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It was what Sarlet had once told Fern herself, though of course Josefa had never been found. But this time, Fern would not leave the matter in Sarlet’s hands. She needed only to give Edmund a direction in which to aim all his wrath and terror. She needed to buy time.

“And if Sarlet fails to find her?” Edmund said, eyes flicking to Baudet.

“Then you may seek justice.” Fern’s eyes settled over Edmund, not aggressively, but with the immovable calm of a librarian. “Until then, you won’t harm anyone. Not here. Not now.”

Edmund looked between Fern and Baudet, and for a moment, the alchemical circle in front of him, replete with power, shimmered. At Fern’s side, Dr Essouadi and Vasili Drei had drawn forward, flanking her, forming a shield between Baudet and the alchemist. Edmund watched them, too, coolly, but without moving.

Perhaps he was weighing risk against reward, or instinct against wisdom. The scales were the steely grey ofFern’s eyes, the adamant of her tone, Dr Essouadi’s and Vasili Drei’s silent support.

Edmund’s arms fell by his side. The circle glowed, flickered, faded into smouldering dust.

“Should anything happen to my sister,” he said, voice low and deadly, “I will bring the Poison Tower crashing down upon Carthane and every soul within it. Starting with you, Miss Sullivan.”

“Then I can only hope your sister lives a long and happy life,” said Fern.

She had failed to find Josefa and Vittoria. This time, she couldn’t fail. Edmund’s threat was sincere, and should Fern ever find herself in a position to defend her life against him, the odds would not be in her favour. But she was closer to accessing the Astronomy Tower than she had ever been, and she would not give up.

Edmund, perhaps reading the determination in Fern’s eyes, turned and left the room without another word, without so much as a backwards glance. By the time Fern and Dr Essouadi reached Baudet, he had slipped from the table and crumpled into a pool of his own blood.

Chapter forty-six

The Tower

That night, after she’dleft Baudet in the capable hands of Dr Essouadi and then checked on Inkwell, Fern made her way back to the Astronomy Tower. She was certain she would find answers there. Part of her hoped she might even find the missing candidates, even those the Grand Archivists told them had left Carthane.

And perhaps it was wishful thinking, and perhaps Fern was merely desperate to right whatever wrongs she sensed had happened in the course of the candidacy, but once she reached the door at the end of the tunnel, she mustered all her strength to cast the spell.

The first attempt was strong; the ward shivered but held. Inside Fern, every nerve was a scream, every pain receptor begging for respite. Fern had no choice but to carry on. She cast the spell again and again until she lost track of time. After a while, all she knew was the incantation, the pain, the fire, and the trembling ward behind the door. She felt it shake and marvelled at how easily it withstood the flame that seemed to flail her alive every time she held it.

But with each incantation, she drew deeper within herself. She thought of Josefa’s frightened voice in the darkness, and the scream in the Arboretum, and Baudet’s empty eyes when Vittoria had disappeared, and Edmund’s wrath, which would need answering sooner or later.

She reached deep into her reserves and pulled with all her might. And each time, she withstood the pain longer; her flames grew brighter.

She blasted the ward until it glowed a violent purple, revolting against the assault. Fern’s hands and fingers were raw with pain, as though the flesh had been burnt off and the living tissue underneath it was exposed. The pain of her injured arm from the night she’d discovered the ward seemed a long-forgotten discomfort now, swallowed by the agony of the fire.

Her vision swam and she paused to breathe, to still herself. She sensed she was reaching the bottom of the well within her, and there was only so much left for her to use. This was it—all she had left.

This was it.

She began the incantation anew, calling out the ancient words, her voice hoarse to the point of breaking. She pooled the fire and commanded it to obey her, slamming the force of her pain inwards like battlements, caging the fire.

And then she threw her arms forward and blasted the ward. Crimson flames burst from her hands, drawing a guttural scream of pain from her.

The wall of the ward shuddered and shimmered, turning purple before cracking.

It was what Fern had been waiting for. She drew, and drew deep. She felt her powers stretch and snap, frittered away by the force of the spell. Still, she drew, until the fire was clawing at the ward, ripping into it, tearing it to shreds. At the edges of her power, Wild Magic called, a tempting, replete pool of power. Fern, for a mad moment, considered it.

The ward flickered, glimmered, disappeared.

Fern’s vision went black. As it did, she thought she heard a scream, and it sounded like her mother. But her mother was dead, and had died a long time ago, and Fern was all alone, the way she had been most of her life, all alone as she went pitching through the air and crumbling to the ground.

Fern came to, herface pressed against stone. She blinked. Every part of her body throbbed, her insides smouldered with leftover pain. Her injured arm ached, sending wave after wave of pain crashing into her. It was what had tugged her awake.

With a grunt of exertion, she dragged herself upright. Her bones felt sore and hollow, as though the marrow had been scraped out. She had dug too deep into her source of energy; she dared not think about the damage she had potentially done.

Teetering to her feet at the bottom of the steps, she looked up at the door.

The ward was gone, giving way to a ravenous darkness that seemed to absorb any light that dared touchit. Fern’s stomach clenched, her pulse throbbing in her neck. She was more afraid than she had imagined she would be. The encroaching darkness and the smell of blood, thick and pungent, turned her stomach.