“What in the eight hells is that?” she hissed.
“No time to explain. Where’s the book?”
The Gatewarden seemed set to argue, but quickly changed her mind. “That’s what she’s here for, isn’t it?”
“We need it to put an end to this,” replied Viv, because there was too much to say and not enough time to say it in.
“Do I have your word you’ll help us push them back?”
Viv almost laughed at the thought of Iridia suddenly wanting her blade out and in motion, but there wasn’t time for that either.
She only nodded, once.
“Press them back!” Iridia hollered to the wardens beside her, as fresh horrors loped down the street to surge against their defenses. Then, to Viv, she said, “Follow me.”
* * *
The sounds of battle became muffled as Iridia barred the garrison door behind them. The interior was preternaturally quiet in comparison to the street outside.
After a sidelong glance at Satchel, who lingered in their wake, the tapenti wasted no time. She swept past the desks and into what Viv assumed was her office. Small. Tidy. But there was no time to observe details.
At the back wall stood a narrow iron door with a formidable lock. Iridia pulled a ring of keys from her belt, swiftly selected the correct one, and unlocked it. She then laid a hand on the surface, bent her head, and muttered a few brittle words. Glyphs around the border ignited with a brilliant flash and faded, some arcane warding that Viv didn’t understand or care to ask about.
As Iridia used both hands to force the door inward, an equally narrow but windowless room was revealed behind, the walls stacked with shelves.
“Stay here,” she said, and shouldered past the door, returning quickly with something wrapped in canvas. Again, she placed a palm upon the wrappings and uttered something sharp and purposeful. Once more, arcane traceries glowed.
She flipped the canvas back, revealing Varine’s black book of doorways to the underspace.
Satchel uttered a noise somewhere between a sigh and an expression of despair.
Despite the urgency, Viv couldn’t help but ask, “What in hells was all that?”
“Precautions,” said Iridia. “Which were apparently worthless.”
“Not entirely,” said Satchel, even as Viv seized the book from the tapenti’s hands.
All at once, the muffled sounds in the street stopped.
“She can see us much better now,” finished the homunculus.
“What is happening out there?” demanded Iridia.
“Can she see what we’re about to do?” asked Viv, ignoring the Gatewarden’s question.
He shrugged. “I suppose we shall find out.”
Viv opened the book, flipped to the middle, and folded the corner of a page into a dogear.
* * *
When Iridia and Viv reentered the street, they stepped into a tableau of arrested motion.
The wights stood in ranks beyond the Gatewardens, immobile, blades and axes and bardiches held at stiff attention. The women and men defending the doorway stood uncertainly, their own weapons up in defensive positions, awaiting attacks that never came.
Then, as one, the heads of the revenants turned to fix their cold blue gazes upon Viv, Varine’s symbol burning bright on their foreheads. She stood with the book under one arm and Satchel’s bones in the bag slung crossways over her chest.
She’d traded Blackblood for her saber and held it at the ready, but Varine’s minions made no move to attack. Instead, their jaws opened in unison, and from them issued a voice that Viv recognized from her dreams.
“Ah, Viv,” said Varine, with a sound like sand and syrup. “I’ve so looked forward to this moment. I’ve enjoyed acquainting myself with your friends. I think the two of us should meet someplace comfortable. Just you and I, in the flesh.”
And all the wights collapsed at once, like monstrous puppets with cut strings.
Viv’s stomach hollowed with the sure knowledge of the necromancer’s location.
39
Viv stood before Thistleburr’s red door, and a hundred dire visions of what she’d find inside crowded her mind. They blackened by the moment.
To her left, Iridia stood with feet planted in a pool of lantern light, a half dozen Gatewardens behind her. Viv had prevailed on her to keep her distance, but she didn’t know how long that would last.
Staring at the saber gripped tightly in her right hand, she blew out a breath and deliberately sheathed it.
No sounds issued from within the bookshop. The curtains were drawn. The bells of Murk were silent, and only the roar of the distant sea accompanied the thump of blood in her ears.
Viv tightened her arm against Varine’s book, grasped the doorhandle, and pushed it inward.
Unlocked, because of course it was.
She was expected.
“Come in, my dear. And close the door behind you.”
She strode in warily, her nerves sizzling with belayed violence, eyes squinting to adjust to the bright lamplight of the interior.
A wreckage of literature greeted her. Jumbles of books in drifts, shelves knocked aside and asunder, loose pages tangled, torn, and bunched in the mess.
To her left, Fern and Gallina hung suspended above the floor, bound in cocoons of bone, as though entrapped by some skeletal spider. Skulls with eyes of blue flame and ragged scraps of armor studded their prison, the cages surely woven from several of Varine’s wights.
Tears streaked the fine fur of Fern’s cheeks. “Viv,” she mouthed helplessly, breathlessly. Beside her, Gallina struggled against the bones that constrained her, her face white with fury.
Alive. Both of them.
A chunk of ice in Viv’s chest melted all at once, and her guts went watery with the runoff.
Then her gaze fell upon the other occupant of the room, sitting at her ease in one of the padded chairs. The sheer force of her presence rendered it a throne.
Viv recognized her at once. After all, she’d seen her quite clearly in her dreams.
Varine was beautiful, a sculpture of ivory elegance and icy amusement. Her eyes were just as black as Viv remembered, her hair somehow even blacker, cascading in lightless waves across her shoulders. A furred robe the color of glacial snow radiated a palpable cold. Her bloodless blue lips widened, framing a sliver of perfect teeth.
One of Gallina’s daggers was embedded up to the hilt over her right breast, bloodless and disregarded.
“Such a pleasure to meet you at last. The dream so rarely measures up to reality, but my, you are impressive.” Her narrow brows rose as she flicked a gaze to the grimoire under Viv’s arm. “And so deliciously cooperative.”
“What took you so long?” said Viv defiantly, hitching the book up. “I’ve been emptying this thing for weeks.”
The necromancer rose, tucking her robe tighter around her body, as though warding off a chill. “Oh my, Viv. The bluff is cute. We both know the only thing of mine you’ve been brave enough to take is strapped to your back. Although you did confound my pursuit with the wards. I’m surprised at that.” Her eyes narrowed, and she glanced at the satchel. “Or perhaps not. My beloved assistant may have something else to answer for.”
“What’s to stop me cutting you down right now?” asked Viv, although Gallina’s inconsequential dagger provided a very compelling answer.