Page 89 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

I climbed out of the car and frowned.

“Can you go back down the road a bit?” I asked Isabella. “I want to make sure the signal’s as clear as possible.”

She nodded, turning the engine back on. “Text me when you’re done,” she said, and I watched her car disappear through the trees.

Now that I was alone, the clearing felt different. Welcoming. The pile of disenchanted items we’d left behind last night seemed almost like old friends. I breathed in deep, and magic stirred up around me, settling onto me like a warm blanket.

“Okay,” I murmured. “Okay, I’m here. Show me what I need to see.”

There, behind the remains of the house, I could feel it calling me, tugging me forward. It was a strong, steady thrum, as easy to sense as my own heartbeat. My boots crunched over the dead leaves and dew-damp charcoal. I curled some of the magic into my hands and threw it downward, blasting the ground clear of debris. Twenty years of dirt and grime was knocked out of the way, revealing a metal door set into the ground. It had the odd, shimmery look to it of something that had been enchanted to be invisible but was allowing me to see it. There were wards all over it, but they opened up for me like they were welcoming me home.

With a wave of my hand, the cellar door opened. The stairs leading down were old but looked sturdy enough, and I kept a glowing ball of magic floating above my shoulder as I walked down into the darkness.

The cellar looked like something halfway between a lab and a studio. There were sturdy workbenches against one wall, one made of scarred wood, and another made of a surface that looked a lot like the tables in my high school chemistry classroom. Tools hung on a neatly organized pegboard above the benches. Some of the tools were easy to identify: pliers in a range of different shapes and sizes, a row of tiny screwdrivers, something that looked like a jeweler’s loupe. A lot of the tools were much stranger, complicated shapes made of brass and wood and bone. A rack of vials held what looked like long-expired potion components, and a burner and cauldron were set up on the more modern workbench. Two well-worn and slightly musty rolling chairs were tucked against the benches.

Bookcases made up the opposite wall, all packed with a chaotic mishmash of tomes. Brightly colored books with thick, glossy spines that looked a lot like the old computer manuals my parents—my other parents, I thought with a weird twinge—had had were side by side, with ancient leather-bound books with titles stamped in gold.

The wall between those two—the one opposite the stairs—seemed so much simpler, but it was the one that took my breath away. There was a large threadbare armchair with a little beanbag chair next to it, and a scattering of toys surrounding it. Anchored against the wall was a roll of white butcher paper, with a length of the paper stretched across the bottom few feet, pinned in place by the bookcases. The paper was covered in clumsy drawings. A squiggly shape that might have been a dog. A sun wearing sunglasses, floating above a house drawn the way every little kid draws houses, and a tree that looked like a green lollipop. I crouched down and brushed my fingers over a stick figure with oversized hands, and a face drawn by someone who was still pretty new to the concept of faces. Its nose looked unfortunately phallic.

I had been here. I had drawn these while my parents did magic right next to me. My little baby hands had grabbed the crayons scattered across the rug and scribbled something that was probably a fish.

I pushed myself back up to my feet and turned to the bookcases. The array was close. One of the shelves was crammed full of books with unmarked spines, weirdly uniformed compared to the jumble on the other shelves. I grabbed one of the unmarked books at random and flipped it open.

It was full of neat, slanted cursive that shimmered much the same as the cellar door had.

Project notes, day 37. We’ve finally sourced most of what we need for the array, although trying to get enough bloodstone dust was a pain. I’m not sure how much time we have, but the dreams have been getting more and more frequent. Someone—something—is coming for us. I don’t know if Evie’s picked up on us being stressed or something, but she’s been fussy all week. Yesterday, Ewan had to go pick her up from kindergarten because she bit a kid, but it was just Dylan, and he seems like a little shit. She’s been pretty curious about what we’re doing, and she keeps trying to help. Right now, we’ve got her in “safety goggles,” sorting pieces of craft wire into different cups. She’s taking it very seriously, and it’s the cutest thing in the world.

There was a rough pen and ink sketch of a little girl with a mass of curls, sitting cross-legged on the ground, scowling at two cups. Her safety goggles were pretty clearly meant for swimming if the dolphins next to the lenses were any indication.

My chest felt too tight, like someone was inflating a balloon inside my ribs. I snapped the journal shut and tried to slide it back into its place, but the shelf was packed so tightly that the other books had filled the space. I worked a hand between two of them and tried to shove them out of the way when my fingertips brushed metal. I frowned and began pulling journals off the shelves, tossing them onto the beat-up armchair.

Hidden behind the row of journals was a rectangular metal box, a little bigger than a postcard, and maybe three inches tall. Every inch of it had been etched with protective runes and wards. The metal was oddly warm in my hands, and the locking charms unwound themselves as soon as I touched them. The box opened easily.

There was a photograph inside. It showed a tall, redheaded man with my nose , and a dark-haired woman with my eyes, magnified by tortoiseshell-framed glasses. The man—my father—had a little girl on his shoulders. She had a puffball of chestnut hair and grinned madly at the camera, both hands fisted in the man’s hair. They looked happy. I’d imagined them older, but then, if they were really as powerful as Marcus had said, it made sense that they would’ve been able to control how old they looked. My hands trembled as I lifted the picture out of the box.

Beneath it, nestled on a scrap of gray fabric, was the last piece of the ascendancy array.

30

GABRIEL

Iwoke slowly, squinting against the late-morning sunlight in my face. Evangeline was going to be deeply irritated about getting a late start, I thought blearily, then pushed myself up and took in the empty bed next to me. Well, not entirely empty, unfortunately; Pothos was curled up on Evangeline’s pillow, and he let out a jaw-craving yawn that showed off every single one of his sharp teeth. It seemed silly to be put out by waking up alone, but I enjoyed the moments I could have with Evangeline before she put on her armor for the day.

Stretching languidly, I prepared for the day, making sure to dress in clothes I wouldn’t mind getting sooty. As I passed the bed, I gave Pothos a gentle pat, and he looked at me with pure disdain. I quickly pulled my hand away before he could poke me.

I padded downstairs in socked feet, assuming Evangeline was probably in the kitchen. But, no, there was no sign of her, not even one of our rarely used dishes in the sink. I felt a twinge of worry and tried to push it down, but it only grew.

Evangeline wasn’t in the library or in the guest suite. Worry started to give way to panic. Had someone managed to get into the manor and take her? Surely she would have put up a fight loud enough to wake me. I reached out my mind for hers, hoping to feel the faint shape of it nearby, but there was nothing. Wherever she was, she was too far away for me to feel her presence.

Theo, Vic, and Lissa were out in the garden, sipping their morning blood out of mugs.

“I mean, yeah, but she seems so cool,” Theo was saying.

“Great hair, too,” Lissa added, and Vic nodded solemnly.

“Such great hair,” Theo agreed. “And she told me she used to be a dark witch, so… I don’t know, maybe the vampire thing wouldn’t be a dealbreaker.”

“Have you seen Evangeline?” I blurted, and all three of them turned in their chairs to look at me.

---