“You don’t want to know.”
“You said yourself, it probably won’t even work. What’s the harm?” But she waits until I nod before slicing open my skin. Gently, like she’s cutting a pat of warm butter.
Emerald blood wells and drips into the brew.
And then the entire room burns to life.
White, blinding light erupts from the chalk lines of the diagram on the floor. I stagger backward, throwing my arms over my face. A gust of wind whips around us, throwing glass bottles from the shelves. Book pages fly back and forth like storm-tossed birds. Aurora is pressed against the far wall. The fire goes green, flames leaping all the way up into the chimney.
Callow screams from her perch, jerking hard enough to break her tether. She half flaps, half careens to the ground as glass smashes around her. I grapple for the nearest thing I can find, an empty bucket, and upend it over the kestrel before she’s injured.
A low moan begins to swell, raw and guttural and entirely inhuman. Using the edge of the table to steady myself, I haul myself through the currents of wind and lock my arms around Aurora. Hers clamp around my shoulders hard enough to bruise.
“What’s happening?” she shouts into my ear.
I wish I knew.
The fire pushes higher, creating a wall of green flame. Within it, I think I can see the outline of a face. My breath halts. It’s the same face I saw in the mirror I cursed. Wild eyes and a wicked, smirking mouth. Dagger-tipped teeth flash as the flames dance, and a strange, ethereal voice wends around us.
“Find me, my pet.”
I dig my fingers into Aurora’s back as a scream wrenches free from my lungs. And then, just as suddenly as it all began, everything stills. The flames vanish in a cloud of smoke. The chalk on the floor chars to ash. And there is no voice but mine and Aurora’s, both of us still braced together, panting and breathless.
Aurora lets go first, gaping at the destruction of the room. Yellowed, ripped-out pages flutter to the floor. Shards of glass glitter in pools of sticky syrup. Fingers of thick, black smoke slink from the rim of the pot, filling the Lair with a putrid stench. My stomach sinks, mentally tallying up the coin it will take to replace what’s been ruined.
“What was that?”
I stiffen at the question, my knees still trembling.
“I don’t know.”
The lie is easier than the truth. I was sure the ritual was superstitious nonsense. Even if it did work, I thought we might get a glimpse of where the Vila’s magic still dwells. A cave or barren field in Malterre where she must have died during the war. But this—this is the second time the Vila appeared to me. The first, in the mirror, was easy to dismiss as an illusion. But tonight—I’d called and she’d answered.
“There’s power in you. More than you know.” Hilde’s words come back to me, the syllables warping until they sound like the shrilling of the deathknot.
Needing a distraction, I free Callow from the bucket and return her to her perch. I attempt to feed her a scrap of meat, but she snaps at my fingers and sets to fussing with her tousled feathers. She’ll not be forgiving me anytime soon.
Aurora stares at the hearth, its embers still an unearthly shade of green. “Have you ever seen a fire do that? Do you think it was the Vila? The one who cast my curse?”
“If it was, we’re no closer to discovering her magic.” That much is true. The Vila’s cryptic message was utterly useless. My head begins to ache. This was my own fault. What had Hilde said—that the deathknot brought nothing but trouble? I should have listened.
“I’m sorry about the mess.” Aurora rubs at her forearm. The thorned-rose curse mark beneath her sleeve. “But I…I wanted to hope.”
I busy myself with picking up broken bottles, unable to meet her gaze any longer.
Because as much as I feared the ritual, I’d wanted to hope, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The sinister face from the fire reemerges in my dreams. Laughing at me. Opening its mouth to swallow me whole. Shred me to ribbons with its gnashing teeth. I sit bolt upright, heart pounding. The sweat-soaked bedsheets cling to my legs. My fingers ache from clenching the pillows. I force down heaving, uneven breaths, an overripe taste like rotten fruit in my mouth.
Dragging a hand through my damp hair, the previous night comes back to me. It had taken hours to clean the mess, especially since I insisted Aurora return to the palace right away. She wanted to stay, but I couldn’t have her discovered missing. Not after what we’d done. Not with her hand cut by my knife and her blood mixed with mine in a Nightseeker ritual. And so it wasn’t until the first call of a morning lark, the autumn dawn bright after the storm’s fury, that I’d made it back upstairs to my own bed, every muscle throbbing.