“How?” I ask. “I can’t see the threads.”
Well, your eyes are closed.
Hilarious. I open my eyes, looking at Beau and Victor. There, I see them, the red and purple and silver threads. “I see them.”
Good. Weave them with the bodies, but be wary: nothing comes for free.
I already know this will deplete my cuff’s magic. Victor told me, and I agreed. After this, I will have no use for the cuff anyway. At least now, Nan’s magic is bringing two people back to their families. It’s what I know she would’ve done.
“I don’t know how,” I say.
“Viola.” Beau gasps. “You’ve anchored to a ghost, haven’t you.”
My glare pins his mouth shut. I don’t want to hear about what I should and shouldn’t be doing. They threw me into the cave of death without a guide and expected me to come out its master.
May I?
“What will you do?”
Take over your body.
How kind of her to ask if she can possess me. “No.”
A window breaks and my head jerks toward the funeral home. If Beau and Victor don’t help Sylas, who knows what Mara will inflict upon him? He may be immortal, but I wouldn’t wish the coldness of her sharp claws upon my worst enemy.
“Do it.” I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for what’s to come. But instead, she laments,All these centuries, and our downfall is still our heart. I don’t know what she means, but I need her to be less introspective and more active.
My ears ring. Victor’s talking, but I hear nothing. I see Victor’s broken smile and Beau’s worried eyes, and I pray to the God of Death this isn’t the last time I’m seeing them.
It happens in a blur. My eyes open again, and now Beau’s and Victor’sghosts are gone. The bodies are still here, unmoving, still cold, and still very dead.
“You call this helping?” I yell at the ghost.
Leaning over Beau’s chest, I listen for a heartbeat. One second, nothing. Two seconds, still nothing. Three seconds, my body warms, and my harness dampens. Frowning, I pull away, running my hand over my abdomen.
It comes away with red, sticky liquid.
My own blood.
Resurrections are divided in two categories: simple and complex.
Simple resurrections are a two-step process, requiring the materialized ghost and the body of the dead.Note:Bodies will come back as they are at the time of resurrection.
Complex resurrections require human sacrifice.
ISOBEL CORVI,DEATH MAGIC, OR A LIFE OF SERVITUDE, CHAPTER 4
twenty-four | sylas
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1939
Mara cuts me faster than Railesza can heal me. Her hideous figure looks like a cross between a ghoul and a skeleton, with the strength of two elks. Haal, she reeks of death and unwashed clothes.
Now I understand why DOTS forbids this magic. I understand why the founders trapped Grimm in his relic, dooming his ghost to an eternity in limbo—this kind of power in the wrong hands would be the undoing of centuries of peace among Houses. That Faro’s Cuff has been missing needs to be at the forefront of DOTS’s investigations. The cuff was already powerful, and now it could be so much worse.
Raiku bites Mara for the twelfth time in vain. Fantastic. Aspier venom is useless on puppets. Her knifelike claws swipe, and I jerk away at just the right time to not lose an eye. It catches on my neck instead, peeling the skin. I throw a punch straight to her face, and she staggers backward.
“Why do you not die, weaver of serpents?” Mara hisses in an inhuman voice.