Hexbound: Book 2 of The Dark Arts Series

by Bec McMaster

  "We're surrounded by Hex witches. If someone wants it back then they'll doff their caps and come in all polite like."

  "You're surrounded by flesh and blood, Guthrie. I wonder how long they'll hold up against a wave of flesh constructs, the like of which attacked the Dials the other day, hmm?"

  Bishop shook off the lingering effects of the maladroise. "And I wonder what the rest of the Seven Dials would think of that? You, playing so callously with their lives."

  Verity shot him a brilliant smile. "Why don't we ask them, Bishop? I wonder what the faction leaders would think of Guthrie's play then? And his deliberate disregard of the Code."

  Leather strained as Guthrie half stood. "You little bitch. You'd have to get to them first." He snapped a finger, and both Conrad and Betsy brandished weapons. Conrad slid a crackling glove of shimmering light over his fist, and Betsy snapped a whip that lashed with power.

  Verity planted herself in the middle of the room, her arms crossed. "And just how do you think you're going to contain me?"

  "Merce," Guthrie said flatly.

  There was a tense moment. "No," Mercy said, uncoiling her lanky frame from the corner. "I'll do a lot of things, Daniel, but I won't lift a hand against Ver."

  Guthrie's expression of disbelief collided with anger. "You'll bloody do what you're told to do, or—"

  "Or what?" Mercy faced him down, then held up a hand and clenched her fingers. Guthrie gasped, hunching over himself with his eyes bulging. "I had the means to watch Mr. Bishop here the other day... and it seems I've managed to add to my repertoire. The Crows have always done all right by me and I'll do my best by them, but don't you think that you can force me to betray my heart-sister."

  She suddenly released Guthrie, and the man's knees hit the floor.

  "You little bitch," Guthrie breathed.

  "So it seems we're at an impasse," Bishop told him. "You have something I want, and you can't stop me from taking it."

  "I presume you mean the old sorceress," Mercy interrupted, flashing those vivid green eyes at him. "Because while I might not kill Verity, I never said anything about you."

  He looked at her, but Verity grabbed his arm and stepped between them. "Don't you dare!"

  "I wouldn't," he murmured. "I know she means a great deal to you."

  Verity's shoulders relaxed, and she faced her friend. "Mercy, I never wanted it to come to this."

  "Me either." The girl smiled faintly. "But we've both got our paths in life to tread. You're always welcome in my room."

  "You can't keep Lady E," Verity said. "She's not an object, and we need to heal her."

  "And you can't take this little antique," Guthrie snapped, sliding the Chalice closer to himself, his gaze taking a slow trip over Verity's body. "Not without meeting my price."

  Over my dead body.

  She must have heard it through the link. Verity rested her hand on his wrist.

  "That's not an option either, Daniel," she said firmly. "So until you can work out another price, the Chalice remains here. Do try not to get eaten by flesh constructs before we can retrieve it."

  She crossed to Agatha's side and gestured for Bishop to pick her up. "Be gentle."

  Guthrie didn't like it. But he said nothing as Bishop swung Agatha up into his arms. She was more skirts than body at this moment. He hadn't realized how thin she'd become.

  "I've got you," he whispered.

  Agatha rested her head on his shoulder, and just like that, relief flooded through him. He didn't dare reach out to her through their apprentice-mentor link, but he could feel her.

  "This way," Verity said, opening the door for him.

  He swung Agatha through gently as Verity glared over his shoulder. "We'll be back, Guthrie."

  The Hex leader smirked. "I'm counting on it."

  * * *

  "Knock, knock," Verity called, rapping on the open door to Lady Eberhardt's room.

  The old woman looked frail against the sheets of her bed, her long gray hair laid across her pillows where Marie was brushing it. With a frustrated grimace, Lady Eberhardt waved her secretary away and tried to drag herself into a seated position.

  "Adrian said you mustn't exert yourself," Marie chastised, discarding the brush as she rushed to help her employer.

  "If I can't bloody well sit myself up in bed, then I may as well be dead," Lady Eberhardt snapped. "God's blood, I'm not an invalid. I spent over three hundred days tracking that demon through the Cairo slums! I've been thrown into prisons, barely escaped a bloody harem, and survived three husbands! I'm a sorcerer of the eighth bloody level! A little heart murmur isn't going to stop me."

  "A little heart murmur? Adrian said you'd nearly ruptured your coronary artery. And you've aged since then! That all happened years ago!" Marie shot back.

  "I'm no less of a woman for the fact that there's forty years added to the tally. Enough of this mollycoddling. I've had enough!"

  Marie's lips thinned and she stepped back, shoulders squared. "Then go ahead, and see yourself into an early grave. It's not as though I should care, is it?" Tears gleamed in her eyes, but she spun toward the door, trying to hide them. "I shall send Maxwell up with some nice chamomile tea for poor Verity. She, at least, has earned it."

  She didn't quite slam the door after her.

  Lady Eberhardt stared at the shut door, mouth agape and her hand outstretched before realizing. Spearing Verity with a gimlet eye, she fussed with her blankets, muttering under her breath whilst trying to pretend that she wasn’t staring after Marie.

  "It's all right," Verity said, taking the old woman's hand and sitting on the edge of the bed. Certain relationships were becoming quite clear to her. "Adrian's the same. Spitting like a tomcat backed into an alley whilst proclaiming that he hasn't a worry in the world." Her tone softened, and she stroked the paper-thin skin on the back of Lady Eberhardt's hand. "You gave everyone quite a fright. They're only worried about you."

  Including me. It was only afterwards, when the excitement of the action wore off, that Verity had collapsed in tears. Not only had she lost the Chalice, but she'd nearly killed Adrian's beloved master.

  "Where is he?" Lady E asked.

  "Resting. Healing you took quite a bit out of him." Verity bit her lip. Their link had faded now, but she still remembered traces of what she'd felt. While Bishop held himself walled back, odd impressions had leeched through when he was concentrating more on healing Lady E rather than keeping her out.

  He'd been scared while he'd healed his mentor. Not scared of losing Lady E, but scared of pushing too much, of taking too much.

  Verity didn't know what to think about it.

  Lady Eberhardt stared into space. "I'm getting old," she whispered. "And there's so much still to do, but here I am, helpless as a newborn babe."

  "Nonsense." Verity pushed her dark thoughts aside. "If I'm as spry and hearty at your age as you are, then I'll be considerably pleased with myself. You might have aged, but you're not old, my lady. And perhaps you should stop thinking of yourself as Hercules, facing the tasks all by himself. A wise general commands his troops and sets them to running to and fro. He doesn't do all of the work himself."

  Lady Eberhardt harrumphed. "Don't think I can't see right through you. You're trying to manage me, missy. I can still give you a thump around the ears if I want to."

  "We'll see." Verity teleported across the room, landing by the window. "I can translocate and you can't."

  Lady Eberhardt shimmered with power and then something invisible swatted Verity across the fleshy pad of her ear. "Ow!"

  The other woman arched a supercilious brow.

  Rubbing her ear, Verity crossed to the bed. "Well, it's good to see some things haven't changed.”

  "Are you referring to a certain young man I might know?" Lady E settled back against her pillows like a demanding pasha.

  "Perhaps." Clearly Lady E wanted to forget about her own problems, and for once Verity was happy to allow her probing. "Bishop's... stru
ggling."

  "In what way?"

  "I felt something strange when we were linked." Verity frowned. "It was a horrible feeling, like dark clouds hanging over the pair of us, threatening to consume us at any chance. But it felt heavy too. Like a weight on our shoulders."

  "Have you spoken to him about it?"

  Verity lowered her gaze. "He won't let me in." Not fully. As soon as he'd felt her wondering about his feelings earlier, he'd cut off their link sharply.

  "He's afraid," Lady Eberhardt admitted, patting her hand as if she were the one comforting Verity. "You remind him very much of Mya and all that he's lost. But don't think you're not important to him. I'm neither blind, nor a fool. Adrian likes you very much."

  Verity stared at Lady E. "Mya?"

  Lady E’s face froze.

  And suddenly it all made sense. "There was a woman he loved, wasn’t there?" Verity breathed. "And he hurt her."

  "Damn it," Lady E cursed. "Yes. Though she wasn’t a woman. Barely a girl. Her name was Mya, and she was Burmese. I’d assumed he’d told you."

  "Did he love her?" Verity asked, swallowing hard.

  "I'm not certain if it ever blossomed into love." Lady E's eyes watched her cannily. "He was fifteen and there was an entire Empire between them. But... it could have become more," Lady E conceded. "If Adrian weren't so afraid to let himself be with her."

  "What happened?"

  "Is he afraid to touch you, Verity?"

  Heat speared through her cheeks, but she hadn't been raised in the Dials for nothing. "Sometimes he forgets himself, but... yes. He’s very concerned about losing control of his power. I thought he didn't approve of me at first."

  That eyebrow arched again. "Oh, he approves of you. That was evident from the start. In fact, I think he's moved past approval and straight into yearning. But there are complications for Adrian, some of them ones that he's forced upon himself. Verity, what do you know of the Grave Arts?"

  "There are sorcerers who are drawn to the darker aspects of life," she replied promptly. "My friend Mercy. And Bishop, and clearly this Horroway man."

  "Who's the oldest Grave Arts sorcerer that you've ever encountered?"

  "It's—" She racked her brain. "I don't know. Probably Horroway."

  "Who's been dead for almost seven years."

  A little tingle of nervousness latched on to her stomach. "What are you trying to say?"

  "Every time Adrian kills, he feels the full force of the death blow rush through him. He thrives on it, lives for it, yearns for it. And with every kill, the rush becomes sweeter and the yearning stronger. That's the heavy sensation you felt hovering over him. Most Grave sorcerers only last forty or fifty years before the yearning becomes too strong and they start to kill too often, or even resort to murder. Some find respite by helping the dying to their rest. Sometimes it's enough to stave it off a few more years."

  "But Adrian can't do that," Verity whispered. "He hates the idea of sitting like a vulture at someone's bedside."

  Lady Eberhardt's expression grew carefully neutral. "Did he ever tell you why?"

  "I suspect it has something to do with his mother's death."

  "Partly. Amelia Bishop was his first encounter with sorcery. She was tending to the grate one night when Adrian was ill with the sweats. He was cold and his mother would have done anything to make him more comfortable, but on this particular night, a spark leapt from the grate and caught fire in her dress. By the time she and Adrian beat the flames out she was very badly burned. Adrian still bears the burn scars on his hands and face." Lady Eberhardt looked inwards again. "This was before either of them knew anything of sorcery. There was no way to heal her and the pain she was in... it was quite unendurable, I'm told. She survived. That's the best that can be said of the whole matter. But sometimes death is a kinder mistress than bearing that kind of pain, and when she turned to opium she grew quite melancholic and began to beg Adrian to end it all for her. That poor boy endured four months of her misery. She would have done it herself but he was determined to keep her alive, until one night... neither of them could bear it anymore. She'd tried to take too much opium but something dragged her back. In hindsight, it was probably his burgeoning powers, not quite ready to let her go. Indeed, Adrian's powers were the only way she'd survived in the first place, something he began to suspect."

  "Oh, my goodness," Verity whispered, seeing it in her mind. "He killed her."

  "He let her rest," Lady Eberhardt corrected. "He let her go and it was the bravest, hardest thing he's ever done. A nearby sorcerer caught the edges of it and arrived to find the boy weeping over her body, with no idea of his powers or what he could do. He thought himself cursed."

  "Why didn't his father school him?"

  "He needed a master of the Grave Arts to show him how to work his sorcery, and he couldn't bear to remain in England so it was deemed appropriate to give his apprenticeship over to Colonel Winthrop." Lady Eberhardt's voice dropped into a sneer. "Winthrop had recently signed on as a Servant of the Empire and was off to seek his fortune in Burma."

  "With nobody the wiser about Winthrop's temperament."

  "Precisely," Lady Eberhardt replied. "Winthrop was a terrible choice. He barely taught Adrian to control himself, given as he was to gaming and drinking, and once clear of England Winthrop was more interested in conquest and gaining a knighthood.

  "And Burma is where Adrian met young Mya," Lady Eberhardt continued, "And therein lies our problem. True love ran its usual course with all the youthful problems of heated passions and tempestuous decisions. Romeo and Juliet didn't know how lucky they were with only two feuding families to deal with. Imagine two feuding Empires with assassinations, political gambits, lies, and broken truces on each side? And of course it all came to a head one night when she snuck into his tent."

  "What happened?" This... this was the heart of it, and Verity desperately needed to know.

  Lady Eberhardt plucked at the coverlet. "What do you think happened?"

  Verity's heart raced.

  "Two young sorcerers, one with the gift of the Grave.... Barely taught, trying desperately not to give himself over to emotions and the dangers of Expression, and thrust headlong into an act which is rarely ruled by rational thinking."

  "He lost control," Verity breathed.

  "He lost control." Lady E sighed. "He nearly killed the girl. Not intentionally of course, but in the throes of attempted passion the darker part of him started to listen to the rapid beat of her heart, the rush of her blood. Even as he kissed her, a part of him was lost in trying to seize that power, to drink in the last gasp of her breath. He didn't even know he was doing it until it was almost too late."

  Verity's own breath caught. "But he didn't kill her, did he? He speaks of her as though she's still alive."

  "Oh, she lived. He managed to draw back—just in time, mind you—and was forced to restart her heart with his healing gifts. And when Mya started to breathe again the full weight of the horror crashed in upon him. That was the last time he saw her. The last time he let himself see her. Instead, he threw himself into his studies, trying desperately to learn the meager scraps of control that he needed, whilst Winthrop set about creating havoc in the newly formed Burmese commonwealth. It wasn't until Adrian clashed with Winthrop about his callous treatment of the locals that Adrian was sent home in chains with a letter suggesting his gifts be extinguished by the Order. I was one of the councilors who sat in on his trial."

  Verity sat back in shock. At first, all she'd seen had been his fancy clothes and the luxury of his home, and dismissed him as just another Order sorcerer, living in a gilded palace. She'd grudgingly adjusted her view of him, day by day, as he revealed his true self, but she'd never have thought he'd survived worse things than she had.

  Perhaps that was why she'd always felt an odd sense of kinship with him? And why he'd set about trying to help her escape the Crows? Bishop knew what it was like to be helpless, and he knew what it was like to have just on
e kind gesture set you on the right path in life. None of his actions had ever been driven by pity, but by understanding.

  "And here you are," the older woman said, with another arch of the brow. "Temptation indeed, if I'm reading matters correctly. He's never looked at another woman the way he looks at you. Never even wanted one.”

  The thought both warmed her heart and made her feel remarkably vulnerable. "I don't know what to do."

  "I'm sure you'll think of something," Lady E said dryly.

  There was a pause in the conversation, leaving Verity deep in thought. She'd lost the Crows. Lost Mercy, in a way. Lost everything that had ever grounded her after her mother's death threw her into the workhouse as a little girl.

  What did she want now?

  A future in the Order? To learn her sorcery, so that she'd never be captive to anyone's manipulations again? Yes to both. But more than that, she wanted something else. Something more.

  She thought of her old dreams, of a house and a family all her own. And it was Bishop's broad form that stood beside her. His child in her arms.

  Verity sucked in a breath.

  It had always been an abstract dream, but this time it had form and shape and it had a name. She wanted him. She wanted him to want her. Everything else could fall into place. Her lessons, her power. Her future as a sorceress. But most importantly, she realized it was Bishop she loved.

  Lady E cleared her throat, as though she too had fallen into certain recollections. "I wanted to say thank you. I know I don't say it enough."

  "For?"

  "For your actions today."

  "I lost the Chalice," Verity admitted, her shoulders slumping. "Nearly got you killed, and then handed you directly to your enemies."

  "I'm here, aren't I?" Lady E's stare was hard to meet. "When you get as old as I am, you realize that sometimes a campaign suffers small setbacks, but as long as you keep your chin up and keep wading through the dross, eventually you might find yourself the victor. I'm alive, thanks to your swift actions, and the Chalice is out of Elijah Horroway's hands, which can be considered a small win."