Page 72 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

The shore where I’d once stood with my sister and dreamed dreams of leaving to far-off places was now where she would rest forever, buried deep in the shingled rocks.

Hannah had spent several hours healing the worst of our injuries, knitting my ribs together, setting and correcting the bone in Victor’s hand, then tended Jack’s nose and Thea’s black eye for good measure as Victor and I began the long work of digging Fiona’s grave.

Thea joined soon after, while Jack sat vigil by Fiona’s body, stroking her hair, until we were finished.

I comforted myself knowing that my sister had moved on surrounded by people who would miss her, who’d loved her deeply.

She’d left an unending list of mysteries in her wake, but she’d also left a trove of golden memories nothing could tarnish.

The girl Fiona had been and the woman she’d become would forever remain two separate people to me, and I would choose to hold her close as the girl who’d held me at night when I was afraid, who’d sat with me on the floor to read books by the fire, stolen sweets from the kitchen, and laughed into the wind sweeping off the sea.

The four of us built a cairn to mark her grave, and when we were done, Thea and I sat next to her, watching the waves roll over the beach.

I was wondering what shape my life would take now that the Fiend was loose and my sister was truly gone, now that I knew I’d never had a father, that perhaps I wasn’t human at all.

Victor and Ramsey had both disappeared, and Hannah stood with Jack near the scraggly tree where Fiona and I had picnics with our mother. They were talking, Hannah pointing to the horizon.

“She was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Thea said at length. “And the worst.”

At this confession, she cast her eyes down at her fingers, which she ran across the smooth pebbles between us.

She was unmade, wrapped in Ramsey’s old coat, her face bare and open, hair curling in the salt air.

I’d never seen her so at home in her own body, a woman allowed to exist as she was without putting on a show to survive.

“Where will you go?” I asked.

“Jack and I will find somewhere, maybe in the community where I was raised. There’s not much out there. Without curses, the Fiend won’t bother us.”

“What about the Veil? It seems they’re in a position to replace the Brom, or at the very least start a war with them. William was pretty certain they were going to be a problem.”

“William did always have a knack for having his thumb on the pulse of trouble,” she acknowledged, then paused, shaking her head. “We’ll just have to do our best. There’s no other choice. What about you?”

“I don’t know.”

I looked over my shoulder, up the slope of the bare, grassy cliff to the ruins of Blackwicket House, the only place I’d ever belonged.

“Will you miss it?” Thea asked, her fingers brushing against my hand in a show of sympathy and in an effort to connect as two people who understood loss.

Misery had brought us together. We might not have chosen each other without Fiona, but we were bound by our love for a woman who’d irrevocably changed us both.

“I always will,” I turned away from the view with a resigned smile.

“I think I will too,” Thea admitted.

“It’s time to go,” Victor called, he and Ramsey returning, their faces grim. Though Victor hadn’t said a word since we brought Fiona’s body to the beach, he spoke now with the authority I knew him best for.

Thea and I stood, moving at the same moment to hug each other. She still smelled of jasmine.

“If you ever need anything,” I said.

“I hope I never will,” she replied.

We approached the gathering of our motley group, and I realized no one among us belonged here.

“It’s not safe for any of you to stay here anymore,” Ramsey said in his brusque bass, “So we’ve decided to relocate you.”

“Ramsey?” Hannah’s voice was surprised, pleased.

“Better to ask forgiveness,” he gruffed.

“Where could we possibly go that this won’t all reach us?” Thea asked, “Are you going to sail us across the sea?”

Ramsey barked a laugh.

“No, there’s nothing out there anyway. What you see there is a line that doesn’t exist.” He lifted his chin to indicate the horizon.

“That can’t be true.” I examined the distant junction between water and sky where ships had sailed. “Nightglass was a shipping town. There were always merchant vessels docking at this port.”

“From where?”

I didn’t know. My mother had talked of other cities far away, but never named them.

“Do you know why they closed this port, Eleanora? ”

“The Authority cracked down on illegal magic being smuggled in.”

“The Authority— our Authority—was responsible for those ships, and they were full of magic, that’s true. Magical items to filter some life back to this place. But it didn’t work. The curses got worse. So they shut it all down.”

“This world is dying, my dear,” Hannah picked up the explanation with a tenderness she wielded well.

“It has been for a while. It’s why the Fiend was so interested in it.

Now there’s nothing left to be done but close it off for good so its sickness can’t spread.

The rest of Elsewhere is already struggling; it doesn’t need this problem as well.

“Is Elsewhere where I’m from?” Jack asked.

Hannah put an arm around his shoulder like an indulgent grandmother.

“Elsewhere’s everywhere we know of, all the pockets of existence floating in Dark Hall, connected by the magic that sustains us all.”

Her tone was pious, and not for the first time, something about her disquieted me.

I looked to Victor, searching his face for a sign he believed what we were being told. He offered a tight dip of his head, an affirmation.

“What happens here?” Thea asked. “To this world?”

She seemed to be searching for a reason to stay, to face whatever odds there might be.

Ramsey cast a glance around us, considering.

“The Authority will let the Fiend do its work, clean it out. And who knows, maybe once the fields are scorched, the magic will return. Grow again.”

“We’re working in a few other pockets, much bigger than this one, that have been nearly magicless for centuries, but are still somehow hanging on,” Hannah said. Ramsey eyed her with long-suffering irritation.

“At any rate,” he said firmly, making it clear he wanted his wife to say no more. “There’s hope as long as someone believes there is. As trite as that sounds, we’ve found it to be true. You’re all welcome to stay if you want, try to ride out the storm.”

He looked at me.

“Though I don’t think it’s a good idea, being what you all are.”

Not waiting for us to discuss or ask more questions, he turned toward the waves, and in a long arching motion of his hand, he pushed aside space, cleaving it in twain, and I felt Dark Hall, strong as ever.

With very little effort, Ramsey formed a Narthex, and I became aware that the magic I’d sensed in him the night of High Tide had been only a fraction of what he was capable of.

Before us stood a portal, dark and diaphanous as any I’d ever seen, but stable, the simple shape of an arched doorway.

“Were you always able to do that?” I asked, angry that it had been so easy.

“Like we said,” Hannah replied. “We get one. One exit. We’re using it now, and you’re all coming. No arguments.”

She motioned for Thea to come forward and stand next to Jack. With a somewhat bewildered expression, the woman did as she was told. Hannah stood at their backs, a hand on either of their shoulders. Jack glanced at me, nervous. I couldn’t reassure him.

“Here we go!” Hannah said cheerfully, marching them both forward into the dark.

Ramsey approached to follow, and Victor glanced down at me, waiting.

“Whatever you decide,” he murmured.

“You coming?” Ramsey asked .

“You’ll excuse me if I have little reason to trust you,” I said.

“You’re right.” Ramsey agreed, scratching his grey stubbled cheek. “But now that Hannah’s out of earshot, I’ll let you in on something. Neither of you is safe, no matter where you go.”

My brows furrowed, and I moved closer to Victor, his body an anchor in this turbulent moment.

“You two,” he nodded between us. “There’s something strange there. Can’t pinpoint it, but word’s going to get around, and there’ll be people after what you have. Here.”

He motioned to the Narthex.

“There. Anywhere you go. But I promise if you come with me, I’ll do what I can to make sure whatever’s waiting doesn’t jump you in the dark.”

When we didn’t respond, he sighed.

“Alright. I’ll give you a chance to figure yourselves out and leave the Narthex open for a few minutes. If you come, you do. If you don’t, well…” He shrugged his shoulders. As he was about to step in, he stopped to offer a parting word, specifically to Victor.

“Barrick had one of these too,” he said, delivering his news as delicately as he could. “One exit. He was planning on using it with you, son, before everything. He cared for you a great deal, just as you were. I thought you should know.”

I could feel the rise of Victor’s emotions. Our connection had weakened, reduced by our exhaustion, both curses and magic bearing no strength to present themselves. But this moment, the deep gratitude of love, the ache of loss, it reached me before Victor could repress it. He nodded his thanks.

Ramsey took a last look around, like an old man departing his favorite pub for the last time.

“It’ll recover,” he said, without knowing, imparting one last hope. “Magic always finds a way.”

He stepped through the Narthex .

I regarded the rocky cairn of my sister’s grave, awash in the pink glow of the sunset occurring on a horizon that didn’t exist, then admired the beach and the cliffs, the home that had made and broken me.

I didn’t want to leave Fiona, but I knew I was going to.

Echoing through my thoughts, swirling along the spindrift of the waves, was her voice.

Oh, Ellie, my love.

A reassuring hand found mine. Victor. Our fingers interwove as he made the same survey I had, before raising my knuckles to his lips, kissing them while holding me in a gaze filled with rare tenderness, the kind he hid from others.

“Don’t tell me, after everything, you’re afraid of walking through a door, Curse Eater,” he said, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb.

“I’m not,” I replied, though we both knew it was a lie. I stepped closer to him, closer to the Narthex. “I have you to walk beside me.”

“Until my dying breath.”

With my sister’s voice still on the wind, we stepped together into whatever future awaited us.

Call me back with your sorrows, and in spirit I’ll stay.

* * *