Page 115 of Blackwicket
But Dark Hall had different plans. Eager to exist with two people inside, it formed in two steps, replete with bones and vines, rendered ever more ghastly by their entrapment in the magical, scarlet flora. Victor muttered an oath.
“It’s certainly not the Dark Hall I recall,” he said as we traversed the overgrown catacomb.
“It finally matches what everyone’s afraid it is.” I was bitter about the transformation, growing increasingly resentful that nothing from my childhood had escaped spoilage.
A set of bones shifted as the vines grew, impatient to show off their green leaves, their trumpeted flowers tinkling like bells. Victor reached for the holster at his waist, to find it empty.
“Fiona,” he groaned, “That little pickpocket.”
“It explains the hug.”
I struggled to keep my mind off our surroundings and the looming danger of the Fiend, which often appeared with no warning, as it had the night Thomas had almost been lost to it. “Seems I wasn’t the only one Darren mentored.”
“He taught you to pick pockets?”
“As any good father would.”
To my great relief, we moved out of the morbid copes, nearly jogging, following the pulse of the Vapor’s portal. We navigated several turns, passing door after door in quick succession, but no matter how far we went, I still barely felt the itch of the Narthex.
Panic set in, and I suspected that the faster we moved, thefurther the portal would drift. I slowed down. I would need to open my magic to sense it, but doing so was an incredible hazard.
“I can’t find it. I have to use magic,” I breathed. “I don’t want to do this. I can’t endanger you again.”
But I couldn’t abandon Jack or Thea, the woman who’d made my sister’s life bearable. Facing Fiona and admitting I’d bowed to my fear wasn’t an option.
“Eleanora.” Victor’s hand brushed mine, not taking it, knowing it would impede our ability to run when the time came, and it would soon. “There are a thousand moments I would change if I had the power, but that day isn’t one of them.”
My heart skipped a beat as I raised my eyes to his.
“Do what needs to be done,” he said.
When I was finally able to speak through the rush of warmth and unending gratitude, all I could manage was, “Get ready to run.”
As though dropping a garment from my shoulders, I released my guard, power rising with eager exhilaration, unaware of what it might invite. Right away I perceived the direction of the Narthex, like a song playing from another room. As soon as I’d locked on, the Drudge haunting me reared, presenting itself, greedy to experience Dark Hall.
I broke into a run, trusting Victor to follow as the Fiend responded to the presence of the impurity in its domicile, the roar of rushing water drowning out the sound of our breath. But we were already close. On another turn, we entered a dead-end hall, the single door there swinging open to greet us. My magic lunged, colliding with it, a boulder breaking water.
We didn’t slow, stumbling blindly through the thick, strange borderland, and into the dimly lit gloom of the Vapor’s dressing room, light filtering in from the staff hall. Blood jittery in my veins, I sealed the portal shut behind us.
“We got lucky,” I huffed. “But it’s active, so we can’t go back this way.”
In response, Victor caught me in an unexpected, fervent kiss. This embrace wasn’t motivated by desire, but by an urgency to express feelings we hadn’t been able to articulate—ones we feared for their significance and the pain they promised. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, committing every sensation of him to memory. We would have delayed the inevitable for centuries more, but we couldn’t disregard the miasma of dreadful magic that had begun to close in, as choking as the smoke from the Nightglass fire.
“Stay near me,” Victor murmured as we parted.
The hallway was suffused with a low glow from overhead lights whose bulbs had gone dim. The effect was unsettling, creating shadows in all corners of the ceiling and floor. Surrounding us were the uneven palpitations of corruption, the antithesis of High Tide’s fizzing, intoxicating atmosphere. But despite this, the theater we entered wasn’t empty.
Awash in the familiar blue glow was a full house of tables, each with a candle and cocktails placed out for the guests, none of whom were indulging. Because though there was a body in every chair, none of them were alive. The corpses had been arranged in various ways, hands around glasses, legs crossed, and a woman at the table nearest us had a lit cigarette tucked carefully between blackened lips, her eyes a cloudy white. A drift of ash fell onto her lap. The macabre audience had all been positioned to face the stage, where Thea and Jack sat on the floor, huddled together, disheveled but in one piece.
William was nowhere to be seen.
“There are too many places for him to be hiding,” I said unnerved, genuinely afraid as I scanned the scene, my eyes darting to every dark corner.
“He’s not hiding,” Victor said, low, his Drudge ascending rapidly in anticipation of mortal danger. “He’s hunting.”
“How right you are.” The dockman’s accent was abrupt, thick as smoke from a cigar, a sharp pressure against my throat as someone seized me from behind. “And look what I’ve caught.”
Chapter Forty-Two
