by E. E. Holmes
“We set off in Liam’s car, chasing a lead that the Trackers phoned in to us. When we found her, I told myself, I would never let her go again. I would tell her how I felt, even if it broke every rule I’d ever been trained to follow. I was utterly distracted, flying down an icy road in the dead of night, when a car sideswiped us. I never even knew it was behind us, never even saw the headlights in the rear view mirror.”
My heart was in my throat. This was the moment he died. This was the moment my father had died, and I was listening to him describe it. It might have been the singular strangest thing that had ever happened to me, and that was saying something.
“In the moment we were crashing, there was an instant of clarity. I’m sure it only lasted a second or two, but it seemed I had a long time to think about it just the same. I knew that I was about to die, as surely as I had ever known anything. And I also knew that I couldn’t leave without making sure that Elizabeth, and any child we might have together, was safe and free of the far-reaching claws of the prophecy. I would not leave them in this mess. I thought fleetingly, for a mere fraction of a second, of binding myself to Elizabeth, but in the instant that it mattered, and I chose to stay behind, I bound myself to Finvarra.”
He did not look at her as he said it, but kept his eyes averted, not out of shame or embarrassment, but out of respect. Finvarra, on the other hand, was looking directly at him as though she had never really seen him before.
“It was a strategic decision, and one that made perfect sense for what I felt I needed to do,” he said, eyes still downcast. “Finvarra was the one I was assigned to protect in the first place, and whatever else I may have been feeling, I did not take that duty lightly. But there was more to it, I admit. She was the High Priestess. She would be the one who made any decisions regarding Elizabeth; any tips or leads on her whereabouts would surely be brought directly to her. She would also be the one trusted to interpret the prophecy, which I admit I was then terrified would come to pass as a result of our tryst. Therefore, the most crucial place to be, in order to keep an eye on Elizabeth, and on you, was with Finvarra.”
“You Bound yourself to me because of her,” Finvarra said slowly, as though she were just testing the words, to see what they sounded like out loud.
“I did. I am deeply sorry,” Carrick said, still looking at the ground.
But Finvarra was moving beyond her shock now, and began to regain some of her usual commanding tone. “So many times I consulted you regarding the prophecy. So many times I sought your opinion, trusting you as implicitly as I always have done, in everything. And now I discover that your true goal was never to protect the Durupinen from the prophecy, but to mask your own secret shame.”
“I never intended to deceive you, and I would never intentionally cause you any pain, High Priestess. I didn’t—”
“How am I ever to trust you again, when the entirety of our Bound relationship has been built on a foundation of lies?” Finvarra asked. “What am I supposed to think?”
Carrick raised both hands in front of him, a pleading, supplicating gesture. I think, if he’d been able, he would have dropped to his knees, prepared to grovel. But I suppose that sort of thing loses some of its effectiveness when the groveler in question could simply sink through the floor at will.
“I never stopped protecting you,” he said, and in his upset, his form wavered and flickered fitfully, like a candle in the wind. “I may have loved Elizabeth, but that did not mean that I could not also protect you!”
“And if you had had to choose?” Finvarra demanded. “If you could only have protected one of us with your actions? What then?”
Carrick’s silence spoke volumes. Finvarra stood up, turning her back and staring at the sliver of the grounds visible through the window. Twilight had deepened to velvety blackness, and the stars revealed themselves, one by one, in a glittering mass above her.
“When you appeared beside me as a ghost, before the news of your death had reached anyone’s ears, I was so sure you had stayed for love,” Finvarra said, “simply because I’d never known a spirit to Bind for any other reason. I was correct in my assumption. I was quite wrong, though, about who the object of that affection was.”
Carrick still could not answer, it seemed. It was his turn to look shocked. Finvarra didn’t seem to expect an answer, however, and she stared instead at the multiplying twinkling of the stars. As the silence spiraled deeper and deeper between them, I felt increasingly that I was intruding on something terribly private, even though what Carrick had revealed could not have related more closely to me. Finally, Carrick seemed to realize his story was not yet over, and so he took a shallow breath and went on, addressing me once again.
“I never allowed myself to grieve for what could have been between your mother and me. It was a luxury that I told myself I did not deserve. Instead, I focused on my new role as a spirit Bound to the High Priestess of the Northern Clans. Here I was able to keep tabs on what was happening to your mother, for the Council was following the situation most closely. I was one of the first to know when you were born, Jessica, and I was always alerted when the Trackers had any leads on where your mother had gone next.”
“Did you know about Hannah?” I asked, before I could stop myself. I didn’t know what difference it would have made, whether he’d known about her or not, but my curiosity raged nonetheless.
“Not for many years. Your mother was able to conceal her existence even from the most skilled of our Trackers,” Carrick said. “We found no trace of your sister until last year, when Lucida stumbled upon a link in a birth record. A foster family, curious, no doubt, about Hannah’s origins, had discovered your existence, and had requested information about your whereabouts. The request was flagged immediately, and that was how we discovered Hannah’s existence.”
“And that was when you started looking for her, too?”
“Yes. But within days of that discovery, your mother…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“Died. The word you’re looking for is died,” I said, almost harshly. The irony was nearly too bizarre to process, a ghost unable to speak of death, and I had a brief, wild desire to laugh out loud, though I couldn’t have found any of it less funny.
“Yes,” he said, rather shakily. “And of course that set off an entirely more pressing set of events which distracted us from searching for Hannah. But once we had located you both, and begun our investigations into your lives, the rumors began to fly.”
“About the prophecy?”
“Yes. The Council still knew nothing of my relationship with your mother, but they knew enough about the two of you to be suspicious that your father might be a Caomhnóir. The fact that you were twins, and the unusually powerful connection Hannah had to the spirit world, were enough to start the cogs turning. The most likely conclusion was that your mother must have had an affair with Liam, but with both of them gone, there was no real way to confirm or deny this theory. I did what I could to thwart the idea, but it gained momentum the more the Council discovered about you. I knew I would need to remain closer than ever to the High Priestess and all of the goings on within the Council, if I was to have any chance of protecting you, but of course…” He trailed off, and there was no need to finish the thought. He had not been able to protect us. No one had.
“Why did you wait so long to tell me?’ I asked.
He looked me in the eye again and winced, but did not turn away. “Because of the look on your face right now. I have been afraid to confront it. But I assure you, you cannot despise me more than I despise myself for the way that I treated your mother.” He stared at me harder, as though trying to punish himself with whatever expression I had on my face. “The Caomhnóir pride ourselves on our bravery, and there was a time that I would have staked my life on my own, but when it was truly tested, I failed—I failed her, I failed you, and I failed your sister. I’ve spent every moment of my afterlife trying to atone for it.”
I had no id
ea what to say next, but was saved the trouble of figuring it out by the appearance of Milo by my side.
“What the hell is going on here?” he hissed.
I turned to him. “You’re supposed to be keeping watch at the entry point!” I said.
“And you’re supposed to stay in contact with me at all times, so don’t you start sassing me!” he said. “You went silent, I got worried. I’m your spirit guide, that’s my job. Now what’s going on? Did you get the casting or not?”
“I… haven’t asked him yet,” I said.
“Haven’t asked him yet? What the hell have you been doing, trading life stories?” Milo cried, and I shushed him, throwing an anxious look over my shoulder.
“The Wraith is at the other end of the dungeon, I just checked,” Milo said. “It’s the Silent Child. Did you see her?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I was hoping they hadn’t caught her,” he said sadly. “She works on a pattern; that must be part of her instructions. She won’t be back down this way for another three minutes.”
“Well, we better hurry up then,” I said.
Milo looked outraged. “Why do you think I came to—”
I turned back to Carrick and Finvarra, both staring at me now. “We don’t have much time,” I said. “I… we can talk about this again later, if we get the chance. Right now, I need the castings to summon and banish the Elemental. They aren’t in the Book of Téigh Anonn, but Finn knew you had them, because you helped him banish the Elemental last time.”
Both of their faces went blank in surprise. “The Elemental? What does it have to do with this?” Finvarra asked.
As quickly as I could, I explained the rough plan. When I had finished, Carrick nodded. “It’s risky, of course, but you’re right. I think it’s the only thing that might work against them. How will you remember the castings? Have you got some way to write it down?”
“I don’t need to, not in this form. It’s hard to explain, but I’m hyperaware right now. There’s nothing to get in the way of my mental energy. If you just tell me, I’ll remember it.”
He rattled off the instructions, including a fairly complicated set of summoning words in Gaelic. Normal Jess would have heard nothing but gibberish, but not Walker Jess. Even in my panic, I could appreciate the ease with which I retrieved it from my mind the instant I tried, like plucking an item from a shelf.
“Can you tell us anything about what’s going on in the rest of the castle? Do you know where Hannah is being kept?”
Carrick shook his head. “They’ve warded the entire central courtyard area, including all the surrounding rooms, so I can’t get anywhere near it. Only the ghosts they’re controlling seem to be able to gain access. I think they must be in there.”
“If they truly are going to reverse the Gateway, the most powerful place they could do it from is the Fairhaven Geatgrima,” Finvarra said. “That is surely why they’ve returned here.”
“But I thought the Gateways were part of us,” I said. “They aren’t physical places, are they?”
“Not in the usual sense, but there are places, like Fairhaven Hall, where the Gateways have been opened so many times over the centuries that the barrier between the worlds has become worn down. Think of it as the tiniest of cracks in the wall that separates the worlds of the living and the dead. Our presence is what makes it. The energy channeled there is stronger than a hundred individual Gateways. If your sister manages to reverse it…”
The horror of the thought swallowed us all. I remembered the first moment I’d seen the Geatgrima, towering over the masses of white-clad Durupinen, candles alight, its power tugging at each and every one of us, devastating in its suggestion of allure.
I pushed the thought away. There was no time.
“What about the torch that Hannah carried with her when they attacked? Have you seen it?”
Again, Carrick shook his head. “Not since they entered the castle. I couldn’t risk discovery.”
“Okay, thank you,” I said. “If this works, we’ll be able to free you all from down here. If it doesn’t…well, we’ll come up with something else, I guess. We’ll see you soon.”
Carrick’s face was twisted with a dozen different, painful emotions.
“Wait! Jessica, let me go with you. I can help you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head before he’d even started speaking because I knew what he was going to say. “You need to stay here. If the Elemental gets out of control, you need to be here, to protect the people in this castle from it. The Necromancers won’t know what’s coming, they won’t be able to protect themselves. But you can make sure that thing doesn’t harm anyone down here.”
“Jessica, I…”
“Not now,” I said. “I can’t… I’ll see you later. I promise.”
And without another word to the man who I’d known for only minutes to be my father, I turned and left, my heart and mind too full of inexpressible things.
21
A Deal with the Devil
I PUT AS MUCH DISTANCE between myself and the castle as I could, as fast as I could.
“What was that all about?” Milo asked.
“Nothing.”
“Jess, I can tell you’re upset. Can’t you just—”
“No. I can’t.”
Something in my voice made him give up. We flew in silence until we reached the cover of the trees. We saw not a soul—living, dead, or in-between—anywhere on the grounds. Their absence struck me as ominous.
We reached the clearing where the príosún was located, and saw Finn, Savvy and Annabelle crouched around my body, waiting. Finn’s eyes were closed, and he was muttering something to himself. It seemed he couldn’t look at my body, even when he knew that I wasn’t forever gone from it. This realization landed with a hollow, painful thump on top of the pile of other things I could not possibly cope with. The pile teetered, threatening to bury me. I righted it and shut it away and I reentered my body.
“Jess!” three voices chorused.
“Are you okay? That took longer than I thought. Did you get it?” Finn asked.
“Yes,” I gasped. “Give me a pen and some paper.”
Annabelle thrust them into my hands, and I wrote down all of Carrick’s instructions regarding the Elemental, before the barriers of my physical form had a chance to dull and cloak them. I handed it to Finn, who took it, but stopped, staring into my face with concern.
“Are you okay? What’s happened to you?”
“Nothing. I’m fine,” I said, knowing the answer was utterly transparent.
“No, you’re not. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Of course I’m not! It’s just… everything! I mean, are you seriously okay right now? I’ll be okay when this is all over,” I said, climbing awkwardly to my feet. He put out a hand to help steady me, but I brushed it away.
“They didn’t know anything about where Hannah’s being kept, or where that torch is, except that the Necromancers have blocked off the entire central courtyard and surrounding rooms,” I said, looking at Savvy and Annabelle instead. “So Milo and I will need to habitate to see what we can find out.”
“What’s in the central courtyard?” Savvy asked.
“The Geatgrima. Finvarra thinks they will use it as the location for Hannah to reverse the Gateway.”
Finn eyes widened. “That would be…”
“Cataclysmic? Devastating? Apocalyptic? Yeah, I think that’s the idea,” I said impatiently. I turned to Milo. “Are you ready? This means you might not be strong enough to go with us when we enter the castle.”
Milo nodded stoically. “I know. But this is important. We need to know everything we can before we go in. If this is the best way for me to help, then let’s do it already.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m ready.”
Milo surged forward and I felt the now familiar expansion of another consciousness inside my own. Almost at once my head was filled with the sound of stormy crying.
“That’s her!” Milo thought, his fear infecting me before my own could even form. “What’s wrong with her?”
“We won’t find out by panicking, Milo! Focus in!” I thought.
“Right. Right. Okay, get a grip Milo,” he said, and I felt the steadying hum of his concentration as it aligned with my own.
A room resolved into being behind eyes. I knew it must be the Grand Council room, but it was barely recognizable. The walls were charred and soot-blackend. A huge section of the north wall, directly behind the Council benches, had crumbled away, framing a jagged snatch of dark, starry sky. The candelabras and chandeliers, once lit with electricity, were alight with waxy stumps of candles. All of this could be seen through Hannah’s trembling fingers as she held them over her face and sobbed unrestrainedly.
“I cannot express to you how very sorry I am,” said Neil Caddigan, who knelt beside her, one of his long pale hands cupped on her shoulder. “We were too late.” Just over his shoulder, a large torch burned in a bracket placed upon the High Priestess’ chair, surrounded by casting circles, candles, and runes.
“I don’t believe you. I won’t believe you,” Hannah said, her voice cracked and broken.
“They were staying with a ragtag band of travelers, an obscure clan. No doubt their companion Annabelle contacted them, for I understand that she has relatives there.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Hannah cried. “Why would they go to the Durupinen when they knew our clan was looking for them?”
“As to that, I cannot say. Perhaps it was their only option. It was a gamble, to trust another clan, and it was a gamble they lost. Someone amongst the Traveler Clan must have tipped off the Fairhaven Caomhnóir that were out on the hunt for them. They attacked the camp. They left no survivors but for a few Traveler children who told us what happened.”