Page 51

Chapter fifty-one

With a final, heaving slash of the black-handled blade, Lux freed Morana. The thick branch encircling her thighs faded and fell, while what remained of it swayed as if in pain. Lux lurched to the side, unwillingly bowing to the mayor’s daughter climbing up her body until she stood on her own two feet once more.

“Much appreciated, Necromancer.”

Lux rolled her eyes, ducking to avoid another claimed body being hauled through the air. When she glanced up again, it was to see Riselda’s back vanishing in the same direction as the mayor. She pushed Morana’s hands from her shoulder, sprinting after her.

The hall had no windows, and the further she ran, the further she left the reach of the trees behind. There was a peculiar groaning coming from the rooftop, but she couldn’t think on that now. Lux squinted against the dimness, the lamps having been extinguished long ago, but when the first leering bust of the mayor rose up from its pedestal to ogle her, she grinned as she raised her hand.

“Excuse me!”

Lux reeled at the voice, the shards of the mayor’s likeness littering the carpet at her feet. “Morana?”

“Clearly. And should you vandalize any more of my father’s property, I’ll stab you.”

“Not if I stab you first.”

A huff reached her as Morana’s figure deepened the shadows. “Are you following them?”

“I was…”

“Good, I’ll go with you.”

Lux pressed her lips together. To believe she’d once thought Shaw an unlikely ally…

Morana moved past her. “Are you coming? I’d rather not find my father murdered by your aunt .”

The barb sunk deeper for the person casting it. “Your father appeared quite content to give you over to the trees. I’d rethink my loyalties if I were you.” Lux expected the palm swinging toward her this time, and she blocked it. “I’ve no loyalties to Riselda any longer, in case you were curious.”

“I was curious.” Morana rubbed her stinging hand. “She must be stopped, you know.”

“Yes, I know.” When Lux walked past Morana, the mayor’s daughter fell into step beside her. “I’m just not sure how yet.”

Another lengthy pause came and went. They reached the hall’s end, the fork greeting them.

“My father needs to be stopped, too.”

Lux picked her jaw back from the floor.

“Don’t gawk at me. I’ve lived a long, fulfilling life, and I won’t say I regret drinking lifeblood because I don’t, but the terror I felt while Riselda’s captive wasn’t like anything I’ve ever known. And my father did that, repeatedly, to the people of this city. Kidnapped them for little crimes to throw in his prison.” She shook her head. “He’s two hundred and twenty-seven this year. Perhaps it’s time for him to change his ways.”

Those years were too long. He would never change. In Lux’s short years, even she’d learned that, and Morana would too, if she only dragged the veil from her eyes.

“Will you stop drinking it?”

Morana hesitated. “I have another vial. Hidden in my vanity, ready to be unstopped and drank on my birthday, the same as every year as is tradition in my family. It’s why this face doesn’t age in the slightest.” She caressed her cheeks. “I’ve thought—if I make it out of this night alive that is—that I’d gift it to you.”

They were outside the mayor’s study now, and it was eerily quiet within. “No, thank you.”

“Why? It’s already been harvested. Long ago. And it’d be a waste to simply pour it out. Your brilliance should live on, at least for one more lifetime. You might not even need to change your face if you don’t wish to. Not many notice you as is.”

Lux tried the handle. Locked. Morana pulled a key from a hidden pocket and slid it home.

“Oh yes. My brilliance. The only part of me worth saving.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Lux.” Morana huffed in her ear, irritated, but Lux ignored her, pushing the door inward.

The sight of Riselda and the mayor seated in corresponding armchairs took her aback. She’d expected a bit more shouting and a lot more blood. Rather, all she could discern was the mayor, sniveling between hiccupped gasps, as his gold buttons popped from his finery one by one.

“Morana!”

At the mayor’s shout, the gleaming letter opener stilled in Riselda’s hand, ceasing her torment for a moment.

Morana sidled in before Lux. “Surprised to see me, Father?”

The mayor’s blanched grip on the armchair released one finger at a time, his face flushed. “No. No, I knew you’d escape. You’re so strong. I’ve always known that…like your mother.”

Morana smirked, moving around the desk to claim the mayor’s seat. The one he’d abandoned to better converse with Riselda. Or the one she’d threatened him into. Lux rather believed the latter, judging by the mayor’s furtive expression. His nose was in desperate want of wiping.

“Please. I’ve known for a century you had her killed. For her.” Morana glowered at Riselda resting into the chair.

The mayor didn’t bother replying. Instead, his watery eyes darted from his daughter to Lux to Riselda and back again.

“Were we interrupting something important?” Lux remained by the door. She wanted an exit at her back. “Because we have a fairly big problem out there right now.”

Riselda’s face was hidden from her. “Which is precisely what we were discussing. Bartleby tends to run from his troubles.”

“My troubles! You started this mess—the both of you!” He clutched at his ruined shirt, monitoring the letter opener’s movement.

“Don’t lump me in with her,” Lux fired back. “The Rise incantation is a useless chant on its own. It’s lifeblood that caused this. You and Riselda, and your obsession with it. And you need to fix it! Rally the Shield. Send them out to dispatch the revived.”

The groaning from the rooftop shook the very bones of the mansion. For a brief moment they each silenced as upturned faces studied the ceiling.

Lux finished with a whisper. “You planted this abomination of a forest, Riselda. Speak to them.”

“ What ?” Morana and the mayor’s voices unified in equal incredulity and horror.

“They won’t listen. They won’t stop. No one is safe… I can’t keep you safe.” Riselda finally turned toward her, eyes heavy with sorrow. “I’m sorry, Lucena.”

The mad gleam had gone, and Lux didn’t recognize what remained.

“They won’t stop until what exactly?”

Riselda rested her head back, gaze unfocused above her. “Until they’ve taken every soul.”

The mayor’s face darkened, puce with rage. “You monster! You’ve doomed us all!”

The word was directed at Riselda who cackled, but Lux flinched all the same. “We are all monsters in our own right, Mayor. A man who preys on the weak and innocent counted among the worst of them all.”

Lux almost missed Morana’s penetrating stare, rotating between the three people before her, finally allowing herself to conclude what she’d refused for a long time.

The mayor only bristled further. “You were never going to uphold your end of the bargain.”

“I’d sooner rot, to be quite honest.”

With a shout of rage, the mayor flung back his chair, stretching to his full height. “No. You’ll live . You’ll live forever . I’ll dump lifeblood down your conniving throat and force you to perform again and again so that I never miss seeing the day the fight leaves your soul. It will be my greatest achievement.”

When he dodged around Riselda, straight toward her, Lux lunged at the bookcase in want of a weapon, even if that weapon was paper. But the mayor never reached her. He didn’t make it past Riselda’s hand. With shocked eyes, he studied the ax buried in his side before he slumped to his knees.

“Riselda…”

A final heaving groan and the ceiling ripped from above their heads.

The night sky opened, the moon full and bright, its light touching every part of Lux. For a moment, all she did was breathe. Then the moon disappeared, eclipsed by a soaring canopy of black boughs twining inward.

Give us what was promised. Give us what is owed, Lucena.

Lux shot from the shattering glass at her back to dive beneath the desk. The lights had blown out, but even in the shadows, she glimpsed the mayor free the axe from his side—only to scream as he was caught up. When his body lifted from the floor, leaving a trail of red, all she felt was relief.

The scream abruptly cut off only for Morana’s to take its place. Hers was one of grief; the tree hadn’t yet reached her, and still it tore at Lux’s ears. For a similar cry had left her own throat once.

She couldn’t stay here, hiding in wait for her fate. With a staggering breath for courage, Lux climbed from beneath the desk, her face upturned in search of their assailant.

Except, the trunk of the tree had stilled. Its branches curling inward. Inward and out again. Lux shook her head in refusal, thinking she’d made a mistake and perhaps she should simply wait out the rest of her life beneath the expensive furniture. Until she caught sight of Riselda.

Standing, a dark and regal statue, she faced the tree. The smile on her face was serene. Her eyes were closed. The tree didn’t beckon to Lux. It beckoned to her.

The silence pulsed along with her heartbeat, and the boughs wound forth. Riselda allowed her head to rest back, ebony hair trailing long. When the first branch wrapped around their caretaker, it was gentle in its touch.

Riselda’s brow furrowed with the next, tight about her waist, and as the third crept around her chest, her eyes snapped open. Her head turned, and her gaze found Lux’s.

“I’m sorry, Lucena. For the past. For the future.” Her eyes fell closed as the branches constricted, dragging her upward. “Remember me. Remember this: a necromancer can revive more than the dead.”

Lux caught a flash of a coal-black handle and a glint of steel clutched within a pale grasp before the tree opened and closed around the body of the woman she’d long believed to be family. All without a sound. Lux felt the warmth of another who’d not long ago, only ever sent a chill across her skin. Morana moved beside her. They watched together, the boughs stilling, the silver twining up its length until it outlined every vein in every leaf.

Content, it spoke no more.