by Elena Lawson
“And your father died just for being a part of that group, Harper,” Cal said without any sensitivity—I flinched. “You can’t associate with them. No one in that chamber can know who you are.”
“They could have a mole,” Adrian added to what his brother wolf said. “That could be another reason for the masks and cloaks and matching voices.”
“So none can be identified and killed in the witching community for their involvement in Manifesto.”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “That is a lot of ifs,” I hissed.
“We won’t take any chances,” Cal said in his voice that told me it wasn’t up for discussion.
I opened my mouth to argue, but Elias spoke first. “I’ll do it,” he said, and held his hand out to me for the mask. “Let me go, instead.”
I hadn’t even considered that. He was a witch, too. He could technically go in my place…
But the thought made the glass of milk I’d had with my dinner-for-breakfast curdle in my stomach. I could practically hear his snide voice in my head at the look he gave me;
Not so tough now that the tables are turned…
And he was right. It wasn’t safe, and the idea of letting him go in my place made my body breakout into goosebumps and a chill race down my spine. I stepped back, pulling the mask with me. “No.”
“Listen to him,” Cal growled.
Adrian nodded. “Yeah, let him go.”
Draven pursed his full lips. “They’re right,” he said. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this solution sooner.”
My teeth clenched. Looking at Elias, a sinking feeling in my gut taught me exactly how he’d been feeling a moment ago when it was me who was asking to go back to the chamber belowground.
I could tell by the set of his, and the looks in the eyes of the others they weren’t going to budge on this.
Smoothing out my brow and straightening my spine, I said, “Fine,” and went to leave the room, mask still clasped in my hand. “Then no one is going.”
Of course, I planned to just put the thing on when they weren’t looking. I’d slept the whole day and they hadn’t—they’d all be going to bed soon and then I could sneak away for an hour.
“Oh no you don’t,” it was Draven who said it, and a rogue breeze brushed past me as the mask was tugged from my fingertips and I was left jerking my head in all directions—spinning on my heel to find Draven with the mask in his hands—handing it to Elias.
“Traitor,” I gritted out.
Elias shrugged, taking the proffered mask and gave me an infuriating smirk. “Thank you, Draven,” he said, never taking his eyes from me.
I went to take it back, but he was already raising it to his face—I lunged, frantic to stop him. He was too big—he’d never be able to hide himself in that little nook where I fit just behind the carved frame of the corridor. They would see him!
And what would they do to someone they caught spying?
I reached out to snatch the pewter mask at the same time he slapped the metal onto his face.
Fuck.
But…he didn’t vanish.
The mask didn’t even stay on like it did when I put it on, as he removed his hand, it fell, clattering to the floor at his feet.
“Ha!” I couldn’t help myself—the jubilant relief at seeing him still here—unable to use the mask like I could brought me an immense amount of triumph and joy. Sucker!
I scooped the mask up from the floor and put to my own face before any of them were quick enough to stop me.
“Harper, don’t—” the beginning of Adrian’s exclamation was all I caught before the falling sensation drove me straight through the floor and the darkness gobbled me up.
When the darkness abated enough for me to see, I realized I could feel the cool stone beneath my hands again. It worked. I was back exactly where I’d been the first time I’d put the mask on.
I’d been worried when it didn’t work for Elias that someone had seen me the previous time and perhaps, they’d somehow undone the spell imbuing the mask with the power to transport its wearer here. But nope. Looks like it worked for me because it belonged to my father.
It was the same reason only I could open the gates to La Casa Rosa and that secret room in his study back at Rosewood Abbey. Because we shared the same blood.
I dragged my body to its feet and with mouth dry and heart pounding, I made my way on silent feet to the light at the end of the stone hallway, cursing myself that I’d forgotten the cloak yet again.
It didn’t seem to matter much, though. When I got to the edge and peered into the chamber, I saw that I was alone. The torches were low, and the air smelled faintly of moss and sulfur. No one else was here. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t come—but I knew I couldn’t stay too long. The guys would be freaking back at the villa, and in just the thin sweater and pants I’d been wearing, I was freezing here belowground. My teeth beginning to chatter.
Feeling brave, I ventured out from the darkened corridor and into the middle of the room, surveying the crest of House Thorn inlaid into the stone floor. Glanced up at the throne, and tried to make out the etched marking there.
Elias had been right, of course. It was the same symbol he’d drawn.
I hadn’t really doubted it, but now it was confirmed. This was the meeting place for Manifesto. I shiver of excitement ran through me and I grinned. Had my father stood in this very spot?
Had he met here wearing this very same mask?
I couldn’t picture it—I didn’t even have the chance to know him so how could I? But I could imagine it all the same, and I realized with a start I wanted to make him proud.
Strange…since I never knew him. Someone had to finish what he started, though. And if not me, then who? I made a silent promise to him, wherever he was in this world, that I would do everything in my power to put an end to what our ancestor did.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
I whirled around, my heart in my throat.
Rose stood there behind me, her eyes roving over the chamber with a quizzical brow. Her phantom form not fully there, bit of her flapper-style dress were sort of…static-y. Like she wasn’t fully tethered to me here. She drew her cigarette to her lips and finally deigned to look at me. “What is this place? And why are you wearing that mask—is it Halloween?”
I didn’t realize how glad I was to see her until a smile broke over my face. “Rose!” I rushed to her side. Not sure what exactly I’d been meaning to do—it wasn’t as if I could embrace her. “Where have you been?”
I hadn’t seen her since the funeral. It’d been nearly a week.
The longest she’d ever stayed away for sure.
“It’s not me who’s staying away, toots,” she said with a drawn expression that hid something more like fear, or maybe sadness. “Your light doesn’t shine like it used to. It’s harder to grab hold of now.”
I cocked my head at her. I wondered what that meant. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the origin spell finally wearing off? I bit the inside of my cheek, unsure if I was ready for her to be gone forever. I’d known it would happen at some point—after the other ghosts vanished, I thought she wouldn’t be long behind them.
But she was a tenacious one. She loved her time in the light as she put it.
“Are you…” I gulped. “Are you fading then? Like the others did?’
She shrugged, ashing her cigarette. “Beats me.”
I wondered where she would go. Would she be forced to remain in darkness forever, then? Once my light was gone for good.
I realized, a little belatedly that she could read my mind and glanced up to find her expression had hardened. “Are you going to tell me where in the world we are? This is not the academy.”
Happy to block out any and all thought of her being lost to abyss of darkness for the rest of eternity, I perked up and swallowed past the sharp lump in my throat. “It’s a hidden chamber,” I explained. “On…Emeris.”
Her coal-li
ned green eyes widened, and she lowered the cigarette from her lips, seeing her surroundings with new eyes. “You don’t say…” she breathed. She looked down at her feet and realized she was standing right on top of the house crest and gasped, moving to the side. “It really is Emeris, isn’t it?” she said incredulously, all traces of jest gone.
I nodded. “It is.”
She almost seemed to glow with excitement. “Can we go outside?” she asked animatedly, so unlike her usual dry humorousness and tendency to turn dark at the drop of a pin. “I’ve always wanted to see the homeland.”
My heart panged at the realization that there were probably a great many things she never got the chance to see in her short life. Solemnly, I shook my head. “No. I don’t think there’s any way out. These hallways go further back into the underground lair, but I don’t think they lead anywhere.”
I pointed to the mask on my face. “This is the way in.”
She cocked her head and sauntered toward me, her red lips downturned and beaded dress swishing around her ankles. Rose leaned in to examine the mask and huffed. “A port spell?”
My brow furrowed. She knew what sort of magic this was? “A port spell?” I repeated back to her.
“When you put it on it transports you here?”
“Yeah, wh—”
“And when you remove it, you vanish back to where you began?”
“Yes, but what—”
“A port spell, then.”
I groaned, wishing she would stop interrupting me. Damn, she could be infuriating sometimes…
“Look who’s talking…” she trailed off in answer to my thoughts.
I rolled my eyes at her. “But what is a port spell?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself, chafing the chilled skin on my upper arms. “I’ve never heard of it.”
A wry smile pulled one corner of her mouth up in a devious grin that looked like more of a sneer. “Not many people have,” she said in a sing song voice that told me she was having a go at me.
“Rose,” I pressed, losing my patience. “What is it you know?”
She shrugged a shoulder and a glimmer flitted across her gaze. “Just that that particular for of magic doesn’t exist anymore.”
I huffed. “What do you mean doesn’t exist?” Magic didn’t just stop existing. Once a spell was created, it didn’t just expire.
She looked down the bridge of her nose at me, narrowing her eyes. “It was lost. Just like so many other original spells were lost—”
I gasped. “With the Alchemical Codex…” I finished for her.
“Yup,” she said making a popping sound with her lips.
“Are you sure?”
She stuck out her bottom lip and pretended to consider my question, making a lengthened mmmmm sound between closed lips. “Let me see, um…yes. I’m sure.”
“But that isn’t possible.”
“It’s not impossible that the Codex was never actually lost, is it?”
I considered what she said and found after a moment of thought she was right. Just because someone had said hundreds of years ago the thing was lost, didn’t mean it actually was.
What if someone had had it this entire time?
What if that someone was the Magistrate?
Or what if…
My eyes widened.
What if it was my father?
“Now you’re thinking,” Rose said, going back to the leisurely smoking of her phantom cigarette. “Knew you had it in you. Really, though. Don’t know what you’d do without me.”
Grinning, I turned to thank her. “Rose, you’re the bes—”
But she was gone. I hadn’t even seen her beginning to fade, but as I spun my body in a slow circle, brow furrowed, I found she was nowhere in sight.
“Bye,” I breathed into a sigh, my breath clouding in the cold chamber. I wondered how long I’d have to wait to see her again.
I took one last look around the chamber, searching for any hidden levers or strange markings. Listened for the sounds of approach. But after ten more minutes of teeth-chattering cold, I gave up held my breath for the drop as I pulled the mask from my face.
I hit the floor with the same forceful impact I had the last time I’d returned to the villa, groaning as I pressed a hand to my head to stop the growing ache behind my eyes. The migraine was trying to come back again. I’d have to ask Elias if he could heal me.
Blinking my eyes open, I recoiled, grimacing as I found four sets of eyes staring down at me in a circle of seething malice.
“You’re lucky you’re not hurt,” Cal grunted, his voice half canine and eyes aglow.
I winced.
“I’m…sorry?” I tried, adding a pained smile to the apology.
Draven and Elias shook their heads, and Draven crouched to my eye-level. I noticed he was wearing his blades beneath his jacket and had to wonder how the hell he’d managed to get them through security at the airport. But I supposed that wasn’t important right now. The dark circles beneath his eyes looked even more prominent than usual and I began to wonder if he’d fed at all since we got here.
“Don’t do that again,” he said, his voice level, but laced with an undercurrent of something dangerous that made my heart skitter. “Please,” he added, and the word somehow softened the threat in his voice.
“Alright,” I squeaked. “I won’t—but I am going back again,” I added, meeting each of their gazes, imploring them to understand the importance. “I have no way of knowing when they are going to be meeting. No one was there this time—well, save for Rose—I have to keep trying if we’re going to learn anything else that could help us.”
“You’re right,” Elias said. “I hate it. But you’re right.”
Finally, someone who saw reason. He’d tried his way when he’d attempted to put the mask on himself, but it seemed now that he knew I was the only option for gaining more intel, he had to agree.
Good.
“Dude, the fuck?” Adrian said, shoving him.
“Hey!” I shouted, struggling to my feet, my head pounding. Draven curled a hand around my bicep and helped to lift me up from the floor. “No fighting.”
Adrian’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing—instead stalking from the room, snagging a half-empty bottle of red wine from the desk on his way out.
I could tell Cal didn’t like it, either, but he was a little more level-headed than his adoptive brother. He didn’t speak, either, he only crossed his big arms over his solid chest and watched me, a muscle in his jaw twitching.
“Well,” he said after a minute. “Did you find anything on your little adventure?”
I hated hearing the note of anger in his voice, especially since I knew it was directed at me, even if he didn’t mean it that way.
“As a matter of fact, I did—and we have Rose to thank for it.”
The three of them squirmed at the mention of her name and I was reminded of just how strange it was that I was speaking to the ghost of a dead ancestor. A dead mad ancestor who was driven insane by other mad ancestors and used blood magic on the regular.
But, whatever, she’s just given me a very valuable piece of information. “The Codex was never lost at sea,” I said, directing my words mostly to Elias since he would be the first to understand the implications of that. “The spell used to imbue those masks with the magic of a port spell—”
“Was…lost with the Codex,” Elias finished for me, his gaze going unfocused as he worked out the new problem, I’d presented him with in his brilliant mind. His forehead creased and then he hissed, “How didn’t I see it? I’d wondered briefly at how the magic worked, but I didn’t realize that—that that particular spell was one of the lost…” his lips parted in awe. “But then that means…”
“That someone in Manifesto has it?” Draven offered.
Cal just looked hopelessly confused.
“Or had it,” I corrected, allowing my gaze to trail over the hundreds of tomes in the tall shelves of the library. The library
in the house that was concealed in equally unknown forms of magic. The spell warding the place was strong. And whatever magic imbued the front gates I suspected could be found within the pages of the Codex, too. I’d never seen anything like it before.
Elias followed my gaze to the shelves, scanning the leather-bound volumes with a critical eye. What were the chances my father would have hidden it in plain sight? Elias slapped his hands together, rubbing them with barely concealed glee. “Let’s get to work.”
21
Apparently, the chances were slim…
We’d gone through every single book in the library. Twice.
It was nearing sunrise and the guys hadn’t slept in going on forty-eight hours. Adrian being the exception. He never came back after he left with the wine and we all assumed he’d passed out drunk back upstairs in the room Cal and he shared.
Cal yawned for the fifteenth time that minute and I put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” I said. “I really don’t think it’s here. Why don’t you go get some sleep? We’ll look one more time later once you’ve all had some rest.”
I said the last part more loudly, so the other sleepy guys in the library could hear. Even I was getting tired and I’d slept the whole day away yesterday.
I was convinced if we even found the Codex right now, we’d all be too sleep-deprived to even recognize it for what it was. But in any case—I really didn’t believe it was here.
Elias had even tried a spell that should have made it rise from the shelf of its own accord if it was present. But when he spoke the incantation, a big fat nothing happened.
Cal nodded sleepily and patted my hand on his arm. He bent forward and kissed the top of my head, making my cheeks inflame and my extremities tingle with surprise. “‘Night,” he said and walked in a half-asleep stupor out into the hall.
Elias shelved the book he was examining and sighed. “I thought it would be here,” he said, the disappointment obvious in his voice. When he looked down from his perch on the ladder halfway up the bookcase, I saw in him the same terse feeling tightening in my own chest.
Because if it wasn’t here then it could only be one of two places. Either the Magistrate had it… or Manifesto did.