Page 27 of Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“ A nd did you accept her offer?”

Morrigan’s question rebounded off the coastal rock shining with seawater while we descended to the crypt. I’d been recounting the entire day’s events to her and Josephine as we’d made our journey from the laboratory tower. Sonia had sent me home at a reasonable hour after I’d cleaned the gore and blood from her dining room. My dress still bore the darkened stains. Every now and then I’d catch the scent of them, faint and fading, but carried all this way home with me.

I could not wait for Morrigan to drag them out. Part of me wished she could banish the memories, too.

“Of course I did, I would’ve been a fool not to.” We continued downward, occasionally splashing through puddles collecting in the weathered rock. “May I ask why we’re all gathering down here?” When a shiver rattled through me, Morrigan reached behind her to grab my hand, warming me up while she towed me along. The chill of the ruins had settled into my bones for the night. Under the earth like this, it seemed even more impossible to shake its merciless touch.

“You’ll see soon enough,” Josephine promised.

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”

“Did she give any hint of who might mentor you?” Morrigan asked, taking hold of our conversation again. Her blood-warmth seeped into me, lapped at my veins like steamy bathwater.

“I didn’t ask,” I admitted. “It happened so quickly, and I was still shaken from what she’d done to that poor man. I just…I figured if she was offering me the promise of a blood alchemist’s education, I should take it. She mentioned starting in the castle’s library, so… If it gets me closer to her, then I’ll do anything. We have only a few days left.”

Morrigan squeezed my fingers in reassurance. You’ve done everything you can.

It’s not enough , I answered, whispering it into her mind. I couldn’t even bear it, listening to her talk about killing you.

“I do wonder why she hasn’t helped anyone from her coven to pursue alchemy if she is so desperate,” Morrigan said aloud.

“They’re all rather dim-witted,” I answered. “None of them would have the kind of focus for the discipline. They kill for sport and get bored easily. I’m not surprised in the least.”

Josephine scoffed. “She’s afraid of alchemists,” she said. “And she knows that killing me won’t break the daylight curse. We used our matriarch’s blood—what was left, after she stole it for her sinister crafting. The alchemy is unbreakable. Even if she forced the hand of another blood alchemist with her tricks, it wouldn’t get her anywhere. No one else has the skill to break it. They won’t touch the grimoires Bella and I pulled it from.”

“Well,” I drawled. We came to the torch-lit doors, and Morrigan pushed one open. “That’s likely why she wants you kept alive.”

Josephine’s peal of laughter dripped with sarcasm. “That’s what she thinks. She won’t be getting a drop of blood from me. Won’t be getting her demonic sorcery in me, either.”

We followed Morrigan through the cavern to the arched doorway recessed into the shadows. Gwen and Clarabella waited for us in the antechamber beyond—another windowless room with bat-etched pillars and torches blazing in alchemical-white flames. I had never been back here in all the times we’d used the crypt for training. But it appeared to have all sorts of purposes. Wooden crates stacked in a corner, bookshelves on the walls. Storage for some of Gwen’s artistic endeavors, and another laboratory whenever it was needed.

“Elspeth,” Gwen greeted with a smile. She sat on a crate with a dusty book open in her lap. Clarabella hovered beside her, dress shining brighter than the torches. “The murderous old bat has let you out of your cage early, I see.”

“I’ve never been happier to be home,” I sighed.

Gwen and I mapped out another path to the dungeons , Clarabella said. She wore a triumphant grin, making the pages in Gwen’s book drift back and forth with a current of spectral breeze. But you’ll need to find your way through a door that will be locked.

“We’ll figure that out later.” Josephine dropped two small, cylindrical pieces of metal into my hand and did the same for Gwen and Morrigan. She plugged her own ears with them, and I followed. “No sense in destroying everyone else’s eardrums. Morrigan’s just a masochist.”

Morrigan’s mouth went crooked with a smirk as she dropped them into her pocket. “You can’t be bored of watching them grow back already.” She’d exchanged the protective alchemy for a slim vial. “And now for the culmination of our brilliant efforts.”

“Oh, I really don’t like the sound of that, Morrigan.”

Ichor thrashed against the inside of the vial. Poisonous and dark, the lurid color of crushed berries. Before I fully realized what was about to happen, Morrigan had tossed it back as though she’d taken a shot of tavern whiskey. I lunged for her, pushing the vial from her hand, but the ichor was already gone. An empty glass dashed upon a crate.

“Have you lost your entire mind?”

Morrigan groaned. “It’s possible.” She sucked in a tremulous breath. “If you were wondering at all, it tastes much worse than its scent.”

“Morrigan!”

The last thing I wanted was to draw on my power, but I called it to the surface, prepared to chase it from Morrigan’s blood if I had to. It came to me willingly, as if piqued by the swell of terror-induced anger.

“Don’t.” Morrigan staggered backward but held out her palm. “Don’t touch it, Elspeth. We have to let it take root. I’ll be all right, there wasn’t a lot left.”

“Still enough to be a cause for concern,” Josephine said. And she was right. The putrid scent only grew as it took hold of Morrigan and fed on her power from within. I remembered what it was like when she had manipulated it, and now it was free to roam inside her, to tangle itself in her sorcerer’s scars and creep into her heart.

“But you said…”

“I know exactly what I said, Ella,” she answered through gritted fangs. Her face pinched in agony, her breath turning shallower. “But sometimes we must make absolutely daft choices in the name of our discipline.”

Do you really like doing this on purpose? I asked her.

Also possible , she replied into my thoughts.

“I think Elspeth might have a fair point, Mor,” Gwen said. She chewed on her bottom lip, wringing her skirt in her hands. “Is it worth hurting yourself?”

“Too late.” Morrigan’s laughter was a fragile thing, bitter and resigned. Her groaning finally became a strained whimper, a curse, a plea that she couldn’t smother. “If something should happen and this doesn’t work—”

“Oh, stars above…”

“—you might have to drag the ichor out of me. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Morrigan dropped to her knees, her hands curling claw-like, sweat glistening at her temples. The ichor behaved in her veins as it did in Josephine’s vial. I saw it flickering under her skin, thrashing and fitful as it rushed to consume the power within her blood. She clutched at her chest, another whimpered curse falling from her lips.

I threw a frantic glance at Clarabella, who nodded in silent understanding.

“Now—do it now . Go on,” Morrigan yelled, panting, “before I hurt one of you.” Her muscles went taut. She was trying to fight it, trying to resist its malevolent will. “Quickly, Jo. I can’t hold it back.”

Morrigan lurched forward at Gwen’s ankles and she screamed, scrabbling backward on top of the crates to hug the wall. “I swear, Mor, if you try that again, I will not be held responsible for whatever I hit you with.”

It isn’t Morrigan anymore , Clarabella said. She’s lost control. Josephine, my love—

Josephine threw another bottle, this one crashing to pieces at Morrigan’s knees. The burst of power—alchemy and sorcery both—whipped the flames in the torches, raked through my hair. Gooseflesh raised across my skin. Morrigan’s own blood reached across the floor for her, clear and sweet, a vivid crimson. A ringing filled my ears, but it didn’t hurt. The sound of Clarabella’s shrieking was distant, muted, like a clocktower across the sea chiming the late hour. Morrigan’s body convulsed, her limbs askew under the banshee’s shrill cry. My heart clamored into my ribs at the sight of her, helpless to ease her suffering.

Ichorous blood pulsed in the veins of her neck. She grabbed a fistful of her tunic, each breath sobbing out of her.

I lowered myself onto my knees. “Why isn’t it working?”

It is , Clarabella said. But it’s not going to be strong enough.

The demon’s blood drained out from the center of Morrigan’s chest and rose into the air between us as a reeking vapor, a churning, poisonous fog. The flames struggled to stay lit while the room became wintry from its malice. Morrigan gave a hoarse scream as it left her—one that I felt so keenly I could’ve sworn it echoed in my chest.

My apologies to Morrigan’s ears , Clarabella told us softly. Again.

This time, Clarabella’s shriek rang more clearly. Despite the alchemical wards, I slapped my palms over my ears out of instinct. Contained in such a small room, no windows or open doors for the noise to flee, her primal scream was loud and piercing, disorienting. Its vibration rippled straight through me. There wasn’t any pain, but Morrigan’s ears were bleeding quite heavily, her chin slumped to her chest. She was still upright, mostly, slouched back onto her knees.

I crawled toward her as the torches finally bowed to Clarabella’s might. A last riptide of power, and the ichorous vapor ruptured, thousands of tiny golden embers illuminating the dark. Gwen cooed at the sparkling enchantment.

“It works,” Morrigan slurred.

Taking her face gently into my hands, a breath hissed through my teeth. The blood leaking from her ears had ceased, but her skin had chilled. I was so preoccupied with needing to feel her pulse under my fingers that, for perhaps the first time, I wasn’t led astray by her scent, by my hunger.

Josephine nodded. “Just not loud enough. We’ll work on that, but it’s a start, isn’t it? Need more volume, but now we know for sure that Bella’s power can be transmuted.”

“You’re fresh out of demon’s blood,” Gwen reminded.

“Doesn’t matter.” Josephine clapped her hands together. “ We’ve done it . You realize what this means ? Thousands of years from now, sorcerers and alchemists will be studying what we’ve just done. Our precise methods, our daring to temper alchemy with blood sorcery… The possibilities are endless, the potential… By the bloody stars, this could change everything .”

Clarabella grinned. You are atrociously adorable when you’re excited, my dear heart .

“Cold,” Morrigan breathed. “I feel frostbitten from the inside.”

“Let’s see if I can manage it.” I dabbed at the sticky blood on her earlobe, wincing. “And get you warmed up.”

I recoiled at the ice that I met in her veins the moment I let a tendril of sorcery touch her blood. She might as well have been a corpse. Only a little bit of demon’s blood, but it had wreaked its own havoc. Morrigan was trembling so badly her muscles seized up again.

She could do this without a second thought. I, on the other hand, had to focus.

Easier said than done.

You’ll hear me better like this. I spoke into her thoughts. How is the pain?

Fading , she answered. Slowly. I can’t hear a stars-damned thing otherwise. What’s Jo saying?

Just breathe, I told her. Relax.

Sliding my palms down to her shoulders, I moved along her arms, massaging her stiffened limbs until her hands were clasped in mine. I shuddered with the next caress of her blood but didn’t let go, willing my body’s warmth into hers. Willing my barely-controlled calm to become her own. Slowly, her tension eased, her heart listened and matched my cadence.

She sighed in relief, collapsing into my embrace when the heat returned to her veins. You’re getting much better.

Let’s hope that your ears heal before midnight claims you. Unease twisted inside me, a knot pulled tight. Please don’t do something so terribly foolish again.

Morrigan’s silence did not unfurl the dreadful uncertainty, an unrequited promise. The quiet she’d left behind seemed to burn against my ears, louder than a banshee’s shrieking.