Authors: C.N. Crawford
She sat up, squinting in the dark. Byron fluttered outside, clenching a metallic trinket in his feet. With a half smile, she unlatched the window. “Is that the key to the crypt?” she whispered.
He glided inside, dropping it in Fiona’s lap. “No. This one unlocks the holding cell in the attic. I’m afraid she’s begun wearing the crypt key between her breasts.”
Crap.
Well, the holding room would have to do for now.
Unless Tobias was going to defile Mrs. Ranulf, too. “Thank you, Byron.” She grasped the key.
“Guards are patrolling the hallway. They all have vials of that red powder.”
“Dammit.” She chewed on the tip of her thumb. “I’m going to fly through Tobias’s window. We’ll have to find a way into the attic from outside.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“Keep an eye on things on the lower levels. Let us know if we need to rush back.”
As Byron flew out, Fiona placed the key on her bed and chanted the transformation spell. Her arm hair rose while she spoke, and then she felt the bone-wrenching jolt of the transformation. She flapped over the bed, darting down to grasp the key, then glided through the open window toward the southern wing of the house. In response to the aura, the crypt creature was already howling, more distantly this time.
That should divert the guards’ attention, at least.
It took a few minutes of circling outside windows before she found the room that Tobias shared with Alan. He’d left the window open, and she fluttered into the room, circling over his bed.
He slept on his side, his hair in his eyes. Fiona dove toward the floor, bracing herself as she allowed her muscles and skeleton to snap back to human form. Her lungs and intestines swelled. A sharp pain screamed through her head for a moment, and she dry-heaved as Tobias stirred.
Tobias jolted awake. “Fiona. Are you okay?” He rubbed at something on his chest.
“Transforming is supposed to get better over time, isn’t it?”
“What’s happening?” Alan sat up, gripping his sheets to his chest.
“It’s just me. I have the key to the holding room.” She held it in the air like a trophy.
“Nice.” Alan threw off his sheets. “Are we going invisible?”
“I think Tobias and I should fly into the attic. Mrs. Ranulf has guards patrolling the hallway tonight with revealing dust.”
Alan crossed his arms. “So I’m just supposed to wait here and do nothing?”
“You can be lookout. Signal Byron if we need to hurry back.”
“Nobody likes to be lookout.” He threw himself backward on his bed.
Tobias stood next to his own bed in a gray T-shirt and underwear. He looked… stronger, somehow, his arms more thickly muscled, and she caught a glimpse of his toned abdominals when he stretched his arms over his head. She could see why Munroe was so eager to get his attention. He rubbed his hair, still waking up. “Are you ready to transform?”
Fiona rose, trying not to stare. “Yeah.”
She whispered the spell. The pain seared her head again as her body compressed on itself, and her arms burst into wings. She swooped down to the floor, grabbing the key. She circled by the ceiling, orienting herself until she sensed the flapping of Tobias’s wings outside the window, his movements more fluid than hers. She followed him into the humid night air, the howls still rising from the cemetery. On the third floor, windows jutted out from the sloped black roof, but they were shut tight. Fiona swooped in an arc. Sound waves formed an image of vents between the windows—just large enough for a bat to fit through.
She slipped through a vent and flapped over the crib they’d seen yesterday. She swerved closer to the floor, hovering for a moment, and then burst into her human form again. On her hands and knees, she gagged in the pitch-black attic. After catching her breath, she stood up. She stepped carefully on the precarious attic floor toward to the window where Tobias flapped outside. After she unlatched it, he glided in, landing quietly on a floorboard.
There was a tearing sound as he transformed, and then a few moments of quiet while he caught his breath.
“We made it in,” said Fiona, straightening. “And I’ve still got the key.”
Tobias chanted the light spell, and an incandescent sphere of foxfire appeared between them. He tiptoed across a plank. “Watch that you don’t fall through the ceiling this time. ”
Fiona frowned at the note of accusation in his tone. He might as well have said, “Try not to screw everything up like you usually do.”
The holes she and Mariana had created had been plastered over. The floorboards creaked beneath her, but they arrived at the holding room door without punching any more holes into Mrs. Ranulf’s room.
As she stood next to Jolly Jasper, Fiona inserted the long silver key into the lock and turned it to the right. The lock clicked open. She exhaled, pushing the door inward. Tobias sent the light forward, and they slipped inside a small, musty room.
It looked like an old office. A spindle-legged oak desk abutted the wall opposite the door. Above it, paintings crowded the wall, their red tones standing out against the black fleur-de-lis wallpaper. The images all depicted the same scene: a woman tied to a stake, burning to death while she appealed to the heavens for mercy.
A shudder ran down Fiona’s spine. “This is awful.” She inspected a representation of Joan of Arc, who was burned for witchcraft in the 15
th
century. A horrible thought sent a stab of fear through her chest. “They’re not going to burn Mariana, are they?
Tobias shook his head. “Munroe said they’re giving her some kind of medical treatment. I don’t imagine it’s burning.”
To the right, dark wooden cabinets lined the wall. On the top of the cabinets, glass panes showcased shelves of faded books, while the bottom half comprised rows of drawers.
“What is this?” Tobias was pointing at something to her left.
Fiona’s breath caught in her throat as she glanced at the canvas strips and buckles hung from a wooden board.
So this is why they called it the holding cell.
She felt sick. “That must be where they kept Mariana last night. Then they must have transferred her somewhere else.”
“What about the crypt key? Did Byron tell you anything?”
“That one Mrs. Ranulf keeps around her neck.” Fiona crossed to the drawers, pulling one open near the bottom row. She yelped. A twisted, charred human hand lay at the bottom, and a small, yellowed note lay on the top.
Lady Glamis, purified in 1537.
Tobias moved closer, peering over Fiona’s shoulder. “One of the Purgators’ noble victims.”
She swallowed. “But Jack said women weren’t philosophers in the old days. They weren’t allowed to learn Angelic.”
“Jack isn’t an expert on everything,” he muttered.
She straightened. “So is he wrong?”
He ran a hand over the bronze skin on the back of his neck. “He’s right in this case. Women weren’t philosophers in the old days, except a few in secret. But despite the Purgators’ magical powers and charmed pendants, I think they’ve always been terrible at catching the right people. They burned anyone they didn’t like.” He bent over and opened another drawer, pulling out a small, leather-bound book. He turned the pages. “The Pappenheimer family,” he read. His face paled.
“What does it say?”
He shook his head, frowning at the book. “It describes the execution of a family in Germany, but—you don’t want to know the details. Suffice it to say that medieval Purgators were creative with their brutality. But I don’t get the impression the Pappenheimers were actual philosophers either. Just outcasts in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s page after page of scapegoats, tortured and burned to death.” He shot her a pointed look. “But this was all a long time ago. They’re not doing this anymore. They’re still bound by modern laws.” He closed the book and returned it to the drawer.
She shivered, pulling open another drawer to find a dark brown book, its surface embossed with vines. An etched title read,
The Malleus Maleficarum.
Tobias peered over her shoulder.
“
The Hammer of the Witches. The witch-hunting guide.”
“This is like a museum of torture.” She rolled the drawer shut.
Tobias crossed to the glass bookcase. He rattled the doors. “Locked.”
“There must be a spell book in here that can help us.” She yanked open a drawer in the top row. Inside was a large, royal blue book, embossed with gold stars and letters.
Scrapbook,
it said in an ornate font. “This is odd.”
Inside, paperclips affixed browned papers to the pages, and on their surface was the looping Angelic writing. She smiled, feeling a sense of relief for the first time since Mariana had been captured. Spells were a rare find, and the right one could help them free Mariana. “Tobias. These are spells, hidden in an old scrapbook.”
He edged toward her, surveying the book. But something in Fiona’s peripheral vision caught her attention—Byron fluttered into the room, circling over their heads. “You need to go, now,” he said in her head. “The guards heard the wailing outside. They’re investigating the gardens, but they’re going to search bedrooms next.” He flew out the door.
Fiona’s muscles tensed as she closed the book, looking into Tobias’s dark eyes. “We can’t fly out of here with the spell book.”
A floorboard creaked outside, and Mrs. Ranulf slurred, “That damn Fury won’t shut up.”
Fiona’s shoulders tensed.
Is she drunk? And what is a Fury?
Mrs. Ranulf’s heels clattered across the rattling planks, and Fiona hurried through the cloaking spell, clutching the book in her hand. Not that invisibility solved their current situation.
This nutjob might have that burning dust again.
Tobias gripped her arm, pulling her down with him under the desk, and she landed in his lap. He wrapped his strong arms around her legs, pulling her in close so the desk covered their bodies. Beneath her, his body felt warm. She could feel a blush creep up to her ears. She cringed.
Stop thinking about Tobias’s body.
Another banging floorboard outside the door sharpened her focus. “Witches!” Mrs. Ranulf trilled. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Tobias’s muscles tensed around her, his upper arms pressed against her thighs. His breath warmed the back of her neck. Today, he smelled like a cedarwood fire.
Focus, Fiona. An insane witch-hunter is coming for you.
She clutched the book to her chest.
Mrs. Ranulf tottered in, a pink cocktail in her hand. Her eyes were half closed. “This door isn’t supposed to be open.” She reached into her bathrobe, spilling her drink in the process. “Dammit.” Pulling out the little vial of red dust,
s
he dumped a handful into her palm and blew it into the air. The dust rose in a cloud, coating the room’s surfaces.
So that’s why we’re under the desk.
Fiona could feel Tobias’s heart beating through his T-shirt, and his chest warmed her back.
Mrs. Ranulf squinted, looking around the room. She threw up her arms, swinging her empty glass. The crypt key gleamed around her neck. If only the room weren’t covered in Purgator dust, Fiona could snatch it from her drunken body.
Mrs. Ranulf turned, staggering back out of the room. “Nothing up here,” she hollered to no one in particular.
Beneath Fiona, Tobias’s muscles began to relax, but his arms still enveloped her. “We should get back to our rooms before they find we’re missing,” he whispered, his lips next to her ear.
“What about the spell book?”
“I’ll sneak it back to my room to search through it. We need to hurry, though. They could be in our rooms any moment.”
He released her, and she shifted off his lap, feeling a sudden chill now that he wasn’t beside her. She handed over the book.
Chanting the transformation spell, she winced as her bones condensed. She took flight, her skin burning with the remnants of red dust floating in the air, and slipped through the vents into the humid spring night.
She glided over the wildflowers and through her window just in time to hear two pairs of feet echoing on the floorboards outside her room. Landing on her bed, she burst back into her human form, hunching over the edge of her bed to retch. The doorknob turned, and the small mustached guard peaked in the door. Fiona pulled the covers over her legs, stifling a gag.
“Everything all right?” he asked, frowning.
She nodded weakly. “Just feeling sick. Woman problems.”
“Oh.” The door was shut before she could take her next breath.
She lay down and turned toward the window, pulling her covers up tight over her shoulders.