by J. A. White
“That’s the point,” Minoth said. “The faenix cannot die. It cannot be defeated. Any unfortunate who wanders into Dolrose Castle will meet a truly terrible demise, from now until the end of time. As soon as we’ve finished our meeting here, I’ll place it in the ruins myself and start the hatching process.”
Taff looked nervously at Kara and a thought too terrifying to speak aloud passed between them: If we want the grim, we’re going to have to face that thing, aren’t we?
After this, King Penta demanded a formal vow of silence from all the participants, and the conversation, having run its course, ended in a series of awkward farewells. Mazkus, still angry about the chest in his hands, was the first to leave, and though the iron helm blinded him he moved with the grace of the sure-sighted. Ilma whispered something in Kenetta’s ear and the two left together. Delvin proceeded slowly to the awaiting carriages, his eyes scanning the ground for any treasures he might have missed.
“We know where to find the grims now!” Taff exclaimed. He enumerated what they had learned with his fingers. “The first one doesn’t matter so much since Rygoth already has it, but the second one is in the Silent Vault in Auren, the third one’s in some kind of museum in Kutt, and the fourth one . . .” Taff looked nervously at the small chest. “What do you think is in that egg?” he asked.
“Shh,” Kara said, placing a hand on his wrist.
Minoth and King Penta had remained behind, and the two men stared at each other uncomfortably, as though unsure how to begin. The sun blazed in the western sky. Beads of sweat ran down their faces.
Finally, Minoth broke the silence.
“After the egg hatches even I won’t be able to re-enter the castle, so I’m going to request—”
“Not this again.”
“—that I be allowed to bring the pages of the Vulkera back to Sablethorn in order to study them. We believe that Princess Evangeline’s spirit still resides within the grims. If you just give us a little more time, we might be able to figure out what happened.”
King Penta waved his arm, signifying the destruction around them.
“This is what happened. What else do you need to know?”
“It could be nothing, your highness. Then again, it could be everything.”
With a sigh of resignation, Penta overturned his pipe bowl, dumping tobacco onto the ground, and rose to his feet. He wore two swords, a long one and a short one. They looked well used.
“Come, old friend. My bottom aches from this blasted stool. Walk with me.”
Minoth folded his hands within the large sleeves of his cloak and joined the taller man. At first, as a sign of deference, Minoth walked slightly behind the king, but Penta slowed down and guided him forward, indicating that they should proceed as equals.
Kara started to follow them, but after only a few steps the rope pulled taut in her hand.
“Guess that’s the end of it,” Taff said. “No matter. We’ve gotten what we came for. Let’s head back.”
Gripping the rope with two hands, Kara yanked it as hard as she could. It didn’t budge.
She let it fall to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Taff asked, horrified.
“Minoth mentioned Princess Evangeline in the Well of Witches,” she said, already backing toward the two men. They were walking at a steady clip, their backs growing smaller in the distance. “I have to hear what he says about her. This is important. I feel it!”
“But remember what Querin said? If you let go of the rope the cogs will be able to sense you!”
“I’ll be back before they even know I’m here,” Kara said. “Stay put.”
She started after the two men. Ignoring her instructions completely, Taff dropped the rope and followed her.
It was even more difficult to move without the rope in their hands, like running on sand. Kara quickly developed a theory about this, and would have shared it with Taff had she not been so out of breath: Now that we’re no longer connected to the tower, Time can feel our presence. This is a warning that we’re not welcome here, an opportunity to leave while we still have the chance.
Before the cogs come.
You know where the sections of the Vulkera are now—just go! Can this really be worth risking your life over?
Her instincts screamed YES!
She had first read about Princess Evangeline in Sordyr’s letter, and even then she had thought that there was something a little off about what had happened at Dolrose Castle. Her suspicions had later been confirmed by Minoth in the queth’nondra: I’ve always found it hard to believe that one little girl could have been responsible for transforming a magnificent place like Phadeen into the Well of Witches. You might want to think on that at some point. Kara had followed this advice on countless nights, tossing and turning while she tried to assemble a puzzle for which she lacked all the pieces.
The grimoires. The Well of Witches. A new way of doing magic that corrupted the caster.
The whole world had changed in a heartbeat. And it had all started with Princess Evangeline.
I need to know the truth.
Kara and Taff caught up to the two men. The conversation between them had grown heated; both their faces were flushed with anger.
“. . . the devastation that magic has wreaked!” King Penta exclaimed. His hand rested on the pommel of the longer sword. “We can’t take any chances. We have to wipe all record of it from our histories, start anew.” His voice softened. “You know what that means for Sablethorn, of course.”
It was clear from the devastated look on Minoth’s face that he knew exactly what the king was talking about—as did Kara. Penta intends to destroy Sablethorn so no trace of magic remains. It gave Kara some degree of satisfaction knowing that the king would only be half successful at this. Minoth’s magic would protect the school from harm, and it would lie buried beneath the Forked Library, completely abandoned until Kara entered it in two millennia.
“For countless generations the wexari of Sablethorn have been a force of good in the world,” Minoth said.
“The world has changed. The witches—”
“Are victims, your highness.”
“Because grimoires force them to do all these evil things, right?” Penta shook his head. “You’ve never been able to prove that.”
Minoth and King Penta fell into an awkward silence as each of them took a few moments to leash their tempers. They continued to walk at a steady pace, however, leading Kara and Taff farther from the safety of the rope.
“Did you ever meet Princess Evangeline?” Minoth asked.
“Once,” King Penta said. “Lord Gareth invited me to celebrate the completion of Dolrose Castle. I stayed here for a fortnight.”
“Strange that he built a castle so far away from civilization, isn’t it? And construction began—when was it again? Two years after Evangeline’s birth?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I think she exhibited signs of being wexari. And I think Lord Gareth wanted to hide her away.”
“Why?” King Penta asked.
“Lord Gareth was a good man, but he had no love for Sablethorn. He would have hated the idea of his daughter growing up among our kind—as would have been required by law, once she was identified. What was your opinion of the girl when you met her?”
Penta smiled in remembrance.
“Cute little thing. Always wanting to climb on my lap and hear tell of different lands. It didn’t matter to her that I was the king. She just liked my stories.”
“The apple of her parents’ eye, no?”
“They loved her something fierce,” Penta admitted. “Where is this all leading?”
“How does an adorable ten-year-old girl become a monster who wiped out her entire castle and transformed Phadeen into the Well of Witches?”
“You’re the one who said that grimoires turn their users evil,” Penta said, cracking his neck from side to side. “What happened to Evangeline only proves your point.”
“Kara,” Taff whispered.
She shushed him, not wanting to miss a word of the conversation, but he turned her head until she faced a purple flower that had suddenly sprouted from the barren ground. The flower wilted before their eyes, petals falling.
Sprouted again. Wilted.
“Time,” Taff said, “doing strange things. Querin warned us. The cogs are close. We need to get back to the rope.”
“Just another minute,” Kara said. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was waiting for, only that it hadn’t happened yet. Kara didn’t have visions like Safi, but she had strong instincts, and she had learned to trust them.
She turned her attention back toward Minoth.
“. . . perfectly happy child doesn’t change completely. Something was wrong with Evangeline before she received the grimoire. Lord Gareth—no doubt with some reluctance—requested Sablethorn’s assistance months before the catastrophe, claiming that his daughter had become a different person, as though someone had ‘sucked all the love from her heart.’ His words, not mine. I still have the letter. I sent two of my wexari, who reported that Evangeline was just a spoiled child with a penchant for cruelty—certainly not unheard of among royalty.” Minoth sighed bitterly. “If only I had attended to the matter personally, perhaps things could have been different. We know now that an expelled student of Sablethorn named Rygoth was in the castle at the time, and I cannot help but think that she was somehow involved in—”
“I don’t see how any of this matters,” Penta said. “It’s too late to change what happened.”
“But maybe we can use what happened to shed some light on our current problems. See, all grimoires are connected, but the Vulkera is special. It has the ability to control all the others, almost like a brain. No, that’s not right. More like a soul, a conscience. And although the Vulkera is currently a source of great evil whose darkness infects all other grimoires, I don’t believe that it started that way.”
Kara felt her heartbeat quicken. Yes! This is what I need to know!
“My student Sordyr created the first grimoire as a gift for Princess Evangeline, a bit of sunshine to lift her spirits. I had watched him experiment with such books at Sablethorn, and their effects were completely harmless. Say a few words, make a top spin on its own or a flash of fireworks light up the night sky. An innocent bauble for children, nothing more. But there was something about Princess Evangeline that transformed the grimoire completely.” The sky flashed and for a moment Kara saw the castle standing there in its majestic splendor, courtyard teeming with people now dead. Time acting strange again, she thought. Taff spoke another word of warning, but Kara ignored him and remained focused on Minoth. “. . . that’s why I believe that Evangeline was actually a wexari whose talents had escaped our notice, which explains how she had the power to push the grimoire beyond its limits. What it doesn’t explain is the darkness eating away at her soul, or why she used her Last Spell to create the Well of Witches. Or, for that matter, why only females can—”
King Penta held a single hand in the air. Kara could see, in the set of the king’s face, that he remained unconvinced by the wexari’s rambling arguments.
“Again—and for the last time—what will any of this change?”
Minoth replied with measured tones, trying to hold his temper.
“There’s so much we don’t understand, and Evangeline is the key. Her spirit still resides in the Vulkera, trapped forever. Let my wexari study its pages. Perhaps we can figure out the origin of this unexplained darkness. And once we know that, maybe we can undo the—”
“Kara!” Taff screamed.
The sky grew dark as a black cloud darted in their direction like a swarm of bees. Instead of buzzing, however, the tiny creatures made a sound like the inner workings of a clock. A thousand ticks and tocks assaulted Kara’s ears.
“Cogs,” Taff whispered.
He yanked on her hand, meaning to pull her away, but there was no need. Kara knew that the time had come to run.
They sprinted toward the rope, which looked as small as a length of yarn in the distance. As Kara ran, she reached out with her wexari senses, hoping to build a mind-bridge to the cogs, but she couldn’t feel their presence. Perhaps it was because Kara was in the wrong time period. Or maybe the cogs weren’t animals at all but a natural force more akin to wind or sunlight. Either way, magic wasn’t going to help them.
The swarm grew closer.
Kara felt something swipe across her neck with the sickening speed of a scythe cutting grain. Blood trickled. Doesn’t matter. Keep moving. The world around them flickered again and again, time out of joint. Day. Night. The road packed with wagons. Starlit emptiness millions of years from now. They lost the location of the rope and found themselves going in the wrong direction, circled back. The rope? Where’s the rope? Taff swatted at the back of his hand and Kara saw a bloom of red there. The swarm hovered just above their heads, the ticktocking deafening now. It was like being trapped inside a clock itself, lost in a labyrinth of gears. Kara, gasping for breath and completely disoriented, was suddenly pushed to the ground. Taff mouthed words she couldn’t hear and shoved something into her hands.
The rope.
Her fingers wound about its powdery surface just as the swarm descended. A single cog hovered before her eyes. Up close, it looked more mechanical than insectile. There were no eyes or face, just a kidney-shaped torso spattered with rust, attached to two gears spinning with blurring speed. Kara shielded her face with one hand, certain that the cog was going to attack, but instead it rejoined the swarm. As one they zipped out of sight.
They were safe.
Kara and Taff walked back to the tower in silence. They didn’t let go of the rope once.
When they reentered the Slanting Hall, Querin and Grace were sitting at the center table, playing cards like old friends. Querin seemed only mildly curious about her journey, but Grace asked all sorts of questions. Kara kept her answers as vague as possible. Although Grace claimed to have sworn off magic, Kara still didn’t like sharing information about an all-powerful grimoire with her.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Grace said, turning to Taff. “Why did you carve your name into the door? Don’t you know what’s going to happen to you now?”
“I knew that if I didn’t do it then Kara would,” Taff said.
Grace nodded vigorously. “Precisely! And then Kara would be the one getting eaten by the Khr’nouls, not you. Isn’t that better?”
“Nothing could be worse,” said Taff.
Grace stared at him, blue eyes wide.
“You’re a very strange boy,” she said.
Now that Querin had gotten what he wanted—a new sacrifice to appease the Khr’nouls—he dropped the facade of helpful host and ushered them quickly toward the exit. They stepped through the door and onto the exterior landing that jutted out between the two halves of the tower. Far below them, Shadowdancer whinnied happily. They were back in the original field where they had first found the tower. In the distance, Kara could see the farmhouse where they had encountered the twins.
“Don’t worry,” Querin said, reading the concern on her face. “Your enemies are long gone. After some consideration, I allowed four days to pass in your time. I thought that would be safest for you.” He noticed a thin red line on the back of Kara’s neck. “I see you had a run-in with the cogs.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
“It’s more than that. The touch of a cog shortens your timeline. That little scratch cost you a week of your life.”
Kara shrugged.
“Then I ought to make the best of it.” She crouched down and met his eyes. “As far as my brother is concerned, stay away. I don’t care about any ‘magical pacts.’ You can’t have him. Ever.”
Querin looked at her very seriously for a moment, trying to hold a straight face, and then burst into laughter.
“Oh, Kara. You really don’t get it, do you? The moment Taff carv
ed his name into the door, he died. In fact, from the Khr’nouls perspective, I’m sure it’s happened already! They don’t live time going forward, you see, but in a circle of sorts—which means they have already devoured brave little Taff, probably more than once.” All traces of humor left his face. “You need to learn your place in the world, witch. At some point your brother will hear a knocking at his door, and it will be me, come to take what’s mine. And there won’t be anything you can do to stop me.”
Querin closed the door and bolted it shut.
BOOK TWO
THE MUSEUM OF IMPOSSIBLE THINGS
“A soul stained with magic can never be cleansed.”
—The Path
Leaf 38, Vein 12
Two days later, Lucas found them.
They were settling in for the night, having set up camp in the crook of a rocky stream, when he slipped through the trees. Lucas wore the same gray cloak as the last time Kara had seen him and a glorb-bow on his back. He pushed back the hair that hung over his forehead and smiled.
“There you are,” he said.
Kara dropped the bowl she was about to eat from and mushroom stew splattered her boots. She didn’t care. She ran into Lucas’s arms and held him tight, breathing in the smell of him until she was certain that he was real.
“How?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said. Catching sight of Taff, Lucas picked him up and spun him around in a circle. Kara’s heart rejoiced at the increasingly rare sound of Taff’s giggles.
“Look at the size of you!” Lucas exclaimed. “You’re going to be bigger than me soon!”
Lucas’s eyes settled on Grace and his smiled faded. He lowered Taff to the ground.
“Grace,” he said.
“Evening, Lucas. No hug for me?”
He sent a questioning glance in Kara’s direction—What is she doing here?—but said no more, joining them around the campfire. Taff handed him a tin cup filled with water, which Lucas downed gratefully.