by Elena Lawson
Adrian was there a few seconds later. All six feet of X-rated nudeness staring down at me. He put his hands on mine to still them and I let them fall away—letting him fasten the cloak to me. “Are you sure you want to do this right now?”
Was I?
The question seemed redundant.
If we wanted answers, I didn’t really have a choice, did I?
But I didn’t say any of that—it would only worsen the pity I wanted to erase from his steady golden gaze.
Instead, I nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Okay,” he said and stepped back, allotting me a fuller view of his incredible body. It made me even more upset that the sight didn’t excite me right now. It couldn’t. Not with everything else warring for my attention in my upturned world. “We’ll be here when you get back.”
“Okay.”
He squeezed my shoulders. “Please,” he said. “Please be careful.”
“I will.”
The moment he released me, I lifted the pewter mask from the table, held my breath and pressed the cool metal surface to my face.
The falling sensation wasn’t as jarring as it had been the other times. And when I landed, it only took a few short breaths for me to regain my balance and stand, drawing the cloak more closely around me.
It puddled around my ankles and I had to lift it as I slunk along the cold walls, feeling physically ill, but also somehow liberated as the glimmering bindstone squandered my power. I’d been working so hard to keep it contained—and mostly failing—that though it felt perverse and wrong to have it stripped away, it was also a startling relief.
I felt like I could breathe.
Until I began to hear the first signs that I wasn’t alone.
Then it was back to holding my breath. I moved at a snail’s pace along the wall toward the light looming at the entrance to the corridor and the chamber beyond it. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I did last time. I watched each step, making certain I wasn’t going to step on a loose stone. I didn’t dare touch the wall, afraid to make a sound.
My heart started to pound as the voices became more distinct and I could make out the shapes of people in the chamber, thankfully, all facing the dais where the tall masked man from before stood to address them.
My mouth fell open and I was moderately shocked to find that I had been right. There was a meeting taking place—and the mask had been calling me to attend, just as it would have my father when he still lived.
Steeling myself and ignoring the warning in my head, I stole into the inlet behind the frames archway leading out to the chamber as I had before, careful not to disturb the large stone that’d fallen the last time or the section of loose wall. I wouldn’t be able to hear if I didn’t stay close.
I worked to quiet the thunderous beating of my heart—it was deafening, and I could barely hear above the din of it.
It took thirteen deep breaths in through my nose and out silently through my mouth until I could make out the words. I closed my eyes to focus, listening carefully, focusing only on hearing them and keeping the sound of my breaths silent.
“One of ours has found something that may be of great use to us…” one said, and judging by the volume and echo, I knew it was the one on the dais.
“What is it?” Someone else called from the assembly.
“A missing piece.”
The muffled clacking of heels on stone began distantly, the noise growing in volume until each footfall was a distinct clatter ringing through the chamber.
Unable to help myself, I peered into the main room, my heart in my throat as I prayed no one would see me. I ground my teeth as my still-damp skin began to chafe under my wet clothes and the chill in the underground chamber began to latch on.
The masked woman entered the chamber from the corridor next to mine and I cowered as she first emerged, afraid she might see me. But she kept walking, silently, with purpose in each step. The gathering parted to allow her through, whispers erupting in her wake.
She stepped up onto the dais with practiced grace and turned to address the gathering side by side with the man who addressed them before. It dawned on me that it was the same woman who stood with him before.
She must be one of their leaders…
“For centuries we’ve been missing a valuable piece in the puzzle of Cyprian’s curse…” she said, her voice coming out masculine and monotone through the magic filter of the mask.
“We’ve tried to reconstruct it—tried and failed to reverse it. Until today I hadn’t realized we were missing anything aside from the ability to decipher the workings of the original curse…but I come before you today to tell you I was wrong.”
Whispers erupted in the chamber.
“We should have realized it before,” the one beside the woman in heels on the dais said. “Cyprian used every facet of magic to create this…this dark rite he used in cursing the other races and destroying our homeland. It wasn’t just the spell. It was the blade…”
My brows drew down as I considered what they were saying, trying to piece it all together into some form of sense in my still-aching head.
The dagger.
I remembered the vision I’d been shown during the origin spell. How Cyprian had impaled himself with a jeweled dagger, spilling his lifeblood over the jewel encrusted box as he spoke the incantation that would cause centuries of pain and anguish. As he released a dark magic that would divide the immortal races forever.
They—both Manifesto and the Magistrate were missing a vital piece of the puzzle. Maybe more than one. Because if they needed the dagger—it would stand to reason they would also need the jeweled box…right?
Unless…
Unless one of them already had it.
The woman threw open her cloak, revealing a sword she held beneath the thick fabric. She drew it out, displaying it between her two raised hands.
The gathering went silent.
I didn’t understand.
“The blade was reforged…”
And as the woman lifted the blade, allowing it to glint in the white light coming from the opening in the ceiling, I saw she was right. The hilt was the same. Modified to hold the weight of the new blade. But the design was identical. The bespelled jewels were the same.
“The pure-blooded must die by—”
I’d seen it before, I realized with start, unable to conceal the loud gasp that came unbidden to my lips. I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle the sound, but it was too late, masked faces whirled, and I fumbled to tear my own mask from my face, sending myself tumbling headlong into the black abyss.
29
My fingernails dug into the wood of the floor as I rematerialized, shaking and heaving in the library.
I tried to stand, but a pressure in my skull had me blinking to clear the double vision and my legs wobbling from vertigo.
“Wow,” a voice said and I opened my eyes to find Elias’ steady deep blue ones searching mine. “Take it easy—we’re right here,” he reassured me.
Strong hands gripped me from behind, helping me to stand. I knew without having to look that it was Cal. “The tapestry,” I blurted, and spun, almost falling back to the floor, but Cal caught me, grunting as he steadied me. “Hey, what is it?”
“Are you alright, love?”
“Why is she breathing like that?”
I had to fight to get Cal’s hands off me and when I finally did, I stumbled forward, rushing to the wall at the back of the room.
My heart stopped.
It was gone.
How was it gone?
It was part of the fucking tapestry.
“Harper, what’s going on?” Elias’ worried voice sounded someplace behind me, but I was still trying to make sense of it.
The morbid depiction of a woman wielding a jeweled sword as she cut down her bloodies enemies below was now missing one crucial piece. Though her hand was raised, and her mouth was still open in a feral battle cry—there was nothing in her hand an
ymore.
The sword was gone.
Another bit of magic that I’d never heard of before…
Perhaps another spell that was ‘lost’ with the Alchemical Codex?
“Harper, would you mind sharing what the hell is—”
“It’s gone,” I cut off Draven mid-sentence. “The sword is gone. They have it. Manifesto has it.”
“What?” Adrian asked, and his confusion was plain in the tone of his voice.
I turned to face them, gathering my thoughts. I met each of their confused stares. They didn’t know it was there. Dee couldn’t have removed it—she wasn’t a witch.
And no one else knew where La Casa Rosa was. No one else could get within its black gates unless they’d been allowed inside.
And the only person I’d allowed inside…was Granger.
It became starling clear all at once. Like a curtain drawn back to reveal a blinding truth that’d been there all along.
I knew where I’d seen the marking on the throne in the chamber on Emeris before—the symbol of Manifesto.
Granger had it tattooed on her ankle.
She’d known so much about my father…
Could it have been because they worked for the same rebel group?
She’d asked to come to La Casa Rosa under the pretense of seeing where my father spent his summers when he was young…but it was clear now that was a lie.
And Dee and her had known each other. Granger recognized the ‘caretaker’ for who she really was—my mother…
Granger had been lying to me from the very beginning.
My skin bristled and my lips pressed into a thin line as I let it all soak in. The betrayal stung.
Why hadn’t she just told me?
My eyes widened as I realized she’d been here collecting the sword while we were out dealing with Dee in the woods.
I cursed under my breath as I tore past the guys and out into the hall, skidding into the wall as I ran.
Vaguely, I could hear the guys calling out to me. Following me as I sped, tripping in my haste, up the stairs and bolted for the door to the room Elias and I had been in earlier.
I threw open the door and slumped to my knees in relief at the sight of all of our notes—Donovan’s parchment, and all the books we were studying still atop the blankets. Some blown against the headboard or to the floor from the open window. But I saw that it was all still there. She’d come and stolen from my father but at least she hadn’t taken everything…
“It’s Granger,” I said between pants as the guys caught up to me. “She took the sword. And she’s going to use it…”
The pure-blooded must die…
How many would she kill with that blade before they got the spell just right?
Were they any better than the Magistrate if they were willing to shed innocent blood as a means to their end?
I wanted to reverse the curse—probably more than most—but killing to do it? It wasn’t right.
There had to be another way.
And we had to find it before more people died.
The guys stood as silent sentinels over me, all of them seeming to consider what I’d told them. I’d explain it better for them, but first we needed to leave. La Casa Rosa wasn’t a safe haven anymore.
“We need to go,” I said, getting to my feet, relieved to find the aching in my head had all but gone. “We need to find the Alchemical Codex. If my father could hide a sword in a fucking tapestry, then he must have had it. Even if they do have the sword, they can’t complete the rite until they reconstruct the spell…”
And I was willing to bet they couldn’t do that without the knowledge contained only within the pages of the original grimoire. The oldest of all spell books known to our race.
I started throwing clothes into a bag, unseeing. Moving on autopilot.
“It could be anywhere.”
A creak in the hall alerted me to someone approaching and my magic flooded my veins as I whirled back around.
“I might be able to help.”
I searched for the source of the small, feminine voice, finding Dee as she moved to stand between my guys in the doorway of the room. She clutched a blanket around herself like a cloak, and her eyes were red-ringed and her face sallow.
Dee met my hard gaze head-on with one that spoke of the pain she was doing her best to hide. My cheeks flamed and a sizzle of angry heat raced down my spine.
I opened my mouth to shout at her. I didn’t want to see her right now. Couldn’t afford the luxury of thinking about what her even being here meant. But she spoke before I could get a word out, shocking me into stillness and making all the anger evaporate as quickly as it appeared. “I know where it is.”
To be continued in OF RITE & RUIN, the fifth and final book in the Arcane Arts Academy series! Thank you so much for supporting Harper’s story, it means the world to me. To be among the first to receive your copy of the final book, pre-order it now!
