Page 12

Eight

Sybil stood before the tattered portal, holding tightly to Lydia’s arm.

“Great Mother.” Her hand reached out toward the glowing rune, then stopped. She drew a protection sign in the air in a quick, automatic gesture.

Lydia watched, waiting in desperation for Sybil to tell her what to do. “It’s the same rune,” she said. “The same one that was on her knife.”

Sybil turned to Lydia then, like someone just waking from a dream. Lydia didn’t think she had ever seen Sybil look so shaken.

“Right.” She wrung her hands and looked around, as if someone might still be lurking somewhere out there in the shadows. “Inside. Quickly. Before someone sees.”

···

Sybil puttered about her office, adding wood to the fire, fixing tea, rifling through books and papers as she muttered under her breath.

Lydia had always felt at home in Sybil’s private study.

Something about the clutter of threadbare furniture in shades of purple and mauve, the jumbled array of old books and mismatched teacups abandoned on every surface, had always felt comforting to her. Now, it only felt cramped and airless.

Lydia heard footsteps in the hallway. The high council was arriving. The ceremony was less than an hour away.

“Sybil…” Sybil carried on with her fussing. “Sybil.”

Finally, Sybil looked up at her.

“How could this happen?”

Sybil eased herself into an overstuffed chair. “I’m not sure.”

“Who could have cut that door in the warding? Could someone from the outside have—”

Sybil shook her head. “No. That would be impossible. No part of the warding can be dismantled by anyone who wasn’t a part of its making. That’s its entire purpose, to protect from outsiders.”

“But that means…” Lydia saw no other possibility. She felt a tremor run through her as she finally gave voice to the unthinkable. “That means someone inside the academy allowed that woman in.”

Sybil stared into the fire, momentarily lost in thought. She exhaled and looked at Lydia. “Have you told anyone else what you found?”

“No. Only you.”

She nodded, fidgeting anxiously with one of her rings. “We need to alert the council. The selection ceremony will have to be postponed until—”

“No,” Lydia said. “We can’t allow anyone else to find out. Not until we know who is responsible.”

Sybil stared at her. “Good heavens, Lydia. You can’t possibly think that someone on the council could have…” She trailed off, the thought too terrible to contemplate.

Lydia felt a growing unease creeping over her. Speculating felt like heresy, and voicing her suspicions somehow even worse. And yet…

“When Vivian came to see me, she told me she would support my nomination for grand mistress, but only if I withdrew the academy from the war effort. She told me if I refused, she would challenge my nomination and do it herself. Is it possible Vivian could have—”

“Vivian has been a member of the council for as long as I’ve been alive. I can’t imagine she could ever do such a thing.” Even as Sybil said the words, Lydia didn’t think she looked very sure.

“Not even if she thought she was protecting the academy? By returning us to the way things were before?”

Sybil looked deeply troubled and did not answer.

“Something else has been bothering me. How could Vivian, of all people, not have known that Isadora was going to be murdered? How could she not know there was a traitor inside the academy, unless…”

Sybil shook her head. “Visions aren’t always like that, my darling.

Seers aren’t all-knowing, and Vivian…” She paused, uncertain how to continue.

“Vivian is old. Her power isn’t the same as it once was.

She would never admit it, not to herself, or anyone else for that matter, but her visions have been fading for some time now. ”

The fire popped and crackled. They sat in silence for a long moment.

“Someone let that madwoman into the academy,” Lydia said quietly.

“Not just to kill Isadora. I saw her, Sybil. She came for that piece of the Grimorium Bellum . Why do that if they don’t plan to use it?

” Sybil looked thoughtful but did not reply.

“This wasn’t one rogue witch. This was an organized effort, with help from inside our own academy. We have to stop them.”

“I know. But, Lydia, the council will never let you go after it.”

“Nonsense. Half the council supports my claim for grand mistress. If we can sway Alba and Josephine—”

“It won’t matter.”

Lydia stopped. “What?”

“There was a vote, earlier today. Limiting the grand mistress’s wartime powers. No further action can be taken on behalf of the war effort without the unanimous agreement of the high council.” Sybil looked down, twisting one of her rings. “I tried very hard to stop it.”

Lydia sat in silence as Sybil’s words sank in.

“Who requested the vote?”

Somewhere, a clock was ticking. Sybil held her gaze. “Vivian.”

Black despair reached up and caught Lydia by the throat.

“Then there’s no point. Whether it’s me or Vivian, it’s all the same now. She’s won.”

“ No ,” Sybil said firmly. “No, it is not all the same. Isadora did not choose you out of a hundred other girls for no reason. She chose you because she knew that you are what the academy needs. Vivian will drag us back in time, but you …” She trailed off, then looked intently into Lydia’s eyes.

“What if you’re right? What if it’s Vivian?

And then she becomes grand mistress?” Sybil pressed her fingers to her lips, unable to finish the thought.

“It has to be you, Lydia. It can’t be anyone else. ”

···

Lydia stood before the shining black doors of the ceremonial chamber, her heart thrumming like an engine.

Carved roses in every stage of bloom erupted through the wood, surrounded on all sides by razor-sharp thorns, gleaming like the talons of some terrifying creature.

She heard muffled voices and smelled burning incense.

It was nearly midnight.

“Merry Samhain, Miss Polk.” Lydia turned. Vivian was standing beside her.

Sybil had cautioned her about this moment. Don’t antagonize. Don’t rise to her bait. Still, now that they were face-to-face, Lydia felt a surge of fury rise up in her.

“I should congratulate you,” Vivian said. “My sources tell me that before the night is out, you will be our new grand mistress.”

Vivian’s condescension was too much for Lydia to stomach. “Not that it will make any difference at all. You saw to that.”

Vivian cocked her head, a faint smile on her lips. “No lone witch should wield so much power. I’m simply ushering in a new age of democracy on the high council. I thought you would approve.”

Lydia felt her anger rising like a fever. She focused all her senses on that black door and kept her gaze straight ahead, counting roses and thorns, but it wouldn’t do.

“I know what you did,” she whispered.

“Oh?” Vivian chuckled. “And what is that?”

Lydia looked at her. “The door in the warding. I saw it. I know it was you.”

Vivian frowned. “Treason against one’s own coven is a crime of the highest order, Miss Polk. Accusations like yours have ugly consequences. I would advise you to choose your next words very carefully.”

The corridor seemed to yawn like a cavernous mouth around her. Lydia felt as if she were perched on a high, narrow ledge, and that at any moment she would lose her balance and go toppling into the ether.

“When I am grand mistress,” Lydia rasped, “I will dedicate every resource at my disposal to finding out who was behind the plot to murder Isadora. And if I find that you are responsible, please believe there will be nowhere on this earth you will be able to hide from me.”

Vivian looked into Lydia’s eyes. Her face softened. “When you are selected as grand mistress, you will be nothing more than a figurehead, with no more power than you have in this very moment.”

Then Vivian stepped forward and entered the ceremonial chamber.

Lydia stood alone before those shining black doors, heart reeling, listening to Sybil’s sensible words inside her head. Willing herself to put aside her stubbornness just this once and do the reasonable thing.

But somewhere, out there in the darkness, the Grimorium Bellum waited like a sleeping monster. She closed her eyes and thought she could almost hear its wet, rasping breath. It was beckoning to her. Waiting for her across the channel.

The moon would be full again in two weeks. There was still time.

She turned and ran.