Page 85 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

I stared at him, and his mouth twisted.

“The witch,” he continued. “She’s still on the hunt. Still looking for powerful magic to take for her own. If you take on the power your parents left for you?—”

“Then she’ll come for me next.”

“I care for you very deeply, Evangeline,” Marcus said. “I never had any children of my own. You’re a remarkable young woman, and it’s been a privilege to watch you grow. I have to admit that I am truly worried about what will happen when you unite the pieces of the ascendancy array and come into your own.”

He reached out a wrinkled hand for mine, but I stood up, out of reach.

“If she tries to come for me, she’d better be prepared for one hell of a fight.”

28

GABRIEL

The next morning, Evangeline, Marcus and I crammed ourselves into Marcus’s horrific truck, which I had been informed was named Floyd. Floyd had presumably once been green, but half of the chassis had been replaced, and the original pieces were mottled with rust like an autumn leaf. There seemed to be a small thyme plant growing on the dashboard. When we approached the truck, Marcus patted its door affectionately, and the interior warped and contorted until there was a narrow third seat between the driver’s seat and the passenger side.

The interior of the car smelled strongly of sweetgrass and artificial strawberry flavoring. The seats were covered with the fabric used on public buses, and one of the cupholders was full of candy. I was in the unenviable position of being the only one in a situation who recognized that anything about it was unusual. I was also in the much less comfortable position created by the middle seat. Evangeline, with her red-rimmed eyes and flat expression, seemed like she needed every scrap of comfort she could get, so I braced myself and settled awkwardly into the narrow center seat.

The truck rattled along country roads, and Marcus hummed along to the stereo. While Evangeline stared out the window at the trees rushing past, Marcus treated me to an astoundingly thorough but mercifully brief lecture about how Jethro Tull was massively underrated.

It always surprised me how abruptly Eldoria ended. The city was dense, and it felt massive while you were there, but if you went forty minutes in any direction you would wind up in the countryside amazingly quickly. There was no urban sprawl, no suburbs, no belt of strip malls and hotels. Once you left the city, you were just in the woods, like the city was a surprise the trees had decided to keep hidden from prying eyes.

Our destination was barely an hour from the manor, but it felt as though it was in a completely different world. Marcus pulled off the main road and onto a poorly maintained narrow strip of pavement that zigzagged up the side of one of the small mountains. Frost heaves had done their work on the cracked surface of the road, making it wildly bumpy. We wended our way upwards to the peak; Floyd jostling and rattling as we went.

The top of the mountain—it was too small to really deserve that title—had been cut bare some time ago, although saplings were doing their best to reclaim the territory. The charred remains of a house stood in the center of the clearing. Most of it was unrecognizable, collapsed in on itself and overgrown with opportunistic vines, but here and there were glimpses of the lives that had been here. The end of a brass curtain rod, a faded throw pillow torn open by wildlife, its filling taken away for nesting material. A chunk of wall remained stubbornly upright, trying, and failing, to shelter a pot-bellied wood stove from the elements. The rusted remains of a sedan was parked at the end of the narrow road. A little pond, ringed with smooth, round stones, had been dug into one side of the yard, a safe distance from the rust-fuzzed swing set half hidden between young trees.

Evangeline looked out of the windshield with grim intensity. I had seen that look on her before. It was the one she wore when she was focusing on clues above all else, even when she truly wanted her attention to settle elsewhere.

“I haven’t been here in a long time,” Marcus said. “After the fire, I searched, but…” He shook his head, and the muscles in his face jumped as he clenched his jaw.

“It’s definitely here,” Evangeline said. Her voice was worryingly level. “I can feel the last piece of the ascendancy array. We’re close.” She got out of the truck and slammed the door hard behind her. Marcus and I exchanged a concerned look and hurried after her. I did my best to keep some semblance of dignity as I scooted out of the truck, but I was fairly certain it was a lost cause.

I took a deep breath of the crisp forest air. There were traces of dark magic here, old and faint but still definitely present.

“The fire was magical?” Evangeline asked Marcus as they stood side by side in front of the remains of the house.

He nodded. “Either Everard’s Cinders or a modified casting of Willowbight’s Torch, based on what I could tell in the aftermath,” he said, and she let out a pleased hum like she’d just had a hunch confirmed.

“Were there any traps laid last time you were here?” Evangeline asked.

“Nothing that would trigger for either you or me,” Marcus said, “Although your angular friend over there might have a bit more trouble.”

“Gabriel, can you tell if there’s been any dark magic used here recently?” Evangeline asked me, her tone all business.

“Nothing within the past few years,” I said. “I think I can feel the remnants of the fire spell, but that’s it.”

“Must’ve been Everard’s Cinders, then,” Evangeline muttered to herself. Then she spoke again, pitched for us to hear it. “Okay. It’s kind of… loud. The magic here is all messed up. I can’t get a clean read on the fragment.”

“I was worried about that,” Marcus said. “There was a lot of light magic in the house when the spell went off. If all of those wards and charms are still trying to run themselves, even now…”

“Then they might be muffling the signal from the ascendancy array,” Evangeline said with a sigh. “Great. Just great. So, what do we do?”

“Ah,” Marcus said, rocking back on his heels. “I was hoping you would have a plan.”

Evangeline gave him a look that probably would have incinerated me on the spot. Marcus, however, seemed unbothered.

“May I ask a potentially stupid question?” I interjected.

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