by Lee French
Taking the knife meant accepting Iulia’s demand. Claire had to cut into her own flesh and pry out the one thing that had kept her alive for so long. Everything she’d gone through to safeguard it? Wasted. Rondy’s death became meaningless.
“I think it’s a worthy goal, Claire.” Justin took a step toward her, still holding out the dagger. “A new seal will save lives. Even more lives than the old seal. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To keep people safe. That’s what Knights are supposed to do.”
“Not exactly how Caius viewed his calling,” Iulia said with a shrug, “but a noble sentiment.”
More importantly, Claire didn’t think she’d get any other offers for her freedom. Iulia believed she needed the locket. She’d already proved she had no compunctions about torturing Claire to get it. Even if Justin extracted a promise from Iulia not to harm Claire, Iulia would probably find a way to wriggle around it until she got what she wanted.
The question came down to whether Claire considered her own self-preservation more important than every other person on Earth. Could she damn Missy and Lisa to save herself? How about two other little girls whose father couldn’t defend them? How about two hundred, or two million?
Claire wrapped her fingers around the dagger’s hilt. The warm, solid metal seemed like the only real thing in the universe. Real and heavy enough to drag her into oblivion. She approached her body and tried not to look at her own cold, lifeless face. Doing this meant freedom. With luck, it meant freedom forever. The other option at least gave her some time to prepare for the end.
She opened her mouth because she didn’t want to do this. “Are you going to need me to be present when you create the seal?”
“You should plan on being here, yes.”
“So you need a way to contact me.”
“I’m sure we can use the dragons for that.” Iulia crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Which is not an issue if you never liberate the locket.”
“We’ll come too, Claire,” Justin said. “You won’t have to face it alone.”
Drew, she noted, said nothing. He looked at his lap, his eyes wide open. His hands gripped his legs so hard his knuckles turned white.
She turned away from the room to face her corpse again. Careful not to touch the locket itself, Claire pressed the tip of the dagger to the bluish flesh. Did it seem wrong because she didn’t want to cut her corpse, or because she shouldn’t do it? This felt like grave robbing. Desecration. Defilement. Desperation.
She pushed the dagger into the flesh, cutting around the locket face in a rough circle. Why did nothing happen? This seemed important, yet no metaphysical landscape greeted her and no whispers echoed around her. Nothing wanted to fight or obstruct her.
Using the knife tip, she flipped the locket out and onto the floor to discover her body only held the locket face. The rest of it—chain, backing, loop, and all—had disappeared or dissipated when Caius merged it into her flesh, or maybe when she’d done whatever she did with the node under Portland. Or, she considered as she watched Iulia swoop in and scoop the locket face off the floor, something else had happened to it.
As soon as she could, Claire wanted to visit the node. She handed the dagger to Justin because she couldn’t take it with her.
Iulia set the locket face on her work table. She waved her hand over her head. “The warding is gone. When you come back, there will be a new warding to protect my home. I recommend against entering without my express permission in the future.”
Earlier, Iulia had claimed she needed more than a wave of her hand to drop the warding. Claire had believed her. The woman had lied to her face. Successfully. “You said you’d put my body back where you got it from.”
With a huff of annoyance, Iulia selected a clear crystal from her bowl. She held out a hand and Claire watched her corpse lift into the air. “If one of you has a transport method, this will go faster. Otherwise, I’ll have to walk.”
Drew stood. “I can do that. I have to be able to see it, though.”
“Thanks.” Convinced Drew and Justin would see this taken care of, Claire tugged on the string connecting her to Enion. The idea of watching them handle her body bothered her too much to deal with. She found her dragon with his flight again, and settled in to listen to them complain about the weather.
Chapter 21
Drew
“Dammit. We needed Claire’s help.” Justin stalked to the door, Avery on his heels. “Drew, when you’re done helping Iulia, would you ask Claire to send her dragons downtown? If you’re willing, we could use your help too.”
“Great,” Kay grumbled. “Ask if he needs a cup of coffee while we’re at it.”
“I’ll see if I can find her.” Drew waited while Iulia moved her hands over empty space, acting like she untied a difficult knot.
“Thanks, Drew.” Justin jogged to Tariel’s side and climbed onto her back.
Avery glanced back at Drew as if to check if he wanted to pass a secret message. Drew shrugged. The cop left. Stirin’s headlights faded.
Claire’s body appeared. Drew recoiled from the freakish color of her flesh. He hit the couch and sat without meaning to. “What’s wrong with her?”
Iulia raised an eyebrow. “She’s dead, child. This is what dead bodies look like.”
“But she’s…” Words fled. He stared until he couldn’t stare anymore, then he squeezed his eyes shut. A sharp, stinging slap jolted him. He snapped his eyes open to see Iulia recovering from delivering it.
“Drew, I can appreciate your feelings, but this isn’t the time. Later, when you’ve delivered me home again, you can stew in your grief as much as you want. Now, you’re taking me to those woods so I can put Claire’s body back under the ground to decompose.”
“I didn’t like her before and I don’t like her now,” Kay said.
Drew rubbed his face and filled the room with fog. He had no interest in spending time with Iulia. Except for the part where he wanted her expertise. The fog cleared, putting them in front of the sycamore tree. Iulia made a small, dim white light and set to the work of scooping out dirt with her power.
Drew sat on a nearby rock and refused to watch. “I need to ask you something. About magic. How it works.”
“Something you don’t want to ask about in front of the Knights? Or in front of Claire?”
He ignored the taunt. “How do I find a crystal that works for me?”
Iulia dropped a pile of dirt and regarded him with one hand on her hip. “What makes you think you can?”
“Careful. She’s smarter than Sophie and knows at least ten times as much as Anne.”
“It’s complicated.”
For a moment, Iulia stared at him, her gaze boring into his skull. Then she laughed and resumed digging. “What have you done, little boy?”
“I’m not a little boy.”
She kept laughing. “They have no idea. And you’re going to keep it that way, I expect? Whatever new powers you manifest, they’ll be blamed on the spirit. How delightful. Lies between lovers never work, you know. They always fester and spoil everything.”
Drew blushed through a scowl. “I don’t have a lover.”
“You do. Claire is powerful enough that you’ll be able to touch her again. Eventually. It’ll happen.”
“I’m not convinced that thing is really her.”
“You’re a fool, then. Claire isn’t a ghost. She’s a soul in its entirety. The gods only know how she pulled that off. In all my years, I’ve never seen a complete soul outside a body before. Not even Caius managed to keep his from departing. That thing in the Palace was only a Phasm. Claire, though, is as much herself as she was in life.” Iulia shivered. “Souls are altogether different from ghosts.”
“I don’t believe her.”
“Neither do I,” Drew said. “How do you know she’s a soul if you’ve never seen one before? What even happens to souls if you’ve never seen one before?”
Iulia crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “No
one knows what happens to souls when people die. They go to the gods’ realm, or they evaporate, or they come back as a new person. Or something else we can’t conceive of. Who cares? It’s irrelevant. I know what I see when I look at Claire. She’s a soul that didn’t leave properly when her body died.”
“What does that make me?” Kay whispered.
Drew shook his head. He wanted to believe Iulia. Not having to destroy Claire made everything much easier on him. Even better, he still had Claire. But why? “Why is she so different from everyone and everything? A girl Knight with a dragon and kept alive by a locket…”
“She’s my descendant on both sides of her family. My descendants have always been exceptional. Every Knight or witch who outshined their peers has been one of my bloodline. Claire is the pinnacle. Was, rather. It’s a terrible disappointment that Caius managed to kill her. She had so much potential. I would’ve gotten a great deal of pleasure out of helping her achieve it.”
“Something’s bugging me about Iulia,” Kay said, “but I can’t pinpoint it. I don’t know if I want you to keep her talking or shut her up.”
Drew blocked Iulia from his sight when she caused Claire’s corpse to float into the hole she’d made. Burying her the first time himself had been more than enough. “Can we go back to talking about getting me a crystal?”
After a few moments filled with the thumping of dirt into the hole, Iulia said, “You can use any crystal. Pick it up and focus your power through it. However, based on your question and the fact I know you pawed through my collection, I suspect you’ve met someone with a focus stone and it worked for you. I haven’t had time to craft one yet for myself, as it takes a week or more.
“To make one, you need a stone that matches your aura in color. Translucent stones work best, hence crystals, but some solid ones can outshine them under certain circumstances. Precious metals embedded in the rock tend to help. For you, I’d suggest something light blue with a vein of silver.”
“Sure,” Kay said. “We’ll just dig around until we find something like that. Or wait! Better yet, we’ll go cruise jewelry stores and steal something.”
“Shut up, Kay.”
Iulia chuckled. Drew glanced aside and saw her patting the dirt down with her shoe. She’d finished, and now Claire lay at rest again. Except for her soul. Knowing that made him want to run around screaming until things made sense again. He suspected that might take a long time.
“I’ve done my part. Take me home, please.”
The hairs on the back of Drew’s neck prickled. He spun out fog and returned Iulia to her container without checking what had snuck up behind him. That ghost had been popping up a little too often, and he didn’t want to see it again. Ever. If he’d attracted something else, he didn’t want to know about it. Keeping his jaunts in the woods short seemed wise.
They landed inside the container. The door remained open, and Leeloo sat on the coffee table. She chirped and whistled with joy at their return.
Iulia fetched a crystal from her bowl and blew across the top like someone trying to give dice good luck. She tossed it to Drew. “One to start your collection.”
Afraid he’d otherwise drop it, he snatched the blue-tinted quartz out of the air with a whisper of mist. “Thanks.”
“Why is she being nice to us?”
“Do you mind if I come back sometime with questions?”
“Not at all, but please arrive outside and knock.” Iulia smiled at him. She seemed genuine.
“Right. Sorry.” Drew’s cheeks heated. He hurried to escape.
“And Drew? Plan to be here when I create the seal. I believe your help will be…invaluable.”
With a nod, Drew hopped outside and returned to a different part of the forest. Without knowing where Claire had gone, he didn’t know if he could use her to find the dragons or not. He held up the crystal Iulia had given him, but the stars only provided enough light to barely make out the trees.
“How did Iulia make light?”
Kay left a long pause. “Magic.”
“Wow, gosh, I never would’ve come up with that answer on my own. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Shut up, boy. It’s witch stuff. I don’t know anything about that. Try it and see what happens.”
Drew closed his hand around the crystal, not sure what to try. Using Kay’s power took no effort on his part. He thought about what he wanted and Kay facilitated. Accessing his own witch powers meant doing everything himself.
When Iulia did something, she waved a hand. He recalled Anne and Sophie both doing the same. They never spoke special words, or any words at all. One gesture directed the power.
“I can do that,” he muttered.
“Decide on a goal and focus. That’s my advice.”
“I want light, so that’s my goal.” Drew held his empty hand with the palm up.
“I recommend being more specific. How much light? What color?”
With a nod, Drew imagined a white light small enough to fit in his palm, its gentle glow reaching only a few feet. This idea lodged in his mind. He saw it happening there. Nothing happened in his hand.
“Okay, I have a picture and a focus. Now what?”
“Heck if I know. My connection to my power is instinctive. No one taught me how to do it.”
Drew frowned. “There must be a missing step. Something internal.” He closed his eyes and wondered when he ended and Kay began. Did he need to know? Were the witch pool of power and the Kay pool of power separate things or did they mingle together?
“This is more complicated than I thought. Maybe it needs to wait until later. Justin and Avery need help tonight. I can ask Iulia to show me some basics tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
Something about Kay’s tone grated. “You think I’m giving up too soon.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Of course, waiting until tomorrow meant waiting until after school. “I shouldn’t have to go to school anymore. What good is graduating going to do me now? I’m a freak and it’s not like I’ll ever go to college. Even if I did, it wouldn’t help.”
“According to the stuff in your own brain, you have to go until you’re eighteen or you graduate. Let’s not get arrested for truancy and become fugitive runaways.”
“Who cares? What, a prison is going to hold me?”
Kay left another long pause. “Yeah, we can do anything and get away with it. Even murder people. It’ll be easy. Start with Justin. You hate him anyway. That’ll pay him back for Claire’s death.”
“Shut up,” Drew snapped. Kay edged too close to where his own thoughts trundled and he didn’t like hearing it.
“I’m sure Grandma Tammy won’t care at all about Justin getting killed. I mean, that’s only her daughter’s husband. No big deal. After all, you’re the only one who feels anything, right? And hey, while we’re taking lives anyway, we can visit Sophie and take the focus stone. If she resists, we dominate her. Because that’s fine, right? We’re more powerful, after all. She needs to be protected, and taking the stone keeps her from getting into anything.”
“Shut up. Shut up!”
“Then stop acting like a weak-willed twit. Claire’s dead and Iulia is alive. You’re attracted to a different girl because Claire left a giant hole inside you and you’re desperate to fill it.”
Drew wanted to hit Kay to make him stop. “You wanted me to steal the stone!”
“News flash—power attracts power. Another news flash? You’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you.”
Frustration boiled out in a scream at the sky and Drew flung the crystal into the darkness. It smashed against a rock. He heard it shatter. The pieces pattered on the ground like raindrops. As Drew lurched forward in a misguided attempt to save it, each shard exploded with silent, blinding light and heat. The hundreds of small bursts combined to throw him backward. His head cracked against a tree. He tumbled into a jagged rock and yelped at the sharp, stabbing pains in his
chest and leg it caused.
Kay remained quiet while Drew whimpered. He lay there, letting Kay heal his body, and wondered how long it would take someone to come looking for him. Justin might show up at some point, or he might leave Drew alone.
“Don’t be daft. Mutt’ll come running now that you’ve hurt yourself. He’ll bark up a storm until someone comes running.”
Drew wanted to see the mess he’d made as much as he didn’t want to see it. This day ended about the same as it had begun, with him wishing for death. At least he wouldn’t screw up anything else.
“Knock it off,” Kay snapped. “I’m so tired of this crap. If you die, I die, and that’s not part of my plans. We have things to do, like fetching dragons for Justin so Portland doesn’t get destroyed. I don’t care about that, but even I can see that once those stupid bugs finish eating Portland, they’ll keep moving. Eventually, it’ll be our problem. Worst case, someone with a gun sees us doing something magicky and decides we’re part of the bug threat. I can’t stop bullets, and you can’t heal one through the brain or heart.
“So get your ass up and get moving. Make some light. Get the dragons. Save the city. Get the girl. Either stick with Claire, who’ll eventually be able to turn solid, or go for Sophie. I don’t care which. Just get your butt off the ground.”
Drew pushed himself up to sit beside the rock, trying to suck all his grief in. Later, he could indulge in it. He rubbed his eyes and growled at the world. Sophie got hurt because of him. Sure, it turned out fine, but he’d taken from her without permission. That was wrong. Worse, what he took, he couldn’t use.
“Stupid witch power is useless!” He snapped his hand out in irritation, mocking the gesture Iulia had used to make her light.
White light flared in front of him, casting a harsh glow over the man-shaped ghost that kept following him. Drew squeaked in fright, too surprised to defend himself. The ghost shoved a hand into his chest and plunged Drew into the kitchen. The room had acquired a new decoration—blood spatter decorated the linoleum floor under the table.
