Sorcery of Thorns

by Margaret Rogerson

  A terrible thought struck her. She could adjust the cannon’s aim. The cannonballs were made of iron; he wouldn’t be able to stop one if she fired it at him. If that was what it took—if that was the only way to end this, to keep him from becoming another Baltasar—

  A cool touch stayed her hand. “Wait,” Silas said. His hair had come free, flowing in the wind. She didn’t understand how he could look so calm.

  Nathaniel was almost upon them. Sorcery glazed his eyes. Flames rolled off his body like a cloak. In a moment, it would be too late to stop him.

  “Elisabeth.” His voice echoed unrecognizably with power. He held out his hand. The fire billowed back, away from his sleeve, so she could take it.

  Trust me, he had said.

  She remembered the day that they had met, when he had offered her his hand, and she had hesitated, certain he would hurt her. But the horrors she had imagined, those evil deeds—he had never been capable of them. Not Nathaniel, her Nathaniel, who was tortured by the darkness within him only because he was so good.

  The Malefict’s words repeated in her mind. The girl you love. The truth of it rang through her like the tolling of a bell.

  Slowly, she climbed down from the cannon. Heat shimmered in the air, but she felt no pain. It was as though she had donned a suit of armor, become invincible. She stepped toward the emerald flames, and they parted around her, curving away from her body like cresting waves. Nathaniel’s hand waited, outstretched.

  Their fingers met. He closed his eyes. That was when she saw it: Prendergast’s vial hung empty at his chest.

  The Malefict howled in fury, sensing the trick too late. It surged toward them, mouth agape, its head looming closer and closer, fetid breath washing over them, as the magic seized them and Harrows spun away.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ELISABETH, NATHANIEL, AND Silas materialized in an unfamiliar parlor, in the middle of a group of women enjoying their evening tea. At least they were enjoying it, until the severed head of the Chronicles landed on their coffee table.

  It arrived with a crash that flattened the table’s claw-foot legs and rattled the porcelain in the parlor’s mirrored cabinets. Decapitated at the neck, its antlers shorn off, it looked like a boulder-sized lump of charcoal. Staring at it in shock, Elisabeth supposed that it had come near enough Nathaniel to get seized by the spell. But evidently Prendergast’s magic hadn’t been able to transport something as large as the Malefict’s entire body between dimensions—only the head had come along with them. As its muscles relaxed, its tongue lolled from its mouth, glistening on the carpet like a giant slug.

  A teaspoon dropped. The women sat stunned, ink splattered across the fronts of their silk dresses. None of them said a word as the head began to disintegrate, spouting embers onto the wainscoting.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” said Nathaniel. He bowed, which dislodged a trickle of soot from his hair. Then his eyes rolled up, and he collapsed face-first onto the floor.

  Shrieks filled the air. Teacups went flying. As the women fled from the room, tripping over the carpet’s fringe, Elisabeth dropped to her knees at Nathaniel’s side and rolled him over onto her lap. Soot blackened every inch of his exposed skin. His charred coat was still lightly smoking, and the fire had singed his eyebrows. At some point he had gotten a cut on his forehead—she didn’t know when, or how, but it had covered his face in blood. She pressed her fingers to his throat, and relaxed when she felt the steady rhythm of his pulse.

  “That was his plan?” she asked Silas, pointing at the Malefict’s head. As though being pointed at were the last straw, it slumped into a pile of ashes.

  Gazing down at Nathaniel, Silas sighed. “Truth be told, miss, I suspect he did not possess a plan, and was simply making it up as he went along.”

  “Ugh. Where are we? Has anyone a clue?” Nathaniel opened one gray eye, startlingly pale against his soot- and blood-covered face. He looked around dubiously, as though he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to wake up yet, and then slowly opened the other, focusing on Elisabeth’s face. “Hello, you menace.”

  She laughed, weak with relief. As she stroked his hair back from his sticky forehead, an unbearable tenderness filled her. “I love you, too,” she said.

  Nathaniel’s brow furrowed. He turned his face to the side and blinked several times. “Thank god,” he said finally. “I don’t think unrequited love would have suited me. I might have started writing poetry.”

  Elisabeth continued stroking his hair. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “I assure you, it would have proven more unpleasant for everyone than necromancy.”

  She laughed again, helplessly. A weightless, sparkling joy filled her, like the sunlight of a spring morning after the rain had stopped and the clouds went scudding away, and the world felt new and clean and bright, transformed into a better version of itself, heartbreaking in its beauty. The immensity of the feeling made her ribs hurt. She swiped her knuckles across her cheek, conscious of Silas watching them.

  Nathaniel looked at her sidelong. “Scrivener, I know I cut a devilishly handsome figure lying here on the floor all covered in blood—which I hear some girls find quite appealing, strangely enough, and if you’re one of them I’m not going to judge—but please stop crying. It’s only a flesh wound. I’ll be back to fighting evil any moment now.”

  She sniffed loudly. “I’m not crying. My eyes are watering. You smell awful.”

  “What? I never smell awful. I smell like sandalwood and masculine allure.” He lifted his head to smell himself, and gagged. “Never mind.”

  “Perhaps you might consider not setting yourself on fire next time, master,” Silas said, pointedly.

  A clatter came from the hall. A pair of footmen crowded the doorway, one of them clutching an antique sword that looked as though it had been torn down from a mantelpiece, and was now trembling violently in his hands. “Surrender peacefully, sorcerer,” he declared, after an encouraging look from the other, “and we won’t hurt you.”

  Nathaniel squinted at him. “You look familiar. Are we in Lady Ingram’s town house?”

  I hope so, Elisabeth thought. The ink stain on the carpet looked permanent.

  “Er,” said the footman with the sword, uncertainly.

  “Excellent.” Before Elisabeth could stop him, Nathaniel hoisted himself to his feet and cast around, wobbling alarmingly. She took one of his arms, and Silas the other. Not seeming to notice that he couldn’t stand on his own, he started for the doorway, explaining, “I aimed the spell to let us out near the Royal Library. We’re only a few blocks away.”

  Elisabeth recalled the map of Austermeer, where Katrien had drawn a question mark beside the Royal Library at the center. “That’s where Ashcroft is going to finish his summoning,” she realized aloud. “It’s the middle of the pentagram.”

  “Precisely. I’m hoping that I’ve managed to botch the ritual by taking part of the Chronicles with us. But it was so large, there might have still been enough demonic energy released back in Harrows.”

  “Then we can’t waste any time.” A grandfather clock ticked in the corner. With a sense of unreality, she saw that it was only eight thirty in the evening. What had felt like years in Harrows had only been a couple of hours.

  As they approached, the footman halfheartedly menaced them with his sword. He looked relieved when Elisabeth grabbed it by the blade and plucked it from his hand. She examined the weapon—useless—and stuck it in an umbrella stand on their way out the door.

  They emerged into a midwinter’s dream. Laughter filled the night as a family trooped past, bundled in mittens and scarves, ice skates dangling from their fingers. A lone carriage sailed by in the opposite direction, the horse’s hooves muffled to near-silence by the snow. Candles lit the windows of the houses along the street, affording glimpses of the scenes within: a woman placing a baby into a bassinet, a hound dozing in front of a fireplace beside his master’s slippers. Elisabeth’s breath puffed white in the air.
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br />   The peacefulness of it came as a shock. For a disorienting moment, she felt as though she had hallucinated everything that had happened to them since leaving Brassbridge.

  Then, light touched the tops of the nearby towers. She shielded her eyes as it ignited the statue of a rearing pegasus, dazzling against the dark sky, like a bronze sequin sewn onto velvet. The towers’ windows flamed gold and pink as the light poured downward. When it struck the street, it swept across the snow, transforming it into a wash of diamonds, glittering blindingly from the icy branches of the trees. Her breath caught. She thought instinctively, The sun is rising. But it wasn’t—it couldn’t be.

  The horse drawing the carriage snorted and shied from the glare, its reins jingling. The family who had passed them turned around, exclaiming in wonder. Doors opened up and down the street; heads poked out, hands shading eyes, throwing long shadows across the snow.

  “Look!” someone cried. “Magic!”

  Luminous gold ribbons danced through the sky, shimmering and rippling, reminding Elisabeth of a description she had once read of the polar lights. It was breathtaking. Spectacular. A sunrise at the end of the world.

  “What is that?” she asked. Nathaniel’s muscles had tensed.

  “Aetherial combustion. Matter from the Otherworld burning as it comes into contact with our realm’s air.” He hesitated. “I’ve never seen such a powerful reaction—only read about it.”

  Silas slipped out from beneath Nathaniel’s arm and stepped off the curb, raising his face toward the light. It washed out his features and diluted his yellow eyes. His expression was almost one of yearning, like an angel gazing up at heaven, knowing he would never set foot in it again. He said simply, “The Archon is here.”

  Elisabeth and Nathaniel exchanged a glance. Then they set off at a run, skidding and stumbling in the snow. For a sickening heartbeat Elisabeth worried that Silas might remain behind, transfixed, but then he was at their side again, effortlessly catching Nathaniel’s elbow before he slipped on a patch of ice.

  “Its presence has opened a rift into the Otherworld,” he told them. “When it is loosed from its summoning circle, the veil between worlds will rupture beyond repair.”

  “But that hasn’t happened yet?” Nathaniel pressed.

  Silas shook his head, the slightest motion.

  “Then we can still stop it,” Elisabeth said.

  Silas’s gaze lingered on her face, then flicked away. He watched Nathaniel beneath his lashes, expression inscrutable, and she wondered what he was thinking. “We shall try, Miss Scrivener.”

  Pedestrians clogged the street that passed in front of the Royal Library—skaters returning from the river, their cheeks flushed and their scarves crusted with snow. Everyone was staring at the dome above the atrium. The brilliant light had faded to a dull glow swirling inside the glass, casting the block into watery twilight. Golden wisps still danced around the building, flowing past its marble statues and carved scrolls, but they were growing fainter by the moment, eliciting wistful sighs from the crowd.

  Elisabeth’s stomach clenched. The sight was undeniably beautiful. And the timing couldn’t have been worse. By the looks of it, these people thought it had been a magic show put on for their enjoyment.

  “You have to go,” she shouted, shouldering through them toward the library. “All of you, run! You’re in danger!”

  Heads turned, confusion written across their faces; most of them hadn’t been able to hear her over the hubbub. And there was another, louder sound, drowning out everything else. A sound like grasshoppers shrilling in a field, swelling as it cascaded toward them. Screams.

  At last, people began to run. But they weren’t moving fast enough. They scattered in every direction as a fiend bounded into the crowd, snapping and snarling, its teeth flashing in the unearthly light. At the corner of her vision, Elisabeth saw a child trip over a dropped skating boot and fall, the motion tracked by the demon’s red eyes. She let go of Nathaniel and leaped forward without a thought, slicing Demonslayer through the air.

  The demon swung around to meet her, only to falter when her blade carved through one of its horns and kept going, separating bone and sinew like butter, and only stopped when it rang against the cobblestones, trailing steam. Elisabeth staggered back, readying herself to parry the demon’s counterattack, but none came. Its body collapsed to the street, lifeless. She had nearly cleaved it in two.

  There, another fiend, standing over a screaming woman—but it dropped before she could act, the crimson light fading from its eyes. She didn’t understand what had happened to it until a pale blur streaked past, and a third demon fell limply to the ground. Silas wove through the crowd like a dancer, astonished faces turning as he flashed by. His claws gleamed, flicking out, slitting fiends’ throats before they even saw him coming. Awe shivered through her, chased by an instinctive prickle of fear. This was a glimpse of the Silas of old, set loose on an ancient battlefield, surrounded by spears and pennants, transforming the front into a merciless waltz of death. Only back then, it would have been humans bleeding out with each stroke of his claws.

  As though sensing Elisabeth’s gaze, he paused long enough to nod at her. Her breath stopped. Then she nodded back and turned away, confident that he would take care of any fiends she couldn’t reach.

  Emerald light flared; Nathaniel’s whip had spun out beside her. He staggered on his feet, but sent her a reckless grin, his teeth flashing white against his sooty face. An objection died on her lips when his whip snapped toward a fiend threatening a group of people. Crackling and spitting embers, it yanked the fiend away, directly into the path of Elisabeth’s sword.

  Conviction coursed through her as she struck the demon down. Her pulse thundered in her ears. After what she and Nathaniel had faced in Harrows, this felt like child’s play. Nothing could stop them now.

  They cut a swath toward the library, slowly gaining ground. The countless blows numbed Elisabeth’s arms and left her blood singing. Every time a fiend leaped toward her, Nathaniel’s whip slashed it aside. And whenever one charged at him, Elisabeth was there to meet it with her sword. Dozens fell at their feet.

  But it wasn’t enough. More kept coming, pouring endlessly down the Royal Library’s steps, hurdling from its windows in glinting explosions of stained glass. Between the three of them, they were holding the demons at bay, but they couldn’t push inside without letting fiends loose into the city.

  Nathaniel’s breath rushed hot across her ear. “Buy me time.”

  Once, she wouldn’t have understood the request. Now she spun without hesitation, blocking the fiend that lunged for him as he dropped to one knee, splaying a hand on the cobbles. His hair tumbled over his forehead, hiding everything but the sharp slashes of his cheekbones and his crooked mouth, twisted into a grimace of concentration.

  Sorcery snapped through the air. Elisabeth dealt a blow to the fiend that sent it toppling down at her feet. With her view now unobstructed, she saw the moment Nathaniel’s spell took hold.

  A row of hooded librarians were carved in bas-relief from one end of the library’s facade to the other. As she watched, their heads lifted, and their grips tightened on the stone lanterns in their hands. Marble crumbled as they tore free from the building and stepped forward, marching in a faceless regiment toward the fray. They chanted as they went, a solemn dirge that rumbled through her bones like the turning of a millstone.

  Above them, angel statues stretched and sighed and unfurled their wings. Their serene faces turned to appraise the battlefield. One climbed down from her perch and bodily flung a fiend aside. Another emotionlessly seized the corner of a sculpted cornice and wrenched it from the library, then hurled it down with enough force to squash a demon flat. Saints and friars joined the battle, swinging everything from marble incense burners to petrified scrolls. Gargoyles clambered from their timeworn posts to meet the fiends head on.

  Howls of pain filled the night as the battle’s tide turned. This was like the spel
l Nathaniel had used in Summershall, but magnified a hundredfold. He hadn’t just made the Royal Library’s statues come alive; he had created an army to fight at his command.

  Gaping openmouthed, Elisabeth almost didn’t notice the fiend barreling toward them until it was too late. She clumsily deflected its snapping jaws, only to see its claws swiping toward her from the other direction. Then a gonglike peal rang in her ears, and the fiend was swept away, trampled beneath the flashing bronze hooves of the pegasus from atop the tower. Victoriously, it tossed its mane and reared. The ground shook when it crashed back down, sending cracks spiderwebbing through the cobblestones.

  “That should keep them occupied,” Nathaniel said. He climbed to his feet. Then the color drained from his face, leaving him ghastly white.

  Elisabeth caught him before he collapsed. Heat radiated from his body, even through his coat, as though he were back in the throes of a fever.

  “Too much magic,” he slurred, his eyelids drooping. “I’ll be all right in a moment.”

  Her chest twisted into a knot. Just hours ago, he’d barely been able to get out of bed. Since then he had transported them across the kingdom not once, but twice. He had called forth fire and lightning, and awakened an army of stone. It was a miracle he’d remained standing for this long to begin with. “Can you go on?”

  “Of course I can.” He gave her arm a feeble pat of reassurance. “I may be useless, but my good looks might prove critical for morale. Silas?”

  Appearing out of nowhere, Silas shifted into a cat and sprang onto Nathaniel’s shoulder. Nathaniel took a fortifying breath and straightened, suddenly looking much improved.

  “Silas is the conduit to my sorcery,” he explained, grinning. “At times like this, he’s able to lend me some of his strength.”