Page 12 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)
“You’re awake,” Sybil said. “And you’ve been lying to me.”
Jessamine turned bright red. “I thought I’d have more time to explain myself before you figured that out.”
“The Deathless One sees all.” He had thought perhaps Sybil would be gentle with her, but instead, the witch’s tone turned hard. “Now it is time to summon him.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Jessamine’s pale face turned comically white.
“If you wanted me on your side, then you shouldn’t have lied.” Sybil gestured with her hand. “Come now. I have set everything up for you. All you have to do is perform the spell.”
“I’m not a witch.”
“You were born a witch,” Sybil corrected as Jessamine made her way through the door. “Besides, spell casting is as easy as baking.”
He wanted to snort but feared one of them would hear him. He’d never in his life heard a witch claim that spell casting was easy. It wasn’t. There were rules that had to be followed meticulously. The worst thing that could happen in baking was burnt bread. In spells, it was burnt flesh.
He followed them into a quiet room where peace radiated through his form. A calming spell, it seemed, etched into the wall by a hundred witches who had come before. Even Sybil paused to trace her finger over a worn stone with a sigil marked by a thousand touches.
This was a lesser-known altar room, likely used for training.
There was no god statue here. Only a small altar with a pillow in front of it for kneeling.
Sybil had set up four candles, all black.
There was salt, a small bowl of water, a match, and a bell.
How quaint. An old spell that used to summon him easily, and now he couldn’t care less if someone used it.
But he supposed he should uphold the formality of things. In summoning, the magic didn’t matter so much as the intent.
He could almost taste his liberation. He could feel it strengthening in his body, stretching into his fingertips and pushing through his form. Soon he would be free. He wouldn’t be chained to any witch after that, because he was going to wring this pretty little gravesinger’s neck.
“What do I do?” Jessamine asked. She walked into the room like a wraith.
All the bones in her body stood out in stark relief, the shadows creating lovely hollows around her throat and collarbone.
That pale skin seemed kissed by moonlight until he saw all the bruises forming beneath it. A mottled expression of hardship.
“Read the book,” Sybil said in a clipped tone. “I put it on the altar for you. Just don’t do anything other than what it says, and you’re finished.”
“You aren’t staying?”
“Oh, gods no.” Sybil had already backed out of the door, holding the doorknob in one hand as she shook her head. “He’s terrible enough without having a physical form. I have no interest in meeting him in the flesh. Good luck, Lady Jessamine. You’re going to need it.”
And with that, the witch slammed the door hard enough to rain dust from the ceiling. Then came the distinctive sound of a lock turning.
Jessamine was shaking when she turned to the altar. It didn’t escape his notice that she touched her hand to her throat often when she was nervous. Like she was feeling the disgusting length of his mark wriggling underneath her flesh. He hoped it made her uncomfortable.
But then she surprised him, as she often did. She walked up to the altar, slowly fell onto her knees on the pillow, and then bowed her head and started whispering. The image of her reflected in the single window of the room, a supplicant kneeling in prayer while uttering hymns of need.
He had to take a few steps closer to hear what she was saying, looming over her like the darkest night sky.
“—if you have ever listened to me, please. I need to know if this is the right thing to do.”
She was praying? To whom?
He almost laughed in her ear, just to see how she would respond, but then he saw there was a shadow cast across the altar and stretching up onto it in the candlelight.
He could use that. All it would take was a single flex of his power and then…
yes. Now he was seated on the altar right in front of her.
Legs spread wide, staring at those deep furrows underneath her eyes that spoke of a woman who hadn’t slept in ages.
She didn’t hold her hands together in prayer, instead pressing them against the ground as she bent over, braced on her dirty palms.
Who was she talking to?
He couldn’t stand not knowing. So the Deathless One reached through the shadows, his pitch-black hand formless as he tried his best to scare her. He couldn’t touch her, not without her being in his coven. But he could show her something out of her worst dreams.
But she didn’t frighten easily, not his nightmare. She stiffened and then looked up at him, hollow eyes staring straight into his darkness. “I don’t know if I want you to have a physical form.”
Like she’d known he was here the entire time. Like she had felt him as he felt her.
A stirring rustled in his chest. The scraping of dry leaves pushed by a breeze that threatened to knock him ever closer to her. “All you have to do is summon me, and I will take control.”
“I don’t want you to take control. I just want what is mine.”
“I cannot even be before you without you giving me a form. You need my power, Jessamine.”
She reached for the book in front of her and flipped through its pages. He heard each one, like scissors snipping away at his opportunity. “What are you doing?” he snarled.
“There has to be another way. I know this book. I’ve seen it before, when I bought it from a peddler.” She found the page she wanted and then started moving the spell ingredients around.
She got rid of the match entirely, then licked her dirty fingers to stick the salt onto them. She coated one of the candles with that salt and her own spit before he realized he had to stop her. He had to. This wasn’t right. She was meant to summon him, not to make him wait even longer.
“I told you there was a debt—”
“And I will repay it,” she hissed before crawling on her hands and knees to find that match she’d discarded. “But first I want answers from you, Deathless One, and I will not go another step further in this plan until I get them.”