Spirit

by Daniela Sacerdoti

  “Yes, it must have been.”

  “Are you sure?” said Niall, studying her face.

  “I don’t know. It didn’t look like a Surari, at least. Just a light. That’s all.”

  The last two rooms looked completely different. They were both covered in what seemed to be glass tiles, deep amber in colour, and in the middle of them stood two copper baths, dull with time and neglect but still a beautiful, deep-red colour. There were piles of linen towels folded on the dark wood cupboards, left ready for use like everything else, but covered in dust. One room was grander than the other, probably used by the master and mistress of the castle, while the other was a bit smaller.

  “I suppose this must have been quite luxurious, at the time,” said Alvise.

  “I wonder when he lived here last. A hundred years ago? Two? There’s no electricity, obviously,” Micol mused.

  “I don’t intend to ask him,” said Alvise.

  Micol frowned. “No. I’d rather stay away from him. As far as I can.”

  “Nobody around, it seems. Let’s go,” said Niall, treading out into the corridor again. “All clear up here!” he called on his way down.

  “Same here,” Sean cried out as they strode back into the entrance hall. Night had fallen outside, the darkness occasionally broken by flashes of blue lightning from the rainless storm. He didn’t like the place. It felt dead. He hated to be on Nicholas’ territory. Like being in the Shadow World wasn’t enough, they had to be guests in his bloody haunted castle.

  “I told you,” Nicholas shrugged. Sarah threw him a dirty look. The king of liars, asking to be trusted. How ironic, she thought darkly.

  “There’s wood and kindling in the fireplaces. We can light a few fires, warm the water, have a wash in the tin baths . . .” Sarah had to stop herself from running back into the kitchen to get some water.

  “Tin baths . . . Height of comfort,” whispered Micol to Alvise.

  “A lot better than nothing. We smell,” Alvise replied.

  “Speak for yourself,” she said, and gave a soft laugh.

  Nicholas turned towards the sound, and fixed his unseeing eyes on Micol’s. Once again, Micol saw his black aura around him like a stormy cloud, but there was something else. There. A warm, orange light, like a little sun, hovering beside him. It was the light she’d seen upstairs. An aura without a body?

  “Let’s go,” said Alvise nervously, taking her by the elbow, and she followed gladly upstairs.

  Sarah looked around on the first floor. There were rows of heavy wooden doors, dark and carved with intimidating animals’ heads, all open after their reconnoitre; and at the end of the gloomy corridor, she saw a double door carved with roses and leaf motifs. It looked nearly . . . pretty. Different from the other doors.

  “What’s in there?” she whispered to Niall, gesturing to the carved doors.

  Niall shrugged. “Just another room. Very grand.”

  “That was my bedroom,” answered Nicholas, his tone flat, like it didn’t matter, like there were no memories tied to it. “Nobody will sleep there. Not me either,” he added.

  “He’ll sleep in a coffin full of soil,” Alvise whispered to Micol. She felt the corners of her mouth curling up, but stopped herself. She was too scared of Nicholas, even if she couldn’t have seen her smirking.

  “Nicholas, who lived here with you?” Elodie asked him in a whisper, so nobody else could hear.

  “People from long ago. They are all gone now,” he replied curtly. But Elodie was not to be deterred.

  “Did your father live here? Your mother?” Nicholas flinched. He frowned, and Elodie thought he’d cut the conversation short. She was surprised when he replied.

  “My father would not live between four walls. My mother . . . she was in the shadows with him, but I saw her often. It was my fiancée who lived here with me.”

  “The shadows?” Elodie had much to learn about Nicholas and the workings of this place.

  “Where my father lives.”

  “I see.” She didn’t press further. “You were engaged?”

  Nicholas had mentioned the girl once, in one of those strange moments in which Elodie had felt so close to him, so close to her worst enemy and Harry’s killer. They had just stepped onto dry land after leaving Islay, and he was still ill after his father’s punishment. He had been burning with fever, struggling to stay upright, and he’d called a woman’s name in his delirium. When he’d come to his senses, Elodie had asked him about her. She had wanted to know as much about him as possible, anything that would help them bring down the King of Shadows.

  “For a short while. She died,” he said now, coldly, like it didn’t matter, but Elodie could see the pain etched in every line of his face. “Her name was Martyna.”

  Yes, that’d been the name. Martyna. “Was she to be . . . the bride of Shadows? Like you wanted Sarah to be?”

  He nodded. “Our line needs to keep going. The King of Shadows needs a wife to join him in the darkness where he lives, and an heir. A son or a daughter.”

  “What happened to your mother?”

  Nicholas took a deep breath and turned his face away. Elodie cursed herself for having asked, for having cared. She should not speak to him unless it was to gather information. She prepared to go, pulling his arm just a bit, enough for him to know she was ready to end the conversation. But to her surprise, he spoke.

  “She let herself dissolve. She couldn’t stand life in the shadows any more. You see, my mother didn’t know who my father was when she fell for him. He deceived her.”

  “Like you deceived Sarah,” Elodie couldn’t help saying.

  Nicholas nodded. “It’s the way of things. What human girl would choose that life otherwise? My father took me away from her when I was just a baby. She couldn’t bear to be away from me, so she followed. She shed her body – something that all rulers of the Underworld do. It’s like . . . adopting a different body while keeping your soul. It’s hard to explain unless you see it. Once she was here, my mother then became the bride of Shadows. But she hated the darkness, she hated being a spirit when she wanted so badly to be human, and touch and feel and live.” Nicholas’ voice trailed off for a moment.

  “What was her name?” murmured Elodie. She didn’t even know why she’d asked. Somehow, it felt important to her.

  “Ekaterina Krol. Her family called her Kati. She was beautiful.”

  “And your father never remarried?”

  “He has his heir. There is no need.”

  “What happened to your fiancée? Did she let herself . . . dissolve too?”

  “She was never a spirit, she never shed her body. She was still human when she . . . When she decided to end it. We destroyed her, my father and I. I can never forgive myself.”

  “And still you planned the same for Sarah.”

  “I thought I had no choice, but I was wrong. I’ll never force another woman to go through what Martyna went through. I’ll never be the King of Shadows. It ends with my father.”

  Elodie felt him shaking. His unseeing eyes burned with anguish, and regret. Guilt. And that was exactly what he should feel, for all the evil he and his father did. Even if he thought he had no choice, Elodie said to herself. And still, a spark of compassion had been kindled in her heart, and her hand squeezed Nicholas’ arm lightly as they joined the group once more.

  They chose their rooms and lit the fires – real, warm flames, not Nicholas’ cold ones – and tried their best to clean up the sheets, but they were so dusty and mouldy that they gave up. They stripped the beds and spread the sleeping bags on them instead. They wrapped their jackets around the pillows. It felt like a luxury hotel, after days of sleeping in a cramped car or on the hard ground in the cold. The heat and light couldn’t fully dispel the gloom, but they made everything less spooky.

  They were nearly cheerful as they carried basins of water upstairs to the bathrooms. The girls went into the main one, and the men into the smaller one. They relished the first ch
ance of washing they’d had in days, the water draining away tiredness and dried blood from the wounds they all had.

  Sarah couldn’t believe she could finally feel water coursing over her skin again, and she relished every moment. She thought of her own bathroom back home, of how safe and comfortable it was . . . well, it had been, before it all went wrong. The head of the Scottish Valaya, Cathy – her astral drop, really – had materialised in her bathroom once. So much for safe.

  For a moment, she wondered if she’d ever see her home again – her room with the silver walls and the floating white curtains, and her purple cello leaning against the wall; her garden, wide and beautifully kept . . .

  The water was getting cold as she dreamt of home, and a long shiver travelled down her spine. She shook herself. “Want some help?” she asked Elodie. The French girl had removed the bandages around her middle, and the wounds were still bleeding even though they were days old.

  “Thank you,” she said, and Sarah began washing her carefully. She had scars all over – her forearms in particular were covered with little ones, from where Nicholas’ Elemental ravens had pecked her. Sarah shivered once more, remembering how the ravens had attacked Elodie and nearly killed her when they still didn’t know about Nicholas’ true identity. But then her own body had many scars, Sarah thought. It was not unblemished like it used to be. It now told the story of many battles, just like Elodie’s. Sarah was shocked at how fragile her friend looked and felt under her touch, like a little bird.

  Elodie saw the pity in Sarah’s eyes, and she wanted to hide herself, but the feeling of warm water on her skin was so blissful, she wanted it to last forever. She wanted to feel fresh and sweet-smelling again and lie in a clean bed, and sleep for a long time.

  She wanted to wake up and find Harry beside her.

  She wanted to be healthy and strong again.

  But none of that would happen, she thought as she let Sarah pour warm water over her shoulders.

  “Like a princess in a fairy tale,” Micol whispered. Elodie looked up and saw the Italian girl gazing at her from under her eyelashes.

  “What did you say?” Elodie asked.

  Micol blushed. “Nothing . . . that you look like a princess from a fairy tale.”

  Elodie smiled wanly. She carried the book of Polish fairy tales in her bag, the one Harry had left to her before he died, having hidden a message inside it. On the cover there was a grim illustration, a girl in a long dress, wandering in a wood at night. The girl held a stick with a skull perched on top of it, blue rays of light coming out of the skull’s eyes. A bit like the blue lightning that had been following them, Elodie thought. The words hidden in the book, Harry’s secret message, came back to her. Watch over Sarah, she’s the key.

  How? How is she the key? Elodie asked herself. Because of her unblemished blood? And now that Nicholas had relinquished her, now that he had refused his own destiny as the future King of Shadows, with Sarah as his bride, was she not the key any more?

  Then why are the demons not touching her, she wondered. They hurt her – but refrained from killing her. Twice. What do they need her for?

  “There you are. Get dressed now. You’ll catch a cold,” said Sarah, smoothing her friend’s wet hair one last time.

  Sarah could be hard, cold, unreachable – and then she surprised you with a kindness you could have never imagined. At first, Elodie had been resentful of Sarah’s closeness to Sean, and irritated by her aloofness. But with time they’d grown to know each other better, and now Elodie couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to that brave girl who was fighting so hard for the Secret Families. Elodie would always watch out for her, whatever or whoever wanted to hurt her. Surari or humans.

  Or Nicholas.

  She felt so close to him, unexpectedly, maddeningly, she thought as she slipped her T-shirt over her head. It was like they were cut from the same sorrowful cloth. But her eyes were open. She would not let Nicholas stray; she would not let him betray them. Sean was worried they were getting too close, Nicholas and her, but Sean didn’t really know her any more. He didn’t know the hard core that she’d developed since Harry had died. The realisation that in that new world they’d all found themselves in, a world of continuous danger, she could never, never let her guard down. And she never would. For all the time she had left. Which wasn’t much, she was sure now.

  The Falco girl had said she looked like a fairy-tale princess. One with blue nails and wounds that don’t stop bleeding . . . And then she remembered the Polish fairy tale she’d read in Harry’s book, the one about a princess prisoner in a white tower, and a prince saving her and taking her to freedom on the wings of a raven.

  I don’t believe in happy endings any more, she said to herself.

  34

  The Blood that Runs in My Veins

  The day of you and me

  A butterfly’s life

  Sean

  I had a shower, if you can call a shower dumping water from a basin over you with a ladle. I swear to God, washing never felt so good. Even if I were sharing the washing room with the bloody Prince of Darkness, and Niall didn’t stop singing Irish songs. It’s a miracle I didn’t hit him over the head with my ladle.

  Thankfully everybody is in their rooms now, and I’m alone. But the loneliness gets to me after a while, and I don’t give myself time to think as I obey an irresistible impulse.

  I step out of my room and down the corridor, and knock on Sarah’s door. I fear she will not answer. She doesn’t want me there, not with the way things are between us, but she invites me in with a quiet, “Sean.”

  She quickly sits by the fire, studying me. All I can think about is how amazing she looks, drying her hair, her cheeks flushed with the heat. Her hair seems so soft, softer than silk. She has wrapped a fleece around herself, her long legs folded underneath her. I think I might go crazy just looking at her. I feel in my bones something is going to happen that should not happen. I try to distract myself and begin to unwrap energy bars for her, our makeshift dinner. It’s all we have left. She shakes her head. “Please. Just one. You must eat.”

  She sighs and takes it. “We’re running out of food. We’ll need to hunt.”

  “Nicholas said we’re not far away now. We’ll be okay.”

  “As right as rain, like Niall says. Sean?”

  “Mmmm?” I reply. I dream of running my fingers through her wet hair, spreading it out like a silky curtain so that the fire dries it quicker.

  “Have you thought of the journey back?”

  Cold spreads through my bones as I realise that no, I haven’t. I just don’t seem to be able to picture it, like what’s ahead of us is so terrifying that I can’t think past it.

  “Yes. Of course. Once we’ve killed the King of Shadows all we need to do is find the way back to the Gate . . .”

  “Do you really think we can kill the King of Shadows and survive?” She looks at me with those clear green eyes, and it’s impossible to lie.

  “We can’t give up hope. And my hope is that you, at least, will survive.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you. I don’t want a life without you.” She clings to me, her arms tight around my neck.

  “Oh, Sarah. Look. There’s no point in thinking about all this. Let’s just do what we need to do.”

  She takes my face in her hands. “What you asked Alvise . . . about the Campbell powers . . .”

  My heart sinks. Discussing my blood is always painful. But she has the right to know what’s going through my mind. “I can’t stop asking myself if I have powers. I know I’m not supposed to.”

  “You’re not supposed to have powers, or you’re not supposed to ask yourself?” She attempts a joke, but her eyes aren’t smiling.

  “Sarah . . .”

  “Sean, this means nothing to me, do you understand? Your blood, I mean. It means nothing at all. Powers or not, it doesn’t change my feelings.”

  “But I need to know. I need to know who I a
m.”

  “You won’t have your answer, Sean. You just won’t. We’ll never be sure if your runes are so powerful because of your Campbell blood. And even if you have some kind of power because of a genetic fluke . . . how do we know it’d be passed on to our children? It might end with you! But none of that matters to me. Why does it matter to you?”

  I rub my forehead. Sarah is furious with frustration. Stubborn and stuck in the past, that’s what she probably thinks of me, and she has to pay the price for my blind, senseless loyalty.

  “Look what generations of inbreeding did to the Families!” she whispers in a way that makes it sound like a scream. “We’re all dying! We don’t need the Surari to kill us, Sean. My blood might be strong now, but what if I marry another Secret heir from some ancient family? What are the chances of my children developing the Azasti? Look at Elodie! She is dying too. Her wounds are still bleeding – I mean, the ones she got from the white demon. I saw them as we were washing.”

  I stare at her. Even if I knew it already, to hear Elodie’s death sentence spoken aloud cuts me inside. My friend is dying. My brother’s wife. My dear, strong, loyal, infinitely sweet Elodie. And there’s nothing I can do. I can’t defend her. I can’t save her. I can’t stop her blood from decaying.

  A memory comes back to me: back in Edinburgh, when Sarah wasn’t letting me near her and I was living in a crumbling cottage in the middle of nowhere. Elodie’s voice lullabying me to sleep at last, after days of insomnia, and then waking up and finding her sitting there, watching over me.

  And now she’s dying.

  Sarah sweeps her wet hair away from her face. A single tear rolls down her cheek and breaks my heart. “This is what inbreeding has done to us, Sean! This ailment thing . . . it’s because we married among each other for generations. Only men are allowed to look outside the gene pool, and that’s why my blood is clean. My family had only sons for four generations – except for Mairead. They all married Lays and our blood was kept strong, or so they thought. Strong with powers, but vulnerable to the Azasti. Secret women marry Secret men, and have children who are condemned already. Is this what you want to happen to my children? Do you want me to marry Alvise, and have heirs who can’t stop bleeding and whose nails turn blue and who go crazy, like Tancredi? And then die in their twenties? Is this what you want for me? Keep my powers going through the bloodline, until the Azasti affects us all?” Tears are running freely down her cheeks now. I can’t reply. I don’t know what to say. Everything is so confused now.