Snakeroot (2 page)

“Exactly,” Adne said.

Connor dropped the vase fragments. They broke into even smaller pieces when they hit the floor. “I think you skipped a few steps. I didn’t get a resolution from that conversation.”

Adne smiled. “Sorry. I mean that the Keepers who didn’t end up as withered husks—because they were living on borrowed time—are still out there. But they don’t have power—at least, not power like they used to.”

“You think Logan wants to get it back.” Sabine ground her teeth.

“Maybe . . . probably,” Adne said. “The books that are missing aren’t only family trees. They recount the origins of the Keepers.”

“Hmmmm,” Connor said. “Oh . . . uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh is an understatement.” Ethan fingered the hilt of the dagger belted at his waist.

Sabine asked, “Can he do it? Find a way to restore their power?”

Adne rubbed her temples, suddenly looking weary. “I don’t know and I’m not sure how we find out. Logan took the books that hold the clues we need.”

“But we do have this.” Connor produced a small wooden box from inside his long leather duster. “Check it out.”

“What’s that?” Sabine asked. She took the box from him, since Adne’s head was still bowed. The box was intricately carved of ebony wood, and it was locked.

“We took this off the thief we did manage to catch,” Connor said. “It was the only thing he was carrying. The other guy had the books.”

Sabine ran her fingers over the patterns and deep grooves of the wood. “I wonder what’s inside.”

“Let’s find out,” Connor said. He snatched the box out of Sabine’s hands and picked the lock. He opened it, peered inside, and frowned.

“Give it here.” Adne reached up and Connor handed it to her.

Adne gave a little gasp. “Oh!”

“What is it?” Sabine peered over her shoulder.

Within the box lay a torn sheet of paper, a small, oddly shaped white stone, a pair of gold rings, and a pendant.

Sabine reached inside and picked up the rings. “They’re engraved on the inside of the bands.” She peered at the tiny markings. “A. Hart, E. Morrow.
Amor et fidelitas.
”

“‘Love and loyalty,’” Adne murmured. “Wedding rings?”

“That’d be my guess,” Sabine said.

“Women.” Ethan reached over Sabine and grabbed the piece of paper. “Going for the jewelry before the evidence!”

Sabine elbowed him. “The jewelry
is
evidence.”

“Right.” Ethan winked at her before reading the faded ink. “Alistair Hart Nightshade, 1388–1666, Great Fire of London.”

“That’s weird.” Adne took the paper from Ethan, turning it over in her hands.

“You mean that he died at age 278?” Connor asked. “I’d say that’s par for the course in our line of work.”

“No,” Adne said. “I mean that the stuff in the box is way older than this note. This is paper, not the parchment they would have used in the Middle Ages.” She held the paper up to the light. “I think it’s signed on the back, but the ink is really hard to make out. Wait . . . yeah . . . here’s the name. ‘C. Nightshade, 1859.’ Oh great.”

“What?” Sabine asked.

“That has to be Cameron Nightshade,” Adne said. “He built this place. Rowan Estate is named after his wife. He came over from England in the eighteenth century, she showed up a little later—they were the first Keepers in North America.”

“Are you jockeying for Silas’s old job?” Connor asked. “What’s up with the history lesson?”

Adne stuck her tongue out at him. “I just happened to spend some time reading the books I was cataloging and not trying to get out of my responsibilities . . . like some people I know.”

Connor shrugged. “I’d rather be out in the field than in a musty old room.”

“It wasn’t musty until all the shelves were obliterated,” Adne said.

“So Cameron left a note in Alistair’s box?” Sabine asked.

Adne nodded. “If I’m remembering right, Cameron was Alistair’s son.”

“But why would Logan care about this stuff?” Ethan reached into the box, picking up the small white stone. “And what the hell is this white rock doing in here?”

Sabine took a closer look at the object and began to laugh.

Ethan threw her a sidelong glance. “What?”

“That’s not a rock,” she said. “It’s a knuckle bone.”

“Gah!” Ethan dropped the bone. Fortunately, Adne shoved the box out in time to catch it.

“Why would anyone keep a bone in there?” Ethan said, rubbing his hands on his coat.

“It was a thing,” Adne said. “Usually it was only for saints and other famous types, but the bones of the dead were thought to have great power . . . that’s more bad news for us.”

“You think Logan wanted this stuff to work some nasty mojo?” Connor asked.

“I’d say that’s a safe bet.” Adne picked up the pendant. “This is a lot prettier than the bone.”

Sabine leaned close. The pendant was an oval about the size of her palm, hanging from a thin gold chain. The bloodred ruby was rimmed with gold, and a ghostly image—a rose centered between two crossed swords—hovered in the gemstone’s depths.

“That’s beautiful,” she whispered.

Adne nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“That’s an
intaglio,
” Connor said. “It’s kind of a cameo in reverse. They inscribed the image into the gem’s surface—that’s what gives it so much depth. They were sentimental gifts, and the words carved into the setting usually had mystical significance or power—like a talisman.”

They all stared at him.

Finally, Ethan said, “How the hell do you know that?”

Connor coughed, looking at Adne and then away. “I . . . uh . . . may have been doing some reading about jewelry recently . . . uh . . . yeah.”

Adne blushed, lowering her gaze back to the contents of the box. A small smile played on the corners of her mouth.

“Anyway,” Connor said. “That’s what the necklace is.”

Sabine reached out, taking the pendant from Adne. She turned it over.

“This is inscribed too,” she said.
“Sanguine et igne nascimur.”

“‘In blood and fire we are born.’” Adne shivered. “Anything else?”

“Another name,” Sabine said, her voice growing quiet. “Eira.”

A numb silence fell over the group.

“The first Keeper,” Adne said. She snatched the pendant from Sabine. She shoved it into the box and slammed the lid, mimicking Pandora’s futile effort to stop horrors from spilling out into the world. When she looked up at them, she was trembling. “Logan’s going back. Back to the very beginning.”

Adne felt the others’ eyes on her as she grabbed the box and fled the library. She had no idea where she was going, but soon she was outside, breathing fresh Colorado air. The day was bright, and though the air still carried a chill, Adne could taste the promise of spring. Her swift walk picked up to a run, her feet seeming to have a will of their own, while her mind was muddled.

When she finally stopped, she was breathing hard. Her breath rose in small puffs. Adne looked around, trying to get her bearings as well as understand why putting together the pieces of Logan’s break-in had sent her into a panic. When she saw where she was, her knees buckled and she dropped to the ground.

The garden. Bosque Mar’s garden. She couldn’t be here. Not here.

Why is this happening?

Adne had never fainted before, but now, even on her knees, she couldn’t keep her balance. Black fog poured into her mind, blotting out the real world and forcing her into a waking nightmare.

She knew the scene immediately, but somehow being in the garden amplified her awareness that this dream was something more than a product of her own imagination. She was too aware of the earth beneath her, how alive it was. With her hands on the ground, Adne could feel everything—the channels and pathways of roots and rivers, minerals and magma. And the earth knew her. Beneath her palms, it shuddered.

“Very good.”

Adne squeezed her eyes shut. She knew the voice but refused to acknowledge it.
This is not happening. He is not here.

She wished she could close her ears along with her eyes so she wouldn’t hear the footfalls that brought him next to her. His presence was overwhelming. Powerful, and inexplicably alluring.

“I love this place,” Bosque Mar said, his voice cool as silk. “The garden was what brought you to me. This is our place.”

Still huddled with her eyes closed, Adne whispered, “No.”

Bosque laughed. “Such a fighter. You remind me of her.”

“Stop.” Adne felt tears rising in her throat.

He was close. Too close. She could sense his body as he crouched beside her. “It’s time for you to come with me.”

Adne screamed, rolling away from him. “No!”

She lashed out with one arm, finally opening her eyes. She struck at nothing but the air.

Bosque wasn’t in the garden. Adne was alone. Choking on her breath, she began to sob.

It would have been easier for Adne to face the idea that between grief and exhaustion she was having some sort of psychotic episode. But Adne knew magic. And she felt its presence all around her, along with the overwhelming sense that something was coming for her.

Adne always thought she would welcome the absence of nightmares about her mother’s death. But those dreams had fled only when the new visions had arrived. Though she could hardly believe it, the new dreams were worse. These weren’t grief-ridden images of the past. Adne sensed they were portents of the future.

The nightmares had begun when the sun set on the day of the Searchers’ greatest victory. The Rift had been closed. The war was over. With her limbs tangled in Connor’s, Adne had fallen asleep. She’d expected a peaceful night. Though her heart still ached from losing her father and her brother, Adne believed that their sacrifices had helped set the world right again.

She wasn’t ready for the tide of horror that visited her while she slept.

In her dream she’d been walking through the Rowan Estate gardens. Dead wolves lay on the frozen ground all around her. Adne passed them without hesitation. The wolves weren’t her concern. She was needed elsewhere.

Adne stopped when she reached the withered hedge.

“I knew you’d come.” Bosque Mar materialized before her. “We have so much to discuss, Ariadne.”

Bosque reached out to her. Without hesitating, she took his hand. He smiled at her. His smile contorted, mouth stretching wide into a grotesque grin until the skin split open. The handsome face of the man dropped off in clumps of flesh until his true visage was revealed.

Adne screamed until her cries roused her from sleep.

The details of the nightmare weren’t always the same. Sometimes it took place in the Rowan Estate library. Sometimes in the bowels of the Pyralis volcano while the fire wolves, the Lyulf, stalked around her. But no matter where Adne found herself in the dream, Bosque was always waiting for her. And she always went to him when he beckoned.

The first night she’d woken trembling after the dream, Adne thought she could pinpoint its source. Her first and last encounter with Bosque Mar was branded on her mind, vivid and disturbing.

“
What a lovely young thing.” Bosque watched Adne move, running his tongue over his lips as if tasting the air. “And with such power. You’ve been playing with my garden, dear. Without permission.”

He twisted his fingers and Adne stumbled. “Please stay awhile. I think you could be quite useful to me.”

She rolled over, clawing at the rug beneath her feet, which had begun to unravel. Its loose threads wound together into thick ropes that wrapped around her ankles and continued to snake their way up her body.

Amid the chaos of that final battle, Bosque had singled Adne out. When he’d spoken to her, she’d felt his gaze as acutely as if he’d been touching her. Even as she’d struggled against the bonds he’d invoked to hold her captive, Adne had shivered, unable to fight the awareness that with one look, Bosque understood who she was and the power she could wield more than anyone else ever had.

She didn’t know what that meant.

Adne had pushed aside the unpleasant dream as she would any other, assuming the nightmare was simply the aftermath of the war.

But the next night she’d dreamed of Bosque Mar. And the next. And the next.

Adne had told herself repeatedly that the nightmares meant nothing, that they were the last shreds of fear left from years of fighting the Keepers. Bosque Mar had been banished from her world and he had no way of returning.

And yet, every night the Harbinger visited her while she slept.

Today the dream had intruded upon her waking mind. She couldn’t bear it.

Crumpled on the ground, Adne held the wooden box tight against her chest. Logan needed something from Rowan Estate, but he didn’t have it—at least not everything. They’d kept this box from him. That meant Adne could stop him before he managed to pull off whatever scheme he was concocting. By outmaneuvering Logan, she would keep the nightmares from coming true. Whatever Logan was searching for, Adne had to find it first.

The crunch of boots sounded on the garden’s gravel path. Adne looked up to find Connor bearing down on her. He crouched beside her.

“What’s up, buttercup?” Connor’s tone was casual, but the skin around his eyes was tight with concern.

Adne knew her face was streaked with tears. Trying to pretend they weren’t there was pointless.

“I shouldn’t have run out of there,” she said. “I freaked.”

“Uh-huh.” Cupping her face in his palm, Connor rubbed the tear tracks on her cheek with his thumb. “I got that much. But it’s not like you, Adne. Why’d you spook?”

Adne grimaced, wishing Connor had picked a word other than
spook.
It was too close to the truth. She felt haunted.

Choosing her next words carefully, Adne told him, “Knowing Logan was here. Seeing all that history of the Keepers. I thought it was over. The war. The loss.”

“It is over,” Connor said with a dry laugh. “Logan Bane might have the coin to hire half-competent thieves, but can you imagine him pulling off anything more?”

“I don’t know.” Adne lowered her gaze.

Logan had been a spoiled child and an arrogant S.O.B., but Adne suspected that much of Logan’s behavior had been posturing. None of them had seen beneath the surface of the Keeper heir’s façade. The break-in made Adne realize she was afraid to find out.