Bone magic.
That was the power turning the air around him such a vivid shade.
Alucard’s limbs were forced to the ground, his head bowed so he couldn’t see anything but the street, his hands splayed on the stones. He gasped, trying to wrest his body back from the man’s hold, felt his jaw grind shut so he couldn’t call for help.
“I’m sorry,” said the man, and if Alucard weren’t being held against his will, he might have stopped to think how strange it was, that apology, stranger still that it sounded sincere. He heard the man’s boots skirt around him, careful to stay beyond Alucard’s line of sight.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just wanted to bring her dumplings.”
His steps retreated down the alley, and the last thing Alucard heard was him pausing by the horse to pat its flank and say, “Good boy,” before slipping away.
As soon as he was gone, Alucard’s body was his again. Not gradually, like feeling coming back into numb fingers, but all at once, control slamming back into his limbs with all the force of a wave on the rocks.
Alucard rose to his feet, shaking out the unsettling sensation of having been a puppet on someone else’s strings. The horse stood, waiting patiently at the mouth of the alley.
“You could have stopped him,” he muttered, mounting the beast. But neither he nor the horse were going after the bone magician.
Not while the ghosted mark still burned behind his eyes, hanging there as it had in the ruined shop. A scar the size and shape of exactly one thing.
A door.
VIII
The house sat still and dark, exactly as it had the night before.
Lila leaned at the mouth of the alley across the street, and searched the edge of the coin again for some clue she might have missed, some hint or mention of a day to go with the blasted hour. But the words hadn’t changed.
SON HELARIN RAS ? NONIS ORA
The street around the house had come alive—carriages went up and down the road, and customers spilled in and out of shops, and the houses to either side showed signs of life—but the eleventh hour came and went, and no one approached the doors of 6 Helarin Way.
This was beginning to feel like a riddle, and as far as Lila was concerned, riddles could go hang themselves.
She was about to go, then stopped. If she was going to be standing vigil twice a day, at least she could save herself the walk. She unwound the bandage from her hand, the cut still fresh; a little pressure and it welled. She touched her fingers to the blood and made a small mark on the nearest wall. A vertical line, and two small crosses. A shortcut.
She wrapped her hand, and scowled at the empty house one last time. Six Helarin Way stared grimly back, its windows dark, its gate locked tight as teeth, its fa?ade taking on a rictus grin.
The longer she looked at it, the more she felt like it was mocking her.
Fire sparked in her palm. She briefly considered burning it down. The urge passed, until she felt the body in the shadows at her back.
Lila sighed, and drew a blade. “I warned you what would happen,” she said, “if you followed me again.”
She was about to throw the knife when a familiar voice replied, “Well, that sounds menacing.”
Lila decided to throw it anyway. To Alucard’s credit, he sidestepped the blade, and caught the metal edge between his fingers.
“I’m going to pretend,” he said, “that you didn’t know it was me, and were merely acting on instinct.”
“You do that,” said Lila, flicking her wrist. The blade plucked itself from Alucard’s hand and returned to hers. He joined her at the mouth of the alley.
“I admit, I was surprised to find you here.”
She could ask how he did, but she could guess. Those bloody crows.
Alucard was studying the houses on the road, and she caught a flicker of discomfort cross his face. The Emery estate wasn’t far from here. This had been his neighborhood, the streets where he was raised.
A couple passed by, startling a little when they saw the prince’s consort. He flashed a smile, but she could see the strain behind it.
Served him right, she thought, for following her.
He looked past her at the row of houses across the street.
“So,” he said casually. “What are we doing here?”
She resented the use of “we” and considered telling him to fuck off, but she was sick of looking at the stupid house. Perhaps a pair of fresh eyes would help.
“That one there,” she said, jerking her chin at it. “I don’t suppose it’s spelled somehow. Something you can see that I cannot.”