Page 9 of What Is Dark Within Me

“Stop the games. Tell me where she is. You owe me that much.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” the Knowing One told her. He took a step closer. “There are rules even I must follow.”

Aleja moved back on instinct, though she’d always been taught the opposite. The Otherlanders loved to hunt, and you couldn’t outrun something that didn’t have to run at all. Better to outsmart them or appear brave enough to earn their begrudging respect.

It was one thing to drunkenly light a black candle; it was another to have the Knowing One standing before her, his wings filling the cellar as shadows rippled around him, like they were frightened of getting too close. On the table, she spotted a letter opener she hadn’t swept into her backpack.

She wondered if she should throw it at him.

“I don’t need you,” she finally said. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d move aside. I have to search the rest of the house.”

“Of course. Take your time. For all you may have heard about me, I would never try to trick anyone into a bargain. Everyone who calls to me does so of their own free will.”

She thought of the posters of great-great-grandfather and his brothers dotting the rooms of every aspiring fencer, guitarist, and chess player. She couldn’t tell if she hated them or the Knowing One more. “So what? You’re just going to stand here?”

“For a moment. We wouldn’t want to waste a perfectly good summoning circle,” he said as he took a seat on the red velour sofa and reached for a half-full bottle of Champagne. He took a deep swig and offered her the bottle. When she waved him off, he shrugged in answer. “Go, witchling. See if you can find out why your friend was so keen to meet the Diabolus Society.”

Aleja knew better than to question this chance to escape. She darted up the stairs into the main house. At least he hadn’t brought the dog, she thought, until she squinted into the bright living room and realized a Doberman was slobbering all over Miss Flanders’s couch. It looked up at her arrival, seeming no more interested in her than the soupbone between its front paws, but she remembered the way its claws had dug into her back.

“You!” the dog called in a shockingly human voice as she skirted around the room to the stairs. Garm hopped to all fours, losing his balance on the plush cushions.

“No, Garm.Down,” she shouted when the dog found its footing and leaped over the back of the couch. He flattened himself against the ground as the words left her mouth.

“Good dog. Stay,” she said, feeling brave enough to take a few steps back. Garm sucked his tongue back into his mouth, and the two light-brown patches of fur above its eyes raised like human brows.

He whimpered as she took the stairs backwards, not turning until she slipped into the office room with the fallen angel statue and closed the door behind her. Aleja didn’t plan on collapsing, but her knees gave her no choice. She could feel her pulse everywhere—in her shaking hands, in her cramped ribcage, even in the delicate skin around her eyes, which would have been in tears had she not been too shocked to cry.

Aleja reminded herself that she was doing this for Violet, who was somewhere out there—afraid and alone—and some podcaster broadcasting out of his messy basement studio was not going to help.

She crawled to the small window on the opposite side of the office and hauled herself up on her elbows. None of the trees in the backyard were tall enough to reach from the second floor, and the front lawn was a sea of lumpy rosebushes. If she wanted to escape, she’d have to go back downstairs.

Breathe. You’ve come this far. Search the desk, said her little voice.

She shoved anything that seemed important into her bag—a black leather planner, a small photo album, a book entitledA Practical Guide to the Otherlanders. When she was done, she crept into Agnes Flanders’s bedroom, remembering how her corpse had stared unblinkingly out the window, as if Agnes had faded away watching the moonlight.

It was uncomfortable to rifle through a dead stranger’s clothes, all of which smelled faintly of old perfume like her grandmother used to wear—notes of amber, orange, and black pepper. Aleja almost left with nothing before she spotted a tiny vial, tucked behind a jewelry box on Miss Flanders’s nightstand.

It was a common enough object in a witch’s home, usually filled with some sort of oil or an herbal extract. This one was empty, but folded beneath it was a small note that unfurled as she picked it up.

This is as much as I could get. Do you think it’ll be enough? See you Weds night. —V.

Violet’s handwriting.

Aleja felt almost detached as she descended the stairs to find the dog had dragged its bone to the kitchen, where it was trying to tear the last bits of marrow from a break near the knuckle.

“You came back!” Garm said. “Something smells delicious in the fridge. Will you open it for me? I haven’t gotten the hang of these paws yet.”

“I—” she began, knowing that she would somehow have to get around Garm to leave through the front door. Besides, he was a link to Violet she hadn’t yet explored. “Sure.”

The fridge door whined on its hinges. Half-eaten charcuterie boards wrapped in cellophane piled atop one another like a macabre garden of pink meat. Garm twirled, his feet barely able to stay planted on the kitchen tiles. “All of it, please! You’re a very nice witchling, much nicer than I thought yesterday.”

“Oh?” she asked, hesitating before she pulled the top tray of salami and provolone from the fridge. Aleja couldn’t remember if she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours and even this unappetizing array was a reminder of her empty stomach.

“Ugh, damn this body. It makes me feel so… agreeable. But, yes. Even Nicolas must think so. He seemed very excited to have seen you before he locked himself away for the rest of the night.”

Nicolas. The silver-eyed murderer lounging on the couch downstairs.

“You mentioned a woman yesterday—the one you claimed trapped you in the mirror. Did Violet Timmons say why she summoned you?” Aleja said, holding the tray aloft over Garm’s head. The dog stopped its excited tapping and sat down with a plop, tail swishing against mint green tiles.

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