“Every family respects their history,” Marianne said, “but the Lowes honor it. Every face on this wall has sacrificed something for the tournament.”
Alistair’s dread became a quiet tremble. He had listened to enough of his family’s haunting stories to know how one began.
“All of my children were eligible to compete, and all were strong,” his grandmother continued. Alistair had never heard her speak of the prior tournament before. “But the choice had to be made. How each would serve the family. Alphina was meant as champion. Rowan and Moira were meant to continue the line. And Todd was meant to die.”
The other Lowes sat frozen. There were monstrous features in all their faces, in the cruel set of their lips and deep hollowness of their stares. They were stone, hardened from the inside out.
“Without Todd’s sacrifice, Alphina wouldn’t have won the tournament. Our family wouldn’t be as strong as it is now.”
His mother stood up, trembling, and handed Alistair the box with the ring. It was heavier than he expected, and glowing white with common—not high—magick. So he could use it during the tournament, he realized, when high magick wouldn’t be available to him.
“There is a reason our champions so often prevail.”
With each new word spoken, Alistair glimpsed monsters out of the corner of his vision, like shadows writhing along the walls. There were dragons and goblies, leviathans and wraiths. In every story his family told, the villains won. They crossed the lines no one else would. They struck when the hero least expected it.
“It’s a powerful form of magick,” his grandmother continued, “but just as a hog slain in fear will spoil its meat, a sacrifice made in fear will stain the spirit. It must be done quickly, while they are unaware.”
Alistair’s aspirations, his self, his world, fractured into a thousand pieces.
When he found his voice, it was a rasp. “What do you mean?”
Marianne pursed her lips impatiently. “With the sacrifice, you will be strong enough to win.”
“I’ve always been strong enough to win.” The certainty in his voice sounded false, even to him. He hadn’t passed the tests—he’d hurt himself too much when he opened the vault, he’d grown sick at the sight of his own botched curse when he’d attacked that spellmaker, he’d called negative attention to the family in front of the very agent sent to spy on them.
It doesn’t matter if you fail, Hendry had told him. And Alistair, naive and hopeful, had almost believed him.
“Not strong enough,” Marianne replied. “Not to be sure.”
He shot a glance at his mother, who stared numbly at the table between them.
The monsters had shrouded the room in darkness, and Alistair stood hurriedly, his head dizzy. Sick as he was, he still knew which monsters were the worst.
The ones who sat before him.
No horror story compared to this one.
The high magick in his spellrings coursed at his fingers, pulsing to his own anger and fear. For Alistair, anger and fear always went hand in hand. But even with all that fury, his voice still escaped as a whisper.
“Where is my brother?”
His grandmother nodded at the cursering, at the stone the color of ash.
“The Lamb’s Sacrifice is invincible, and an invincible curse demands an unthinkable price. This is how we always win.”
GAVIN GRIEVE
Since high magick has vanished from the rest of the world, many spellmakers have tried to create an alternative—to no avail.
A Tradition of Tragedy
Ilvernath looked different at night. The pedestrians wandering from shop to shop were gone, replaced by the bawdy laughter of bar patrons and the glowing signs in front of music halls and clubs. Gavin walked past the storefronts, his shoulders hunched, glaring at the mannequin hands displayed in the windows of Walsh Spellmaking. The shop had hiked up its prices with so many tourists in town. Gavin wasn’t surprised. Hotel rates had tripled since the Blood Moon, as cursechasers and reporters booked up whatever rooms they could find. None seem perturbed by the idea of being trapped in Ilvernath until the tournament ended. They probably thought the Lowe champion would win in a matter of days.
Gavin ducked off the main thoroughfare down a maze of side streets barely wider than alleys. A glowing orange dragonfly beckoned him toward the MacTavishes’ curseshop, the stone set into one of its antennae shimmering with magick.
Of the list of spellmakers that Fergus had given him, one was too incapacitated from Alistair Lowe’s attack to be of any use, one was another champion’s mother, and everyone else refused to meet with him, instead sending assistants to shoo him away. The MacTavish curseshop was Gavin’s final chance.