Page 20

Thirteen

They set out that night with the full moon hanging above them, silent and watchful.

Henry led the way through the thick woods, the light from the electric torch bouncing in the darkness.

The forest stretched out before them, the moon bathing the trees in silver.

Lydia felt a lump of anxiety forming in the pit of her stomach.

If she failed tonight, all her efforts would have been for nothing.

“What if we get lost?” she whispered.

“We won’t. I’ve been hiking these trails for three years. I could find my way blindfolded.”

They walked in silence, occasionally pausing when a sound from the darkness made them stop in their tracks, listening and waiting.

“Are you worried about animals?” she asked.

“Only the kind that walk on two legs and speak German.”

Lydia was reminded of hiking through the Scottish Highlands on a trip to visit Kitty’s family several years before.

They had walked until they were both red-faced and sore, and sat, looking out over the rolling hills of moss and thistle, drinking the scotch they’d nicked from Kitty’s father.

Just thinking about it made the grief rise in Lydia’s throat.

Henry broke the silence. “Can I ask you a question?”

She coughed to hide the tremor in her voice. “Of course.”

“Why don’t you just kill Hitler?”

“Using magic, you mean?”

“Yeah. Careful here.” He scrambled down a steep and rocky hill. To Lydia’s surprise, he turned and held out his hand for her as she followed, steadying her, but he pulled away again the moment she was on solid ground.

“We tried. Several times, actually. It’s not as simple as chanting a few words from across the channel, you know. To kill, you need to be close, and it’s taxing on the witch, too taxing for most of us to even attempt it.”

“And?”

Lydia shuddered. She hadn’t known any of the girls well, but their names had haunted the halls of the academy for months after their deaths. Genevieve Wood. Sarah Marlowe. Gillian March. Juniper Flynn.

“None of them ever came back. After the last time, the council wouldn’t approve any more attempts, and the mission was abandoned. Their poor families. None of them ever found out what really happened.”

“What did happen?”

Lydia’s mind turned involuntarily to the shredded doorway in the warding of the academy. “I used to think they were just unlucky. Now I wonder if he isn’t protected by some magic. Or else…”

Or else someone warned Hitler about the assassination attempt. The thought came to her unbidden, quick and ugly. She imagined Vivian, how smug she’d looked that Samhain night. Vivian, the great Seer, standing by as Isadora’s throat was cut before her very eyes.

“Or else?” Henry watched her, waiting.

Lydia shook her head. “I don’t know.”

They walked for over an hour, as shrubs and trees gave way to limestone cliffs. Henry walked ahead of her, his broad frame aglow with soft silver light filtering down through the trees, and Lydia found herself thinking that he was surprisingly graceful for a man of his size.

She looked up at the moon overhead. Her stomach turned inside her as she wondered again if Henry could be right about this cave. There would be no other chances.

They scrambled over rocks and between trees until they came to what appeared to be little more than a hole in the ground. Lydia’s heart sank as Henry ducked inside, then held out a hand to her. She approached the mouth of the cave and peered inside.

“Henry, I don’t think—”

“Please. Just look.”

Lydia huffed and took his hand. The darkness inside the passage was so total that the light from the torch seemed to be swallowed up by it, the narrow tunnel threatening to collapse in on them at any moment. Lydia breathed deeply, trying to overcome the smothering claustrophobia.

The atmosphere changed as they reached the end of the passage and emerged into a large chamber.

The air was cool and still, and so silent it was as if someone had enveloped them in cotton batting.

Lydia’s eyes struggled in vain against the wall of total darkness.

She took one uncertain step, then lost her footing as the ground dipped under her feet.

Before she even realized she’d cried out, Henry was there, one hand around her waist, the other on her shoulder, catching her midair, almost as if they’d been dancing.

“Careful.” Lydia felt Henry’s breath on her ear as he set her back on her feet, making her skin prickle.

His body felt surprisingly solid under her hands, and she backed away, flustered.

She suddenly remembered that Kitty had called him handsome, and she had to admit that he was, in a quiet, unassuming sort of way.

Funny, in the daylight she’d thought of him as rather bookish.

Lydia stilled her heart and listened. She felt the thrum of something alive, there in the cave with them. It tasted like copper and made the blood rush in her throat. Ancient magic, she realized with a wave of astonishment. So old and wild she almost didn’t recognize it for what it was.

There was a spark in the darkness, followed by a swell of light.

Henry knelt over an old kerosene lamp that had been left sitting in the middle of the chamber floor, and Lydia breathed a sigh of relief as the contours of the cave revealed themselves.

Henry brushed himself off and stood, holding the lamp high over his head.

Lydia looked up and gasped.

Massive creatures adorned the ceiling of the cave, painted by some unknown hand in shades of black and ocher.

Bulls and horses appeared to stampede across the stone in undulating waves.

Great horned oxen several meters long towered over herds of tiny, delicate red deer.

Lydia turned and turned, trying to take them all in at once, marveling at the beauty and the scale of the creatures before her.

“What is this place?”

“A couple of local kids found it a few years ago.” Henry stared up at the painted ceiling in appreciation and wonder. “Their dog went down a fox hole, and when they went after him, this is what they found. Started charging their friends admission to see it.”

“It’s incredible.” The magic in the cave seemed to bump up against her, making the hairs on her arms stand on end. It felt like being in a confined space with a wild animal, powerful and beautiful, and dangerous. “Who made them?”

“I don’t know. It seems like it might have been many people, over thousands of years.”

“They were all drawn to this place.”

“Yes.”

Lydia turned to see Henry’s face as he gazed at the paintings. In his eyes, she thought she saw something like religious devotion.

“There’s more, if you’d like to see it.”

Lydia did want to, desperately. She would have liked to spend hours exploring every corner of the cave, discovering every shape and figure and committing them to memory. But she shook her head.

“Not tonight.”

Henry looked at his watch and nodded. “How do we start?”

Lydia walked to the center of the cave and knelt on the cold stone. After a moment she beckoned for Henry to join her. All around them, horses and bulls were cast into shadows. Lydia thought they seemed to move in the darkness.

“Time?” she asked.

“Nearly midnight.”

“Good.”

Henry looked around. “Will it, uh…hurt?”

“Not at all. I’m simply using the energy left behind on you from the book to project my consciousness to where it’s being kept now.”

“Right. Sounds simple.”

“It may feel strange at first. Tracking like this has a way of opening up a channel between people. You may see things you don’t understand. Memories that aren’t yours, sensations—”

“Are you telling me you’ll be able to see inside my head?” Henry looked as if he were about to turn and walk right back out of the cave.

“Only for a moment. And you’ll be in my head as much as I’m in yours.

” Henry didn’t look reassured. Lydia cleared her throat, desperate to relieve the tension.

“It may take me some time. I’ll need to look around once I get there, to know where I am, and where we need to go to find the book. And, well…”

“What?”

Lydia hesitated. “I won’t be alone. I expect the Nazis will be casting their own tracking spell at the same moment we are. That means when I project to the book, they’ll be doing the same.”

Henry shifted back on his heels. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Neither of us will be in our bodies. If René is still there, no one will be able to harm him. I promise.”

Henry didn’t look convinced, but nodded. “Midnight.”

Lydia reached out and took both of Henry’s hands. His palms felt warm and smooth pressed against her own. Around them, the hum of the cave became more urgent. Lydia let her gaze go soft as she reached for Henry in her mind. He was there—reticent, suspicious, but present, just the same.

The first sensation she noticed was a smell—a sweet, green forest smell, like the woods around Chateau de Laurier, one that reminded her of dappled, dancing sunlight and fresh, cool water.

Then, something else—a stale, dusty book smell that could only have been a library.

Then tobacco smoke. Horses. Cooking smells, onions, citrus, peppers so hot they made her nose prickle.

Then something almost like coffee that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Chicory . The word appeared in her mind like something rising from deep water, then receded again.

Sounds followed. She heard drums and singing, and felt a swell of something she could only describe as joy .

She saw complex, looping symbols she didn’t understand, but knew carried strong magic.

She saw a glimpse of a beautiful, middle-aged woman dressed all in white, hair tied beneath a cloth, with sharp eyes and deep bronze skin.

Mama , Henry’s mind whispered, and Lydia felt a steady warmth blooming beneath her rib cage like jasmine blossoms.