by J. R. King
“Do you think that’s him?” Ariahna asked. She grabbed for the box excitedly. The others, however, seemed perturbed by the message. “We should say something back.”
Kaleb looked at them all curiously.
“We’re trying to contact a spirit,” Dallas said.
Ariahna was already busy writing a reply.
“Who is this?” she said, reading the note aloud before dropping it into the box. The lid slid open in her hands as soon as it had closed, and she startled, heart climbing its way down from her throat. “That was fast…”
“What does it say?” Christian asked.
Her eyebrows pinched together as Rome leaned in close. She held out the slip of paper for the rest of them to see. “Help.”
“I’m not sure this is getting us anywhere,” Dallas said.
“And I’m not sure it’s not,” Rome replied. “We’re getting answers, aren’t we?”
“Not really.”
“Hey,” Rome said, “it’s not your life at stake. By all means, if you don’t want to be here, then leave. I don’t want your apologies, and I certainly don’t need them.”
“Whoa,” Christian said. “Let’s just work together, alright?”
Rome crossed his arms tightly. “Sorry…” He wasn’t sure where the outburst had come from. The fire crackled, echoing through the wood. “Maybe we should just destroy the wand?”
“…No…”
Dallas shivered. “That was my imagination, right?”
“That was a woman’s voice,” Aria said.
Christian nodded. “I heard it too.” He rubbed his palms together, watching the fire cast shadows over his skin. “How do you guys feel about getting your hands dirty?”
Kaleb leaned back on his palms, observing them all quietly.
“What did you have in mind?” Rome said.
“Nobody overreact, but maybe we need to do a little grave digging…”
“That’s actually brilliant,” Aria said.
Christian smirked.
“And how exactly are we going to find the Artisan’s grave?” Rome asked. “I don’t see this being a quick endeavor.”
“It would take time,” she said.
Christian jumped in. “Maybe not. East Hill is the oldest cemetery in town. And thanks to that journal, we know the year of his death. I say we bind him and burn the creep’s remains.”
Kaleb moved fluidly, standing and ambling off into the trees. The voices of the others dulled to a hum, insects and birds overwhelming him with their quiet songs.
Rome excused himself from the group, following him into the forest. “Where are you going?” he said.
Long feathery ferns and bushes clung to their clothes, disturbing the still of the woods as they went. Rome could see in the darkness, but just barely, and he wondered at how Kaleb was traversing the uneven ground so easily. They stopped finally, a decent ways from the group. Kaleb was facing the lake, staring off into the endless night. The set of his shoulders was loose, but resistance and heat seemed to be coming off of him in waves. Rome frowned at his back. “Are you alright?”
Christian was listening in from the other side of the yew. Kaleb had yet to respond, and there was something unnatural about the fog that had started to wash its way in from the shore. It was moving slowly through the trees, making its way to their circle. “Something’s not right,” he said.
Dallas felt that cold mist slithering up his ankles, paralyzing everything but his heart. “Maybe we should—”
A sudden yell broke across the air, followed by a slew of movement and shouting. Ariahna was the first to fly off into the trees, racing towards the sound of the struggle. Christian wasn’t far behind, fighting not to lose her in the dense brush.
“Wait up!” Dallas called. Between the forest and the fog, he had completely gotten separated from the group. He froze among the towering trees, relying on the few muted sounds he could pick up to determine which way they’d gone. He bolted across the packed dirt, branches and bushes crashing against his frame and distorting his sense of direction as he went. When he found the two of them, he didn’t know what to make of what he was seeing. Kaleb knelt on the edge of the embankment, holding Rome’s head beneath the water. Dallas watched as it crashed around them, disturbing the stillness of the lake. Rome’s arms were trembling, and he was clearly losing consciousness.
“Hey!” Dallas shouted hoarsely. Christian shot out of the trees in front of him then, colliding with Kaleb and knocking him onto the muddy shore. Dallas was at Rome’s side in an instant, dragging his limp body from the lake. He heard Aria emerge from the brush a second later. Her focus was on Kaleb.
Ariahna watched him throw his head back, staring at her upside down in the dirt. His eyes were wide, clouded in gray, empty shadows. Strands of hair obscured his face, hiding his sickly pallor, but not the horrid grin splitting his features.
“How your heart will wither,” he breathed.
Aria cut her palm on a jagged stone as she approached. She pressed that hand over Kaleb’s forehead, ignoring the garbled threats spilling forth from his mouth. “Mori magis mortem in sempiternum!” she said. Kaleb twisted beneath her touch, and she panicked, shouting the spell again. His eyes finally rolled closed then, body going prone on the forest floor.
Dallas was leaning over Rome, ear pressed close to his face. “He’s not breathing,” he said. He set his hands on Rome’s chest, beginning compressions. Rome’s body dipped under the weight, and he stopped as Aria began performing mouth-to-mouth. They went back and forth like that without change.
“You need to get the water out of his lungs,” Christian said.
“I know!” Dallas was shaking as he pressed his fingertips to Rome’s chest. He closed his eyes, everything around him dulling to a static hum. He sent a careful nudge of magic into him, and then Rome was coughing up all the water he’d been forced to swallow. “Thank god,” Dallas said.
Rome twisted over on his side, coughing as his lungs burned. Ariahna had taken to combing her fingers through his hair, soothing him into a steady rhythm of breathing again.
“Where’s Kaleb?” he asked.
Christian turned to point, finding only the muddy, torn up shore behind them. Kaleb had all but disappeared. He got to his feet, feeling his shoes stick in the damp soil as he searched for him. Kaleb was sitting at the base of a tree, glancing at the three of them where they sat near the water.
“Do you remember what happened?” Christian said.
A dangerous look passed over Kaleb’s features, but he was too exhausted to maintain it. “Just, go away…”
“Quit it,” Christian said. “You’re coming back with us, okay?” Kaleb refused to acknowledge him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it, though?” His vision blurred between the tips of his boots and the rippling body of water. “I allowed myself to be manipulated—used.” The words felt bitter on his tongue. “Go away. I don’t want to be near any of you.” He rested his head against the rough tree, breathing laboriously in the silence.
Christian knelt beside him. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Kaleb said.
“You’re a terrible liar.” Christian placed a hand on Kaleb’s shoulder. “We should get out of here, before he comes back.”
“I banished him,” Aria said. “We should be okay, for now.”
It was a small comfort in the wake of what had transpired.
Dallas helped Rome to his feet, backing off at the uncomfortable set to his shoulders. He watched him frown at the way Christian was forcefully trying to clean up Kaleb’s face.
“Leave him alone,” Rome said.
Christian rose quietly, giving the two of them space.
Rome took his place at Kaleb’s side, nudging gently at his boot. “You gonna look at me? Come on, get up.” Kaleb tried giving him that same deathly expression, but Rome wasn’t having it. He ripped him up from the ground, inadvertently inciting a momentary shoving match. The two of th
em paused in the shade of the tree, staring each other down.
“Leave me alone,” Kaleb said, seething.
Rome growled. “I’m not just going to leave you out here. You don’t get to blame yourself. That’s not how this works.”
Kaleb stared at him, wrapping a hand around the back of Rome’s neck. He pulled him close, pressing their foreheads together. “You really don’t get it, do you?” he said. His fingers curled into Rome’s hairline, nails biting into skin.
Kaleb pulled away from him a moment later, leaving Rome to stand like a rigid fixture in the darkness. He watched Dallas throw his hands into the air, turning and walking off into the woods. It had been too long of a night, for everyone.
Christian took to guiding the dazed group back to the distant silhouette of Vardel. Rome was lagging behind most of the way, his hands in his pockets and a perturbed look stamped permanently on his face. “You alive back there?” he called.
Rome barely acknowledged him with a look.
“Hey,” Ariahna said. “Don’t.”
“I wasn’t trying to be mean.”
Ariahna stopped at the tree line to wait for Rome as the others crossed the lawn. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He rubbed at his neck. “I’m not sure. I think… he was about to kiss me.” His lips twisted down in confusion.
“Did you know he felt that way?” she said.
Rome closed his eyes, shaking his head. “No, but I should have. I really, really should have.”
The bark met Aria’s back as she leaned into a willowy tree. Rome’s face was pensive, and he appeared to be glued to the spot. “Did you want to talk about it?” she asked.
He mimicked her posture, leaning back and slipping his hands into his pockets. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to say. How do you possibly tell someone that you care, just… not that much?”
She frowned, watching him in concern. “Have you had time to process? Do you understand how you feel about it?” She worried her lip, thinking so loudly she was sure he could hear.
Rome sighed, watching Christian from across the lawn. Kaleb was already out of sight. “What is there to process? I’m already in love,” he said. “Besides, what would that make me, if I so easily had feelings for someone else?”
Her eyes fell upon the shaded blades of grass.
“It would make you human,” Aria said.
Rome remained inside the cover of the trees as she left, recalling equally the feeling of Kaleb’s hands around his throat and the sensation of his breath across his skin. He stood there a long while, trying to gather up the courage to move. It was impossible. Either way he turned, he felt trapped.
Chapter Thirty-One
Beneath the Stone
Ariahna sat inside the vacant greenhouse, bent over several cracked tomes and squinting at the words on each page. Her hand was the only thing moving, sweeping over paper as she scribbled furiously in the notebook resting across her knees. Other than the sound of her pen strokes, the greenhouse was quiet. It was the best place she could think to do her research, away from distractions and prying eyes.
In the deafening silence, she could hear the hands on her watch ticking away, the birds flirting back and forth in the grass, and the distant sounds of laughter. This is where she’d been hiding out for the last few days. With a stack of books taller than her head and about a hundred half-formed notions on how they were going to survive the trimester. She turned a page in the book resting nearest to her, glancing down at her notes.
The greenhouse was humid, despite it being nearly October. The thick plastic walls and surrounding shrubbery held the heat well, protecting its occupant from the chill autumn air. Being off limits to students, it was also the perfect place to study topics others might consider questionable. Subjects such as soul binding and destruction. Ariahna wasn’t confident that she could bring herself to destroy a person’s soul. That she could do it, of that she had no doubt. The act itself was just so deplorable that she couldn’t fully commit to going through with it. After all, the Artisan had suffered too, in his own way.
Ariahna looked up from the table, watching as a silhouette shifted on the other side of the plastic. When they tried peering through the makeshift wall, she began to gather her things. Her books shrank to mere inches, quickly being swept into her bag. The sound of the door opening made her heart race. She could hear the soft shuffling of footsteps in the dirt, barely getting out of sight in time. Aria clung to the thick plants, trying to get a glimpse at the intruder.
“Aria?”
“…Christian?”
“Where are you?” he said, laughing in the silence.
Ariahna stepped around a tall aisle of plants. “What are you doing here? I thought you were a teacher.”
“Dallas told me I might find you here.”
She sighed, pushing a stray curl out of her face. “Dallas needs to stop talking so much, or one of these days I’m going to regret confiding in him.” She shifted her bag on her shoulder. “Did you need something? I was working on our ghost problem.”
Christian slipped a hand into his pocket. “Nothing in particular,” he said. “And I figured you might be. I think it’s all any of us can think about.”
Ariahna nodded. “For good reason. That last encounter was too close. And the banishment I used won’t hold forever. I’d hate to see what the backlash looks like if he’s allowed to return.”
“Agreed,” he said. “So, what have you found out so far?”
“Nothing useful. We might have a few options but none of them are ideal. And given that most of the books I’ve found were written theoretically at best, we’re just piecing things together and praying at this point.” Ariahna moved to lean against the table, setting her bag on its side. “Have you had any luck uncovering the Artisan’s identity?”
Christian wandered closer, shaking his head discouragingly. “Nothing more than the initials I told you about yesterday.” He admired the light sheen of her skin then, commenting on the heat in passing. “How long have you been out here?” he asked.
“Not long enough.”
He offered to help, and they went about pulling the books back out of her bag. They sat down at the table, sifting through the tomes quietly. Christian checked her notes as he read, stopping to make a few of his own along the way. Daylight faded to dusk around them. He set his book down, loosening his tie and undoing a few buttons near his collar.
“Have you and Rome had a chance to talk yet?” she asked.
“No. I’m not sure either of us are ready to.” He shifted in his seat, setting her with a serious stare. “What does it feel like?”
Ariahna frowned bemusedly. “What does what feel like?”
Christian tapped his pen against the table. “Never mind.”
“No,” she said. “Tell me.”
He sighed. “I guess I was just wondering if you’d ever been in love before. If not, how can you be sure that what you’re feeling is real?”
In the stretch of silence, Ariahna smoothed her fingers over the page, trying to figure out what he was honestly asking. “I don’t have anything to compare it to,” she said. “But even if I did, it would be… incomparable. The truth is, the way it feels… it’s like waking up in the warm sunshine, and never recalling a moment you’d been happier in your life. No, I’ve never felt anything like this before, and I’m not certain I ever will again. But regardless of how I came to feel this way, the fact that I have these emotions makes them real enough.”
Christian tried not to frown. “I’m not sure I can agree with that logic,” he said. “If I did, that would mean that whatever I’m feeling isn’t going away. I’m not saying that I’m in love with you, because that would be crazy. What I am saying is that you’re different. There are all these things I want to do or say, and I can’t. And not because I’m too shy or because I’m afraid of rejection, but because the realest thing I think I’ve ever had was never mine to begin with. If what I’m feeling
is real, then why couldn’t it have happened before now?”
Ariahna smiled sadly. It was a sympathetic smile, full of regret. “Maybe it took the curse to bring us all together, but breaking it doesn’t mean we have to drift apart.”
“All I’m saying is that we could have been good together.”
She disregarded the comment quietly, returning to her work. “Maybe,” she said. “That’s not for either of us to know.”
They sat like that for a while, skimming through books and piecing together a plan. When they realized how late it had gotten, they packed up her things to leave.
“Do you suppose we should go tonight?” Christian said.
Ariahna stepped through the greenhouse door, reveling in the cold air sweeping across her skin. “Do you think that you’re up for it?”
“Trust me, nobody wants this undead boogieman back in the ground more than me.”
“You might be wrong about that,” she said. Aria turned her attention to Rome, watching as he crossed the lawn.
“They’re about to lock the doors,” he said.
Christian grumbled. “Then you’re just in time.”
“In time for what?”
Ariahna shifted her bag. “I’ve got a few books to return. I’ll explain when I get back.”
She blinked away without warning, and Rome and Christian frowned at her sudden absence. They waited at the edge of the wood, resting against the hidden side of the greenhouse. Time passed quietly, neither of them daring to disturb the night. The sounds of the forest reached their ears after a time, alerting them of the stirring wildlife.
“It’s just a rabbit,” Rome said.
Christian shifted uncomfortably. “How do you know?”
“How do you not?” Rome softened his tone. “If you listen to the way it moves you can practically see it. How far away do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Guess.”
“…A quarter mile?”
Rome hid a smirk. “Not bad, for a newbie.”