I whip around, and there she is. My former friend, the only person in Albion who gave me a home when mine was broken. Her eyes flash sickly green, reminding me that my friend is long gone, replaced by this twisted shell. My heart stutters. She lunges.
I duck, but she scoops me by the waist and shoves me against a wall.
Before she moves again, two daggers lodge in Mara’s spine, and she roars, her features melting into something out of my nightmares. Her eyes are hollow, her nose gone, and her teeth are a serrated mess. She reeks of the sickly sharp stench of rot mixed with the copper tang of blood.
My eyes scan the back room, and Sylas crouches behind the kitchen table, a finger on his lips. He gestures to Mara. Raiku holds her legs in place, his fangs in her bones. She shakes him off like a pest, flinging the aspier against the nearest wall. Her head snaps back to me, and I gag. She cages me into a corner, and my eyes dart around for a way out. There is none, unless I push through her.
Irefuseto die at the hands of my sister’s killer. My magic is rooted in death. This is a funeral home with a cemetery in the back. There must be ghosts somewhere. I focus on anything out of the ordinary, but nothing happens. Gods, curse this forsaken magic. What is the use of this torture if it lets me die when I need it the most?
Mara collides with me, sending me flying to the floor with her on top of me. Pain blooms at the base of my neck. Right when I think she will strike me, she gently brushes one of her sharp claws from my temple to my jaw.
I hold my breath.
Gods, make it stop.
Up close, Mara looks like a grotesque piece of art at a gallery of horrors. She bares her serrated teeth, cocking her head. The claw is back again, this time going down the side of my neck. She takes her sweet time, like she’s enjoying this.
I wince, readying for the inevitable tear of skin, but nothing comes.
My eyes flip open to find Sylas pulling Mara off me, slicing a dagger across her dark bony throat. She twists his hand, and the dagger falls to the floor.
“Run,” Sylas yells. “Run now. Don’t come back.”
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I bolt across the room.
Stumbling out the back door, I catch my bearings on the railing, heart pounding in my throat. Victor’s translucent face unclenches every muscle when he sees me. Beau hurries past him.
“You have to help him.” My plea comes out as a raw scream. Sylas may be immortal, but Mara will find a way to torture him.
“Do you have what I asked?” Victor’s eyebrows pull together. Beau glances at him, bewildered by his question, but Victor will need his relic if he wants to help.
“Here.” I pull the silver laurel pendant out of my pocket. He and Beau asked if I could retrieve the spare relic from the Archyr safe right before we left. The pendant dangles at the end of a thin silver chain, occasionally catching the moonglow.
Behind the ghosts are the two metal stretchers holding their bodies. They are as fresh as the last time I saw them, not a wrinkle, not a single hair out of place, and not decomposing yet—Beau’s venom must have been just enough. I stuff the relic in Victor’s pocket, wishing on every star in the sky that stitching their bodies back is as simple as he explained on our way here.
“Are you certain about this?” Beau steps to my left.
My head bobs, but it’s a lie. I am no longer certain about anything other than Sylas won’t make it if they don’t help him, and they can’t help him as ghosts.
“Start by conjuring a single thread,” Victor instructs.
Conjure threads? What is he talking about. “Victor, I can’t learn magic in a minute. You said this was going to be simple.”
He sighs. “It is. I mean, it should be. Year Ones can do it during their first week.”
Wonderful. He’s telling me I’m incapable now. “I don’t know how to conjure threads.”
“In the catacombs, when you threaded the voices to the river,” he explains. “Same principle. Find the threads.”
“There are no voices, and there is no river.”
“Focus, Viola. All ghosts have threads.” He paces back and forth, huffing occasionally, as if it’s my fault he picked an untrained Mortemagi to do his bidding.
I can help. A sudden voice steals my breath. The light timbre of her tone reminds me of the woman from the catacombs, its texture soft and weightless.I won’t harm you,she croons.
Itisthe ghost from Death Spire.
“Bloody saints,” I mutter, closing my eyes and bracing myself for the floodgate of voices to open, but it doesn’t. It’s only hers.