Page 60

H e looked just as he had when Ambrose had loved him.

Half the witch king’s golden hair was tied up by a pin, the rest falling loosely around his shoulders.

His eyes were too blue for comparison to sea or sky.

The soft, smooth angles of his cheeks, the curves of his mouth, were plush as silk and idyllic as sculpture.

The crown left streaks of red through his hair where it wove beneath skin and bone, an enchanted illusion of rubies replacing the lost jewels.

He bared his teeth in a smile to wage war for, yet his appearance inspired none of Ambrose’s old passion or yearning. It only made him sick.

The moment he appeared, several things happened in rapid succession.

Emery lunged for the axe Ambrose hadn’t gotten to in time.

The witch king was faster, lashing out with the same spell binding Morcant.

Snaking coils of magic throttled Emery and the other initiates, slamming them into the walls, where they remained pinned like insects.

The percussive thump of their bodies hitting stone and their screams echoed cavernously throughout the tomb.

The witch king draped a hand around the back of Ambrose’s neck and whispered in his ear, “My obedient dog would never speak out against his master , would he?”

The collar twisted a notch tighter, and Ambrose understood the worst was yet to come.

Emery, who had not heard the witch king’s order, twisted against his bonds and growled, “Get your hands off him .”

“He deserves to determine for himself whose touch he yearns for.” The witch king trailed a hand along Ambrose’s shoulder as he spoke, raising the skin in goose flesh, but the collar kept Ambrose from refuting it.

“Has one night spent in his company fooled you so thoroughly? Why don’t you tell him, sweet wolf? Or better yet … let’s show him.”

Emery’s face drained of color. “Show me what?”

The witch king’s fingers swept from Ambrose’s shoulders to paint fractals into the air, a tithe of lavender leaving a sleepily fragrant scent in the spell’s wake.

It hung like an aurora, playing out recent memories that, for all their familiarity, didn’t seem real.

In them, the witch king lurked visibly over Ambrose’s shoulder, guiding him with a hand on the small of his back, an intimate whisper in his ear.

They showed Ambrose hunting for hints of the grimoire through books he’d secreted into his room.

Ambrose killing Morcant, as much at the witch king’s behest as Emery’s.

Ambrose seeking out the skeleton in the cellar and taking with him a single, solitary piece of his master’s spine.

Ambrose slipping it onto his finger in the tomb and the witch king’s spirit pouring into him, piloting him through the motions of killing Emery, only for Valenti to get in the way.

Ambrose taking the grimoire through the portal as they escaped.

Gathering the witch king’s animated remains for the pyre.

Why, in these haunted visions of the past, did it look like Ambrose embraced the witch king before twisting his head until his neck cracked?

Lighting the pyre, eyes shining with tears, only now they seemed in mourning for the king he’d burned.

Then he and Emery walked away, hand in hand, and from the blaze, smoldering parts melted together.

A figure wreathed in flame rose from the ashes, and before his skin became the alabaster it was now, before the soot was cleansed from his flaxen hair, the smoke clothed his body in stains just like the ones on Ambrose’s arms.

They hadn’t killed him that night. They’d brought him back to his own body.

And now it looked as though Ambrose had planned it all along.

The initiates, Saoirse, even Morcant, all watched the play. Most looked confused, scared. Only Morcant looked … interested.

The vision concluded. Magic rained down from the air, removing the screen between Ambrose and Emery.

They looked at one another. Ambrose didn’t know what sort of story his face told, but Emery’s was a tragedy.

He hung from his bonds against the wall, tension leaving him limp with excruciating revelation.

“You did this?”

No. But Ambrose had been ordered not to speak out against the witch king.

The curse glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth, rendering his denial nothing but a desperate thought.

His urge to lash out, to strike the witch king down with the very magic he’d bestowed upon him, was strangled out of him.

He couldn’t even take a threatening step toward him.

He’d watched his tether destroyed in the fire, but evidently it was something more powerful still which kept the spell alive. Which kept the witch king alive.

Emery was shaking his head, a few wild strands of hair falling into his face. “No. No, he wouldn’t do that.” He met Ambrose’s gaze, pleading with him. “You wouldn’t do that.”

Never.

“No? He’s loyal to his last breath.” The witch king walked around Ambrose and tilted his chin in a parody of a lover’s caress. The scrape of his nail was the point of a dagger. “He’s delivered you to me as a gift for our reunion, but still you don’t believe it? He must have affected you deeply …”

Now, it looked as though Emery were the one whose heart had been cloven in twain by an axe. He kept shaking his head, denial warring with what he’d been shown.

In response, Ambrose’s magic, which had been so blissfully, peacefully quiet, growled and bared its teeth. The hunger awakened.

Repulsed by the witch king’s touch, Ambrose managed to wrench his head away.

The collar punished him like a garrote, but he managed it.

Something had changed. The collar didn’t glow like it used to.

The compulsion was strong. It still worked, but the magical stake driven into the meat of Ambrose’s heart had come a little loose.

There had to be some way to tear it out entirely.

“Ambrose?” Emery pleaded. “Tell me he’s lying.”

Ambrose opened his mouth, but it was a step too far. The collar kept him silent.

You know me , he thought. Please don’t believe him.

But as far as Emery knew, the compulsion charm had been broken when they’d destroyed the tether.

“I think you have your answer,” the witch king said. “I wouldn’t humiliate yourself any further by belaboring it.” He paced away, turning instead to the bound initiates. And Morcant.

Morcant knew the secret behind the witch king’s magic. He’d recreated it with Hellebore. Something Emery and Ambrose had said to each other in that tomb gave him the missing piece of the puzzle.

Perhaps Ambrose could trick him into revealing it to them in turn.

He hated to follow the charade. He hated the heartbroken uncertainty in Emery’s face. He hated the witch king. But if he was to discover the true key to the witch king’s immortality, he had to play along and find some way to alert Emery.

“What is to be done with Morcant?”

The witch king cast Ambrose a curious look. He did not trust the redirection, but nor did he fear Ambrose enough to disregard it. “Let’s speak with him.”

The witch king swiped two fingers through the blood still soaking Ambrose’s shoulder and slashed them through the air. The blood wicked into a spell, breaking Morcant’s gag. He sputtered, and while the witch king’s attention was elsewhere, Ambrose cast Emery a wink.

It was as clumsy and awkward as the first time he’d tried, but Emery’s expression slackened with recognition.

Hopefully it was enough.

The witch king addressed Morcant tonelessly. “Who are you?”

“Morcant Van Moor.” The professor inclined his head. “A teacher at this school and great admirer of your work.”

The witch king’s gaze drifted to Hellebore. Specifically, the rune collar on her neck. “I can see that.”

They regarded each other like two vipers.

Could it be possible for one to drag information out of the other concerning the exact peculiarities of their immortality?

Better yet, could they be goaded into ending one another and save Ambrose the trouble?

“Perhaps, if you freed me from these bonds, I’d be amenable to sharing the specifics of my own immortality,” Morcant hedged. “Though different from yours, it has, thus far, proved quite robust.”

“So robust you find yourself at the mercy of a few students?”

Morcant’s expression darkened. “I have returned from the dead twice now, while you were successfully locked away for centuries.”

The witch king gave that reluctant consideration before turning to Ambrose. “You’ve already deduced his methods. Tell me.”

He didn’t compel Ambrose. He didn’t have to. If they wanted a battle of immortal bastards, they could have one.

Ambrose pointed to the initiates still tied to the wall, silent as field mice avoiding the notice of a prowling farm cat. Without mincing words, he explained what Morcant had done with the rats, the spell jars, and his students.

“Phylacteries,” the witch king corrected. “An old, crude method of achieving immortality.”

Morcant’s simper looked more like gnashing teeth.

The witch king said, “I see. Retrieve the phylacteries for me, Ambrose.”

Morcant said, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” the witch king sounded genuinely interested.

“Now I’ve used your methods, destroying the phylacteries alone won’t kill me. I make a better ally than an enemy.”

The witch king had never shared power, and he did not intend to start. “Ambrose.”

Ambrose inclined his head to hide his expression. As he crossed the tomb, he chanced a look at Emery, who watched with a mix of uncertainty and brittle hope.

“No!” Morcant snarled. “This is a grave mistake. When I’m free, I will— Mmf !”

The witch king gagged him once more. “You are a pretender, your power a meagre fraction of my own. Your hold on your daughter cannot compare to what Ambrose and I have.”

Ambrose’s ears pricked to that. What did their relationship have to do with power?

While he turned it over in his mind, he started toward Windsor, who’d been the most cooperative of the initiates. At Ambrose’s approach, he yanked at his enchanted chains, which crackled and snapped, making him yelp.