stone that easily, don’t you think they would’ve done it a long time ago?’

  The Queen placed her hands in her lap. ‘There was one thing the Sobrasi have always lacked in order to complete this task. There was an urn, given to our ancestor that—’

  ‘I know all about it.’

  ‘I see,’ she replied, eyeing me with a suspicious glance. ‘If that’s true, then you know why I must allow him to take this gargoyle.’

  ‘You can’t do this.’

  ‘There are many things I’ve done as Queen that I’m not proud of,’ she said, sliding off the bench and walking back to the platform. ‘There are times when I had no choice. This is one of those times. But this is also how I will make things right. I will make sure the shadowen are vanished forever. It will be my legacy, and it will also be yours.’

  I jumped up from the table. I felt on the verge of exploding. ‘You don’t understand. What he wants to do with Sebastian isn’t what you think. And your Marksmen aren’t all loyal to you. I’ve seen them with Augustine, following his orders. And Quentin’s.’ I clenched my teeth. ‘Don’t you see? You can’t trust Augustine with any of this.’

  The Queen continued to stare at me. There was absolutely nothing readable in her expression. After several moments of harsh silence, she turned away and stared at the painting over the table.

  ‘If there is any disloyalty within my Court,’ she said, with her back still to me, ‘you can be assured that I will deal with it most severely. But it does not change my mind about the shadowen. They are the most dangerous threat, and this issue must be resolved first.’

  I stood there while my brain clicked like a short-circuited machine, unable to fully comprehend the information I was getting. My faith felt rattled to the core.

  ‘Pardon the interruption, Kralitsa.’

  We both turned to see one of the Marksmen guards standing inside the door – the same one who’d been studying me earlier. He dipped his head slightly and then approached. When he reached the Queen, he leaned and whispered something in her ear. Then he turned and exited as swiftly as he’d appeared.

  ‘Your gargoyle is here,’ she said.

  It felt as though someone knocked the air out of me. ‘What?’

  ‘Your gargoyle,’ she repeated, ‘managed to escape our Marksmen a few hours ago, but Augustine saw to his capture and brought him back to the Court. The creature was violent and will be confined to our dungeons until I deem it safe to release him to my traitorous brother.’

  I struggled to take a breath as panic grabbed my throat. ‘Augustine did something to Sebastian, don’t you understand? He’s done something to make him that way! Sebastian isn’t a grotesque, he’s not wild!’

  ‘It is too late for him,’ said the Queen. Her voice was so
ft, her tone smooth and even. ‘However, I understand your attachment to the gargoyle. Therefore, I will allow you to see him one last time, if you so choose, and you can make your peace with this before he’s gone. I can offer you that much.’ She reached out and touched my shoulder gently. ‘And then, Josephine, you must put this behind you.’

  35. Josephine

  The Marksmen with the buzz cut – the Queen called him Donani – led the way. The other three guards followed behind. My aunt, Quentin, and I made up the middle of the group as we all descended into a lower section of the Court. We turned a corner, and I looked up as a cold draft brushed against my face.

  The tunnel wasn’t like the others. I rubbed my arms briskly. Even though it had been five years since I’d seen the Court, I knew this didn’t lead to any of the other public areas where Outcast Gypsies congregated for business or to just hang out. I highly doubted it led to any of the Council’s private rooms, based what I could see ahead of me. The smaller tunnel became a passage, similar to what Ezzie and I had discovered beneath the cemetery.

  An icy sensation of fear crackled around me. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Quentin. ‘I don’t guess you’ve ever been here before. It’s part of the old dungeon. In the past it was used for criminals. But it also houses a good number of grotesques the Marksmen use in their training exercises.’

  ‘This is where you’re keeping him?’

  Donani looked over his shoulder. ‘It’s the only suitable containment.’

  Containment?

  The ache between my ribs returned in full force, making me wince. Donani pulled open a narrow door, but he went in first, rather than letting us go on ahead. I looked questioningly at the Queen. She only stared mutely ahead, her chin lifted slightly.

  Donani’s face reappeared in the doorway. ‘Kralitsa.’

  The Queen nodded, and then turned to me. ‘You may go inside. We will give you a few minutes.’

  Donani caught my arm as I started past him. ‘The groties are sedated, but I wouldn’t recommend getting too close to their cages. You know how nasty they can get.’

  I shrugged him off and stepped into the room. Donani closed the door behind me with a heavy, ominous thud. I gathered myself together before looking around me. Numerous dark archways were carved into every wall of the narrow space. Dim, orange-tinted light filtered through the room, as if someone had placed candles in all the corners, but I couldn’t see the source.

  A sensation flooded my head. I froze in the center of the room, listening. I could hear him breathing. I knew it was him. I felt his presence inside my stomach like a trapped butterfly. But the sound … the sound wasn’t human. Not even close. The intake of air was rapid and shallow, a mixture of hissing and gasps. It scared me. And broke my heart, all at once.

  ‘Sebastian?’

  The breaths cut off sharply. Silence permeated the room for so long I thought he’d somehow vanished. Then I heard him draw in a long stretch of air. I tensed, waiting to hear him speak, to call my name the way he’d done some many times in that unassuming, mellow voice – sometimes joking, sometimes serious, but always gentle and sincere.

  Instead, he growled, but it wasn’t something I’d ever heard come from him before. The sound was low, raw, and threatening. The force of it rattled my teeth inside my mouth and sent ice cubes down my back.

  I tried to swallow, but nothing made it past my tongue. I forced my feet forward, one step at a time, peering into the heavy shadows. I realized the dark arches were actually alcoves. Instead of doors, thick iron bars ran vertically from edge to edge. Dungeon cells, like something out of an old history book.

  I paused at the first one, mustering the courage to look inside. Donani had spoken the truth. A reptilian grotesque was curled up on the floor, unconscious. The next four cells contained similar creatures, all thankfully oblivious to the one Gypsy in the dungeon. I reached the last arched enclosure at the end of the room.

  Just beyond the barred entrance, through the darkness, I could make out the details of a cobblestone wall, dirt floor, and a feeding trough and a cracked wooden bowl filled with water. And, huddled in the corner, a dark shape. I felt relief and dread, all at once.

  ‘Sebastian …’

  The shape shuddered violently and another fierce growl echoed within the alcove. He didn’t turn towards me. He didn’t speak. I inched closer, conflicting emotions stirring inside me. I felt his presence, like always, but I also felt a deep thrumming warning. It flittered through my lungs, and it hurt, like breathing in winter air.

  ‘Please,’ I said softly. ‘Talk to me.’

  The light filtering into the cell from behind me only extended two feet inside the bars, and it was too dark to see further in. The form shifted in the dirt. I heard a grating sound, like metal scraping against stone. A hand appeared from the unlit corner, moving slowly into the dim light.

  On the gray wrist was a metal cuff – part of the diamond-spiked manacles he’d been wearing since the Marksmen chained him up at the Circe. I cringed at the dried black blood along the edges of the metal, and my eyes stung as I remembered that underneath, hidden by the band, was his dandelion tattoo.

  I’d fixated on the metal cuff so intensely that I barely noticed the hand, until the fingers splayed wide and anchored in the dirt. It was Sebastian’s hand, but very different from the last time I’d seen him in Augustine’s hideout. Black veins bulged beneath the gray skin. They ran along the back of his hand and continued up his arm. The claws, which looked even longer and sharper, dug deep grooves into the dirt as Sebastian pulled himself from the shadowy corner.

  The cold spikes in my lungs urged me to stop, but I kept moving until I was directly in front of the prison cell. I knelt in the dirt and clung so tightly to the bars that my knuckles burned with the pressure. Sebastian’s other hand came into view, riddled with the same patchwork of black veins that spidered under his wrist cuff and along his arms.

  The silhouette of his body was visible now, and I could see he was curled into a tight crouch. The shadow of his wings expanded across the entire space of the cell. Their talon tips scraped the edges of the walls as the wings flapped eerily back and forth. The noise grated in my ears. I stared into the shadows at his mostly hidden form.

  If I could only reach out and touch him. I was sick of being so close, but constantly separated by the unending forces that had been thrown against him. Everything about this made nausea burn at the back of my throat.

  ‘Hey, I’m right here,’ I said, forcing the words from my mouth. ‘Sebastian, let me see you.’ I leaned my cheek against the cold iron. A flash of memory – the first time I’d seen him after he transformed. I’d asked him the same thing, and he’d come hesitantly forward out of the shadows of the forest. I slipped my hand through the bars. ‘I’m right here.’

  At first, it was as though he hadn’t heard me. His body remained motionless; still nothing more than a black form against the dingy cell wall. Then, all at once, he crawled into the dull spillage of light. Black veins had sprouted along his neck and streaked down his chest. His head was bowed. But I knew, even before he raised his chin and our eyes met, that something was horribly wrong.

  Sebastian’s eyes had turned completely silver, like someone had melted down the metal and poured it straight into his sockets. No separation of iris and pupil, just two solid orbs. He surveyed me, unblinking, and my heart plummeted as the rest of his features materialized from the shadows.

  His damp, plastered hair highlighted his pointed ears, but jutting through his bangs, the spiraled horns above his temples had grown and thickened, angling outward and back. Smaller black veins ran like tiny lightning bolts from the base of his horns along his brow line and the edges of his temples.

  His teeth were clearly visible over his dark, cracked lips, and they gleamed like rows of sharpened knives – those teeth he used to try and hide from me in the way he would speak or smile, always keeping his lips close together. Li
ke he was ashamed.

  Now, Sebastian’s mouth gaped wide, showing them off as he drew in ragged breaths. His gray skin looked marbleized in the orange light of the room as his wings began moving methodically back and forth, slow and ominous, stirring up dust inside the small cell. Purple-black blood oozed from new arrow wounds on his opposite shoulder and also his thigh.

  ‘Oh God,’ I breathed a prayer, not knowing what else to do. I reached my hand further through the bars, desperate to touch him, to bring him back from wherever he was. But he moved so much faster than I expected. In one breath, he was crouched in front of me. The next, he slammed into the bars. I yanked my hand back just before he hit.

  The bars rattled, tiny rocks shook loose from the ceiling. I stifled a scream and scrambled away from the prison as Sebastian hit the bars again and again, each time with an inhuman cry that ripped the air from my lungs. I watched, fighting back tears until, at last, he seemed to exhaust himself. He collapsed onto his side, his wings curling around him like a giant gray coat.

  I couldn’t see his face anymore, but the image of it burned in my head. There’d been no life in those eyes – nothing that showed he even knew who I was. Every bit of me turned frigid, then numb.

  ‘Come on, Sebastian,’ I said hoarsely. I eased closer to the cell. ‘You know it’s me. I know you’re in there somewhere. Whatever Augustine’s done to you, you can fight it. Just … just don’t give up.’

  The only reply I got was another inhuman growl.

  I slumped to the floor and leaned against the wall, staring helplessly into the cell. I couldn’t even talk to him, much less find out what happened. Sebastian’s wings obscured his body, but I noticed patches of his blood on the floor.