That sent me down another spiral of panic.
Gritting my teeth, I fought to a semblance of calm. I wasn’t trapped. And I didn’t need my friends to rescue me. There was a trigger on this side of the sarcophagus. The crypt belonged to ordinary humans who didn’t know portals existed; they needed a way out of this cellar.
What I needed to do was to return to the sarcophagus and find the trigger.
I had to get to the tunnel.
I glanced around in the dark, as if I’d be able to spot the mouth of the tunnel, but the blackness was absolute. The way out could be anywhere. I’d lost what little awareness I’d had of the room already before I lost the light.
Unwilling to stand, fearing I’d trip again, I headed in a random direction on all fours. The edges of the uneven bricks ground into my knees, but I went doggedly on until I hit the wall.
Literally. I banged my head on it with startling force.
Rubbing my forehead, I slumped against the sturdy bricks. There had to be an easier way to find the tunnel than crawling around the room.
And there was.
My mobile phone! I don’t know why I hadn’t come to think of it before.
With shaking hands, I dug it out of my pocket. There was no reception—big surprise—but it had a light app.
Carefully, fearing I’d drop the damn thing and break it, I hit the torch icon and light poured out. I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes.
And maybe stem the tears of relief too that blurred my vision.
With light, I finally felt secure. Or at least less frightened. But I couldn’t dawdle in case the battery died.
Forcing myself to stand, I swept the cellar with the light and found the tunnel opposite to where I was. With the light illuminating my way, I crossed the floor, careful not to trip again. But once I was in the tunnel, I hurried on, no matter how I tried to make myself walk carefully.
The tunnel seemed shorter this time round, but I wasn’t complaining. Soon, I was at the foot of the steps, and I hurried up, unable to care for safety anymore. I needed to get out of here.
I was panting when I reached the top, more out of newly rising panic than exhaustion—or maybe claustrophobia was finally kicking in.
I didn’t give myself time to rest and began to push the bricks on the wall where I’d triggered the opening before. I didn’t immediately discover it and I feared I’d imagined doing it. Maybe the sarcophagus had closed on its own?
Then my hand hit the right one and the limestone tomb began to move aside. Fresh air poured in and I drew in deep gulps, barely waiting for the gap to be large enough for me to fit through before climbing out.
I dropped on my knees for sheer relief and sat there leaning on my hands again, until I felt sufficiently strong enough to push to my feet.
A scrape of a foot on the crypt floor made all the hairs in my body shoot up in fear. I wasn’t alone.
The pressure in my neck returned with a vengeance too, as if it wanted to burn a hole through my skin. Was Jack here?
Before I managed to point the phone’s light into the crypt, a magical light ball flared to life, illuminating the space. And in the middle stood the mage who had conjured it.
Only it was no one I had imagined.
“Why…? How…?”
I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. My mind was blank as I studied the woman standing in front of me, tall and confident in her jeans and high-heeled boots, only a sheer black blouse covering her against the chillness of the night and the perpetually cool crypt.
“What are you doing here?”
Ida sneered. All the laughter I’d associated with her was gone. It was as if she’d removed a mask to reveal a stranger.
“I’m here to take you captive.”
I blinked, trying to wrap my mind around her words. “Why?”
I simply couldn’t fathom why she was here—doing magic. How could she be a mage and not tell me? I’d told her about the spell—in jest, but still. She could have told me she was a mage then.
She gave me a slow look. “You released Rupert and I need leverage.”
“For what?”
“For challenging Kane.”
“You? But you’re not…” even a mage. But I wisely left that out because of course she was. She was here, conjuring a magical light ball. “…part of their council,” I finished feebly instead. Kane would have recognised her if she was.
I switched off the light app, as it was useless now, and slipped the phone into my back pocket. Ida folded her arms across her chest.
“That’s not actually a requirement. I belong to the council of my hometown.”
“I thought you were from London.” Though in truth, we’d never talked about it. I’d merely assumed because she lived here. “My friends said there are no Sanfords who are mages.”
“Why would you think I inherited it from my father?” Her lip curled in distaste with the last word, giving me a notion that she didn’t hold him in much esteem.
I hadn’t imagined her inheriting it anywhere, but I shrugged, and she leaned forward, launching into a lecture.
“Magic tends to be matrilinear. Grimshaws, my mother’s family, are well known and respected mages in York, where I’ve lived ever since she divorced my father when I was six. And after she married Julius’s father when I was eleven, we became even more influential.”
Julius? I shook my head, trying to connect the name. “You mean … Blackhart?”
I could barely say it aloud, I was so badly shocked.
“Of course I do,” she huffed, as if I were an idiot.
Which … fair enough. In my wildest imaginations, I hadn’t pictured her stepbrother to be Julius Blackhart. She’d talked about bringing him to our cousins’ wedding as her date, for heaven’s sake.
So what did it mean, knowing that the two of them were together?
“York is no longer enough for you?” Then I remembered why Blackhart was here. “Are you helping him to take over London?”
“No!” she spat. “And I didn’t think you’d be so sexist that you’d reduce a woman to a mere assistant.”
The contempt on her face was clear. I thought it best not to point out that my assessment sprang from the notion that Blackhart was the more powerful mage—and that no one had talked about her with such fear, or at all. She would probably have taken that the wrong way too, and I couldn’t antagonise her more than I had, if I wanted to survive this.
“I will take over the London council and Julius will replace Rupert as the archmage. We’ll rule London together. And from here…” She spread her arms as if encompassing the whole world. “…who knows.”
It was a solid plan as far as crazy power grabs went. I nodded, as if I approved.
“So what do you need me for? Just challenge Kane already.” Then it hit me: “You can’t. You’re not powerful enough to take him in a fair challenge. You need him to concede.”
I sneered. A big mistake.
Her eyes flashed in anger, and with a flick of her hand she had me immobilised. I could barely move my head, but at least my mouth worked.
“I’m seriously starting to hate this spell.”
“Shut up, or I’ll close your mouth with it too,” she growled.
That silenced me—for a heartbeat. “So are you going to keep me here? I mean, you’re a fit lass, but I seriously doubt you can carry me.” The spell rendered the body rigidly immobile. It would be like moving a log or a statue.
She made a couple of movements with her hands, and I found myself being tipped on my back so fast that my stomach lurched and so carelessly that I hit my head on the edge of the sarcophagus behind me.
Lights sparkled in my eyes for the pain. I must’ve blacked out briefly too, because the next thing I knew, we were travelling down the tunnel I’d just exited.
I had not wanted to be back here.
I was hovering on my back, not high up, because my braid was brushing the tunnel floor. Apparently it wasn’t subject to the binding spell. It
tugged my scalp as it snagged the uneven bricks.
Ida walked ahead of me, pulling me behind her on an invisible leash. My body bumped on the tunnel walls constantly, but she didn’t care.
At least it wasn’t my head again.
“So how does Jack fit in all this?”
She yanked the leash and I banged against the wall with force. That would leave a bruise.
“Why are you talking again?”
“Because I’m morbidly curious?”
We reached the cellar, and she released the hovering spell. I dropped to the floor with a thud that emptied my lungs. I hit my head again too, but at least I didn’t lose consciousness this time.
I should have worn my hair in a bun. It would have softened the blow.
“Jack is a useful tool.”
On that, I agreed with her.
“It didn’t look like that when you kissed outside his home this afternoon.”
Her face appeared above me, upside down as she leaned to stare down at me with a derisive smirk. “Did it not occur to you that I staged it for your benefit?”
It absolutely had not.
“How would you even have known I was there?”
We’d been well hidden, I was sure of it.
“I put a tracking spell on you,” she said smugly, startling me so badly that I tried to sit up, forgetting that the spell kept me immobile.
“You?” I owed Jack an apology for thinking it had been him. “You must not be very good at it, because I felt you.”
She snorted. “That was just an addition to the spell I’ve invented. It allows me to poke you whenever I want.”
“Why would you want to do that?” I asked, hurt.
“To mess with you. Do you know how much fun I’ve had in the Tube, watching you twirl around trying to locate the source and never even spot me?”
That was a rotten thing to do.
“But you didn’t even know me before the engagement party. Why would you want to be mean to me?” I sounded like a little girl, but I was truly upset.
“Who says I don’t know you? Julius and I have been planning this for months already. Years. We’ve kept an eye on all the important players in London and no one is more important than Kane, and through him, you. I know everything about you.”
And here I’d thought Danielle had been spying on me, but now that I came to think of it, it wouldn’t suit her at all. She was a warlock in making. She didn’t do stakeouts. She would delegate.
“So your brother saved the good jobs like taking over the world for Danielle, and you were given the shitty ones?”
Her hand squeezed into a fist, and I was sure she would punch me. There was nothing I could do to block it. But she gained control of her anger.
“My brother foolishly became enamoured with her, but he saw his error. Now he’s placing his trust in me.”
“Yet you’re here doing the humdrum job again, whereas Jack…” I pretended to look around, even though my head didn’t really move.
“Where is he anyway?”
“Why? Do you hope he’ll come and save you?” She huffed, amused. “You do realise that he’s the one who put the spell on you that makes you repulsive to men? And he wouldn’t have known how to cast it without my help.”
My brows shot up as a piece of a puzzle became clear. “So it was you who helped him to break into the library.”
I guess I owed Danielle an apology too.
Nah.
“Yes. So you know he’s not good enough to best me. He couldn’t rescue you even if he wanted, which he doesn’t.”
“You never know, he might,” I taunted her, even though I hadn’t even considered it. I’d rather rot in here than accept his help. “After all, he’s not repulsed by me. Why is that, anyway?”
She shrugged, but her need to lecture won. “Turned out, it’s built into the spell, which we only learned at the engagement party.” Her eyes flashed. She had not been as happy about it as she had let on. Maybe she had intended for him to be repulsed by me too, only he had started flirting with me instead.
“Whoever casts it is immune. Fathers needed to be able to be around their bespelled daughters. But mostly medieval husbands used it to keep their wives faithful while they were fighting in the Crusades and other wars. They’d be gone for years and could be sure that she hadn’t been with any other man in the meanwhile.”
“But surely he’d just break the spell when he came home?”
She laughed, and it sounded horrible. “You’re assuming it can be broken. How funny.”
My stomach turned cold, and I had to swallow hard to keep the bile down. I couldn’t turn my head far enough to throw up. I’d choke in my own vomit if I wasn’t careful.
“We have the spell book you used,” I managed to say, but my voice had lost its earlier strength. She could not be right. I couldn’t be repulsive for the rest of my life.
“The book doesn’t contain the counter-spell. If it ever existed, it’s long lost.”
Desperation began to creep in, but I couldn’t give into it. “Rupert will figure out something.”
She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Provided he’ll survive. In fact, I’m not entirely sure the spell is something you’ll need to worry much longer either.”
I did not like the sound of that.
She turned her back to me and stood in the middle of the floor, like Rupert had earlier. I couldn’t feel her gathering the magical energy, but she likely knew the quick way to open the portal.
I had no idea where she would be taking me, but it couldn’t be anywhere I wanted to be.
“What was the point of making me repulsive to men anyway?” I asked to stall her.
She glanced at me over her shoulder. “To unsettle Kane, of course.”
I rolled my eyes, the only part of my body I had some control over, apart from my mouth—and we can probably agree I wasn’t wholly in control of that.
“You guys have to stop believing that he’s into me. Danielle made that mistake and look where it got her.”
Back to the arms of her hot lover, but I’d best not to mention that.
Ida abandoned her spell and moved to my side to look at me the right way up. She leaned closer and I contemplated spitting at her face, but that wouldn’t have accomplished anything.
“It doesn’t matter whether he is romantically interested in you or not. It’s straining for him to be around you. He has to use magical energy to shield from the effects, and it drains him. It’ll make it easy for me to take him down.”
I cocked a brow, challenging, as if I were in a position to do so. “He hasn’t shown any signs of weakness so far. He bested Jack in no time yesterday.”
She pulled straight. “What?”
I found her reaction interesting. “You didn’t know? Jack challenged Kane. He lost, of course.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” she practically growled.
I made to shrug, even though my shoulders wouldn’t move. “He would if Blackhart ordered him.”
I’d never even met the man, but the way Danielle and Jack feared him, I thought it was a fair assumption.
“I’ll fucking end him.”
Oops.
Chapter Twenty
Ida opened the portal with an angry flicker of her hand, and the next thing I knew, she yanked me through it after her. My feet were barely on the other side when the portal closed.
With her light ball illuminating the way, I tried to look around as she pulled me out of the room we’d arrived in, but I mostly saw the ceiling. Based on its neoclassical motifs, I presumed it was from the 18th century. The walls looked like they were papered during a later era though. But what did I know? I was only a humble antiques dealer—or his assistant.
The furniture I managed to spy from my position near the floor definitely roused my professional interest.
“Ooh, is that a Louis XVI commode? Can we stop? We have a client looking for one.”
But she yanked me so shar
ply by the invisible leash that my head hit the back of her knee and she fell on her stomach with an oomph.
I barely managed to swallow my snicker.
Fine, I laughed.
She pushed herself back on her feet and continued without a word. We were in a hallway that had portraits—mediocre, probably by country painters—on one side, and deep window embrasures on the other. It was a long hallway, with doors to hidden rooms at intervals, and with runners covering the floor—I presumed by the soft thuds her heels made against it.
At the other end, there was a grand staircase, which we took down one floor. I glided down headfirst, with her slowing my descent via her invisible leash.
I guess I should be grateful she didn’t just let go of it and let my weight carry me down.
She entered the first room on the right. I found myself in a large space with a high ceiling that had chubby cherubs painted on it, lots of windows on one side, and magnificent chandeliers with oak leaf crystals offering brilliant light. The floor had to be hardwood, because Ida’s heels made a staccato sound against it as she dragged me deeper.
“Is this a ballroom?”
She paused in the middle. “No, this is where my brother casts his spells.”
“In a ballroom? With cherubs?”
This was not at all what I’d imagined. This was an elegant space from an elegant era, not the lair of an evil mage.
“Where are we anyway?”
“In the Blackhart manor in York,” she said, taking a great deal of pleasure as she announced how far from London we were. It wasn’t quite the remote part of Scottish islands I’d imagined, but it wasn’t exactly within the M25 either that circled Greater London.
“York?”
Was this where my friends had come to as well? If so, where were they now?
“Why here?”
She shrugged. “He owns the place. The portal allows him to travel to London as fast as he pleases.”
“So why is the other end hidden under the cemetery?”
“Why are you asking all these questions?” she demanded, leaning over me again.
I looked her straight in the eyes. “I thought we already established I’m curious. And you like to lecture.”
She gave me a fed-up look, but proceeded to answer as she straightened: “It takes a great deal of energy to maintain a permanent portal like that one. Not only would other mages be able to detect it, the cemetery is actually a good source for the energy.”
Saved by the Spell. House of Magic 2. Page 16
