by Emma Hamm
The worn oak wood floors fairly glowed they were so clean. Lyra looked down at her heels and refused to give into the compulsion. The shoes remained on. Bones could be damned, and his floors could be scuffed.
Sunlight beamed through a skylight and illuminated the room. Pale yellow walls set off the abstract artwork that decorated them and the tastefully aged furniture. Hand blown glass lamps shed even more light that sparkled in her eyes.
Grumbling noises echoed behind her as the two men turned.
“You have no right to be meddling with my contracts.” Bones silky voice made her skin crawl.
“Contracts? That is what you are concerned with? Her well being is more important than a contract.” Wolfgang sounded appalled.
“Those little pieces of paper are our bread and butter, as you well know. Or have you been buried for too long to remember what it is to be a Lord?”
“I don’t have the patience to argue with you today, Bones.”
“Well that’s just too bad. We’re going to argue. Particularly about that bullshit you pulled when I had her in the swamp.”
“You were going to drown her!” Wolfgang exclaimed as he shuffled his way towards Lyra.
“I was going to do no such thing! The portal was but feet from her when you decided to intervene.”
Lyra tried to tune the two of them out. She was vividly remembering sitting on the leather couch she could see in the living room. Bones made the most incredible bourbon and blackberry pie. She couldn’t piece together these memories with the hatred she had lived upon.
They were soft memories. She didn’t remember anything here being soft. She remembered being a bodyguard. She remembered training in the basement with Bones blackening her eyes day after day. She remembered the anger the training had made her feel. Above all else, she remembered the pain when he had transferred all the magic she had requested into her.
Lyra wasn’t certain why she had blocked out the times when things had been good here. They had laughed and played card games into the wee hours of morning. Not just her and Bones but the other people he had gathered like wildflowers from far off fields.
Freedom had not been part of her life here. But it wasn’t a prison. Yet, somehow, she had made it out to be so in her mind.
A dark hand curled around her jaw and turned her face towards rich mocha eyes.
“Welcome home,” Bones said.
“I didn’t remember it like this,” she murmured.
“You were a teenager. Angry at the world, and therefore me by extension.”
“I remember this place as a cell.”
“Of course it was.” Bones laughed as he walked past them. “As a child, having seen the ugliest parts of the world, any place would have felt too small for you. And then to give you all that power… You were a cyclone contained in a mason jar.”
She supposed that was as accurate a description as anyone could make for her. Troubled by memories she had suppressed, Lyra wandered into the living room with the two men. It was as warm as she now remembered it.
Leather furniture was strewn atop an oriental rug. The centerpiece was a large fireplace created by riverstones that stretched to the ceiling. She wandered over to run her hands along the rocks. A mantel piece of aged wood held antique masks and jars of magical light.
How had she forgotten this place? This warm place filled with earthtones and bright walls should have stuck out in her memory. Instead, she had chosen to forget all the good things. She had painted him out to be a monster and this his cave.
Lyra was nearly struck dumb with the realization that she had spent so many years in anger and hatred of this man. She had expended so much energy in despising him while she had forgotten that he used to brush her hair at night because she was bad at untangling the snarls.
“Am I horribly ungrateful?” Lyra croaked.
She heard the creak of leather as Bones settled himself down in his favorite chair. He had once told her that it was the perfect vantage point to see if anyone was walking into the room. He could protect all of them easier if he saw an intruder before they saw him.
A soft clink of glass meant Bones had pulled out his snifter of scotch. The faint alcoholic scent made another page of her memory flip over. That was how he smelled, like hot cocoa and the finest scotch.
“No, you are not ungrateful. You are selfish and arrogant. But not ungrateful.”
He raised the glass towards her in a toast when she turned towards him. A rueful smile twisted his lips as he tossed the entirety of the drink down his throat.
“You’d tell me that was a waste,” she chided him.
“And if you wasted my hundred year old scotch, you would deserve the scolding.”
“It’s strange to be back here.” Lyra walked over to seat herself next to Wolfgang. The couch was comfortable enough to ease an ache in her back she hadn’t realized was there. Sinking deep into the cushions, she sighed. “It’s like I never left.”
“Well you did. My greatest creation left without even saying goodbye.”
“You did not create me, Bones.”
“Oh did I not?” He tsked. The bones in his hair seemed to move of their own accord to crack at her. “I trained you myself. I provided you with all the power a Siren should have had, and I saw your physical body through the pain. I healed you every night until you came back to us. So tell me: How I did not create you?”
She had no words to answer that. Lyra had spent the last ten years thinking she had done everything she could to become this person. It was difficult to admit that it might not have entirely been on her own.
So instead of answering as an adult, she simply shrugged.
Bones bared his teeth at her. “It appears you did not change. You are just as much a child as you were when you left.”
Lyra was going to argue. She was going to tell him off and say that she had grown. She had grown teeth and claws that could rip and bite into him. Wolfgang’s hand on her knee steadied her.
Details had always been Bones’s strength. His eyes narrowed in on that smallest touch and suddenly his entire demeanor changed. He shifted forward. His expression turned hawk like as he surveyed the two of them.
“Wolfgang,” Bones growled.
It was not a question. It was a demand for an explanation of what he plainly saw in front of him. Lyra would have to remind Bones that he was not her father.
Not that her father would react very well to seeing her. He was more likely to fly off the handle and start a screaming match with her irate mother. They would fall to pieces to see that she was fraternizing with someone who wasn’t even a magical creature. He was entirely human.
“Malachi is going to attack my section of the Black Market,” Wolfgang told him.
A small frown creased between Bones’ eyes. “Excuse me? He wouldn’t dare.”
“Apparently he would. He has already explicitly told me his intent to do so.”
“Then I will fight with you.”
“I already consulted with the cards to see what we will be dealing with. It is not something I would ask anyone to fight against. He is a Void.”
Bones leaned over to pour another glass of scotch. He did not put ice in this glass. “Of course he’s a Void. No other creature would have been so ballsy as to threaten all four of the Lords.”
“I intend to fight him.”
“Alone? Now who has the balls in this room?”
“With Lyra.”
“She’s a good fighter, but she’s not that good.”
Lyra blew out an angry breath and waved her hands. “She is in the room.”
“Apologies.” Wolfgang squeezed her knee. “We do not mean to speak as if you are not here.”
“Sure you don’t,” she grumbled.
He squeezed her again. “When Lyra touches me, I capable of more magic than I have ever been able to do.”
“So she is a Spark then?” Bones nodded sagely.
“Oh don’t nod your head like you knew that
all along!” Lyra shot to her feet. “With the two of you talking in another language, I don’t even need to be here.”
“We don’t mean to not include you, Lyra.” Wolfgang tried to comfort her.
“I don’t care. I’m tired of this. Bones, turn Wolfgang into a Lich.”
Bones stared at her as though she had grown a third head. Wolfgang stared at her as though she had stepped on something foul.
“You want me to what?” Bones asked the question and then immediately drank another glass of scotch.
“Lich. Make it happen.”
“We already tried that once.” Bones leveled a serious gaze at her. “It did not work. Obviously, Wolfgang is not a Lich. The spell failed.”
Wolfgang interrupted them. “Because we didn’t have her. I did not have enough power to become the Lich. Now I do.”
“If you do this, Wolfgang. You will not be able to come back.”
“Perhaps not. But I will save the lives of my people.”
“You might kill them instead.” Bones turned to stare at Wolfgang with those serious eyes Lyra so hated. “You might decide your army does not have enough fresh soldiers. There is no controlling a Lich King.”
“That’s where I come in,” Lyra said. “He thinks I can do it.”
“Do you now?”
Bones leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers before them. She hadn’t noticed how perfectly manicured his hands were. That wasn’t among the many new memories she was discovering. He had always had strong hands. Sturdy hands that were constantly working. These were not the hands she remembered.
“You’re getting older, aren’t you?” she asked with a smile. It was the strangest question she had asked all night. But she was suddenly feeling sentimental that the strong man she remembered was starting to slow down.
“Yes, I am. And I’m too old to be dealing with this foolishness.”
He stood up slowly and planted his hands on his hips. He stared down at the two of them with a severe expression she could not read. Lyra was almost saddened that he wasn’t the man she remembered.
It was so easy to think that they were all immortal. The creatures inside of them usually were. So the idea that Bones would slowly age had never occurred to her. He would always be the strange and magical man who saved her on a street and offered her another option.
He would always be the man who stole her freedom with a signature that had meant nothing to her at the time. But now she saw him in a different light. Maybe he was losing his edge, but she had a feeling that she was now seeing him through an adult’s eyes.
“If you two are so set on this, we’ll go in the back. I don’t want the spell to go wrong and ruin my house,” Bones said gruffly as he turned to walk away from them.
It gave Wolfgang and Lyra precious moments alone. He stood up to follow the dark skinned man, but she snagged his sleeve before he could get too far. Slowly, she reeled him in.
“You’re sure about this?” she asked him.
“It’s the only way,” he murmured as he pulled her into a hug.
She settled against his chest and tried to ignore the ribs that dug at her. He had never really been hers after all. She shared him with death itself.
A hum of power sent electricity dancing upon her skin. “Wolfgang, shouldn’t you be saving that magic for what we’re about to do?”
“I can spare a bit of it.”
He shifted her backwards to offer her a blooming glass rose. The edges were lit with the vibrant blue color of his magic.
“Thank you,” she said as she took it in her hand.
“To apologize for the one I destroyed.”
“Black Magic?”
He shook his head and pressed his thin lips against her forehead. “A little bit of Green.”
The rose was unusually beautiful. She lifted it as though she could smell it and tried to hide the conflict in her eyes. She should tell him that when he used magic, she also felt the repercussions of it. He didn’t know.
This spell to turn him into the Lich King sounded as though it would be far bigger than anything he had ever tried before. He should know that it would hurt her. What if it killed her?
But with the rose pressed to her lips, she chose not to tell him. He would find out sooner or later because his marks were now permanently on her body. She was a book of Blood Magic as much as he.
His people needed to be saved. Malachi needed to hear the message that they were stronger than he could ever have imagined. And without her, Wolfgang was not strong enough to deliver that message.
“We will get through this together,” she said the words but wasn’t certain she believed them.
“Together.” The rose shrunk in her hand and grew a long tailed chain. She dropped it around her head where it settled against her heart. He threaded his fingers through hers and drew her from the room filled with memories. They walked to the back of Bones’ home and helped him prepare for the moment Wolfgang would become a king.
Chapter 12
“I think that’s everything,” Bones said as he dusted his hands off on his pants.
The floor in front of them had once been clean. Now it was covered with horrible things. Blood of a rabbit, ten lizard tails, three human skulls, and the ashes of a dead man ringed in a circle. These were things Lyra had hoped she would never have to touch in her life.
Yet touch she had. Her own hands were now as chalky white from the ashes as Bones’ and Wolfgang’s. The air was hazy with dust that glittered in the dying light.
She refused to acknowledge that they were all now covered with bits and pieces of what was once a human. She would fall apart faster, and she was already holding onto her sanity by a thin thread. This was good. She kept telling herself that over and over again. This was for good reasons.
Wolfgang stood on the other side of the man sized circle. He appeared rather unaffected by the potential changes in his life. His usual stoney expression remained as still as the ocean after a storm. She would have been impressed if she wasn’t so frightened for him.
“How do we do this?” Lyra asked.
The question hung above them all. It hovered in the air and pressed down upon their shoulders. A shadow that lingered in fear that a mistake would be made.
Wolfgang gestured towards the circle. “I will need to be within the circle. Bones knows the incantation, so he will read the rites. Once that is completed, it is up to us.”
“How?”
“Whatever magic and power I have will be used to transfer my soul into another vessel. A safety container if you will. Once I no longer have a soul, the change will happen naturally,” he hesitated. “That container will be you.”
“Okay.” She swallowed hard. “That sounds easy enough. How am I going to touch you?”
His eyebrows raised. “You’ll hold onto me through the circle.”
“Won’t I also be…affected?”
“No. You are not human or not human enough for the spell to cause you to change as well.”
Her heart was hammering in her chest. She did not know whether she wanted to stop all this nonsense or run from the room. Lyra had never been terrified in her life because she had never been close to losing something she cared about.
It was still starting to realize she did actually care about this man. Perhaps she truly was growing up. She wasn’t certain she liked it.
Bones looked over the two of them carefully before he made a gruff noise. “No time like the present.”
They did not waste time on another goodbye. Lyra knew he didn’t need her blubbering over him. He needed to focus. So she told herself she was satisfied with the pat on the head he gave her as he walked past.
Wolfgang began unbuttoning his shirt and stripped it off of his thin arms. She tried not to focus on the gaunt hip bones and hollow of his stomach. She tried not to count every rib on his body and avoided staring at the sharp edge of his collarbone.
“The magic is killing him already,” Bones murmu
red from behind her. “Prolonging his death is cruel.”
“He’ll make it through this.”
“He might.” Bones squeezed her shoulder. “But he likely won’t. At least now you have the added comfort that he would have died soon already.”
The scars across Wolfgang’s body stretched his skin. Some scars were bright pink and others were white and aged with time. Black tattoos overlapped the wounded flesh. She had never seen so much of him before.
He was a storybook written upon a man. A story of pain and hardship that had destroyed a life many times over. It killed her to read that tale but only made her opinion of him stronger.
He left the velvet pants on his legs but toed off his shoes. Lyra compared him in her mind to a spider. All thin limbs and dangerous poison.
A shudder shook his body as soon as he stepped inside the circle.
“Wolfgang?” she asked, concerned that something might already be going wrong.
“I’m fine.” He held up a hand. “I had just forgotten what a circle of power felt like.”
Bones snorted. “Not an easy thing to forget.”
“When you live in pain, this is but a fleeting memory.”
He stooped to settle himself on the floor. Only then did he reach out for Lyra’s hand. Delicately, his hand unfurled in a request for her assistance. He did not demand or beg. He simply held his hand there and waited for her to relax.
She could love this man. For the first time in her life, Lyra thought perhaps she had met her match. So she did not hesitate. She reached across the circle and gently placed her hand in his.
Electricity danced over the part of her in the circle. Her fingertips instantly went numb, and tiny pinpricks shocked their way to her wrist. She did not flinch, as it was not the worst pain she had ever felt. But something must have shown on her face because Wolfgang started.
“Are you alright?”
“I’ll be fine.” She shook her head. “Don’t stop.”
For a moment she thought he might say something. His mouth opened and closed before he nodded. Wolfgang laid down amongst the ashes. He shifted a few times and wiggled until he was comfortable enough to give Bones a curt nod.
