by Bec McMaster
But at what point of time?
"Hecarah di asmosis. Solaris ni tenduin. Come forth, my lord. Come forth," her father called.
Cleo winced. The language he used hurt her ears. What was he doing?
Light beckoned along the hallway, behind a half-closed door. There was no sign of the servants, though Lord Tremayne sometimes gave them the night off when he was performing his darker works.
Trepidation filled her as she reached for the door. Black queen, black queen, black queen.... Her heart pounded in time to the words. Seeing this would change everything. She just knew it.
She pushed open the door, finding herself in a cellar that had been fitted out with her father's ritual altar. A hexagram was painted on the floor in blood, and a woman knelt in the center of it in her nightgown, another bloody hexagram painted on her forehead. Her long silvery-blonde hair cascaded down her back, her brows dark in her heart-shaped face.
She could have been Cleo's twin.
Mother. Cleo clapped a hand to her mouth. Her mother had died when she was two, which meant this had to be over twenty years ago. She couldn't remember her mother, and she'd never seen a picture of her, thanks to the blindfold.
She looks like me....
Lord Tremayne circled the altar with a knife in one hand, and a grimoire in the other. He kept droning the words in that hideous language, until something began to appear above the hexagram.
Silence chilled the room. Tremayne's eyes lit up when he saw the shimmer in the air. "Come forth!"
A heart of darkness began to form above him, turning into a malevolent black cloud, and the bloody rune in the middle of Tremayne's head suddenly glowed.
The black cloud swirled over Lord Tremayne's head, and he opened his arms wide, looking up and staring into the heart of the cloud. "One night I grant thee," he boomed. "Use me, my lord. Let me beget the child that was prophesized."
The black mist began to swirl, then plunged down, entering her father's mouth and ears. He roared in pain, his body jerking, and then the mist was gone, and he froze.
Cleo's mother opened her eyes. "My lord?"
Tremayne grasped the silver cup on the altar with both hands, lifting it to his lips and gulping it down. Blood dripped down the sides of his cheeks, and droplets of it dripped off his chin and spattered on his white shirt.
"Tremayne? Did it work?" her mother whispered.
He slowly lowered the cup, and his eyes were pure black. Whatever this was, it was no longer her father.
"Give me my child," her mother whispered, tugging at the drawstring of her nightgown. "Give me the child he cannot."
Tremayne went to her, capturing her chin and lifting it harshly. "You little fool. Do you have any idea what you have wrought?"
"You have one night," her mother cried. "Use it, or begone."
He tore her mother's nightgown clean down the center, shoving her onto her back. Her mother cried out, fisting a hand in Tremayne's shirt as she drew him down over her....
Cleo whirled away from the room, slamming the door behind her as her mother cried out again. Her ears were ringing. What did this mean? What had her father summoned into himself?
A demon, said the little voice of intuition inside her.
Her mother....
The black queen?
No. No. She'd died. She'd died when Cleo was two, in a carriage accident. Her father had always said....
Her father was known to lie.
"Cleo?" a woman whispered. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"
She twisted and turned. Something was pinning her down. Hands upon her wrists. Her heart started racing. The vision vanished and she found herself in the dream plane again, the skies as dark as midnight. Not a blank canvas, but one filled with possibility that could take her anywhere she wanted to go.
"You're safe," the woman added. "Your husband is here. He's holding you down so you don't thrash. Can you hear me?"
She stared up at a night sky with a thousand stars. One of them flickered a little brighter. Not stars, but souls, she realized, as she drew nearer. The bigger one flamed into a beacon. Sebastian.
"I can hear you," she whispered.
"I've got her." A cool palm rested on her forehead. "Come back, Cleo. Come back before you burn yourself out."
Tears leaked wetly from her eyes. She'd finally found the black queen. And it hurt. It hurt so much.
Why did she leave me?
"Hush," Sebastian murmured, drawing her into his arms. "I'll never leave you. I promise."
Cleo blinked back into the real world, and found her wet face pressed against his shoulder. Her ruined ball gown was crushed up between them, and his coat was smoke-stained and scarred from the battle downstairs. How much time had passed? They'd won, hadn't they? She pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart.
"We won," Sebastian whispered, as if he were sensing her thoughts. "Morgana and her coterie of sorcerers fled. Only thirteen sorcerers died, and the rest are being treated by the Order's healers. Ianthe's taking charge."
None of it mattered.
She saw again the demon enter her father, and shivered. Give me the child he cannot....
What did it mean? A demon... sired me. There was a horrible, horrible feeling inside her. She'd seen something about this in Farshaw's book, she was certain of it.
She cried for a long time, feeling the stroke of his hand down her spine as he rocked her. And then she finally gave in to exhaustion, her forehead slumping against his shoulder, where she could feel the beat of his heart through her palm.
* * *
Everything hurt.
Cleo blinked slowly, the intense stab of the afternoon light making her wince. She could barely see.
"I'll draw the curtains," a woman murmured, and then the blaze of light vanished, leaving her able to breathe again.
Cleo tried to sit up, her throat dry and her head thumping.
"Here," a man murmured, his arm sliding behind her, as he pressed a glass of water to her lips.
Sebastian. Cleo nearly choked on the water. "What are you doing here?"
Watching the other woman like a hawk, it seemed. He eased the glass away from her, his body shockingly warm. "You've been sleeping for nearly three days," he said tightly. "I've been trying to call you back to me, through the bond."
A bond that was intricately stronger, she noted, brushing against it... and flinching. "Ouch."
"Yes, 'ouch,'" said the older woman who pushed away from the windows, her silver hair swept up into an elegant chignon. "You foolish child. Where on earth did you learn to future-walk? Have you any idea of how dangerous it was to blindly go forth, without learning even the basics?"
"Yes, I knew how dangerous it was!" Cleo retorted. "I didn't have a choice. I'm no match for Morgana, and none of my powers are offensive ones—at least, not yet. I was trying to protect my husband."
That earned her a steady look. Oho, Sebastian didn't like that, did he? Cleo glared back at him. "Which I wouldn't have had to do, if he'd been thinking rationally, rather than trying to murder his mother the first chance he got." She flung back the blankets, realized she was wearing a thin cotton nightgown, and tugged them back over herself again, blushing fiercely.
Sebastian leaned back in his armchair, his arms crossed over his chest, as if to dare her to cast her blankets aside again. No doubt as payback for her comment about his mother.
Oh, yes, my dear. Do grant me a glimpse of those shapely calves....
Cleo looked between the two of them, touching her temples lightly. Was that her thought? Or was she actually hearing his? It felt like their auras brushed against each other, now he'd lowered the shields he'd kept up against her. "Who are you?"
"Madrigal Brown," the woman said, leaning on her cane like a silver-haired hawk. "Sorcerer of the Seventh Level, Foreseer, and Mistress of the Sicarii."
Sicarii? The heat washed out of Cleo's face. The assassins protected the Order and the Prime—at all costs.
And it suddenly terrified her that they might see Sebastian as a threat.
"Madrigal's the only other Foreseer in the Empire," Sebastian murmured, his hand coming to rest over hers.
Almost... protectively.
"She's not going to hurt you," he pointed out. "She and I have reached an agreement. She's going to help teach you how to control your powers."
Yes, but what about him? He'd let a demon use his body, after all.
And you have some part of the demon within you. She went cold and locked down her end of the bond.
Sebastian looked at her sharply.
"I have been told you've not truly been taught your sorcery. You've never truly served an apprenticeship, though technically you wear three rings. I am offering to grant you a true apprenticeship, where I will teach you everything I know."
Cleo looked between them. A true apprenticeship? Her father had taught her... enough. But what if there was more? "What would I have to do?" There was too much ahead of them... "I can't. Not now."
But she wanted to. She wanted very desperately to learn everything this woman knew.
"I know what's coming," Madrigal said stiffly. "I caught some edge of your Visions, and I've seen my own. Something dark settles over London. And if you survive it, then come and find me."
This was a deal she could accept. Cleo nodded.
"Firstly," Madrigal said, with an arched brow, "I want to know how you learned to future-walk."
"I'll tell you... on one condition," Cleo said, not forgetting who this woman was.
Again that eyebrow.
"You swear on your power never to raise a hand against Sebastian," she told the other woman fiercely. "No matter what you think is best for the Order."
"She's not going to hurt me—"
Cleo hushed him with a fierce glare. "You don't know that. She's Sicarii, Sebastian."
"She is standing right here," Madrigal said dryly. "And she will promise not to make a move against your husband, unless he makes one against me."
It would have to do. "Swear it," Cleo suggested.
"I swear by the Light of my powers not to attack your husband without provocation," Madrigal replied softly, and Cleo felt the power of the oath settle over the room like a heavy blanket.
Everything was hushed. Sorcery dimmed the candlelight, and even the fire in the hearth flickered.
Then it was gone, the weight suddenly lifted.
"There was a book," Cleo muttered, gesturing to her dressing robe. "Could you fetch that for me?"
Sebastian returned with her robe, and helped tie it on.
Madrigal's eyes glittered. "Which book?'"
"I can show you," Cleo promised, slipping from under her blankets. Her knees shook as she stood, her stomach tight and dry. Hollow. "But first... I need to refresh myself, and eat something."
Chapter 15
"QUENTIN FARSHAW'S Sidestep through Time," Madrigal breathed, turning the book over in her hands. "The full copy.... Sweet goddess, it looks like a hand-written version of it. It must be the original!"
Cleo rested by the fireplace in the sitting room, with an audience this time. Ianthe and Lucien had gathered to see how she was feeling, and although he'd vanished long enough to bring her soup, Sebastian was tethered to her side as though he'd rather be no place else.
It shocked her a little.
Yes, there'd been that kiss. Several kisses now. And a dance. But his sheer attentiveness since the ball led her to believe there was something else going on within him.
He'd barely left her side.
She didn't know what to think. Or how to feel about it.
It was one thing to get her hopes up, quite another to see them dashed. And she'd been brave once, before she lost her world: her father, tyrant though he was; her home; her Visions... everything, in reality. Could she risk her heart, only to lose it again?
Sebastian shot her a quizzical look, almost as though he'd caught the edge of her thoughts, and Cleo flushed.
"The book is important?" Ianthe mused.
Madrigal finally seemed to realize where she was. "Important? It's been missing for centuries, and was named the greatest living treatise on the divination arts." She tuned on Cleo. "How did you get a copy of this?"
"You wouldn't believe me if you tried," she said.
And Madrigal did try to get the truth from her, giving up in pure frustration an hour later, when all Cleo could tell her was that Quentin Farshaw had put it in her hands personally.
"Enough," Sebastian finally said, a dark look upon his brow. "Cleo needs her rest, and I cannot see how this is serving any purpose. You were brought here to help my wife, and you have done so. Her Third Eye is closed. What she needs now is rest."
"I will be back," Madrigal said, peering down her nose at Cleo.
"To train Mrs. Montcalm," Ianthe said coolly, linking her arm through the assassin's.
"Yes," Madrigal murmured. "To train her in the art of future-walking."
* * *
Sentenced to a day of bed rest, Cleo succumbed with frustrated grace. If she couldn't get out of bed, then at least she could put the time to good use.
Dragging out Sidestep Through Time, and thanking every god she still had a copy, considering the avaricious gleam in Madrigal's eyes, she set to reading it. She'd managed to snatch a glimpse at a few chapters the other day, but this was the first chance she'd gotten to truly delve inside it.
Instantly she knew she held a book unlike any other. Most sorcerers could rise to the seventh level of the Order of the Dawn Star if they spent many, many years practicing their art, and various Primes and Triad Councilors—the three wise sorcerers who ruled in conjunction with the Prime—had reached perhaps the eighth or ninth level. But Quentin Farshaw had been the only sorcerer to ever reach the tenth level.
The tests for the tenth level required one to manipulate time, or to communicate directly with the divine. To prove his task had succeeded, Farshaw had been required to take an object he was only made aware of during the testing period, and return it to some point in the past, with a letter instructing the sorcerer who found it to appear at the precise time and location of the final test with it.
Nobody had expected him to succeed.
Even to this day, some said he hadn't. But she'd seen him vanish into thin air with her own eyes. Farshaw either owned the same skill as Verity—in itself a rare gift—and was hosting some elaborate scheme, or he was telling the truth.
"More soup?" Sebastian asked at some stage of the afternoon, and Cleo forced herself to smile and waved him away.
He knew she was hiding something from him, and she hadn't dared allow her shields to drop between them.
She'd glimpsed something earlier about demons and time. And with the recent revelation about her father, she needed to know more about it.
She reached a chapter on demons, or the Shadow Horde, or whatever one liked to call them. Premonition became a soft whisper. This was why Farshaw had given her the book. She was certain of it.
Divination is a particular gift, and a truth universally recognized within the Order is that one cannot be taught anything more of the divination arts than vague scrying, which is rarely successful. Think reading tea leaves, tarot cards, and gazing into crystal balls. Objects of focus that allow the sorcerer to perhaps catch a glimpse of future events, if they are well-trained.
But the true divination arts are not these vague predicting agents. Foresight is a powerful gift—or curse—depending upon how one looks at it. Backsight can see right through the annals of history. Psychometry, dream-walking, and future-walking all set the sorcerer of the divination arts aside, and it is a rare sorcerer who can sidestep into a different plane or dimension, or project astrally.
I have spent years cataloguing those with the true gifts. They have nothing in common that I can see. Male, female, child, crone, British, Indian, European, African.... What brings rise to this gift?
Two years ago, I began to study
a sudden rash of “miracle children” in Cornwall. Scattered between the ages of thirteen to seventeen, over a dozen children in several villages began to predict things. We have seen such groupings occur in many places and times, however, this was the first time I've heard of them before they were turned to the flames and named witches. I managed to interview the children, and none of them knew where their gifts came from. At first I turned my attention to a nearby leyline, and a ring of standing stones close by. Was pure power leaching up through the earth and affecting such vulnerable minds? I had no conclusive evidence, and it remains but a theory. There is, however, only one common element I can link to these “miracle children,” something far more sinister that turns my stomach, but sets my prediction senses reeling.
Eighteen years before, a group of untrained so-called witches raised a creature in the midst of the standing stones. Barely anyone would speak of the occurrence, but there were hints of the truth, told in vague suppositions. It was a devil, they whispered, and it lured many nearby into sin. It fueled itself on blood, and ruined many an innocent woman before it was finally hunted down and destroyed, though I wonder, if it was demonic, whether it did not merely flee instead.
And the question I must ask myself, is if any of these unions with this "devil" bore fruit.
Is the answer in the blood? Is there something unnatural about those who own the divination gifts? It is said that demons first taught us the gifts of sorcery, many, many years in the past, opening our minds to the possibilities of the world. What if they gave a certain group among us other gifts?
I have spent many nights pondering this question, even tracing news of any disturbances within my own village. There was nothing in the gossip in my home town, but I note that seven seers arose at the same time I did. We range in age, but at most five years separates us.
Why does time seem to part around me, when others cannot even see the individual threads? I think the demon is in me.
