Page 23 of Tomb of Ancients
“No,” I shouted. “No, I amwilling.”
“But are you truly willing? You are willing in the mind, but are you willing in the spirit? Let us see.”
I hated its voice, eerie and cold, and I hated that it frightened me. Its fingers pulled and pulled, lifting now, though my hand,gripped strongly by some unseen force, stayed against the table. I watched with open-mouthed horror as the flesh of my palm grew taut, then I felt it begin to tear. The wound was small at first, but at once the blood came, filling in at the seams where my skin gave. Hot blood pooled, almost burning in contrast to the chill in the air and the Binder’s fingers, which were oddly without temperature, as if the thing was neither warm enough to be living nor cold enough to be dead.
I gritted my teeth, but the pain of it was no illusion, no trick, my mind revolting at what my eyes beheld, a tremor starting in my core that moved quickly to my stomach. I know I must have vomited somewhere into the darkness around us. I know I shouted, but not for mercy, for I refused to be trapped in that void forever. I cursed the thing. I found ugly words I had never uttered aloud before. I screamed at it incoherently in a language that wasn’t even my own, one I could not decipher if pressed, one that felt true and evil enough to punish it for skinning my palm right before my eyes. A raw, bloody flap came free, peeling away to reveal the slick, pink meat of my hand.
It was surprise, perhaps, that made the pain vanish for an instant. Blood poured from my hand, spilling in thick rivers onto the table. The Binder’s fingers lingered, keeping the skin of my palm aloft so that we could both see what was beneath.
A word. A single word was somehow there, written on slick and shining sinew.
Willing
I was dizzy and faint, hoarse from screaming, but the sight of that word somehow gave me comfort. A test had been passed, one I did not know I had prepared for. The Binder sneered but released its cruel grip on my skin. I teetered back, eyes rolling from the blood I had lost, which spread all around us. My hand burned steadily, pinpricks of red light dancing in front of my eyes. The fiend in front of me spun and tilted. My mouth went bone dry; I was going to collapse.
Then I was falling, tumbling helplessly into the dark pit, the concentrated burning in my hand the only thing I could really feel or hold on to. Above me, high above me, I heard the Binder whispering:
Spell and sage, blood and ink, water and wine. These bindings are undone.
Chapter Eleven
As if stirring from a deep sleep, I distantly felt someone lifting me up. Cold, clean water trickled into my mouth, and I was forced to swallow it. Then came the taste of something bitter, and I went away again, not to the Binder’s realm but to unbroken and welcome rest.
When I woke more fully, it was to the sensation of a cloth pressed to my forehead. Mary was there, staring down at me with wide, worried eyes.
“Oh, thank every star in the firmament!” she cried. “She’s awake! Everyone! Louisa is awake!”
My head felt as if it had been stuffed on a pike, my neck stiff and sore. I tried to rouse myself, but, weakened, I flopped back down to the pillow. Blinking around, I did not recognize my surroundings, but the light, dusty smell on the air was familiar. They had placed me in a small bedroom, its chintzy, cozy manner reminding me of Giles St. Giles’s home in Derridon. There were overstuffed chairs and fluffy carpets, with a fire in the hearth and two orange cats dozing in front of it.
“Where are they?” Mary fussed, standing and trotting to the open door.
In answer, raised voices rumbled through the floorboards, then a series of sharp cracks like fevered pounding on a door. I forced myself to sit up, ignoring the dizziness lingering in myhead. My right palm hurt as soon as I touched the blankets, and I hissed, pulling it away to find I had not escaped the dark pit unscathed. Scarlet with irritation, black script had been carved into my hand. It was unreadable, a language neither I, nor apparently Father, spoke. But I knew, of course, what it must mean.
“How did I get this?” I asked as Mary ran back to the bed.
“Louisa, I will explain it all to you later. Something is amiss downstairs. Hurry!”
She was right. There were shouts now and more banging, and I let Mary throw the covers off me and pull me carefully out of the bed.
“Wait,” I said, teetering. “The diary...”
“Dalton has it,” she assured me. “Come on!”
My body felt as if I had been tumbled down a mountain, but I followed, leaning heavily against her shoulder as we left behind the cats, which appeared unbothered. We emerged onto a walkway above the shop, on the fourth floor, with all the many shelves and lanterns spread out below us. From that vantage, I could see Fathom and Khent braced against the front door, their backs pressed to it, their legs straining.
Dalton shouted across the floor to Niles, who had managed to find a number of pistols stashed underneath the counter. But as Mary dragged me along toward the stairs, all I could focus on was the woman lying in the middle of the store, curled onher side in a dark feathery dress, unmoving.Mother.There was no sign of the witch.
“Did it work? Or is she... Please tell me it worked,” I murmured.
“We were afraid to move her, Louisa. She hasn’t taken a single breath since the ritual. You were moaning and groaning, so we thought it safe to bring you to bed. Oh, but it’s been hours and hours. I was afraid you would never recover.”
My heart sank. The Binder had said the bonds were broken. Why was Mother unmoving? Had the ritual somehow killed her? Had I done something wrong?
With each step, I felt slightly stronger, and at last I could walk on my own, hurrying across the walkway. We skidded to a stop then, as Fathom shouted something incoherent and the door behind them contorted, sagging inward, then exploded in flames. It was madness to move toward the fire, but our friends were in danger, and I could not just stand there and watch.
“Come on, Mary.” I tugged at her.
“You’re still too weak,” she insisted.
