Page 38 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)

Thirty-Six

Rose

It’s pitch black and I can feel the panic rising in my throat.

Then my eyes begin to adjust and I realize there’s a lantern, dim but burning steadily, about twenty feet away.

I was on the fourth floor. But the corridor, the moonlight, Drake’s voice, that’s all gone. Now it’s just me and the lantern and a sudden, absolute certainty that I’m not in the present anymore.

Shapes start to come into view and I see that I’m in a windowless room.

There’s a door behind the lantern. It’s old, the wood warped and splitting around enormous iron hinges.

The kind of door that once kept out wolves.

No sound from beyond it. I walk slowly to the lantern because that’s what you do when you’re alone in a dark place, make for the only light, like a moth.

Okay, let’s assess.

I’ve quantum-leaped into somewhere, or some when. Unless I’m wrong, which is very much still a possibility , the original contract will be here. Except there’s nothing here. So what’s the plan?

The plan, obviously, is to open the door. I reach for it, and the moment my fingers make contact, I feel the bloodmark on my arm burn.

I open it to see the figure standing in the doorway.

She’s dressed in a white linen gown, cinched at the waist with a cord that looks like it’s made from horsehair. Her hair is long, unbound, black as midnight, and falling in heavy waves down her back. She moves into the lantern light with slow steps.

My first thought, stupidly, is that I’m going to have to fight her. For the contract.

My second thought is: holy shit, she looks like my mom.

The resemblance is more than uncanny. It’s like someone took my mother’s face and ran it through a seventeenth-century Instagram filter.

The eyes are darker, the cheekbones more severe, but the mouth is the same, down to the stubborn set of the lower lip.

She’s taller, younger than my mom was when she died by at least a decade, and less… kind looking.

I’m immediately more on edge.

She stops a few feet away and stares at me. For a second, we just look at each other.

Then she speaks.

“Hello,” she says, and her voice is so much like my mother’s that my knees almost give out. Hers is more formal, with an accent I can’t place, while my mother’s had a hint of a Boston accent, but the tone is the same. My eyes well up, hearing it. I never imagined I’d hear my mother’s voice again.

This woman is not my mother, but it’s obvious she’s related. An ancestor.

She studies me. sizing me up and finding me wanting, if I’m reading her expression right. Her eyes scan my hands, my arms, the bloodmark just visible at the edge of my sleeve. Her gaze lingers there.

“You are not as I expected,” she says.

She’s taller than me by maybe an inch at best, but her presence makes it feel like two feet. The room is freezing cold, but she’s barefoot, doesn’t seem to notice.

“You were expecting someone else?” I manage.

She cocks her head, and for a moment I am certain she’s about to laugh at me. Instead, she takes another step closer. “I expected a witch,” she says. “A proper one.”

Ouch.

“You are marked. The line still runs in your veins.”

I rub the mark, more aware of it than ever, but I don’t know what to say.

“There’s something wrong with you.”

Rude . “I’m not the one using a hair rope as a belt.”

She circles around me then leans into my face. “Your magic was bound. The binding was clumsy, primitive.” She tsks.

“Look, lady. I don’t know how much time I have. Where’s the paper? The blood contract, I mean.”

“Abigail.”

“What?”

“My name is Abigail.” She stares at me. “There is no paper. There is only me.”

She waits, and I realize she’s expecting me to speak.

“There’s no document?” I repeat, because surely this is just poor communication. “Then where’s the Accord?”

She gives me a look that might be pity. “Blood magic is not merely ink and parchment. It is memory, intention, sacrifice.” She lifts her hand, palm-up. “It is carried in the body. In the soul.”

Oh, hell.

“Are you telling me the contract is… you?”

I want to throw up. Instead, I focus on her face, because it’s almost like looking at my mother’s, and I can’t decide if that makes me want to cry or not. “Then how do I break it?”

She smiles. It is not a nice smile. It’s the smile of someone who knows exactly how fucked you are and finds it entertaining.

“You cannot,” she says simply. “The Accord is written in flesh and breath. It breathes as I breathe. It exists as I exist.”

“But there must be a way to break it. If I…” The implications of what she’s telling me are suddenly crystal clear. If the contract is her, if she’s the living embodiment of the Accord, then to break it I’d have to… “Kill you,” I whisper.

“An impossible task, even if your magic hadn’t been tied and stunted.” A bitter odor wafts from her, like wormwood. “I am bound here, between moments, neither living nor dead. The Coven’s magic ensures my continuation. I am the price paid, the sacrifice made, the promise kept.”

My legs feel weak. I came here thinking I’d find a piece of paper to burn or tear up, and I’d be free.

I’d save my life and take down the Coven.

So stupid. So very very stupid. I could have had two more years at least. Now Wickersly is probably going to eviscerate me on the spot the minute she lays her hands on me.

I close my eyes and I think of my mother.

I think of Drake, who was counting on me to break the Accord. I failed.

“Please,” I whisper, and I don’t know who I’m saying it to. Not the witch in front of me. Maybe God, or the universe, or whoever is listening.

“Begging won’t help,” she says, scornfully. “You cannot kill me.”

Even if I were powerful enough to do it—which I am at least smart enough to know that I’m not—I’m not capable of murder. Not even to save my own life. “I know,” I say.

She laughs, the sound harsh and loud in the quiet space. “Foolish child. You should never have come. The arrogance of youth is a curse.”

“But if she hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have been able to find you.”

The voice comes from behind me, out of the shadows, startling us both. I whirl around but it’s too dark to see. Until…

He steps closer to the lantern, into the light. A man, tall and dark, no one I’ve ever met.

“You!” Abigail hisses.

The man moves closer, and I see that he’s handsome. Dark hair falls over eyes that glint gold in the lamp light. Broad shoulders.

He ignores me completely, his attention fixed on Abigail.

“Helena sends her regards,” he says to Abigail, and his voice is smooth as single malt scotch.

Abigail backs away from him, and for the first time since I’ve met her, all of five minutes, she looks uncertain. “You cannot be here.”

“Without the right bloodline, yes, I’m aware.

” He examines his nails like we’re having a casual conversation at a coffee shop.

“But as you can see, I found a way around that little restriction. Thank you for the assist, Rose. I’ve been trying to reach this particular pocket of time forever.

” He finally looks at me, and something about his gaze, the way he looks at me like he’s seeing through to my soul makes me shiver.

And it triggers a memory. The man on the bus the night I came to the academy. It’s him.

I take a step back, instinctively putting distance between myself and whatever the hell is happening here. “Who are you?”

“That’s a complicated question. Let’s just say I’m someone with a vested interest in seeing the Accord dissolved.” He circles Abigail now. “And Rose may not be able to kill you…”

Well, fuck.

I don’t give myself time to think about what I’m about to do. I use everything I can to hurl my magic at him, bloodmark searing as I try to knock the dagger away.

For an instant, it works. The blade shudders in his grip. But then he buries it in Abigail’s chest, and her shriek tears through me like it’s my own.

“But I can,” he says, as he pulls out the blade.

And then the lantern goes out, and I’m swallowed whole by the darkness.