by Monica Sanz
Realizing he still held her hand, Sera yanked it away and stepped back. Above, lanterns hung from a web of twisted vines that ran the course of the secret hall. There were various wooden doors along this short corridor, closed out by two massive, gated doors.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“We are still at the Academy, at least a wing of it from many years ago. When Purism was banned, the Brotherhood remained faithful and created this place to hold what remained of their teachings. Once they were discovered by my father, he decided to protect this place instead of burn it. He believes that in order to rule effectively one must not only understand the good but the motivations of the enemy.” Timothy led the way to one of the smaller doors along the hall. “Come on, the library is just here.”
“And there?” Sera pointed to the double doors at the end of the corridor.
“The dungeons. Many witches met their end behind those doors at the hands of the Brotherhood.”
Sera stared at the massive doors. Her arms tingled, her skin remembering the ghostly hand clamped on her wrists, the cries and screams.
“But you don’t want to go in there. The pain that was experienced…” He trailed off, pale and visibly shaken.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” she said with some relief and surprise. “You’re…you’re an empath?”
He nodded over his shoulder. “If you could keep that between us, I would be much obliged. Besides, I’m not a very good one. I haven’t honed my power much and can sense only extreme emotions accurately.”
“Is that why you’re struggling in your Aether-level courses?”
He averted his gaze. “Partly, yes. My father was mortified when he learned of my inclination. I’m sure he never imagined his son’s magic would follow an Aether path, but he’s determined to rectify it. He ordered me to fail on purpose so no one will suspect my magic is prone to Aether—no offense. I know seventhborns are apt to the element, but Father thinks it will hurt my chances to ever become chancellor if I’m associated to it. Many will think me weak and unable to rule with emotions clouding my judgment. He says if I suppress it for long enough, the ability will fade until I no longer feel it.” He opened the door and stepped aside to let her enter.
“Is that what you want?” she asked, relieved to get away from the dungeon and glad to know there was no way Timothy could harm her. The pain and guilt of it would hurt him as well.
“Does it matter? It seems I never get the things I truly desire.”
Sera swallowed under his warm stare and averted her gaze, touring it along the library instead. A wall of bookshelves mastered one side of the wall. On the other hung tapestries of the seven guardians of magic. At the far end of the room was a fireplace, two armchairs just before it. Two narrow windows flanked the fireplace, and through the glass was darkness. A strange darkness that felt alive and made her magic hum.
Timothy cleared his throat and walked to the center of the room. “And here we are. Whatever you wish to know about Purists, you will find it here.”
She paced, taken by the immense number of books that, though old, were in pristine condition. She trailed her hand along the tomes, thought of how many hands had once touched them. How many of those hands had later turned murderous, stained with the blood of seventhborns? A sick feeling lurched in her stomach, all joy gone at finding the secret library.
On the second level, Sera stopped before a tapestry on the wall and shook her head. Stitched into the fabric was The Fall of the Seventh Sister, written by Patriarch Aldrich. Of all the chapters in The Unmitigated Truths of Seventhborns, Sera had always been drawn to this story. The seventh sister, guardian of Aether magic, learned of a stronger power kept in the Underworld: the power over time. Desiring it for herself, she traveled to the Underworld where she was corrupted beyond measure.
To protect magic and unable to kill the seventh sister, the other six sisters locked her behind a gate in the Underworld, never to be opened again. Her evil, however, spread to all seventh-born girls, and soon mothers began to die upon birthing a seventh-born daughter. Believing them to be bad omens, Purists decided to keep track of all seventhborns with a tattoo.
Sera glanced at the bust sculpture of Patriarch Aldrich beside the tapestry. “Bastard.”
“Indeed,” Timothy said. “There’s no better name for a necromancer.”
Sera arched a brow. “Necromancer?”
“According to all my father learned from the Brotherhood who were captured, Patriarch Aldrich raised body after body in hopes of learning the strongest of magic.”
“Power over time,” Sera injected.
He nodded. “Life, death, strength, knowledge—magic itself are all slaves to time. Control time and you control everything. You can go back and fix your mistakes or keep the ones you love alive. You can alter the past to shape your future. The possibilities are endless. Patriarch Aldrich recognized this and drained countless witches until gaining enough magic to summon the seventh sister to learn how to obtain this magic for himself. She bargained with him; if he freed her, she would share her power over time. She told him how to open the gate, but his daughter stole his writings, The Scrolls of the Dead, and with a powerful spell she locked him inside a labyrinth in his mind. He couldn’t remember anything at all, and those who wished to help him met only madness themselves. Some of his disciples took it upon themselves to recover the Scrolls and established the Brotherhood. Ultimately it became a cult of black magic and murder, mainly against seventhborns whom they used for their own evil ends, from draining to magical experimentation, all under the guise of religion. Because they targeted seventhborns, Purists merely turned a blind eye.”
Sera shook her head. She’d suffered through that doctrine at the hands of her own pious monster. Though he never mentioned the Brotherhood, she had no doubt he would have joined them given the chance. She remembered his fervor, how he’d drain her of magic, claiming it was for her own good, even though it only made him stronger.
Her hands clenched. The desire to blast Patriarch Aldrich’s statue to dust jabbed her skin with heat.
Timothy handed her a book and pulled her from her brooding. He drew two others from the bottom shelf and stacked them beside her. “But you can read better about it in these books.”
“Could I not just take them to my room?” she asked. “I promise to return them.”
“Sadly, no. They would age and wither away.”
Her eyes widened. “This is a time capsule? That is strong magic.” Only the strongest mages were known to dabble in the magic of time, way beyond the tinkering of time-altering spells. No wonder her magic pulsed when she stared out the window. It was not night but a void.
He smiled. “Beautiful and smart.”
She opened her mouth to ask a question, but at Timothy’s nearness, it faded. She turned her face down to the books she held.
“Miss Dovetail, I—”
“I should get started on these,” she cut him off.
“Oh yes, yes, of course. I’ll be downstairs. Let me know if you need anything.”
She refused to look at him until his back was to her and he walked down the stairs. Knowing him to be an empath was supposed to have relieved her, and yet she was more lost than ever. His reaction near the dungeons told her he hadn’t stifled his powers the way his father wished for him to, which meant he wouldn’t purposely hurt her by lying and making a mockery of her in front of everyone. Although that was comforting, it also meant that in asking her to the dance, he’d been genuine…and genuinely heartbroken when she said no.
She blew out a breath and forced her eyes to the first book on her lap. Matters of the heart would have to wait. There were others who were waiting for her to uncover why their hearts didn’t beat anymore.
…
For what felt like hours, Sera read about the horrible Purists’ beliefs, mainly propaganda blaming seventhborns for partaking in death magic, including necromancy. They believed that in contacting the U
nderworld, seventhborns dragged disease and evil into the realm of the living, which in turn led to the plague. Yet Sera couldn’t find Barrington’s connection to it all.
Stressed, tired, and frustrated, she met Timothy at the fireplace.
He set down the book he was reading. “I take it you didn’t find what you sought.”
She frowned. “How perceptive.”
He grinned. “I am an empath.”
She mirrored his smile, but as she glanced about the room, it quickly withered. “This is unbelievable, that this place—these philosophies were accepted. It all seems so fictional when studying it in class, but to see their teachings with my own eyes…” She exhaled, the breath rattling on the way out.
“It was a dark time for our people, but thankfully other Purists, like my ancestors, didn’t agree with the persecutions. They had the sense to think beyond myth, that maybe it was a chink somewhere in our magical makeup. That perhaps there was something in a seventhborn’s birth other than a myth that led to their mothers’ powers and lives being drained. Sadly, progress is slow. It has taken us decades to get this far, and we’ve yet to eradicate prejudice.”
He glanced at the clock. “I’m afraid the servants will be waking up soon. But if you need to come back, just say the word. I usually make it to the library at midnight, if you ever need to find me.”
Sera rose. “Thank you.”
Timothy followed suit. “The pleasure is all mine.”
He walked to the door and began to open it, but she put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. A portrait hung on the wall. A group of men sat in a row, staring straight ahead with plague masks on their laps. Sera drew closer, her eyes fixed on the man sitting in the middle. He looked like Professor Barrington, perhaps a little older, though the icy glare and arrogance were the same.
She glanced down at the plaque below it, and her suspicions were confirmed. “Barrington,” she whispered.
“Yes. Like me, Professor Barrington comes from a long line of Purists. It’s said his father became rather obsessed with uncovering the Scrolls of the Dead and eventually went mad, adopting the Brotherhood’s extremist ways. This was never proven, though. If there was any evidence, it burned down in the fire that killed him and the professor’s brother.”
Sera’s breath caught. “Professor Barrington’s brother is dead?”
Timothy pulled the door open. “Some say he tried to save their father. Others say he dabbled in the same black magic.”
Breathless, she followed him out. “Where was Professor Barrington?”
“He was always the black sheep of the family. Even got expelled from the Academy. He vanished for some years, and when he returned, he was the moody professor you see today. Professor Barrington never believed his father capable of black magic, but those who knew him spoke otherwise.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I have to,” he said, closing the door behind him. “If not, I’d be calling my father a liar. He discovered what the professor’s father was doing.”
Memory of Barrington’s reaction that morning in the library crossed her mind, the glare now making perfect sense. Like many who judged him for the crimes of his father, Barrington disliked Timothy for the same reason.
“I’m sharing these things with you in the strictest of confidence, of course.”
“I’ll tell no one.”
Sera eyed the dungeon doors, and a chill trailed down her spine. Sorrow followed for Professor Barrington. It was no wonder his sadness the night before had consumed him. Seeing the raven—knowing the Brotherhood was involved—must have stirred up all the horrible memories.
Lost to thoughts of Barrington, his father, his brother, and the Brotherhood, Sera followed Timothy out into the hall and back through the labyrinth until they reached the Astronomy section in the library.
“Thank you for tonight,” she said, pressing her wand to the bookcase, eager to find her way back upstairs to sort out all she’d learned.
“It should be me to thank you, as I greatly enjoy your company. And that’s not flattery. It’s the truth, same as my words to you the other morning.”
She sighed. “Timothy, I…this—you and me… I appreciate what you did for me tonight, and your words the other morning, but…”
A crestfallen look overcame his eyes. “But you will never feel for me what I feel for you?”
“You can’t feel anything for me. How could you? You don’t know me.”
“I know enough. I know enough to know that we are not so different. We are both in positions of birth we did not wish for and are burdened by things we wish we could erase. But I simply want to know how you feel.” He neared her a little, eyes very blue. “Are we a possibility, whether in secret or for everyone to know?”
Sera groaned. “It doesn’t matter what I feel—”
“It matters to me,” he said. “You asked why I helped you, and this is why. It matters to me what you feel, what you think, what you say. You matter to me. But if we’re never to be, then tell me to go, and I won’t bother you again.”
The answer was simple: no, they could never be. There was no way she could bind herself to him. He was perfect, yes—kind, smart, handsome—but something was missing. Whenever Mary spoke of him, she mentioned how her heart fluttered and palms dampened, and how she spent every waking moment thinking of him. Sera frowned. Her heart didn’t seem the least bit agitated, her hands were perfectly dry, and quite frankly she hadn’t thought of him at all—save for worry that Mary might have learned of their secret morning meeting. Though she hadn’t much experience in love, surely, surely it had to feel more than the void she felt with Timothy.
Indeed, the answer was simple, and yet Sera stepped back against the wall. Timothy’s words conjured the various possibilities of her future in her mind as though they were a vision.
She could tell him to love another—to love Mary, for heaven’s sake, but whereas Mary could always find another blue blood, what of Sera? Would anyone ever care for her, wish for her the way she wished for so many things? Would anyone look beyond the black ring at her wrist and the history it told as Timothy was willing to? He was kind, and an empath of all things. And if matters with Barrington didn’t work out, would Timothy not be the ideal person to help her find out about her family? He would be on the Aetherium council, and though she was a seventhborn, she would never have to worry another day in her life… She would be safe. He was safe.
“Tell me what to do,” he said. “Is there hope?”
Pulse pounding and fingers digging into the wall behind her, she felt all of his promises just a breath, a kiss, a word away.
Is there hope?
Distant bells rang. Sera sucked in a breath, the spell broken between them.
“I must go.”
She spun and slipped through the ajar bookcase. Timothy may have called for her, but she heard none of it as she hurried up the stairs, his words in her mind like the ghosts of nights past. Is there hope?
9
the man in the smoke
Timothy’s question haunted Sera all night and throughout the next morning. By History of Clairvoyance, she was sure it would consume her entire day, until Mrs. Norton shut the book she lectured from and said to the class, “Not all of us possess the gift of clairvoyance. Most of us are given only a touch.” She paced before a long table at the front of the room. A white blanket was draped on top, and whatever she’d hidden under it formed lumps beneath the fabric.
“Those of you whose magic tends to be Aether-inclined—and seventhborns, of course,” she said as a bitter afterthought, “will find concepts of divination come easiest to you, but that, too, requires much practice. Visions can at times be abstract and influenced by many factors, which is why the Aetherium tends to shy away from it as a serious subject of study.” She gripped a corner of the white sheet and smiled at the class. “That does not mean one cannot have a bit of fun now and then.”
She whisked the sheet up from the
table. The girls in the class clapped and whispered in delight at the array of divination tools revealed. There was a stack of tarot cards, a crystal ball, tea leaves and teacups, a spirit board, a pendulum, and a scrying mirror. “There are many tools used for predicting the future, as you can see, and I would like for us to have a little demonstration.” She tapped a spindly finger on her chin and glanced about the room. “Do we have a volunteer?”
Every girl speared her hand into the air, but rolling her eyes, Sera settled back in her chair. Though curious about whether or not she would ever find her family, she decided against volunteering in class. Mrs. Norton was right; visions were sometimes abstract. She needed facts to find her family, not images to get her hopes up, then dash them when it proved to be something else. It was a waste of magic, and for Mrs. Norton to indulge these girls was most irresponsible and—
“Ah, yes, Miss Dovetail,” Mrs. Norton said, waving a hand forward.
Sera ground her teeth. Of course, the woman pretended not to see her all year, except for now, to put her on display for the gifts for which she was often shunned and criticized.
“Perhaps you can shed some light on the topic and show us which of these tools your people use to glimpse into the future?”
Your people.
Seeming to notice her discomfort, Mary raised her hand. “Mrs. Norton, seventhborns are known for their second sight, not for divination so much.”
“Yes, yes, but her kind are quite skilled in the Aether-related fields. Now, Miss Dovetail, come demonstrate for us.”
Sera’s heart pounded. Her kind?
Mrs. Norton clapped her hands, addressing the class. “How lucky we are to have a seventhborn in class with us. Not many have the pleasure of a live demonstration such as this, of that you can be sure.”
Sera chuckled bitterly; she may just as well have been on display at the zoo. Mary turned in her chair, her gaze apologetic. The other girls merely stared expectantly.
“Well, then. Come forward, Miss Dovetail. We haven’t all day,” Mrs. Norton said.
