Page 11 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Evren

T he ghosts are agitated. They whisper in the silence of the crypt, their voices like the rustle of dry bone on stone. The living world above is loud today, a cacophony of bruised egos and escalating intent.

I trace the lid of an empty sarcophagus. The dead rose was not a warning. It was a truth. I am a walking death. She is a walking cataclysm. We are two different kinds of ending. She understood. I think. Or she took it completely the wrong way, and now she is even more scared of me.

Rubbing my hand absently, the cold memory of the book’s spikes a vivid recollection. The Tenebris Vinculum awaits . I swallow and mouth the words, “Tenebris Vinculum.” What is it? Somehow, it is linked to Lysithea, but I don’t know what it is.

Making a decision that might be considered rash, I dissolve into the shadows and appear in the hallway outside Blackgrove’s inner sanctum, staring at the creepy door that swings open slowly, almost as if it’s unsure of its course.

“Mr Evren,” Blackgrove’s voice echoes out of the room beyond. “Do come in. You are making the gargoyles nervous.”

I look up at the two stone creatures flanking the door arch and quickly step inside.

Blackgrove is sitting at his desk with a black orb of nothingness floating next to his head as he writes something with an old-fashioned fountain pen that he dips in ink. No. Blood. “Why are you loitering?”

I shake my head as he looks up. Not loitering.

His eyes narrow. “What then?”

We lock gazes for a moment, and then I hold out my hand for his pen.

He hands it to me and shoves a piece of paper across the desk.

My fingers, cold as the grave, close around the pen. The inkwell is a polished skull. The blood inside smells of old power and regret. The nib scratches against the parchment, the only sound in the vast chamber.

Tenebris Vinculum?

The words look alien on the page, a deep red scar against the white. I push the paper back across the vast expanse of ebony.

He picks up the parchment, a flicker of something that I can’t define passes over his features. “What of it?”

I hold my hands out and shrug before placing the pen back on the desk.

“You want to know what it is?”

I nod.

“Where did you hear the words?” His curiosity is tinged with something that tastes like caution.

I cup my hand behind my ear. I’m not playing charades with him to explain the book in the library.

“Whispers.”

I nod because it was whispered to me. No lies so far.

“Care to share who whispered it?”

I shrug again.

“I see.” He places the paper on the desk and waves his hand over it. It goes up in flames, and I stare at it for a brief moment before it dies down. “Forget you ever heard those words, Mr Evren. Trust me on that.”

I shake my head and move closer, placing my hands on his desk.

The chill of my touch spreads across the ebony, a rime of frost blooming from my fingertips. The orb of darkness beside Blackgrove’s head flickers. I don’t need a voice to issue a threat. The cold is my language. The silence, my argument.

Blackgrove’s eyes, those chips of frozen sky, narrow. He sees my refusal. He feels the absolute stillness of the grave in my challenge. He is a being of immense power, but I am a walking piece of the void. We are not equals, but we understand each other.

“Pushing me will not end well for you,” he says, his voice flat.

I just stare. I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. I simply am. A question that will not be ignored.

A long moment stretches between us, a taut wire of unspoken power. He is the master of this realm, but I am a citizen of another. Death does not bow to him.

He shakes his head, emitting a low, deep laugh. “It’s a book, Mr Evren. Very old, very powerful, very… black. I would forget you ever heard of it. Dismissed.”

That’s it? A book?

My curiosity is beyond piqued. Why did the book want me to know about another book? Unless that book was the book? I frown as my mind spins around. “Grimoire.” I croak out the word, startling us both.

Blackgrove sits back, his eyes boring into mine as I stand there like a deer in headlights. “Quite,” he says. “Not a very pleasant one. I won’t warn you again.”

He is done talking about this. If I push him again, he will send me back from whence I came. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

“Don’t,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t make me do something we will both regret.” He picks up his pen and dips it, scribbling away again, ignoring me completely.

I turn, the single word I spoke still a phantom vibration in my throat. It tasted of dust and endings. A foreign thing.

The door closes behind me with the soft finality of a coffin lid. The gargoyles watch me pass, their stone eyes unreadable.

A book. A Grimoire.

I walk the twisting corridors, a ghost in my own right.

The living part before me, sensing the chill I carry, letting the shadows guide me, my feet moving without conscious thought.

They pull me towards the restricted section of the library again.

The ghosts are quiet, but their intent is a cold pressure at my back.

The book that spiked me is on its shelf, indistinguishable from the others. But I can feel it. A cold spot in the ambient magic of the room.

This is not the Grimoire. It is the key, and it has chosen me.

Chosen me to find the Tenebris Vinculum?

Where do I even start looking for this damned thing?

It could be anywhere. It might not even be on the grounds of the academy.

The book on the shelf wants to reunite with the grimoire.

The question is why? What does this grimoire hold that the book wants me to know about?

More questions than answers came from my visit with Blackgrove. Part of me wishes I had stayed away.