Hereditary Magic

by Emma L. Adams

  “Get up. She’ll drain you dry.”

  I was dreaming. Why in hell was Holly helping me? I twitched my hand, found I could move again. The Winter Gatekeeper’s hold had lifted. With the greyness gone from my vision, blue light continued to flow from the summoning circle to the house. I’d thought she was amplifying the spirit’s power… but maybe I was wrong.

  “You’re trying to contain her?” I asked. “Not help her?”

  “Of course not,” Holly said. “This is your fault, Ilsa. I should have had that book. I need it to keep her contained, but it’s too late now.”

  “No, it isn’t.” I pushed to my knees. “Not if you help me get these candles into place.”

  “Candles won’t do a thing,” she said. “Nor will regular necromancy. Your friend killed the only people keeping her contained.”

  Those necromancers… “They tried to kill me, and my sister. What did you expect us to do, let it slide?”

  “I didn’t order them to do that,” she said. “It’s too late now.”

  “Like hell.” I stumbled forwards, pushing aside my exhaustion. What’d the spirit done, fed on my life energy? Or my spirit? It sure felt like it.

  Greyness slid over my vision and once again I was in the spirit world. The Winter Gatekeeper’s spirit was here, too. It was leaching life not just from Winter, but from all the spirits. The undead included.

  Holly knew that. Maybe her tenuous attempt at an alliance with Winter was due to her knowledge that eventually, the Gatekeeper would break free. The only place she’d be able to escape her would be in the Unseelie Court.

  “Come here, child,” whispered the Winter Gatekeeper’s voice in my ear. “It’ll all be over soon.”

  I shook my head, my body threatening to freeze up again. Whatever Holly had done had slowed the spirit, but not enough. She was too strong. There was a ton of rage and fury contained in that glowing spirit, a presence worse than any wraith. Her magic had survived beyond death, and if unleashed, it’d break the Ley Line. There’d be another faerie invasion, from the darkest depths of Faerie.

  “Come here, Ilsa,” she whispered again.

  Chapter 23

  I turned on the spot to face the house, and the torrent of power, barely contained by the necromantic spells on the territory. I could see them now, through the grey—like ropes, holding her spirit down, confining it to the house. The lock on the grounds had been temporary. That dizzying power, the horrifying presence of it, probably wore down any necromantic defences over time. Holly had hired those necromancers to keep her in, but it wasn’t enough. And now she’d killed someone as a last-ditch effort to keep her contained.

  How could I have misjudged the situation so badly?

  The book. Get the book. The spirit wanted the book. How it was possible for an incorporeal spirit to take it from me, I didn’t know, but I knew from the sheer force of that power that when unleashed, there was nothing she couldn’t do. She could crack the world in two. With the Ley Line open, she might do just that.

  “Why?” I asked through numb lips. “Why do this?”

  “Why else?” purred the Winter Gatekeeper. “The Courts sought to control and enslave us, but they foolishly entrusted us with their power. I’m claiming it as mine.”

  “You’re dead. And insane.” I fumbled my coat, my fingers slipping on the book. The last candle had fallen from my pocket somewhere in the snow, along with my last hope. All that was left was numbing cold, and the knowledge that as long as her attention was on me, it wasn’t on the others.

  I hope you run while you can, River. But that vow of his would compel him to stay here until the end.

  “You’re a pathetic, powerless mortal,” said the Winter Gatekeeper. “Give me the book.”

  “Like it’d open for you.” Cold air stirred, lifted my hair from my head. “I might be mortal, but at least I’m still alive. And I claimed its power already.”

  “Have you any idea how many years I’ve been looking for that talisman?”

  “I can guess.” She might even have known Great-Aunt Enid had it. And she knew it was a talisman. There was no hiding anything from her.

  I held only one advantage left… as a Lynn, she was bound not to fatally harm me. I could only assume that held after death, because otherwise, she’d already have tried to take me out of the equation directly. But she needed me alive. It was her orders the necromancers followed, in the end. She must have offered them a better deal than Holly. She’d become a force beyond human, even the Sidhe, and the magic that kept her alive was fed by death itself.

  “They’ll all die,” she whispered. “The fools will come here, and perish. There’ll be an end to them, and the Lynn curse, forever.”

  The Sidhe. She knew they could die now. And she planned to have them come here, while the veil was unstable, and take them to pieces.

  There’d be nothing left of any realm to rule over.

  “You could have made things easier for me,” said the Winter Gatekeeper. “All the clues were supposed to tell you that you’re the missing heir. Your delusions of grandeur were supposed to land you in the Courts, where you were supposed to leave the doors wide open for our people to stride in and take power. The traitorous raven must have tipped you off.”

  My mouth fell open. She’d started the heir rumour—for me. “Delusions of grandeur? Are you sure you weren’t thinking of yourself?”

  Anger pulsed from her spirit. “You dare mock me—”

  “Damn, I didn’t give Holly enough credit.” I could hardly believe Aunt Candice even thought I’d have the audacity to make a claim on the throne of the Summer Court. But I’d hardly spoken to her. She’d made a wild guess depending on how she would have reacted to being the one born without magic, and it’d backfired. “The wraiths, the Vale… it was all you. She was trying to stop you.”

  “And she almost succeeded. I’d like to thank you for setting me free. All you need to do now, Ilsa… is die.”

  “Not if I can help it.” Holly spoke from within the blizzard—and she held the last candle.

  I drew the book, lifted it, and power rolled through me, flickering lights appearing around my vision. The Gatekeeper’s terrible laughter cut through, even as the candles lit up—containing her, binding her to this space.

  At the same time, the house burst apart. Bricks flew wide, roofs splintered, and the whole building cracked open as the writhing spirit within broke free. I held myself upright in the face of it—and didn’t move. None of it touched me. The house was made entirely of magic, and my anti-magical shield still functioned.

  The glowing orb of her spirit floated above the house’s ruins, her figure now visible within it. Eyes raging with flames, mouth stretched in a grimace, hands splayed, glowing with vivid magic. Now I’m in trouble. Necromantic magic was exempt from my magical shield—though it would surely have killed a normal person.

  The candle lights wavered. Then the Gatekeeper released a blast of magic, directly at Holly. If she dropped that candle, we were dead.

  I threw myself in front of her, and magic slammed into me, knocking me into the snow. Winded, gasping, I rolled over, my vision flickering with grey lights.

  The Winter Gatekeeper laughed. “Your pitiful spell won’t do a thing, you mortal fools.”

  “Everyone’s mortal,” I shouted at her. “Even you.”

  The book’s power rolled through me again, shivering, demanding. Words rose to my tongue, banishing words, like a language half-remembered. Her power pushed back. She was too strong. As long as her rage remained in this world, fuelling her power, she would, too. No wonder Holly had only been able to stall her. She’d kept her powers beyond death.

  River’s voice joined mine, speaking the bindings. The Gatekeeper spun on the spot, hissing in anger—and collided with River’s fist. He floated in ghost form—but as a spirit, he could fight her.

  And so could I.

  Perhaps because I’d done it before, perhaps because the veil was so close—
my spirit came free of my body in barely a blink, and collided with her at speed. It wasn’t like hitting a physical body, because with nothing to land on, we both kept falling until I managed to stop myself in mid-air.

  She lunged, screaming, at River. He got there first, shoving her backwards, with practised moves indicating this was far from the first time he’d fought someone as a ghost. Magic burst from the Winter Gatekeeper’s palms, aimed at River, but he dodged expertly. The candles’ lights continued to burn, but the words I’d spoken hadn’t been enough. I needed to do more than that. The roaring power inside her simply refused to be diminished.

  Wait. What had River said? My defence mechanism…

  “Are you too much of a coward to fight me?” I said loudly. “I thought you wanted the book.”

  “I don’t have any use for the book while in this state,” she said, spinning to face me. “But I would dearly like your magic.”

  I screamed as her magic pierced through me again. River was shouting, binding words that rang with familiarity, but while those words would bind a lesser spirit, she was too clever, too present. She was entirely conscious, her spirit preserved as surely as though she still lived.

  But her power wasn’t infinite.

  “You want the magic—come and get it.”

  She screeched and flew at me, and I willed myself to wake into my body again.

  The Gatekeeper flew through empty air, allowing River to strike her from behind. His magic still worked, too—but of course, he was still alive. I barely rested in my body for a second, long enough to check on the book, then I launched myself at her again, sending her sprawling in the air.

  “How dare you humiliate me.” Power brimmed in her eyes, leaking off her body, but none of it touched me. It ought to have burned out by now. Her ability as a Gatekeeper shouldn’t allow her to draw on others’ power. No… the circle did that. The circle held her contained. The energy was drawn into the necromantic trap. Her own magic was limited, and she’d been using it all this time. Even on top of the Ley Line, there was a limit.

  River’s eyes widened as I shouted at Holly— “Keep hold of that candle. Whatever you do—don’t drop it.”

  Then I floated up to the circle’s edge. In this form, it appeared in a shimmering line around the territory. Just beyond was the smaller circle where the dead necromancer’s leader lay. His power pulsed in the air, a living thing, feeding into the circle. His life force had fuelled the circle around the house that I’d accidentally broken when I’d killed the necromancers, too. Life force contained death. The ghosts floating around, faerie spirits stuck on a loop… all of them were trapped within the circle as well. There was no way out. The candles wouldn’t hold forever.

  River floated to my side. “She’s too strong,” he said. “We need to get out of the circle. If we bind her from in here, we’ll be sucked beyond the gates, too.”

  The gates.

  Gatekeeper.

  “Wait for me,” I said. “I think I know what to do.”

  He gave a brief nod. Had he guessed? Or did he really trust me to know what I was doing? No time to ask. Once again, I willed myself to return to my living body, and in barely a blink, I was face-down in the snow. Fighting the numbing cold, I stumbled to my feet.

  “This won’t hold,” Holly said. “What are you doing?”

  “Keep standing there. Nobody else is in the circle, are they?”

  “Only the dead. What are you—?”

  She broke off as I stepped outside of the circle of light, holding the book, conjuring the image of those endless gates. I was going by guesswork now, but this necromantic power was linked with the faeries somehow, and the faeries tended to be very literal-minded.

  Gatekeeper. The gate was everywhere, existing in every place at any one time. Even here in the between world. A paradox. The gates of death, eternally open, a siren song calling to every spirit to pass Beyond.

  I fixed the image in my mind, and slipped out of my body.

  The gates appeared immediately, open wide. Spirits passed in and out, not noticing the world beyond the greyness. A different plane… yet I could see the house’s ruins beneath, the Winter Gatekeeper’s spirit hovering beneath. And I still felt the thrum of the Gatekeeper’s power in my veins even as my body remained cold and frozen below.

  “Stop that.” The Gatekeeper’s booming voice reached me. I focused on the gate. You’re there. You’re everywhere, in every part of this world, and she’s dead.

  The gates opened wider, and a glow enveloped my body. I heard voices shouting, maybe from the mass of spirits ahead, but I stood my ground, laser focused on the gate.

  Gatekeeper.

  And then my feet touched down on earth, the gate floating in front of me. Closer to the circle’s edge.

  “Holly!” I said, and she spun around, eyes widening. She can see it. They all can. As the Gatekeeper’s power grew stronger, the spirit sight would creep up on everyone in the vicinity. Ghosts would appear amongst the living. The gates would try to claim them all.

  Not as long as I was in control.

  “Holly,” I said. “Drop the candle. And hang on to something.”

  “What—? What in hell are you?”

  “I’m Gatekeeper.”

  The candle fell from her hands. The circle rushed open, a whirlpool of magic exploding outward. Right at the gate.

  Aunt Candice screamed in fury, writhing on the spot, but the gate relentlessly sucked at everyone within the circle—and outside it. The raging spirits possessing the undead went first. The Winter Gatekeeper’s spirit continued screaming and writhing. Whatever force was behind that gate, though, was far too strong to resist.

  Other spirits followed. Half-Sidhe and other part-faerie beings, and humans, and everyone who’d been dragged to the wrong side of the grave by the magic. Only one remained—old Greaves. No, two. The younger Greaves stood beside his father, neither of them moving, while every other spirit was sucked into the void. I stood my ground, hoping River and Hazel had got out of reach—but all the gates’ focus was on the screaming, struggling form of the dead Winter Gatekeeper. My Aunt Candice shrieked, clawing at me, but her hands passed harmlessly through my body.

  In a blast of white light, she was sucked into the void.

  The gate kept on, open, and now my own body was pulled backwards. No. As a ghost, I had nothing solid to grab onto. The gate would suck me in—

  A solid hand gripped mine. River. “Think about being alive, Ilsa.”

  I shook my head, my fingernails digging into his hand. The gate was pulling him in, too, and it wouldn’t close. The book—

  I let go of the book with my free hand, and it floated. The pages glowed silver, and it remained hovering in mid-air. It wouldn’t float through the gates. It was the gates.

  “Stop!” I screamed at it, pulling that power back, into me. The book resisted, but the grey smoke thickened, blocking the gates from view. “I own you.”

  I grabbed the book, gripped it hard, like pulling a heavy pair of doors closed.

  The gates began to close, and the smoke faded, to be replaced with the Winter estate.

  Silence descended, thick as the fallen snow, calm as a breeze, stark as the aftermath of a terrible battle. If I’d been in my body, I’d have fallen to the ground in relief and shock. As it was, I remained floating where the circle’s edge had been, where Holly had thrown the candle aside, and my own body lay face-down on the snowy lawn.

  I looked down at River’s hand, still in mine. “Thank you,” I said. “Is she—?”

  “She’s gone,” he confirmed.

  I blinked, and the next second, I lay in my mortal body again, freezing and aching. The thick snowflakes had disappeared, leaving grey sky and dampness. My clothes were soaked through. I’d catch my death of cold if I didn’t get somewhere warm, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to move.

  The veil closed, the grey film from my vision receding. Before me, the house lay in ruins, the walls collapse
d, the candle’s lights out, and the dead gone.

  Holly collapsed to her knees, sobbing.

  She was her mother, after all.

  Guilt rose, but not enough to counter the rush of profound relief. Bodies of undead lay on the lawn, on snow that was already melting. And the body of the old necromancer lay a few feet away. The candles were out, spent.

  It’s over.

  Dizziness washed over me, and my forehead rested on the ground. The world spun, and I only looked up when someone walked in front of me. Hazel.

  I sat up. She hugged me, hard. “Ilsa.”

  I squeezed her back. “It’s okay. She’s gone.”

  From Holly’s heartbroken sobbing, the victory felt tinged with bitterness, and anger at what the Winter Gatekeeper had done. Sure, the binding to the Courts was unfair, but she’d willingly put thousands of lives at risk by drawing in so much power on the Ley Line. And she’d forced her daughter to become a killer.

  Holly crawled to the circle where the necromancer lay dead. She glanced up, sensing me behind her.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him.” She swallowed. “He came here on his own account… they all did. I—she locked me into a faerie vow. I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened to her. I was trying to get them to understand what she was doing, but they didn’t get it until it was almost too late.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, though it wasn’t. She’d still been involved in plotting against my family, whatever her reasons. But she was Winter Gatekeeper now. And the Sidhe would punish her no matter what.

  Rustling came from behind me. River approached, retrieving the candles one at a time. Aside from the snow dusting his clothes, he looked unhurt. Snowflakes settled in his fair hair, but his warm smile could have melted ice. I took a step towards him—and Hazel gasped. River stood at alertness as cold air whirled towards us. I tensed, turning to the forest, and the Winter gate swung open with barely a whisper.

  Three Sidhe approached on steeds as white as the fallen snow, the same ones as before. I forced myself to keep still, though I barely had the energy to stand. The Sidhe warriors’ faces were expressionless, and in my exhausted state, they blurred into one. All wore the same silver mail that glistened in the sunlight. As did their weapons. Their glowing blue eyes were the only constant. Judging, terrifying, condemning.