Page 32 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

The bartender led me through a door tucked in a recess behind the bar, an area convenient for the staff to come and go.

Even with my guard up, I could sense how dense yet uncertain the enchantments were here.

This was the source of the magic that fed the people in the lounge, a pulsing tide of energy.

High Tide .

The hall was short, and we’d walked just a few steps before coming to a door that opened onto a scene I wasn’t prepared for.

The space was a dressing room, with mirrors and lights lining the right wall, along with a stack of dressing screens that had been folded out of the way.

A rack of dresses and staff uniforms was pushed to the side to make room for chairs, but only a few of the many individuals crammed in here—men and women alike—were seated.

Most were collapsed on the floor, curled like children shielding themselves from nightmares.

I heard neither a whisper nor a moan, not a grunt or loud breath; simply stillness and the silent release of unwoven curses from the lips of the human vessels they were being fed through.

“Oh my god,” I breathed.

“Just do your job,” Phillip grunted, uncomfortable, withdrawing into the hall as soon as he’d deposited me where he expected I belonged.

I scanned the faces I could see, noting the mixed expressions of focus and fatigue.

It would be a miracle if even two of these people possessed the ability to handle this task.

As weak as the magic wafting to the ceiling was, combined with the poor condition of everyone here, I imagined none of them did.

This is why Thea had invited me here. To help manage this heinous task.

These poor people were part of the slapdash machine fueling the depraved event, and I was eager to throw a wrench in it.

Giving little thought to the repercussions, I leaned near the man closest to me, elbows on his knees, his head cradled in his hands.

When I tapped him, he didn’t respond, so I delivered a sharp jab to his wrist, the hand slipping from his face.

He rocked upright to avoid falling, and the white spirals of magic faded.

“How much is left?” I asked.

He stared at me, dazed. I snapped my fingers in his face.

“How much?”

Realizing I was talking about the curse he was picking apart, he searched himself, “Maybe a quarter?”

“Fine, get rid of it, then get out.”

“But there’re more, I can’t dump the rest on everyone else. Mr. Nightglass…”

“Can go to hell,” I barked.

Relief encouraged him to obey me, a total stranger, and with renewed focus, he returned to the curse, impatient to be free of it. I began rousing the others, each of them exhausted from the ordeal, but capable enough to complete their current task and get gone.

Halfway, I encountered a woman slumped against the clothing rack, a cascade of red hair framing her face, concealing it from view. There was no telltale white wisp hovering above her, and her body was unnaturally still.

“Hey, time to go,” I said, leaning to touch her shoulder. This motion shifted her weight, which she hadn’t been supporting on her own. I caught her limp body as she fell, losing my balance and tumbling to the floor with her cradled in my arms.

The face was gaunt from the early effects of curse rot, yet her chest rose and fell as she continued to exhale faint breaths.

This was the woman with the list who’d stalked away from Thea’s private table the night before.

I prepared to lower my defenses, but paused, considering the potential influence of the curse-born magic surrounding me.

But the power here hadn’t yet reached the theater for a chance to be corrupted.

I opened my battlements a bare fraction, finding the curse in less time than it took to blink.

The hot, ashy shape contrasted starkly with the cool tendrils of unwoven curse magic in the air.

It was already embedded deep in her chest. If I removed it all at once, she’d void—die from exhaustion and magic depletion.

Thea chose that moment to enter.

“What’s going on here? Why are people leaving?” She demanded. As she saw the woman, her face collapsed with genuine concern. “Oh, Cora.”

She rushed to my side, pushing the hair from the woman’s face, calling her name with an affection that alerted me to a connection beyond someone handling their employee.

“It’s not a powerful curse,” I said, “But she’s too depleted. If I try to remove it all at once, she’s dead. I need you to help break it up, and when it loosens its hold, I’ll take it.”

“I don’t know how to curse eat from a person,” Thea said, her exterior calm and collected, despite the hint of panic in her voice.

“The same way you take curses from a non-living vessel,” I instructed, attempting calm of my own, though I held a secret terror in my chest. The last time I’d attempted to take a curse from a living thing, it had ended horribly.

“She has active magic, that’s the only difference.

You’ll have to avoid it. If you get too close, you risk pulling a piece of it away, and she doesn’t have any to spare. She shouldn’t have been doing this.”

Thea glanced up at me, almost angry, “I know.”

We huddled close, two women in evening gowns, and Thea’s magic brushed mine as we both took our places, searching for the edges of blighted magic inside this improvised Curse Eater named Cora.

The going was slow, Thea unsure and cautious, never venturing to unweave too much at once.

The healed portions emerged from between her lips, barely the size of snowflakes.

But the consisted effort yielded results and, like ice melting beneath the persistent warmth of spring, the curse lost its grip on Cora’s fragile magic.

I drew the remnants toward me, Cora’s mouth opening in sync with mine, a distorted echo of Thea’s gift to Coppe.

The curse coiled its way inside, less powerful in the reservoir of my magic than it had been in the barren heath in hers.

It tasted of blood.

Gasping like a woman nearly drowned, Cora sat upright, her ribs expanding until the force of her inhalation arched her back.

She released the stale air, inhaling deeply, drawing in several more breaths of the delicate magic surrounding us as if it were oxygen.

Gradually, her cheeks lost their gauntness.

Thea uttered a relieved oath, and Cora focused on her. The two women embraced, with Thea’s fingers weaving through Cora’s red hair.

“You weren’t supposed to work tonight,” Thea admonished. “I told you to find someone else.”

“There wasn’t anyone else.” Cora’s reply was muffled in Thea’s neck.

As Cora recovered, I roused the others from whatever trance they’d entered to do this work they weren’t built for, trained for, or even capable of. These were people the Brom coerced into standing in for a woman who was no longer here.

As people regained consciousness, exclamations of concern arose over Cora, with a small gathering hovering nearby as she acclimated to her body.

Thea waved them away, helping Cora to her feet.

The redhead was short, barely reaching Thea’s chin, and she met my gaze with eyes green as fairytale meadows.

“You’re the Blackwicket sister, aren’t you?” She said.

There was no reason to deny it.

“Eleanora,” I replied, to a hum of both curiosity and relief from the bystanders.

“Thank you, Eleanora.”

I offered an awkward half-nod.

“High Tide’s done tonight. Go home.” Thea instructed everyone, and they moved from the room, quiet as ghosts.

She followed them, Cora’s hand clasped in hers, until the woman assured her she was fine.

She placed a kiss on Thea’s cheek and murmured something too low to hear and departed.

Thea watched her leave with something akin to regret.

“Cora worked last High Tide, too,” she said at length, answering a question I hadn’t asked. “We have a strict rule against back-to-back shifts like that.”

“You tricked me into coming here tonight.” I pointed to the room, rage emerging from the shock that kept me numb throughout the harrowing experience. “You wanted me to see all of this, so I’d do what William wants and take Fiona’s old position.”

But Thea shook her head, and the feather behind her ear shifted, brushed her temple. She wrenched it out and discarded it on the floor.

“Yes, I needed you to see this. You don’t understand what we’re going through here, Eleanora.”

“You’re forcing people to eat curses! ”

“We don’t force anyone to do anything; they’re here by choice.”

“What were their other options?” I snapped.

“Don’t play righteous with me, Eleanora Blackwicket.” Thea took a step towards me, her own fury darkening her cheeks. “You have no idea what I know about you.”

I intended to clarify that she knew nothing, but that was a pointless argument. We stared each other down instead, each of us trying to find traction. At length, Thea straightened her shoulders, proud.

“You’re right,” she said.

The concession was unexpected.

“Those people are desperate,” she continued. “Most of the Brom here in Nightglass are. When the Authority axed the ports, they lost their way to make ends meet, and most of them couldn’t leave. Fiona poured her heart and soul into this town after that, all the money she had.”

So that’s where the fortune had gone: toward renovations that turned a crumbling tomb back into a functioning Inn, and to a dying town my sister loved despite everything.

Thea was struggling not to deflate, the pressure heavy.

“She opened Blackwicket House, took the curses the Brom collected, and gave them back the magic we used for this sickening circus. She never attended. By the time I got here, Nightglass was prospering because of her. She was always standing with arms and heart open for whoever needed her, never a complaint, never a waver of fortitude.”