Page 61 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

Thea’s dulcet voice and sensual magic were already rippling through the corridors as I dashed through murky halls in search of someone—anyone—who could help me prevent this before it began.

But the house was abandoned, residents and guests already in place for the banquet.

Unable to gauge how much longer I had until William expected me to be present, I went to assume my station with reluctance.

After ascending the grand staircase, I followed a faint light into a vestibule, where I found the person I’d fervently prayed to any god who would listen to see again.

Inspector Harrow was positioned in the narrow space, gazing through a cracked door, the entrance to the mezzanine. He resembled a specter, observing the living from the shadows.

“Victor.” His name was an invocation.

He caught me as I rushed toward him, but not to embrace. Instead, he grasped my bare arms, holding me away from his body as though the idea of feeling me against him was repugnant.

Despite my fury, I debased myself by opening my magic to his with no hesitation, tenderly searching for the connection it yearned for. Still, he remained hidden, unresponsive, devastating me.

“You couldn’t resist, could you?” he said, demeanor icy.

“What do you think William would have done if I hadn’t shown up?” I’d gone hoarse with anger. “Victor, he’s insane. He’s going to attempt replicating Grigori’s experiment, with Jack as the vessel, and me as the fucking battery. Somehow, he worked out that I was the one who gave you that magic.”

“Because I told him,” he replied, low. “Grigori had me locked in a fucking closet in an old third-floor guest room, so no one would realize I was still alive. But William would come to the door in the middle of the night and talk to me. He’d asked me what I’d done to make it through.

Our father’s eye was on him to become the next vessel, and he was afraid, wanted to learn how to survive it.

He was my brother, so I told him the truth. ”

I was ashamed of the sense of betrayal I felt when there was no reason for it.

“And he told Grigori.”

“He didn’t,” Victor said, and there was a mournful affection in his voice; love that lingered for someone who’d become unrecognizable. “He kept it a secret. There’d have been no stopping Grigori Nightglass if he’d known. But it appears William was just waiting to use it to his advantage.”

I put my hand over his.

“We can walk away from this. Don’t you have your gun? We can kill William, we can…”

“Half of the people attending are high-ranking officials of the Authority, Eleanora. Even if William is dead, this will continue to go on, more children like Jack will be yanked from their beds and brought to this wasteland to become cursed weapons. That was Grigori’s dream — an army of Drudge with physical bodies to deliver the most effective destruction.

There will always be a Grigori or a William waiting in the wings, and the only way to stop the spread of this is to burn the field. ”

“But you don’t have to be kindling.”

“I want to be,” he said roughly, shaking me once, his cool composure rupturing. “I’m a creature , Eleanora. Half of me is a monster that feeds off human depravity, and I have less and less interest in restraining it. There has to be an end to it.”

I selfishly rejected his desire to be free of the lot he’d been assigned. Instead of wrenching from his grasp, I placed my hands on his chest, but he didn’t allow me to move any closer than this.

“You’re not a monster, Victor. You’re the inevitable, glorious outcome of survival.

If you do this, maybe the Authority will be destroyed, but the Veil won’t be, and your sacrifice will only prove them right.

They’ll toast your death, pat themselves on the back and tell everyone they knew magic was evil, and then move on to wipe out every person like us.

You’ll hand them that victory if you dig your own grave. ”

I’d kept my volume low, not wanting to attract attention and shorten the last minutes I had to persuade Victor to choose a different path.

“I see,” he growled, the menace of the sound amplified by the lack of light, the circumstance of our standing so close at the threshold of a battle neither of us wanted to fight. “I should live so that I might be a looming consequence, a weapon for whichever ideology sounds prettiest?”

“That is the most witless thing that’s ever come out of your mouth,” I hissed, incensed, pounding a fist into his sternum to relieve the fury his willful obtusity inspired. At last he pulled me closer, but it was only to prevent me from striking him again. We glared at each other, my eyes welling.

“You should live because you deserve to,” I said, refusing to look away, venting my remaining anger through my words.

“You shouldn’t die here surrounded by people who don’t give a damn about you.

Don’t force me to suffer your loss a second time, because you can’t be bothered to acknowledge what’s in front of you. ”

The dull light from the banquet hall illuminated half of his face, casting the rest in deep shadow. For a moment, both of his aspects merged, and he stood before me, whole.

“What’s in front of me, Eleanora?” he asked, meeting my ferocity with calm, his voice a murmur.

I was poised to tell him it was me, but I had nothing to offer Victor.

We were no longer children racing bugs through a garden, or competing to locate the smoothest stone to throw into the sea.

We weren’t sitting shoulder to shoulder, hopelessly nurturing untamed flowers filled with curses—a useless idea dreamt up by my mother to distract us from the fact that we were drowning, and that help was never coming.

In truth, our futures were bleak. Victor was right; even if William was gone, the Authority wouldn’t be.

Everything awaiting us involved a fight.

Yet for the first time, I wanted , with all the life-affirming hunger a soul is meant to feel.

I wanted Victor near, wanted the scent to linger, to penetrate my skin.

I craved the warmth and shock of him, the surge of magic that rose in me when he leaned close.

I’d experienced desire in both my body and beyond it, a desire that compelled me to remember I was more than just blood and bones, destined to be swallowed by the earth.

“I want some bit of happiness before I hand myself over to the fate I’ve been dealt. Even a moment of that is worth fighting the tide for. Let life be our revenge, Victor. Please.”

He didn’t touch me again, but his magic, which until now had been restrained, reached for me, but Thea’s song was over, and she introduced, with warbling flair, William Nightglass.

Victor withdrew.

“When the Drudge come, keep your guard tight and get out,” he said.

As he stepped around me, his fingers brushed mine so softly it might have been an accident.

“There’ll only be one window open; everything else is sealed.

Follow Thea and Jack, they know the way.

Then find the thing that makes the fight worth it, Ellie. ”

“Victor.” My voice trembled, but he moved on.

Thea slipped through the door, strung tight.

“Get out there,” she hissed. “He’s coming up.”

I surrendered to inevitability, hoping the resulting numbness would protect me from whatever came next. Thea entwined her hand with mine, but instead of the softness of her skin, there was the cold, hard touch of metal—a pairing knife she must have swiped from a table.

“If there were ever a time to commit murder, I suppose it’s now. I only wish I’d had the strength.”

“You had the strength not to,” I said. With both tenderness and regret for the moments I’d missed, for the chance I’d once had to be Thea’s family, I kissed her cheek.

“She loved you so much, Eleanora,” Thea whispered.

“I know,” I replied, then entered the hall, holding a knife against my hip, obscured by the chiffon pleats.

The balcony where I stood encircled a two-story room of white marble and mahogany.

Twin crystal chandeliers, splendid marvels of gold and glass, sparkled with candlelight, their electric bulbs dim.

In the center of the mezzanine, a staircase ascended, flanked on each side by three-armed candelabras on each step.

Victor hadn’t been overstating when he’d said William had a penchant for the dramatic.

Nonetheless, the gloomy ambiance served a dual purpose, hiding the identities of the High Tide attendees below.

Adorned in lavish attire, they sat at banquet tables spanning the gleaming alabaster floor, its sheen reflecting a golden glow beneath them, like hellfire.

Their faces were additionally veiled by black silk masks, obscuring their eyes and noses from anyone who’d report on those present.

The hall’s only windows, five arranged along the rightmost wall, were veiled by heavy velvet curtains in the shade of absinthe, shielding the covert society formed among the Brom and Authority from the outside world.

Those present, immersed in their own corruption, showed regard for neither the people nor the magic they viewed as chaff for their fires.

William stood at the base of the steps with Jack by his side.

The boy was dressed in a fashion mirroring William’s suit, unruly hair neatly combed in a style better suited to a grown man.

As I came into view, all heads pivoted in my direction, and William beamed up at me, as if I were his bride, raising an arm to present me to the guests.

“Ms. Blackwicket comes to us as an angel in our hour of need. She’s agreed to be here tonight because she believes in this mission we’ve chosen to undertake.

One that will improve the lives of all in this room, including young Jack.

” He placed his hand fondly on the boy’s shoulder.

“Each of you here has already given a piece of yourselves to this worthy project. Your trust. And it’s with my deepest gratitude that I deliver to you tonight, with the help of my two assistants, the product of my father’s vision and many years of your most gracious support. Jack, the vessel.”

Jack pulled a jewelry box from his pocket and offered it to William. Inside lay a bracelet featuring familiar, multicolored facets. This had been the vehicle of Ms. Rosley’s doom, stolen from my bags by Darren, who subsequently returned it to its original owner.

“Many of you doubt the value of curses, concerned about their instability. Yet with determination and practice, they can be wielded for good and are, as I’ll demonstrate, the most potent form of magic.

” William lifted the bracelet to catch the flickering light, and with the poise of a seasoned Curse Eater, he summoned the curse lingering within.

It emerged as a vaporous red cloud, and with a deep inhale, like a gasp for fresh air after a century of suffocation, William absorbed it.

I clutched the low banister, steadying myself.

A gasp of alarm arose from the crowd, calming when William handed his cane to Jack and turned to the stairs, which his injury would make it difficult to climb without assistance. Nevertheless, he mounted them with the ease of a man whose hip had never been crushed by his abusive father.

The guests erupted in awe and applause as William Nightglass ascended to the second-floor balcony, with Jack following obediently behind.

Upon reaching the top, he beckoned me to meet him, triumphant.

Keeping the knife concealed in the folds of my dress, I approached, facing the crowd in a mimic of unity.

It was then that I saw Victor entering the hall through the double doors on the first floor.

He paused, looking up at me with an unreadable expression.

Then he went to work, unnoticed, sealing the door shut in the same manner he’d locked me inside Blackwicket House, stitching together the seams by encouraging long-dead wood to revive and grow together.

If William noticed him, he either didn’t care or this had been part of the event.

I glanced at Jack, the boy standing stiff as a board, his hands clenched into fists.

“Curses, when handled by a body trained in resilience, create strength. My father’s methods were long misunderstood, and his intentions had always been to create a society undeterred by hardship, free of fragility and fear.

And here I stand as an example of his success.

But I’m sure you aren’t yet convinced. Before we continue, there’s a small matter I must see to. ”

William faced me. I thought he sought to take both of my hands, compromising my hidden weapon, but he took only one as though he’d ask me to dance.

“I’m afraid I brought Ms. Blackwicket here under false pretenses tonight.

She’s very private, but this moment is too precious to keep to ourselves.

It is my greatest hope to be bound eternally with this woman, sharing a soul, as well as a devotion that will sustain us for this lifetime, and all the lifetimes to come. ”