Page 65 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

We lay on the blanket-draped cot by the fire, entwined with each other.

Victor solemnly watched the flames, his fingers tracing absentminded patterns on my hips.

He was more at ease than I’d ever seen him, and I could sense the metrical ebb and flow of his magic, mirroring the heartbeat in his chest, though the darkness there lingered, present always.

“What triggers the change?” I asked, careful to phrase the question gently, recalling the self-loathing in his voice.

He inhaled slow, deep, returning from whatever realm he’d been visiting in his mind.

“From what I can tell, any profound emotion: rage, grief, passion. Whatever riles my magic encourages the Drudge. I connected most with rage and grief as a boy—really the only emotions I was capable of. Barrick taught me how to cope with those. When I became a man, passion was a problem as well, and I frightened a few young ladies before realizing it.”

“You haven’t had any lovers since?”

He chuckled. “Passion isn’t a prerequisite for sex. I’m sure you have enough experience to know that. How much passion did you feel for Ben?”

It was intended to sound offhand, but the hint of tension surprised me .

“Surely, you’re not a jealous man, Inspector.” The counter was playful.

“What about me makes you think I wouldn’t be?”

Both of his brows raised, giving me a view of his face that I found even more alluring for its humanity. But I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe it meant he was teasing. Victor had given me no reason to doubt the kind of man he was.

“Ben wasn’t passionate, he was safe,” I replied, rounding back to his question, “But he was also kind. I didn’t love him, but I regret hurting him. He must think I’m dead.”

“I’ll send him my condolences.” Victor’s quip was toneless.

He was uninterested in my ex-lover’s feelings, and the shadow of his Drudge quivered in annoyance, the vibrations of it never letting me forget it existed.

In the back of my mind, I continued to prod at the encapsulation of curses in my own bones, anxious over its lethargic nature.

It didn’t behave how I’d expected it to, almost as though it lay waiting for something. Biding its time.

“What happened after you left Blackwicket House?” I asked, trusting Victor to know I meant the horrible day that had changed us both.

The silence drew on so long, I assumed he wouldn’t answer, but at length, he spoke, venturing into his worst memories.

“When Grigori realized I wasn’t dead,” he said, “he used everyone believing I was to his advantage. It gave him sway over Blackwicket House and an opportunity to continue his experiments on me unbothered.”

“He wanted to make you Drudge?”

Victor offered an affirmative noise.

“Grigori believed curse magic was most formidable, needing a human element to shape it into something commandable, a notion he acquired in the war.” He rested his hand on my waist, warm and harboring.

“He’d been 26, already a high-ranking officer in the agency responsible for creating cursed soldiers.

But the Authority came to power, put a stop to it all. ”

“For whatever good it did,” I muttered.

I gently touched a ragged scar the length of my thumb beneath Victor’s collarbone.

“Grigori thought he was doing me an incredible favor, building me the same way he’d once built soldiers.

When the Drudge is in control, it enhances strength, makes me difficult to injure, quick to heal, but it’s unpredictable and burns through magic like tinder.

His previous attempts needed to feed on magic outside themselves to survive, but even then, host vessels didn’t last more than a few weeks. ”

“That’s why Grigori wanted Dark Hall children.” I made all the horrible connections. “How did you escape?”

He exhaled.

“William.”

The name turned something in my stomach, and I regarded the scarring on my wrist, experiencing such an intense surge of hatred that the curse forced upon me unfolded, curious, waiting to see how far my turmoil would reach. It began a slow climb, using my anger as stepping stones.

Victor moved his hand, placing it over the permanent mark his brother had bequeathed to me in his insanity, owning a piece of me even in death.

“Don’t feed it, Eleanora.” His caution only thickened the venom.

“Good advice coming from you.” The words emerged in a hiss.

“Ellie.”

Victor brought my ruined skin to his lips, placing a kiss on it. His use of my childhood nickname softened me, and my eyes welled.

“I’m sorry,” I said .

“Keep your meaningless apologies.” The words were harsh, but his delivery of them affectionate.

“If you’re willing, I want to hear the rest,” I whispered, and he tucked my hand against his chest.

“Grigori raised the two of us as brothers.” Victor ran his thumb over my knuckles.

“Until I was eight, I had a vaguely normal life. Our father was busy with the Brom, and Will and I were abandoned to our own devices most of the time. We were both scared to death of the old man, because even minor infractions were met with swift consequences. William took the blame for things, even when it was my fault, and always stood in front of me when Grigori lifted his cane.”

Victor’s voice lowered, burdened by the misery of his past. His Drudge surged, and he raised his guard.

I didn’t try to stop him from pulling his defenses into place.

They weren’t mine to dismantle, but I offered him presence, as he’d done for me, turning my hand, our palms touching. I threaded my fingers through his.

“When Grigori began his attempts at transforming me, William protested, and when the protests began making things worse for us both, he subverted Grigori in other ways, taking curses off me when our father wasn’t looking, sitting outside my door in the middle of the night to talk me through wanting to die. ”

He laughed, the inappropriate emotion an alternative to one he didn’t want to express.

“I bet you don’t cry.”

“No. But I’m a weak man, Jack. You don’t want to be like me.”

“After a while, Grigori started dragging me along to see your mother. He thought her weakness might be children like her, and he needed help if there was going to be any chance of my surviving what he was doing to me.”

“He was trying to weasel his way into her heart using you,” I said.

Despite my revulsion for the tactic, I recognized it as one that would have worked on me.

“If you knew Fora Blackwicket brought you to Grigori, how could you stand to be friends with me when my family was responsible for what was happening to you?”

“Grigori was responsible.” He corrected me, the edge of the words kindling with animosity for a man long dead.

“And when I was at Blackwicket House, I was in less pain, felt more at home in my body, clear-headed. You taught me to eat curses when I’d only been able to consume and hold them.

Before you ever gave me your magic, you were helping me survive. ”

I slipped my leg between his thighs, moved our joined hands to guide his arm over me. I would never be satisfied with any distance between us. He paused to enjoy my warmth.

“William and I thought we’d make it, but Grigori discovered I could curse eat, that I’d been siphoning all of his work. He raged, slipped outside of himself, overcompensated—too many curses all at once. You know the rest.” He said, running his hand along my spine.

Yes. I knew. Grigori had gone rabid with fury, crippled his oldest son, and dragged his dying one to my mother for salvation, believing she would take pity and surrender to his plans. She hadn’t. But her daughter had.

“Grigori kept me a year more, tested his theories on how quickly a body melded with a Drudge could heal.”

I sucked in a small breath, aware of every ridge of damaged tissue.

“One night, after a hard course of trials with Grigori, I heard William’s voice.

He’d still been barely able to walk then, so he must have crawled.

He told me our father was at the Vapors and used a key he’d swiped to unlock the door.

It took me too long to leave that room. I knew if I did, Grigori would likely murder Will.

I wanted my brother to come with me, but he was gone by the time I found the nerve, and I was too afraid to look for him.

In the end, my selfishness saved my life, but it cost Will his, just not in the way I’d imagined. ”

I was familiar with this kind of pain. Acutely.

Silence fell, giving way to the waves and crackling of the fire.

We’d both loved people whose familiar forms had contorted into something hideous in the wake of our absence, had lived lives that had led us to become distorted ourselves.

Our pasts were inescapable, and our futures unknowable, fraught with promises of Authority retaliation.

My mind spiraled with thoughts of all the ways things could go wrong, and my magic responded to the growing despair, enlivening William’s Drudge. Victor shifted to look at my face.

I met his gaze.

“What are we going to do?” I whispered.

“Spend the night together,” he replied, his palm cupping my cheek. “Drown in each other until the sun comes up.”

“And after that?”

“After that, Curse Eater,” he said, lowering his head to brush his lips against mine, our magic rejoining. “We fight the tide.”

We drank each other in, Victor’s Drudge making no further appearances, until an hour prior to sunrise when an exhausted, fitful sleep overtook us both.

I stirred as dawn broke, uneasy. Victor rose with me, experiencing the same unrest, and we dressed, anticipating Ramsey and Hannah’s arrival.

He’d closed himself off from me, the stony armor firmly in place.

I didn’t fault him, nor find myself hurt by it.

I preferred him safe. Taking a page from his book, I began gathering my own defenses, difficult with the hulk of the curse in my way.

I’d have to learn to circumvent it for now.

Aside from the slip and ruined chiffon dress, I had nothing to wear, but along with a spare revolver and ammunition he’d hidden away, Victor also had extra clothes stashed in the cabinet from the days he’d forgone staying in town during his visits on Barrick’s behalf.

The trousers didn’t work, but a wool knit sweater covered me.

As I’d pulled it over my head, there came a fervent knocking.

Victor and I exchanged glances, a brief meeting of our gazes to fortify ourselves before we opened the door to the news Ramsey and Hannah had brought with them.

The knocking persisted, urgent as ever, no voices raised.

Indicating with a motion of his hand for me to keep my distance, Victor reached for the handle.

When the latch was undone, the door burst inward, propelled by the violent force of a Drudge entering the Dock House with the chaos of a wildcat.

It crashed into the back wall, scrambling upward, confused, toward the ceiling, where it lost purchase and fell with a crash onto the table below, rolling onto the floor, twisting like an injured animal.

Victor’s Drudge had risen in response, but I put a hand upon his chest to delay the transfiguration. Two Drudge in this space was a disaster, and I’d already recognized the creature thrashing by the fireplace, its limbs skimming the embers, scattering them.

Auntie had hunted us down, desperate and wailing, curses roiling from her in weak strands, spent.

Victor was straining to keep himself in check, eager to engage with the Drudge who’d leveled two attacks on us already.

“Wait,” the pleading encouraged his affliction to recede a fraction. “She was at Nightglass Estate. She took some of William’s curses from me. Don’t hurt her.”

Victor’s brutal instincts made his grip harsh as he grasped my shoulder to turn me to face the Drudge.

It no longer thrashed, but moved in small spasms, breathing hard and fast. The angular limbs softened, shortened, and raven-like claws retreated into nimble, feminine hands scratching weakly at the floor as the body endured the visceral, noisy rearranging of bones and muscle, until it lay still.

The woman faced the fireplace, tattered pink day dress scorched at the hem, battered by magic that had wound it around her cursed form, golden hair tumbling free, ratted by the ordeal and lack of care. At length, she rolled onto her back.

My heartbeat ratcheted in my chest, kicking up a painful pounding that matched the wretched noise that escaped me as I saw my sister’s face. I pulled away from Victor, and he released me, recognizing her as I had.

I rushed to her, stumbling to my knees beside her.

Our arms were around each other, her limbs so slender, her body reduced to little more than bone, and I kissed her cheeks again and again, for a beautiful, rapturous moment, not caring about anything she’d done, forgiving her for every horrible decision she’d made.

“Fiona,” I wept against her shoulder, smelling of honeysuckle and damp loam.

“Hi Ellie,” she said in a hoarse croak, the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.