“No matter how many hearts you steal, no matter how many sacrifices you amass for time, you will never appease it. The consequences for your soulless magic have finally caught up with you. They will make you lonely forevermore.”
The Lonely King shook back. His eyes blasted wide open. I may have struck a nerve when I’d figured out he was using this time spell to draw some woman from the past, but now it looked as if I’d punched him right in the heart.
The Lonely King… the Lonely King? What if his magic was what made him lonely? What if his magic was what had cost him this woman in the first place?
It was another gamble, but I was on a roll.
“Your magic has condemned her, and tonight, you will die,” I repeated.
This time, the Lonely King didn’t scream, didn’t shake the room with his magical rage. Instead, he pushed down to his knees and slapped me with such force my head jerked back, and I fell on the carpet.
As I opened my eyes and stared at him, I could tell he was filled with murderous rage. But before he could push forward, collapse his hands around my throat, and choke the remaining life out of me, he came to his senses. He jerked back, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, dislodged a line of saliva, then shoved to his feet. Shaking all over, he pushed from the room.
It took several seconds for the door to close behind him. Jim craned his neck as far as he could to the side as he focused on the disappearing door. He was still counting on his fingers, his digits moving so quickly they were like blurs.
My face quite rightly felt like I’d just headbutted a wall. The Lonely King had slapped me with enough force to remove a tooth.
With a final hiss and a crackling discharge of green magic, the door closed and melted back into the wood paneling and red paint.
Jim let out a sharp breath, pivoted, grabbed hold of the bars and stared at me. “Shit, are you okay?”
I clamped a hand to my face to confirm it was still there. “I guess,” I lied. Because I was on a roll here.
It was clear Jim didn’t believe me. He shifted down to his knees, looping his arms around the bars. They were no longer electrified, but they’d clearly done their damage, as Jim’s arms and hands were burnt and blistered from the brief contact they’d had with the charged metal.
“Christ, are you okay?” I indicated his hands with a nod. It was honestly all I could manage. It felt as if the Lonely King had dislodged my spine with that slap.
Jim let out a small, mirthless chuckle. “If you’re fine, then so am I.” He demonstrated by pumping his hands in and out, but the move was slow and accentuated how raw the skin looked.
We shared a morose moment before Jim returned his attention to the door. He shifted his head to the left and nodded at it.
My heart leaped. “Did you figure out a way to get out of here? Did I buy you enough time to analyze the door?”
“Yeah. I think I’ve got a plan.”
I pressed my lips together and pushed a long, hard breath through them. Which was a mistake, as it instantly made me woozy. I clamped a hand on my head, leaned forward, and willed myself to stay awake.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here. But first, Chi, you’re going to need to get out of here.”
I let my hand drop. I felt like my body had been shoved into a cocktail shaker. Between spinning thoughts, I managed a frown. “What? What do you mean? We both have to escape. You heard what the Lonely King said – he needs to use both of us for his spell.”
“Relax, Chi. I will get out of here. But first, you need to find a way out of this room.”
“But we have to go together—”
Jim pushed his arms through the bars and tapped them.
The penny dropped, and my heart sank. “Oh.”
“Yeah, I’m still stuck in this cage. The Lonely King isn’t stupid, but as you proved, he isn’t completely in control, either. How did you do that, anyway? I saw how much blocking agent he pumped into you – you shouldn’t have been able to use your powers.”
It was my turn to offer a grim smile. “Who said I was telling the truth?”
“Ha?”
“Never mind. I don’t think we have the time for this.” Wincing, I tried to push myself up. Though I’d done a good job of rocking back and forth on my knees and looking like I’d been in a trance, that was very different from standing. Standing involved way more muscles. And that’s not even to mention walking.
I gritted my teeth, feeling the tension well and push down my jaw and hard into my neck.
Jim became silent as he watched me.
I tried to control my breathing in the hope that would help, like a weight lifter exhaling as they picked up a world-record weight. Problem was, that world-record weight was my own measly body.
… But I managed it. Don’t ask me how, because right now it felt as if my muscles and bones had been replaced with badly-set jelly.
I heard Jim let out a relieved breath. “You can do it. Come on.”
I swayed back and forth on my feet, shooting a hand out to the wall beside me. I did a kind of drunk crab walk as I staggered over to it, shoving my sweaty hand against the red paint for support.
“God, what did that asshole do to me?” I managed through gasps.
“The blocking agent is a magical drug used to interfere with your magic. It’s a neuroactive compound made of ground up hearts. It blocks the channels in your brain that can call up magic. It also blocks a lot of motor control, though, leaving you weak and uncoordinated.”
There was only one thing in that sentence that I cared about. I blanched as my free hand hooked into a fist. “Ground up hearts?” I stuttered. “Human hearts?”
“Sometimes,” Jim conceded with a somber look. “But like you said, we don’t have time for this. You’ve got to push past the weakening effects of the blocker and get out of here. Then… just get out of the mansion. Find some way to contact the witches.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I said quietly. And yet, though my voice was small, the determination behind it was unshakable.
Jim shook his head. “You’re the one he really wants. Plus, if you get out of here, he won’t have enough hearts to complete the ritual.”
“If he has enough hearts to make this godforsaken blocking compound,” I spat through my teeth, “then don’t you think he can access another witch by tonight?”
Jim didn’t answer, he just paled, his cheeks looking as white as snow compared to the plum-red paint of the walls.
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’ve got to get out of here.”
“And I will. But you’ll be coming, too.” I centered myself with one final deep breath. Then I pushed away from the wall. It was absolute murder fighting against the weakness in my limbs. It was pervasive – every part of me nothing more than fatigued muscle and bone.
But that didn’t stop me.
I made my uncoordinated, staggering way across the room, pushing from chair to cabinet to wall as I headed for the spot where the door had disappeared. When I reached it, I turned to Jim. “How do we get it open?”
Jim brought one of his burnt hands up and started counting on it, his badly burnt fingers darting in and out, his dexterity remarkable considering his injuries.
I stood there and watched, fighting against the constant desire to crumple to my knees.
This blocking agent was one of the most awful things I’d ever experienced – which was saying something when you considered I’d been dragged down streets by pixies and kicked about by darklings.
I didn’t make a sound as Jim worked. I just watched.
As his fingers moved in and out, his eyes fluttered closed. He also started speaking differently. His words came out in slurred clumps, and it took me a few seconds to realize that he was speaking with his tongue permanently hooked against the roof of his mouth.
I started to feel a subtle vibration in the air. It felt a little like lightning was getting ready to strike. There was a smell, too, faint at
first but growing stronger. It was a weird mix of burnt candle stubs, wet grass clippings, and sulfur.
It was clear Jim was practicing magic, but it was wholly different to the magic I’d seen him conjure in the library. There, he’d thrown around bolts of charged force.
As Jim’s chanting rose and became stronger, I suddenly realized I had no idea what his magic cost him. I could barely remember what had transpired in the elevator at the library, and the fight preceding that was just a foggy clump in my mind.
But all too soon it became abundantly clear what Jim’s magic cost him. He started to bleed. At first, it was just a few flecks filtering down from his nostrils. It dribbled along the side of his cheek, pooled along his jaw, and splashed onto the metal floor of the cage.
Then it started to gush. As his garbled words grew louder and more magic charged through the air, his nose began to bleed as if someone had struck it with a cricket bat.
“Oh my god, Jim – stop. You’re bleeding!”
Jim didn’t stop. His voice simply rose to a half scream as he finished his spell.
There was an almighty click as something opened behind me.
The door.
Jim fell back, banging into the floor of the cage with a rattling thump. By now his face was absolutely covered in blood. It looked as if someone had tried to carve up his cheeks with an ax.
Rather than throw myself through the now open door, I lurched forward.
Though Jim looked terribly weakened, he punched out a hand in a stopping motion and forced himself to open his eyes. “We don’t have much time,” he hissed in the kind of low, quiet voice that wouldn’t be able to carry past this room. “Trust me, a little nose bleed is a lot better than losing my heart to some asshole sorcerer king. Now go, Chi. Find some way out of here.”
I hovered there for several seconds then finally turned with a wince. “You’ll be okay. I’ll get us out of here,” I said, mostly for my own benefit.
“When you need to come back in, knock on the wall three times. Got it?” Jim asked between bloody coughs.
I nodded.
Then I pushed through the open door.
“Good luck,” I heard him call from inside.
I rounded my hands into fists and nodded once more.
I’d need it. No – who was I kidding? I’d need more than good luck – I’d need a miracle.
Chapter 9
The door remained open for several seconds. Long enough that I could turn and shoot Jim one last look.
Then there was a wave of crackling energy, and the door turned back into a wall.
Shit.
Now this was real.
I turned on my foot to survey the corridor. It was long and open, with windows on both sides. Which was impossible, unless this fancy mansion was little more than a corridor, that was.
I kept my eyes open as wide as they could manage as I finally shifted forward.
There was tasteful, expensive art on the walls and arrayed on plinths and occasional tables. They weren’t from a specific era, but from all throughout history. There were tribal masks carved from stone that looked as though they were over a millennium old. There were oil paintings from several hundred years ago interspersed with chunks of what looked like cave wall covered in rock paintings.
… Just how old was the Lonely King?
If the art wasn’t enough, there was a definite sense of power in the corridor. It wasn’t like it was lurking behind the pot plants or something. It was everywhere. Walking down this corridor very much felt like taking a trip into antiquity.
Though it was an intriguing feeling and got me questioning whether I had a chance in hell against the Lonely King, it couldn’t distract me. Nothing could distract me anymore.
Tears started to wash down my cheeks as I finally surrendered to the hollow feeling that had been welling in the center of my chest.
Max….
Max was gone.
Even as I thought that, something in me pushed back. No, it said, we’d know if Max had died.
I couldn’t stop the tears as they continued to wash down my face, cutting cold paths down my cheeks and dribbling along my jaw.
If Jim’s life didn’t depend on me, I would have stopped, fallen to my knees, and balled.
But I pushed on. I pushed on, because that voice kept repeating that Max couldn’t be dead. That I would know if he’d died, because I would have died with him. Which was a ridiculously romantic thought. It wasn’t as if I was Juliet and he was my Romeo. My existence didn’t depend on the rude Scottish Fairy. It wasn’t as if our souls were tied together, and severing one would cut the other too.
I knew that, and yet I couldn’t go against the feeling swelling within my chest.
I continued down the corridor until I found several branching doors and staircases. There could be no doubt whatsoever that this building was magical. It felt like I was stuck in a constantly moving, dynamic map with corridors and doors and staircases growing around me like new roots of a tree. Perhaps that was the Lonely King’s intention, and it was further insurance should I escape that room.
I twisted my head to the side as I reached another branching staircase. As I locked a hand on the carved wooden banister and craned my neck, I tried to follow where it led. But that was the problem, it appeared to lead to multiple places. One second after another, the staircase morphed, at first leading to a level above then in the blink of an eye leading someplace else. There was now such a sinking feeling in my stomach it felt as if I’d swallowed an anvil.
So much for finding some way to break Jim out of his cage – I doubted I’d ever make my way back to the room at this stage.
With nothing else to try, I swallowed my courage and pushed down the staircase. As soon as my shoe struck the first step, it changed direction, suddenly leading to the left and up.
I tried to jerk back, tried to jump to the level I’d just left – but I wasn’t quick enough.
The staircase grew away from me.
I stifled a scream as terror blasted through me.
As the staircase grew, it felt like I was riding a bucking bull. I jerked to the left, wrapped a stiff arm around the banister, and held on for dear life.
The sound of growing steps and cracking wood split around me as if I were inside a great tree trunk bowing to a violent wind.
With one last ear-splitting creak, the stairs reached their destination. I lurched forward as if I’d been on a sinking ship, and threw myself onto the relative safety of the level above.
I lay there for several seconds, giving the floor a chance to suddenly buck like a wild wave. When it didn’t, I finally pushed up.
I jerked my head to the side and stared at the staircase behind me. It almost looked normal.
“Christ,” I spat to myself as I pushed to my feet.
It was getting easier – to ignore the pain and walk, at least. I still couldn’t call on my magic, though. A few times I’d experimentally tried to follow those fireflies, but I couldn’t find them. They’d been haunting me for the past several months, always flitting at the edge of my consciousness. But now they were gone.
… Which was a blessing, right? Sure, without them I didn’t have an easy way to get out of this situation. But nor would they control my every movement and trap me in the future.
Warily, I continued along the new corridor. As I continued along, I expected attack. This was the Lonely King’s mansion, after all, and I imagined it was full of magical traps.
But attack did not come.
Maybe I’d genuinely unsettled him with my fake fortune? Maybe he was in his office somewhere, head in his hands as he contemplated my dark prediction.
All I knew is I had to capitalize on the opportunity I had.
Warily, with one hand constantly locked on the wall, I shifted forward.
It didn’t take much longer to find a door. This one seemed real. It honestly felt like an actual door. Every other door I’d past had been imbued with the same surrea
l quality as the rest of the twisting corridors and growing staircases.
This door, with its thick red painted wood, carved architraves, and brass door handle, looked as if it would lead to somewhere more tangible than a bad dream.
I clenched my teeth, pressed a breath through them, and hesitated one more single second before pushing a hand out. I collapsed it over the cool, smooth brass and turned the handle.
Fortunately, it wasn’t locked. Just as fortunately, it wasn’t magically booby-trapped and didn’t suddenly squish me into a pancake. Instead, the door opened with a creak, and I entered a room.
The light wasn’t on, and the illumination from the corridor couldn’t push past the doorway.
Groping a hand across the wall, I found a light switch. With a flick, I switched it on.
With a click and a buzz, the light turned on. And it illuminated one of the strangest rooms I’d ever seen.
It looked like an observatory and had a large domed window for a ceiling. Except, unlike an observatory, it didn’t show the sky above. Instead, it revealed a series of spinning, turning brass and silver cogs.
It should have taken my breath away, but I held onto it as I warily pressed further into the room.
A richly patterned red and blue rug sat in the middle of the room with a stately looking leather chair on top of it.
There was a small desk with an array of books. Though I was only several meters away, I was relatively sure there was no more than five or so books arranged on the top of the table. But the closer I came, the more books revealed themselves. Every step, the count doubled, until there was a sea of books. In fact, somehow, though it defied the very laws of physics, arranged atop the small meter-squared table was an entire library. It consisted of the strangest looking books I’d ever seen. From beautiful old leather-bound tomes with gold lettering, to books that looked as though they were made out of chains. There was no doubting at all that they were magical.
Maybe I should have hesitated, maybe I should have checked for those aforementioned magical booby-traps. But maybe I didn’t have time.
I couldn’t forget that Jim was still trapped in a cage, and I had to look for some means to break him out. Perhaps I’d be able to find some way of contacting the coven. Then again, I really doubted there’d be a handy unlocked cell phone sitting around. Even if there was, I was relatively certain the warped space of this mansion would prevent it from connecting to a cell tower.
A Lying Witch Book Three Page 10
