Page 7 of As Many Souls as Stars
‘It is ill-advised,’ came Gilbert’s answer, his tone sceptical. ‘It has been largely accepted such a summoning would require too dear a price.’
‘Too dear for some, certainly. But I will pay it. I have no choice.’
‘The girl—’
‘If this attempt fails,’ Christopher said, ‘then I shall do what must be done.’
Cybil bit her lip so savagely it bled. Her hand pressed more firmly against the door, the tips of her fingers whitening. The grooves of the angel markings dug furrows into the skin of her palm.
Christopher continued. ‘To end the curse, I must become greater than my forefathers, greater than all those who lay claim to magic. I require assistance. The only path to surpassing Faust…’
Cybil stepped back from the door. There was something hot and furious burning in her chest; it grew brighter and brighter, as if she could bring the walls of Harding Hall down with the heat of her anger, and beneath her feet, darkness gathered, the candles on the wall beside her flickering.
I shall do what must be done.
She imagined her father within the study, stooped over his ritual circle—regretting Cybil’s birth, regretting her life, regretting he had not killed her while she was too young to fight back. In an instant, she saw all the little cruelties she had endured beneath him: the callousness and dismissal; the disappointment and anger; staring at the tree as he screamed; watching him pour mandrake down her mother’sthroat. Cybil imagined sending the shadow of the suit of armour into that room, commanding it to swallow him whole, to break his neck, to suck the life from him like marrow from a bone. She felt the fire within her intensify—it was painful; it was glorious, burning and sharp andalive. It was almost wonderful enough to bear. Almost.
Desperate, fearful, Cybil reached for the shards of her self-control. She breathed a deep, shuddering breath. She told herself,Enough, Cybil, enough. She took that ember of fury in her fist and encased it in ice, layer upon layer of it, making it colder and colder and harder and harder, until her anger was dimmed and the shadows had retreated.
She turned around and walked in a measured pace back to her rooms. At the basin, she scrubbed the paint from her face. The shadow at which she had thrown her cochineal had returned; it had taken a form to mimic the shape of the lady on the tapestry, albeit with a neck long enough to curve like a snake. It watched her as she wiped the water away.
‘You wished to warn me,’ she said to it. ‘You wished me to know what my father was planning.’
The shadow did not react.
Cybil went to the window. Breathing on the glass, she began to draw a symbol in the fog with the tip of her finger, thinking of her father saying,I shall do what must be done.
‘Ah, Greensleeves, now farewell, adieu,’ she sang again, not minding that her voice was not beautiful, that it was as distorted as the shadows on the wall. ‘To God I pray to prosper thee; for I am still thy lover true…’
She finished the drawing on the window: it was a noose around her own neck.
Cybil’s finger dropped. ‘Come once again and love me.’
3
Miriam heard the call on the equinox.
She was in Constantinople. That morning, a drunk and amorous man had offered her his heart and soul in exchange for a smile. He may have meant it as metaphor—Miriam could never really tell—but she honoured the deal as it was made. Once she had swallowed the soul and sated her hunger, Miriam had not known what to do with the heart, so she had flung it to a stray dog outside. It had gulped it down in two bites and then followed her down the street with a reverent expression, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. Animals typically disliked her, and Miriam had not known how to react. Eventually, she had become irked by its attention, and she had pulled the shadows around her and flown away.
She existed, as she always had, in solitude; a spider makes no conversation with the flies in its web. Miriam could engage in human pleasures such as food and drink and flesh, but temptation was rare, and indulgence rarer still. The centuries grew tedious, but she did not count the years as a person would. She noticed time passing only with conscious effort. Otherwise, there was no difference between a decade and an hour. On occasion she blinked, and weeks would pass.
Miriam measured her existence in deals instead. She was always hungry, and her greatest pleasure remained the fullness consuming a soul gave her: the brighter it burnt, the more intense the satisfaction. And there were always exchanges to be made, because humanitywas as hungry as she was, even if that hunger was for other things. She was asked for money, power, magic. Miriam gave her petitioners what they wanted, and she took her rewards happily. She needed them as much as they needed her, after all. All magic was give and take, light for dark. With no light of her own, Miriam needed to take it from others.
Once, utterly overwhelmed by her own inertia, she decided to see how long she could go without consuming a soul. She had lasted three weeks before that howling emptiness howled too loudly and it became difficult to keep corporeal form. When she had finally indulged, she had torn the man apart afterwards, seeking some further shred of soul within him that she could eat. If she were capable of shame, she might have felt shame for it, but she did not. Her experiment had been successful. She knew her limitations now.
And so came the equinox. That evening, the streets of Constantinople were awash with rain and crowded with bodies: spice merchants, printers, prostitutes, carpet sellers—all the rabble were there. The air was thick with the scents of sewage, incense, the cool mist from the Bosphorus. Miriam could sense a thousand deals to be made. She wandered between the people and ignored their curious eyes, accustomed to the scrutiny. She was out of place almost everywhere, having retained the same human form for centuries: a woman taller than most men, with wild dark hair and ink-spill eyes, strolling with all the thoughtless confidence of a lord.
A drunkard stumbled into her. She shoved him into the gutter. Then, as she scrubbed her hand on her sleeve, she suddenly heard a man’s voice, as loudly and as clearly as if he were speaking next to her. It was an ardent drone in ill-accented Latin:Propitiam vos, ut appareat et surgat Mephistophilis, quod tumeraris…
Miriam paused and cocked her head to listen. It was an attempt at spell work, that much was clear. A call—a hand reaching through the void to offer itself to her. She was impressed. In the past few centuries, many had attempted to find her, but few had actually managed to do so. Other shadows feared her, and they were reluctant to contact her, for fear of her ire; it was rare that someone had enough to offer the darkness in exchange for the task.
She allowed the man to continue for some time, amused by the spell. Despite his efforts, he was failing to actually bring her to him, instead only calling out to her as one might shout for a servant. Miriam was under no obligation to answer. Still, by the time he reached the end of his incantation, her curiosity had moved her. She took a step forward, into the shadows, offering them a scrap of her most recent meal. At the step’s beginning, she was in Constantinople; at its end, she was in a darkened room.
It was a study of some sort. The place had a strange, unpleasant smell, like vinegar and incense and burnt hair. To the left of Miriam, a crack in the curtains permitted a stripe of dim, sunset-tinted light, bleeding red on the floor like an injured animal. The room was furnished with a desk, a pair of lit candelabra, bookshelves, and a vast cabinet full of jars; piles of pamphlets and bound manuscripts littered the floor, half covering an ancient rug that had at some point been burnt at its edges. The scent was of sweat and sweet oils, salt water and the faint iron of old blood. The air carried the static crackle of power, both lingering from previous rituals and arising from the current one. There was a man standing over the desk, his hands pressed against the wood, muttering to himself. Miriam had appeared behind him, so she could see only his back.
‘Surgat nobis dicatus, Mephistophilis!’ he cried, with sudden fury. The flames in the candelabra blazed higher, although he did not seem to notice; the bottles on the shelves rattled. He was clearly experienced with magic, but despite the offerings he must have made, his soul remained powerful—one of the brightest Miriam had seen, roaring in his chest like a bonfire. The shadows behind her stretched forward in curiosity, drawn hungrily to his light, and she raised a silent hand to admonish them. They retreated.
There was an extended pause as the man waited for the result of his incantation; then he stooped further, pressing his forehead against the desk. He groaned in defeat.
