God. Had the Fideles transformed them, only to lock them away down here to starve in the dark?
The only mercy was that none of the bones appeared to belong to children. My hands shook with suppressed fury, and I felt sick that we’d joked so lightly about Christine’s hunger earlier. As soon as we were face-to-face with the Fideles, I wouldn’t hesitate to destroy them. They deserve to be wiped from the earth for this horror.
Hattie stepped cautiously into the chamber, clinging close to the wall. What she must be going through at the moment was beyond my power to imagine, and yet she bore it stoically, as did Rupert. I couldn’t help but feel a touch of admiration for her. Whatever else could be said about them both, neither lacked courage.
We crept along the outside wall, clinging as tightly to it as possible. Carvings covered the lower half, though they seemed far more crude than those at the bottommost reaches of the island to my untrained eye. Many glowed in the light with the same gaudy colors as marked the patterns on the floor.
The door we made for was difficult to spot in the murky light from the black stone. It was set back in a slight recess, but as Hattie had said, it was an ordinary door of wood, banded in corroded iron and set with a latch. Its presence seemed jarringly out of place in this ancient hall. Unfortunately, it was set on the opposite side of the cavern from where we’d entered.
I made sure I had a good grip on my sword cane. Even if we successfully evaded the creatures, there was no telling what might await us on the other side of that door. Something, or someone, knew Whyborne was here. It would be the perfect place to set an ambush, in case the wretches on this side didn’t kill him first.
We kept our movements slow and careful, and had crossed half the distance when Rupert’s foot slipped on a finger bone.
The sound wasn’t loud—but it was loud enough. The mutated Endicotts instantly fell silent, and their hideous heads turned in our direction.
We all froze, and I held my breath. My pulse drummed in my ears and a metallic taste filled my mouth. I was painfully conscious of every tiny rustle of cloth, every sigh of breath from my companions.
The tentacles squirmed in the air, as if longing to lash out at some prey. Heads cocked, and I prayed the horrible alterations hadn’t included enhanced hearing. My legs cramped from being held in the same uncomfortable position, but I didn’t dare move a muscle.
One by one, the Endicotts turned back to the Needle.
I kept my sigh of relief silent. Disaster averted, at least for the moment.
Until beside Whyborne, one of the crude carvings on the wall opened glowing eyes.
Chapter 28
Whyborne
The painted eyes opened practically at my elbow, their pigments reflecting the mad light to make their appearance that much more startling. I jerked away instinctively, and my foot caught on a gnawed femur. Griffin lunged to grab my arm and keep me from falling, but he was too slow, and I tumbled to the ground with a loud clatter.
The mutated Endicotts erupted into howls and shrieks.
Hattie cursed. “Run!” Rupert shouted. “Run for the door!”
“Come on, my dear!” Griffin grabbed my hand and hauled me to my feet. The corrupted Endicotts charged at us, most of them on four legs, one still on two. His clothing seemed in slightly less disrepair than the others, and thus glowed more brightly in the Needle’s light.
Iskander and Christine fell in to provide a rear guard. A scarlet tentacle lashed at Iskander, and he nearly severed it with a knife. Christine swung her cudgel, bashing the same creature in the shoulder. But the rest were almost upon them.
This was my fault. My friends were about to die right here in front of me, and it was my fault.
No. I couldn’t let that happen. “Run,” I ordered. Christine flashed me an uncertain look. I dropped to my knees, pressing my hands to the stone floor. “I said run, blast it!”
“Come on, Kander,” she said, and they both broke off, racing past me. I dimly sensed Griffin at my back, but I had no concentration to spare.
The earth spell had always been the most difficult for me. But thanks to the vortex this place was drowning in power.
All I had to do was drink it down.
I opened myself to the arcane energy burning against my skin. The scars on my right arm ached. The scent of scorching cloth filled my nose. I closed my eyes and forced my will onto the patch of floor in front of me, even as the Endicotts closed the distance between us.
Their feet and hands struck stone suddenly gone soft as mud. Yelps of surprise and fear rang out. I sensed Griffin lunge over me with his sword cane, driving one off. “Ival!”
I hardened the stone again and fell back with a gasp. Six of the Endicotts thrashed in front of me, some only inches away, their hands and feet trapped in the floor.
“Good work,” Griffin said, helping me up. “Come on.”
Two of the remaining creatures had circled around us and made for the rest of our companions. As Griffin and I sprinted toward them, a third collided with me. I fell heavily, certain I was about to feel the stinging acid on my skin, or teeth tearing into my throat.
Griffin stabbed his sword cane into it. The blow wasn’t deadly, but was enough to make the creature leap off me and at him.
I seized it by the ankle, clinging to it with all my strength. “Stand back,” I warned, and drew on the power of the arcane lines once again.
This time, I poured the raw energy directly into the warped form. My bones ached as arcane fire funneled through my body, and I gritted my teeth against the pain. The Endicott screamed and thrashed. The odor of scorched flesh rose from its clothing. I continued to draw on the power in this place, making myself into a conduit, holding nothing back, until the monster ceased to move.
I scrambled to my feet and we ran again. Hattie had slain another of the Endicotts, and Mother spread sorcerous frost over a second. Griffin stabbed it through the back as we ran past. Christine reached the door first and shoved on it. “Locked!”
“Out of the way,” I said. “I’ll smash it open if need be.”
“If you do that, we won’t be able to close it again behind us.” Rupert reached Christine’s side. “And we’ve no idea how many others might be stumbling about below us.”
He had an unfortunate point. “Then what?”
“Magic, of course.” Rupert laid his hand on the latch. “Not all of us smash our way through the world, Dr. Whyborne. Some of us are capable of subtlety when it suits.”
I bit back a retort, mainly because I wasn’t certain I could contradict him. Iskander and Hattie stood guard, and I listened intently for approaching footsteps. According to Hattie’s original count, there might still be a lone Endicott missing. They moved with a hellish silence, so I strained my eyes, even though the violet light from Morgen’s Needle seemed more to enhance shadows than shed illumination.
“We need to be wary of ambush on the other side of the door,” Griffin said in a low voice. “The Fideles might have set a guard, in case the wretches in here didn’t take care of us for them.”
The locked clicked. “It’s open,” Rupert said. “We shouldn’t—”
In that instant of distraction, a figure rushed Hattie. Its tentacle whipped out, striking her across the face and sending her to the ground with a scream of agony. Iskander whirled on it, but it was already past him and bearing down on Rupert.
Christine swung her cudgel into its knee. It tumbled forward, and Iskander stabbed it. It collapsed to the ground, breath wheezing as blood filled its lungs.
“Hattie!” Rupert ran to her. “Someone give me a canteen.”
I passed him mine. He poured it over her face, murmuring reassurances.
“Bloody hell, that stings,” she moaned. “I can’t see out of my right eye.”
The mark of the tentacle stood out on her face like a brand. The acidic slime had caught her directly across the eye. Rupert peeled the swollen lids apart while he emptied the canteen onto the reddened orb
. I cringed at the sight; she’d be lucky to retain any vision in it whatsoever. At least it had only hit one eye and not both.
There came a gurgling sound from the dying creature. “Rrrruperrt.”
Hattie shoved Rupert’s hand away. “Charlie? Is that Charlie?”
“Dear God.” Rupert stared at the figure for a long moment, as though loath to approach. Then with a shake of his head he went to kneel by it. “Charlie? Can you hear me?”
“Rupert.” Charlie’s breath wheezed in and out of the slit of his mouth. Horror rooted me to the spot. At least before we’d been able to tell ourselves the mutated victims didn’t keep their minds. To be in such a state, and still retain awareness…
This was the one who had gone on two feet, and his clothing seemed in better condition. Had he been transformed later than the others?
Rupert gripped Charlie’s hand. “What happened here? Can you tell me?”
“B-betrayed us.” The words were growing more slurred as Charlie’s life drained away. “Something in the Needle woke up. Whispered to him in dreams. I believed at first. Wrong.” His body spasmed.
Tears shone in Rupert’s eyes, but his voice remained steady. “Who betrayed us, Charles? Tell me, so I can make sure he dies screaming.”
Charlie swallowed convulsively. “Justinian,” he whispered. “The Keeper of Secrets.”
Then he went limp, and breathed no more.
Chapter 29
Griffin
“It ain’t true,” Hattie said. “It can’t be.”
“We should…should go through the door,” Rupert said heavily. “Assuming there’s no ambush, as Mr. Flaherty suggested, we can bind your wound. Keeping the eye shut will hopefully help.”
No one else spoke.
I positioned myself in front of the door, and Whyborne stepped to my side. I scrutinized it with my shadowsight, but saw nothing. Still, there was no telling what might lurk on the other side: Fideles, more Endicotts, whatever sorcerer or servant of the masters who had been watching Whyborne through the very stones. My heart beat quickly, and I readied myself to act. A glance at Whyborne told me he was prepared to use magic should anything attack us.
I flung the door open, as hard as I could, in case anything lurked behind it. It crashed back with a loud boom that made me wince. Nothing but darkness and silence lay beyond.
I’d hoped to glimpse sunlight, but the dying witch lights illuminated only windowless stone walls. Still, I was relieved when a quick inspection of the room revealed nothing more than dust and cobwebs. Square sarcophagi lined the floor in rows, and urns sat in niches on the walls. When the door shut behind us, it proved to have been disguised on this side as a memorial plaque, inscribed with the Endicott motto: Supra alia familia.
“I suspected we’d come out somewhere in the family crypt,” Rupert said. Hattie leaned on his arm as he guided her to one of the sarcophagi. “Judging by the layout of the spiral.”
Thick silence seemed to press in on us from every side. Christine went to an unlit torch set into a sconce and took it out. “Whyborne, will you do the honors?”
It burst into flame, spreading a pool of flickering orange light over the scene. Christine looked tired in its light, her mouth pinched and dark shadows under her eyes. The rest of us were no better, our clothing stiff with salt and spattered with blood. Only Heliabel appeared much as she usually did. She padded around the room, stopping occasionally to trace her clawed hands over a sculpted bust of some long ago progenitor, or examine the names carved into the funerary plaques on the walls.
Hattie perched on the edge of a sarcophagus decorated with the lifelike effigy of a man in armor. Rupert took out his handkerchief and began to bind it around her head. “It won’t be much of a bandage, I’m afraid. Hopefully we can find something better once we reach the rest of the house.”
“The Keeper can’t have betrayed us, right?” she asked, an uncharacteristically plaintive note in her voice.
“I’m not sure what other possibility makes as much sense.” Whyborne’s hair, stiffened by salt, stood up in even wilder spikes than usual. He no longer glowed as brightly as he had when drawing on the arcane lines during the fight, but he was still a flame in my shadowsight. “If he knew some secret concerning Sir Richard and the works of the masters, he might have possessed the knowledge to reweave the barrier spell after Minerva breached it. It would also explain the voice that boomed out as the flotilla approached—he wanted to warn as many of the family back as possible. And—”
“Shut it, abomination!” Hattie shoved Rupert aside and drew one of her daggers, waving it menacingly in Whyborne’s direction. “We would’ve made it through the room if something wasn’t after you. We wouldn’t have had to kill Charlie. Maybe you’re a traitor!”
I moved to put myself between them, as did Heliabel. Christine thumped the cudgel menacingly into her hand.
“Please, Hattie.” Rupert’s features were drawn, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and grief. “I know you want to lash out, but Dr. Whyborne is right.” He gestured to the hidden entrance. “This door dates from the Tudor period. It’s possible the Keeper of Secrets didn’t know it was here, but how likely? I believe he knew about the room beyond. And if he’s the one responsible for…for…”
“He wouldn’t.” Hattie stabbed a finger in the direction of the inscription on the door. “Supra alia familia, Rupert. The Keeper wouldn’t do this to his own blood. Wouldn’t turn them into abominations. Wouldn’t torture them in the dark.”
“Families will do all sorts of terrible things to one another,” Christine said. She rubbed at her arms, as if she’d taken a chill. “My own sister tried to kill me. Whyborne’s brother murdered their sister and tried to do him in as well.”
“Yes, but your sister was possessed by a monster, and they’re a bunch of abominations.” Hattie shook her head. “It ain’t the same.”
I could have given Hattie examples from my time with the Pinkertons of purely human families being cruel to one another beyond words. But I suspected she already knew as much, and merely clung to anything that would let her deny the plain truth. So I only said, “What possible motive did Charlie have to lie to you?”
She had no answer to that. Whyborne shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Charlie also said there is something in Morgen’s Needle, which spoke to Justinian in dreams. Mr. Endicott, didn’t you say family lore holds Sir Richard dreamed the spiral architecture for Balefire?”
Hattie brightened. “You’re right. Maybe it ain’t Justinian at all. Maybe he’s being mind-controlled by whatever is inside the Needle.”
“The Fideles are fond of mind domination,” Whyborne agreed hesitantly.
I caught Rupert’s grim look. Though he didn’t disagree, he surely must be asking himself if the explanation was truly adequate. Balefire, the barrier, the fragment of the Wisborg Codex, even the very office of the Keeper of Secrets, all pointed to a pattern too large and too old to be easily dismissed.
But he only said, “Whatever the truth, we must press on. Perhaps there is some other explanation, but for now, we must be ready should Justinian have turned against us, no matter the cause. I propose we attempt to reach the alchemy laboratory. There are things there we can use against the Fideles, and against whatever they might summon, including Hounds of Tindalos.”
Hattie rested a hand on one of her knives. “What about the crèche? We should check there, find out if…”
If the children still lived, she meant. But she didn’t say it aloud, and neither did any of the rest of us.
“Quite.” Rupert pushed his spectacles higher onto his nose. “Balefire is essentially divided into two parts. The lower, outer part of the spiral consists primarily of living areas. The main library, bedrooms, dining hall, kitchens, and such, including the crèche. Then there is the Great Hall. Beyond that is the upper house, which is devoted to our family’s calling. Training rooms for both fighters like Hattie, and sorcerers and alchemists like myself. Libraries contai
ning more specialized books on magic. Laboratories. And of course the armory and the vault, where the most dangerous magical items are locked away.”
“The crèche first, then, as it’s closest,” Heliabel said. “And we try not to be caught by the Fideles.”
“There are many secret passageways within the walls of Balefire,” Rupert said. “I’m familiar with a few, though only the Keeper knows them all. If he has betrayed us, willingly or not, perhaps he at least hasn’t told the Fideles everything about the estate.”
“Something isn’t right here,” I said uneasily. “Charlie only mentioned Justinian. We’ve seen no signs whatsoever of the Fideles since we’ve arrived. I know this is a place of the masters, and it does make sense for them to be here, implementing the next phase of the Restoration, but…are we certain they are the ones behind everything?”
“They should have been here in the crypt, waiting for us,” Christine agreed. “They have to know we’re here—they’ve been tracking us since we passed the first arcane line.”
“They’ve been tracking me,” Whyborne said unhappily.
“Something has been tracking you,” I corrected him. “What, I don’t know, but it can’t be the Fideles or Justinian. Otherwise they would surely have prepared an ambush for us.”
“They might still have,” Iskander pointed out.
Rupert frowned at us. “If not the Fideles, then who could it be? Even the Keeper couldn’t overcome the rest of the family here and transform them all into monsters on his own.”
I didn’t have an answer for him. When no one spoke, Hattie said, “Only one way to find out, and it ain’t standing around here. Come on, Rupert. Let’s get moving.”
Chapter 30
Whyborne
The crypt let out onto a flight of stone steps. After a long moment of listening at the door at the top for any sounds beyond, Rupert let us out and back into the sunlight at last. Which was a good thing, since the witch lights had faded almost to nothing, forcing us to rely on the torch I’d lit. Christine started to leave it in a sconce, but Rupert shook his head. “The island has no gas lines. I fear we still rely on oil lanterns and candles in this remote locale. Hopefully we will find a lantern soon, but keep the torch just in case.”
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