Page 25 of Magpie

I watch Maggie leave, my eyes trained on her until she is nothing but a speck in the distance.

I turn, looking but not seeing the glittering store in front of me.

My sanctuary, and my home, these last several decades.

I thought it would be my reward, my end to a story that was written in so much blood.

I move through my store, letting my fingers trail over the crystals, taking in their gentle whispers and their soft energy. They beg me to take them, to mold them, to create something great and powerful like I used to, but I don’t. I never will. Not again.

Sitting at the table, I slump forward, the weight of endless years pressing down on my shoulders. Unbidden memories of the past, of a life I thought I buried, rise to my mind, and I am lost in the swirling haze of them, like so much smoke trapped in a crystal ball.

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and cup my hands over the chunk of crystal on the table in front of me.

Whispering the incantation, I feel warmth and power spreading down my arms and flowing into the crystal.

I continue to whisper to it, speaking the words of the ancient spell as the crystal melts and takes shape under my hands.

When the last ounce of warmth has left my fingers, I pull my hands away.

On the table in front of me is an iron key with a lifelike black widow spider nestled at the top of the handle, its gleaming red diamond shining in the dim candlelight.

“There you are,” Alister says as he walks into our room.

Coming up behind me, he leans over and kisses the top of my head, and I smile at the gesture.

I start to lean back into him, start to reach for his hands on my shoulders, but before I can move, he has plucked the key off the table and pulled back from me.

I twist in my chair, studying him as he holds the key up in a shaft of candlelight, examining it.

“I tried to make it exactly as you described,” I say, watching him inspect the key, turning it over in his hand. He pops it into his jacket pocket.

“Perfection, as always,” he says, flashing me that dazzling smile.

I give him a halfhearted smile in return.

The effort of creating spirit keys always leaves me feeling hollow and weak.

Each time it takes a little more of me, and each time it takes longer to recuperate from the effort.

I hope, as I always do when I create a new key for him, that it will be the last time.

The last key. That it will finally be enough for him.

But I’m not foolish enough to really let myself believe that.

He will ask me for another one, as he always does, and I will be powerless to say no.

I can deny him nothing, no matter how it might be killing me.

“I should rest now,” I say, massaging my aching hands as I stand and move to our bed.

Before I can make it more than a few steps, he sweeps me into his arms and steals my breath as his lips find mine.

I moan into his mouth, throwing my arms around his neck and pressing myself to him.

It has been so long since he touched me, and I am aching cold in his absence.

“Come,” he says, breaking the kiss and taking my hand in his. “I want to show you something.”

All I want to do is fall into bed, preferably with him, but he leads me from our room, and I don’t stop him.

“I know you have been working yourself to the bone,” he says, glancing sadly at me. “You may think I don’t notice, but I do. I see every ounce of energy and pain you pour into this home, into these keys. I want you to be able to stop, to rest, to finally be done creating.”

My mouth falls open, my eyes wide in shock.

I’ve been the one insisting that we stop creating keys for decades now, trying to get Alister to believe that we have more than enough.

He has always refused, hell bent on growing our numbers, on the need for more strength.

With each new key, every new creation, he grows more powerful.

And with all those keys, I lose sight of him a little more, of the boy who saved me. Lose sight of myself.

He beams down at me, at my bewildered expression, as he pushes open the door to his study. My heart is fluttering, the first tug of a smile pulling at my lips. Is this real? I try not to hope, but I can’t help the giddy feeling that is bubbling inside of me.

“I’ve found a way for us to be done,” he says, a feverish glow in his eyes.

Done. I finally get to be done.

“Do you really mean it, Alister?” I whisper, as he sits me down in a leatherback chair. My hands are trembling in my lap, and I hold them tight to try to keep them steady. Tears of relief spring to my eyes. I hastily wipe them away.

“Of course, my dove,” he croons as he flips through the pages of a book in front of him.

He whispers to it, enticing it to respond to him.

His eyes glow in the dim light, a deadly energy flowing off him.

I try to get a better look from where I’m sitting, wanting to see what spell he is waking up, but before I can, he says, “Each key you create gives us more life, more time, more power.”

He’s speaking to me, but he is focused entirely on the spell book.

I frown, looking down at my lap. He knows how much I hate plucking people out of their lives, erasing their existence just to tie their time to ours.

He swore to me he only chose willing participants, but part of me questions just how forthright he is being with them.

Do they truly know what they’re trading away when they join us?

When my suspicions first grew, I tried to question the newer members of our group.

It turned out to be an entirely useless effort.

Even after they shook the dream state that accompanied the transformation, there was still nothing to be learned from them.

Each key fed into Alister’s heart gives him the person wholly.

Their life before, and their time left on this world.

He consumes it all, erasing it from history.

They only remember their time waking in this house, another one of our creations.

When I first discovered the spell for the ritual, the ceremony that would allow him to fuel us through wicked acts and endless pools of pleasure, I thought I was done at last with creating new keys.

He will not allow me to participate in the ritual, refusing to let a single other person touch me, but that does not stop me from feeling the carnal thrum of power that moves through the House like a spirit.

It is intoxicating, and overwhelming, and I have had to all but chain myself to a wall to keep from joining the throng.

Alister does not want me to, so I do not.

He was the one to discover the variant to the spell, a slight twist in the wording and the whispered prayers to the greater magics of this realm.

He was the one to realize that fear, and pain, and the promise of death are far more powerful than the freedom of pleasure.

It is a powerful spell, and can only be enacted once a year, when the veil between realms is at its thinnest.

I was horrified the first time I saw him transform our creations from creatures of wonder and beauty into things of nightmares.

He promised me it was just another performance, just another farce to display to the masses.

But I saw the way the patrons left our house; I saw the look of darkness that clouded their eyes.

I wanted to protest, to demand he stop, to beg him to be satisfied.

But I knew. Deep down in the dark recesses of my heart, I knew that I was not enough for him.

I would never be enough for him. So, I allowed myself the space he would grant me, growing accustomed to the small box he put me in inside his house.

Inside his heart. And I died a little more every day of my immortal life.

I long ago stopped hoping that his hunger will ever be sated, knowing it will only lead to heartache. Yet as I sit here, looking into the eyes of the man I have loved my whole life, I cannot help that blooming ember of want, of need, of pure hope that I am at last enough.

“I have finally found it—the thing that can give you rest.” He says it like a lover whispering to his bride as he scoops up the book and carries it to me.

With that all-consuming hunger in his eyes, he sets the book in my lap.

I give him a brilliant smile, barely keeping myself from jumping into his arms, so overcome with happiness that I am willing to do whatever he asks if it means we can finally be content in each other’s arms. Then I look down at the book.

The Death Key.

I look up at him, confused. I did all of this to let us live, to flee from the inevitability of the grave. Why would he want me to create a death key?

He sees the uncertainty on my face, and kneels in front of me, taking my hands in his as I study the page again.

My fingers trace the lines of a black iron key with a bird in flight on the handle.

The black-and-white feathers are so realistic I can almost imagine it taking flight and fleeing from the confines of the page.

“This can be the last key you ever have to make, my dove,” he says, his voice alight with excitement.

“What does it do, Alister?” I ask, an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of my stomach as I continue to trace my eyes over the key’s jagged edges and harsh lines.

“It will give us all the time we ever need,” he says, perfectly sidestepping the question. Taking my face in his hands, he tilts my head until our eyes connect. He begins to draw me forward to kiss me, a common distraction tactic of his. He knows I will be lost in the seductive call of his warmth.

Jerking back, I pull away, locking eyes with him as I say, louder this time, “What does it do?”

He snaps his mouth shut, his eyes hardening in an instant as I refuse to flinch beneath his gaze.

An uncomfortable silence blooms between us.

He grips my face hard, trying to pull me to him once more, but I do not move an inch.

My heart is beating faster with each passing second that he doesn’t answer me.

His hands fall to his sides, curling into fists, his voice clipped as he says, “It creates death.”

I am up and out of the chair before I can think, the book spilling to the ground. Alister scrambles to pick it up, holding it gently, the way I wish he would hold me.

“Irina, listen to me. This is the solution. This is the answer to everything. We can take the remaining life from anyone we wish, feeding their years into ours. The world will become an endless buffet for us to feast upon. We can even stop performing, stop the rituals. We won’t need them to fuel us. ”

“Because we would be killing people, Alister!” I shout, taking a shaky step back.

I’m holding myself tight, shaking my head as I stare wide-eyed at him.

I’m waiting for him to tell me this is all some cruel joke.

I’m waiting to wake up from this nightmare.

But he continues to hold the book, his hard eyes finding mine.

I flash him a look of disgust before I whirl around and storm to the door.

“Irina, stop,” he shouts, stopping me in my tracks, my hand gripping the doorhandle tightly.

I’m breathing heavily, shaking all over with rage and betrayal.

I was so foolish to think he had changed.

So foolish to think he would ever be content with me.

I have given him a taste of immortality, and he has become addicted to it.

I do not turn around; I can’t stand to see the monster I created out of the boy I love.

He is behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me to him.

I close my eyes, tears spilling down my cheeks at the gnawing need to have him hold me.

I tilt my head back, resting it against his chest. I try to remember Alister as he once was: the boy who begged for my life, who fought for me when we were just strangers.

I know that version of him is gone. It is truly dead; I just can’t seem to bury it.

“This doesn’t have to be an evil thing, Irina,” he whispers, resting his lips against my ear.

“How is killing innocent people not evil?” I ask, my voice breaking alongside my heart as I spin in his arms and stare up at him. I’m begging him with my eyes to come back to me.

“We wouldn’t choose the innocent, Irina,” he croons, cupping my face and melting me with his gaze. “I would seek out those who deserve it. We would choose thieves, murderers, the truly wicked. We would be doing the world a service. Can you not see that, my dove?”

“I don’t want to be judge, jury, and executioner, Alister,” I say, pulling away from his hand. His eyes narrow, the first trickle of irritation showing in his gaze. I do not back down as I meet him with a hard stare of my own. “The mere thought of it makes me sick.”

“You don’t have to be involved in any of it, my dove,” he says, smiling down at me, trying to gain control of the situation. He grips my hands and pulls them to his lips, kissing the backs of them in turn. “I will do it alone. I will guide the key holder, and you can remain blissfully unaware.”

He is looking at me like he’s offering me some great reward.

Like we aren’t discussing killing hundreds of people.

Even in the warmth of his embrace, I feel entirely turned to stone, cold and stiff, and it takes more energy than I thought I had in me to pull my hands from his and back up.

A single step, but it feels like the first one down a path that leads away from him.

“No.”

I whisper the single word, but my ears ring as though I screamed it. I have never once denied Alister, never thought I had the strength to do it. His brows knit in confusion, like he cannot fully understand the simple refusal.

“My dove,” he begins to say, a placating smile gracing his lips, but my heart is cracking wide open in my chest, and I can stand to hear him no longer.

“No, Alister,” I snap, cutting him off, taking several more staggering steps backward. I turn and flee from his study, fueled by anguish and resolve.

He doesn’t chase me, but he does shout, “I would do anything to keep you alive, Irina. I thought you would do the same for me.”

His words chase me like wolves, pouncing and biting exactly as he knew they would.

I stop in my tracks, thinking back on the night when I stole those books from the witch, the night that changed my life.

Maybe she was glad to be free of the books and their intoxicating power.

Maybe she knew they are closer to a curse than a gift.

Maybe she knew that when I stole Alister from death’s grip, I was nailing my own coffin shut.