by Anya Allyn
My eyes close against the scene below.
I slide into an airless darkness. I feel no impact, no splintering of bones into the ground. The smell of camphor and wax and dead flowers fills my head. Is this death?
I’m aware of my body still. I can think and reason. But my vision is obstructed, like I’m looking through a narrow tunnel.
My limbs tumble onto a hard surface. Hands help me to my feet. Blue eyes are before me—crinkled and hooded blue eyes that I know so well. White hair falls across his creased forehead.
His eyes grow wet. “Ethan my boy, I thought this old body would give out without ever seeing you again.”
His hand grasps my arm and I know in that instant he’s real. He drops his walking stick to hug me, and I’m half-holding him up. I smell wood fire—-and my mind is taken back to the cottage. But this isn’t the cottage.
“Granddad....” I can barely trust myself to speak. For almost two years I haven’t known whether he was alive or dead.
He draws back, and someone hands him his walking stick.
I see others now. Ben and Raif step up to me.
A grin cracks across Ben’s face. “Hey, Bud.”
My eyes focus now. I’m no longer in a tunnel. Beyond Ben and Raif stand Nabaasa, Soph, Aisha, Molly and Lacey. I’m in a church—the chapel of the castle. Old, moldering roses still decorate the altar and pews. The stink of wax drifts from the wooden floor.
“Ethan,” says Nabaasa, “your grandfather caught you. He’s had the shadow of a serpent inside him for a long time and he knows how to use it. He stood out on the other side of the gatehouse and cast the shadow out below you—and caught you as you were falling. And he brought you here into the chapel.”
I stare back at grandfather. “You caught me?” I try to grasp what Nabaasa just told me.
He bends his head. “I’m afraid there isn’t much time. Your friends have told me everything—this tale that is so fantastical it can only be true.” Granddad is different—almost like he used to be when I first went to live with him. But there’s an intent about him now, a purposeful look in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
A questions shoots painfully through my mind. Where’s Cassie?
Then I see her eyes—dark, almond-shaped eyes—as she moves toward me. She swallows. “I shouldn’t have gone away like that from the museum. I didn’t know what Sister Bettina was planning to do....” Her arms are around me in the same moment that she speaks. I breathe her in—a mix of cinnamon and sky—and strangely, ash.
Clinging to her, I brush away a lock of hair from her fearful eyes. “How did you—”
“Ethan,” she whispers quickly, “the book—we found it and now it’s destroyed. It’s gone from the world.”
I clutch her arms. “The book is destroyed?”
She nods, her eyes not leaving mine.
“Then it’s over. We have to get out of here!”
She hesitates, as though she doesn’t know how to tell me something. “It’s not over.”
I turn sharply as someone else enters the chapel, a dark figure striding up the aisle.
“Ethan McAllister—you refuse to die.” Henry hooks his thumbs around the lapels of his coat. “But it is of no consequence whether you live or die. We can no longer find out anything of use from you. The book has already been found... and ruined beyond repair.” He stares around at the others with fierce eyes. “But as for the rest of you, we can use all of you, seeing as you have seen the contents of the book. I thank you for saving us the trouble of going to fetch you.”
Henry gestures toward the door. “Since you’ve all come to pay us a visit. Please step out of here where we can receive you properly.”
“Henry Batiste,” says Granddad, “I’ve wanted to meet with you people for a long time.”
I grab Cassie’s hand. “Why are you all here—and Granddad?” She keeps walking, and I tug her hand hard. “We have to get away!”
“Trust us,” is all she whispers.
~.~
We walk out onto the castle square. The men of the castle assemble before us, their cloaks flying in the wind, their faces masks of fury. We stand facing them—a small band of people against the might of the castle. I don’t understand. If Granddad and the others can get here, then they can get away. But they stand tall and straight—like they’re not going anywhere. Henry orders them to follow them into the castle, but they refuse.
Henry paces out in front of the castle men. “You had the book in your possession,” he shouts, his voice resonating through the air. “You had it in your hands! You could have come directly to us with it, and shared in the most exhilarating of futures. But instead—instead—you allow that fortune teller to tell you your future. She left mankind’s most noble destiny unfulfilled and in ashes. In ashes!”
His rage echoes across the castle square.
Stiffly, Granddad shuffles forward. “I care nothing for your vision of the future. You people, you killed my only child. You ran my daughter’s car off the road and murdered her in cold blood. You killed Alkira because she had information about my father, Thomas McAllister, whom you murdered back in 1920—the year I was born. I never got to know my own father. And not satisfied, you tried to murder my grandson.”
Henry bows his head. “I apologize for the loss of your family members. But you do need to grasp that sometimes there must be casualties in the face of a great and noble vision.”
Granddad shakes in anger. “There is no atonement or reason for cold-blooded murder.”
I stare desperately at my grandfather and the others. Are they here as a last stand, to settle scores? I know they all have reasons. Granddad for what they did to my mother, my great-grandfather and me. Molly, Sophronia, Aisha and Lacey for the dollhouse. Raif for what they did to his sister, and Ben for what they did to the one he was always too shy to admit he was in love with—Lacey. Cassie stares up at the tower, and I know which score she wants to settle—Prudence and her parents. Nabaasa lost her whole family—not to the castle—but to people as evil, people who’ll kill for what they want.
A wild wind whips their hair and clothes, but they stand firm.
“You cannot win this battle,” Henry tells us. “You cannot stand against the castle. It’s a better thing for you to come with us now than be mown down like spring grass.”
Armand crosses his beefy arms. “This is what you bring to the great chateau? A gaggle of women, a couple of half-starved boys and an old man hanging on his walking stick? Don’t insult us.”
A young man moves to the front of the pack—Zach. He looks older, gaunt. “I’m with them,” he says simply. He crosses the space between us and the castle people, and takes a place beside Ben.
Zach and Cassie exchange glances. I try to push my jealousy down—there has been a history between them that doesn’t involve me.
Zach’s father jabs an enraged finger in his son’s direction. “Zachary, what are you doing? Don’t allow your misplaced lust for that girl make you forget your loyalties.”
Shaking his head, Zach exhales hard. “That’s where you’ve always misunderstood me. I loved Cassie—but you don’t understand love. I have no loyalties toward you—or the castle.” He holds out his arms in a mock gesture. “I hereby renounce all and any loyalties to the castle.”
Emerson strides angrily toward his brother. “You can’t cross over to them. We’re blood. We’re the ones who are going to rule it all—we’ll find another way. The book is gone, but we are not. You can’t give up your destiny.” He turns to Aisha, glaring at her. “And you, for better or worse, are my wife. You belong at my side.”
“I don’t even know you,” Aisha replies.
“You don’t know me?” Emerson frowns for a moment. “You don’t need to know me. I’m your husband—that’s all you need to know.”
“Emerson,” calls his father. “Get back here. They’ve made their choice. There’s nothing more we can do.”
Parker turns to his father, desper
ation stamped on his face. “Let me claim Molly! I can’t allow her to bear the brunt of what’s to come.”
Mr. Baldcott stares at his son with glazed eyes. “Like Emerson’s wife, she made her choice. Let her die. It’s a mercy, for a quick death isn’t something she should even be granted!”
The women of the castle stream out across the drawbridge, standing behind their men, close to the castle walls. I know that the castle has insisted upon staying traditional for centuries—with men going to battle and the women staying out of it.
A figure cuts through the middle of the castle men—his skin starkly gray in the late afternoon light. My muscles tighten. I want to rush forward and twist his neck between my bare hands—even though I know he can’t die. Balthazar’s menacing gaze settles on Cassie. “My bride, she doth return.”
“But not to you.” Cassie stares him straight in the eye.
His gaze darkens. “You art mine, to do with as I wish.”
“She is not yours.” I step toward him, but Granddad holds me back.
Parker’s father straightens the lapel of his coat. “You must not speak to the monseigneur in such a way. He is my glorious ancestor and the founder of le château sur la falaise solitaire—and he demands respect. She is his wife. The die has been cast and that’s all there is to it.”
Cassie shakes her head, her hair flying out over her arms and shoulders. “The die was cast a long time ago, long before any of you were born. And Balthazar is the ancestor of none of you. You’re all descendants of Etiennette and her lover—Reed McAllister.”
Parker’s father’s jaw drops open, then he blusters, “No such thing occurred. How dare you speak such vile words?”
Balthazar’s eyes blazed. “I doth kill Reed McAllister myself. He doth not sully my Etiennette with his seed.”
“Go and look!” Cassie cries. “Go see for yourself. There is a letter in the ocean cave below the cliff—a letter to Etiennette. You’ll find it in a metal box that is tied to a raft. Her lover tells her he has a ship waiting for her—to take her and their children to safety. The twins were not yours. You were an old man, twisted by all your foul deeds—and you could not make a child. You brought bride after bride after bride to this castle—and made them suffer when they didn’t bear you children, locking them away in your cabinet. But why didn’t they bear you children, Balthazar? Because you were not able—that is why!”
One by one, jaws drop and eyes open wide in shock and horror. They stare nervously at each other. Maybe they always suspected the truth behind Balthazar’s macabre collection of brides, but now they couldn’t ignore it.
Cassie points at them. “You are descendants of a young couple who loved each other desperately. A couple who are also the descendants of Ethan and his grandfather—and me. Kill us, and you kill your own blood!”
Cassie’s face contorts in pain as she wrenches Balthazar’s ring from her finger, and she throws it across the square to his feet.
Balthazar stares at the cast-off ring, then back at the castle people with incensed eyes. “Doth it not make sense that none of thou art mine ascendants! Thou art weak and insipid, every last one of thee. Thou crawlest on the ground like worms, burrowing into the earth at the first sign of trouble. But yet, thou hath a chance. Rise against the intruders, and I wilt carry all of thee of the castle into a grand age. Our destiny will rise from the ashes like a phoenix!”
The castle men and women stiffen, standing straighter behind Balthazar. Cassie tried to make them see reason, but they have spent too long under the rule of Balthazar. They are everything they said he was—unable to think or reason for themselves.
Balthazar turns back to Cassie with his lip in a snarl. “As for you, I wilt strike you down where you stand, harlot!”
The muscles along my spine grip. I push Cassie out of the way as Balthazar raises both arms.
Granddad bows his head, and a black shadow pours from him, unfurling itself and rising up. The shadow flies at Balthazar, like a bird of prey. Shock flashes on Balthazar’s face as he’s knocked back.
“He’s using a shadow against us!” Zach’s father yells. “Call the shadow of the empress.”
Granddad collects his shadow, then sends it like a pack of swarming insects toward them. Parker’s father turns into a statue of ash—his ashes quickly picked up by the wind. Granddad’s shadow hurls itself at another man—one of Ethan’s uncles, exploding him into black powder.
Blackness flows from the eyes and chests of my friends. I stare in stunned silence. How is it they’re all keeping shadows inside them? Their eyes close as they hurl the shadows at the men of the castle.
Like the tin soldiers in Balthazar’s chambers, the men are knocked down—the ghosts the only ones left standing. Balthazar, Henry, Francoeur, Voulo, Armand and a smattering of other ghosts bow their heads together, seeming to gather strength.
Water shoots from the gargoyle fountain—higher and higher. The shadow of the empress bleeds out of the fountain, then rises like a poisonous snake.
The shadow of the empress forms like a menacing black thundercloud above us.
Our group does a strange thing—they send out their shadows, but just enough to shield us, to block the castle’s view of us.
“Child, it’s time we left here,” Nabaasa says quietly to Cassie.
Cassie turns to me, desperation in her eyes. “Ethan, I have to go now.”
Holding her arms, I stare into her dark eyes. “There’s something you’re not telling me—there’s something you came here to do, isn’t there?’
“Yes.” Her voice falters. “You once said you’d help me kill the serpent, and I’m here to kill them all. I have a way and you have to trust me.”
“No! Not you. I want you safe,” I tell her. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“You have to let her go,” says Nabaasa. “Her friends know why she’s here. They planned to draw out the people of the castle, so that Cassie can do what she needs to. They’re protecting her.”
I realize I’m gripping Cassie’s arms too hard. I don’t want to let her go. I don’t ever want to let her go. But her eyes are pleading with me.
“Then I can’t come with you,” I tell her, “I need to stay with the others and do my best to protect you too. Go, do what you have to do.”
Breathing deeply, she nods. “Take my shadow.” She holds me tight, her lips against mine, breathing the shadow into my mouth.
My body jolts. I feel an immense power surging inside me. I don’t know how to contain it, how to control it.
Cassie and Nabaasa vanish. In the maelstrom of swirling shadows, no one from the castle notices.
30. Center of Calm
CASSIE
Nabaasa and I stood in the room at the bottom of the tower. I ached to see Prudence again. I wrestled with what I was about to ask her to do. The ancient wooden staircase wound upward—the staircase I’d been so terrified to climb last time I’d been here.
Nabaasa tucked her medical kit under her arm. “We have to hurry.”
Nodding, I stepped ahead of her, running up the stairs. Nabaasa made her way up behind me.
I reached the top landing of the old wooden staircase and ran into the top room of the tower. Air sucked into my lungs at the sight of my sister in her trance, slowly spinning—her glazed eyes fixed to the crystal above her.
Nabaasa stepped into the space, staring upward in horror.
“I’ll catch her,” I told Nabaasa.
Stepping beneath Prudence, I called her name. She broke connection with the crystal and plunged downward. I half-caught her, half-fell with her. I pulled her and myself to a sitting position.
“Cassie!” Prudence cried. “I saw you all down there in the castle square. And I saw... what you could all do. What’s happening?”
“Prudence...” I hugged her. “We don’t have much time. I’ll explain it to you, but first we need to tend to your injuries.” I motioned toward Nabaasa as she knelt down beside us and opened her
medical kit. “This is Nabaasa. She’s going to help you and give you medicine.”
Nabaasa gave her a trembling smile. “Your sister prepared me for what I’d see here in this tower, but nothing could prepare me for this. These monsters, keeping you here like this.” She cleaned Prudence’s wounds and wrapped bandages around her wrists. “I’ve lost many loved ones in cruel ways—but they’ve passed on, into whatever comes next. But you—what they’ve done to you—is not only cruel but unnatural.” She gave Prudence antibiotics and fluids.
“I’m sorry you’ve lost family, Nabaasa,” said Prudence, her eyes glistening. “I lost a sister once, and it broke my heart.” She turned her dark head to me. “I thank you both for helping me, though I’ll stay bound to the serpent and her crystal eye.”
“I promised I’d come back and get you away from here, Prudence. That’s why we’re here,” I told her.
Prudence shook her head. “There’s no way of getting me away from here. Once bound to the empress, you can never leave. You can’t take me from the tower.”
“We can if she’s dead,” I said fiercely.
Prudence stared at me. “That’s impossible.” Her eyelashes drifted down. “Even if you do such a thing, a new empress would rise. One of the other serpents would take her place.”
I stilled my breathing. “We mean to kill them all.”
Her lips parted, her blue eyes widening. “All? On the whole of your earth?”
“Yes.” My throat constricted with the thought of it. “Prudence, we held the second book of the Speculum Nemus in our hands. It told of a way.”
She inhaled sharply. “You found the second book?”
“It’s gone now—destroyed—but yes, we found it. We couldn’t read it, but there were messages in the illustrations.”