Dark Forsaken (The Devil's Assistant Book 3) (12 page)

Chapter 16

I was in what looked like the same room, but I knew it wasn’t the same time or place because this alcove had a window to the outside that looked real. Of course the fake window in the library in Death’s villa, where I stayed after leaving The Boss’s employ last spring, had also looked real, and I knew that one was fake. I couldn’t sense the time. I had no frame of reference to gauge where I’d been transported or if this was just a bubble of time like Leland Kane’s prison.

I closed my eyes and let my presence see the room. I’d gotten better at blinking in the magic sight to overlay my normal vision, but my presence saw the overlay details more completely.

The walls were covered with wards, and as in the estate of the Easter Hare, these windows were spelled not to let anyone pass. Did that mean it was a prison or just a protection?

“You’ve found me,” a young voice said from behind me.

I opened my eyes, returning to my body, and turned to find a child with big green eyes staring up at me. She was somewhere between eight and ten, and held a book similar to the journal I’d picked up in the museum, which was when I realized I was still holding it.

The red cover of her version was worn. The one I held looked as if I’d just unwrapped it.

I tried again to figure out what time period I was in, but there was still no indicator if I was in the present, past, or future. It was just as hollow as Kane’s time bubble—a separate existence outside of normal time.

I attempted to sense the girl’s name, but there was nothing there to sense.

“Do you like my new dress?” she asked, spinning around for me to see.

It was white and simple at first glance, but I caught glimpses of something shiny as she twirled. Tiny crystals or diamonds glinted in the light. I eventually noticed the flower pattern. Blinking my eyes, I took a quick peek with my second sight and saw glyphs of protection woven into the dress’s design.

Abruptly stopping her spin, she pulled a thin chain from around her neck. “And my locket?” she said, holding it out so I could see.

It was the same as the pendant Mab had given me last summer with an antique silver body, a red ruby in the center, and etched black lines radiating all around. It was Jayne’s pendant—something I’d used to help me hold the power in check after Mab juiced me. I’d never tried to open it, so I had no idea if the one I had was the same as the child’s.

She smiled at me with a knowing look. Was this Jayne? Was she wearing the locket that was hidden away in my sock drawer with the diamond ring Jack had given me?

“Where are we?” I asked.

“We are in the museum, silly. This is merely a sliver of time I often visit, but you’ve never been here before. How did you get in?”

“Oh. Well.” Not knowing what to say, I held up the journal.

Her eyes grew wide. Clapping, she said, “Yay! I’ve been needing a new one. Did you bring it for me?”

“Sure,” I said, holding it out for her to take. She held out her own, as if we were trading. With a moment’s hesitation, I took hers as she grabbed the new one from my hand. It occurred to me that I hadn’t actually looked in the journal I’d given her. The Keeper said the spell book I needed was outside of time, so maybe bringing the blank to trade was why the blank existed. Touching it had pulled me into this bubble, after all.

“Did you need something else?” she asked, clutching the new book to her chest.

“Yes,” I stammered, quickly deciding to ask her about the spell. If the journal she’d given me didn’t contain what I needed and I left, I might not have been able to get back without a new blank journal, and there had only been one in the room. “I’m looking for something. A spell.”

“Is this a test?” she asked, eyes bright.

“Sure,” I said, moving on quickly. “I need to find the
twin of the one unique
spell.”

Her eyebrows lowered. “The
gemino unicae
is very dangerous,” she said in an almost academic tone.

It took me a second to realize that I’d actually heard the Latin. The translator converted it for me, but only in my head. I actually heard her speak the Latin, which maybe explained why the translation was so odd.

“Why do you seek this spell?” she questioned.

“I’ve been told it can save life,” I answered.

Her brow furrowed as if she were mentally reviewing her notes. “I hardly think that’s possible. It’s a spell designed to kill.”

Okay, not what I expected to hear, but certainly not surprising. “I’ve been told I need it to save another. If I don’t have it, he will die. And if he dies, I’ll die, too.”

“Is he a twin?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Twins are quite rare,” she said.

That hadn’t been my experience, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. “What exactly does the spell do?”

Her expression changed to one of concern. “Who told you about it?”

“The mother of the twin—a chimera—”

“Oh, chimeras are very rare,” she interrupted.

“Okay, does the spell act differently on them?” Perhaps Gizelle lied to me and needed the spell for a different reason.

“I don’t know,” she said, shoulders slumped. “Was that the test?”

“No, no, um … what does the spell do?”

“I only know that the spell will kill.”

“Will it kill the one that cast it, the one the spell is cast on, or the one the spell was intended to save?” I asked, trying to clarify the danger, and assuming the person being cast upon wasn’t also the one needing to be saved.

She shrugged, which wasn’t very helpful.

“If you don’t know what it does, how can you know it will kill?”

“The prophecies are clear. There are seven spells. The
gemino unicae
is just one of them, but they are each designed to bring back the lost
Imperatrix et Summum
daughter, who will kill the girl that has survived.”

Imperatrix et Summum
, the empress and the supreme daughter. Was that some other name for Jayne? Then again, wasn’t this girl Jayne? It sounded like the spell was needed to bring back the revenant and then the revenant would kill “the girl”, which wasn’t really the same as the spell killing someone directly, as was implied. Maybe that was how she was taught and she didn’t mean to mislead me.

I looked up to ask another question, but the girl was gone. I was now in the room alone with no obvious way out.

“Ask the book.” I heard in an echo. “Remember what you already know.”

“Why the hell not?”

I opened the book. The power at my core awakened and the magic within me began drawing in the book’s essence. With a blink of second sight, I saw a trail of energy leeching from the pages, but it wasn’t just the amber glow I’d seen before: it was swirled into words, as if my power were physically absorbing the journal.

My hands warmed as I consumed the spells, causing the tulip and rose on my palms to glow. The page before me disappeared. The words that had been there moments ago fed into me.

I staggered back from the rush of energy, losing my balance. My thoughts raced as my body devoured the magic. I flung out my hand to break my fall, but faltered when it wouldn’t let go of the journal and fell headlong into a wooden side table. Then it all went dark.

Chapter 17

I woke up sprawled on the floor in the alternate room where I’d met the child. My head ached from a knot on my forehead. Raising my hand, which still had the faint swirl of amber words emblazoned under the skin, I touched the golf ball-sized knot and said, “Heal.”

Pushing up to a seated position, I took in my surroundings. The journal lay open beside me, the pages now blank. As I watched, the outer edge of the journal began to crumble to dust and skitter away as if a trail of wind had been sent to retrieve it. Within seconds it was gone, leaving me in the room alone.

I pushed to my feet, still a bit wobbly from the power grab, but stable enough to stand without help.

Glancing around, I noticed the walls of the room looked different. It no longer felt as real as it had before, which was when I saw that a corner of the room was disintegrating. Just as it had with the book, a trail of dust blew away as if a giant vacuum cleaner was pulling it up bit by bit.

I guess now was the time to panic.

I closed my eyes and stepped outside my body. I tried to snap a line to the museum, but the bubble I was in still felt inert, like it wasn’t anywhere, and apparently I couldn’t lock onto a position without being somewhere to lock from.

From my new vantage point, I saw glyphs marked the room. One near the corner that was quickly disappearing said
Door
, which was where the door in the suite of rooms in the museum had been. It flickered and disappeared before I could try to use it. Scanning the room, I found another
Door
. I opened my eyes just as part of the ceiling fell. The gaping maw left behind opened into a black void above me. The dust of the demolished ceiling was sucked up through the hole, which was fascinating, but I had no time to wait. I barreled toward the other wall that contained the
Door
glyph. Touching the glyph, I said, “Open.”

In a burst of magic, I was picked up and spit out the other side to a place that looked a lot like Hell, or the dead town of East Hareington in Purgatory. At least this place had an anchor to reality. I quickly snapped a line and returned to the museum.

The room looked the same, including the blank journal on the table. I was even standing in the same spot as when I picked up the journal the first time. This one looked as though I’d picked it up and put it back down—the dust was ever so slightly disturbed on the cover and table beneath.

I considered what had actually just happened, but nothing seemed sane. Had I really pulled the magic from the book? Or just destroyed it? Was I here the entire time and it was all a dream? I closed my eyes again, pulling my presence into the in-between.

I saw the same swirl of words dancing underneath my skin. Contemplating how I might use the book in this form, I put my hands together, palms up and open. The ghost of a book—the journal—formed, and I began to read.

The words were now a part of me. Just like Raal’s tattoos and their small bits of power had merged with me, the words were now in me. I was remembering more than reading, and my mind was cataloging like it did with everything else.

I flipped through a few pages, scanning for anything that might be the spell Gizelle had sent me after. Based on the book’s layout, it was obviously a school workbook with some simple lessons and a few more in-depth lessons. There were concepts I innately grasped, like power words or voice commands, because they’d come naturally to me once I knew it was possible, but most of those had been concrete scenarios, like seeing the
Door
symbol and asking it to
Open
. The spell I was looking at now,
Summon
, not so much.

The example was a spell to summon a wild boar. There was a reference at the bottom of the page for
Dismiss
, but there wasn’t a page number. As I thought of the
Dismiss
spell, however, it materialized as fiery red words in front of me, much like the overlay of unknown words I saw with my second sight, but these simply hung in the air for me to read.

Dismiss
had an example to send away a silver goblet—not the wild boar you would have presumably summoned in the first exercise, but I supposed the principles were the same.

I scanned the
Summon
entry, which read like a schoolchild’s notes. There were other sidebars and a few things that mentioned how the teacher would deduct points for using vulgar language, but that language didn’t matter. It also covered expected procedures and other formalities that boiled down to simple power words because everything else was optional pomp and circumstance.

Could summoning someone or something really be that easy?

I pictured Sorrel in my mind and said, “Sorrel.” Nothing happened. I tried a few different variations, including the optional words and tribute mentioned in the workbook, but nothing happened. He either didn’t exist or I had no clue how to summon someone.

Looking around the room, I pulled the dust cover off a small sofa. There were two identical pillows on each end.

Studying the pillow on the right, I said, “Pillow.”

Nothing happened.

Maybe I needed a better picture of it in my mind. I compared it to the other pillow, which was practically identical, but there had to be something unique. I was about to pick a different object when I noticed a small thread hanging from the corner of the pillow I was trying to summon. Would that be enough to make it more unique from the other pillow? Focusing on that detail, I tried again.

“Pillow.”

The pillow disappeared and reappeared in front of me, dropping to the floor at my feet. The faint smell of lavender wafted in the air when I picked it up. Glancing at the
Dismiss
spell still hovering in the air, I noticed
Return
was also an option, which made sense. I’d used
Return
to send the vials away and simply calling out “The quads” in the blood room had brought the vials to me, which meant I’d already mastered some version of
Summon
without realizing it.

The second words echoed in the room came to mind, “Remember what you already know.”

“Return,” I said, and the pillow disappeared and reappeared on the sofa.

I flipped pages and reviewed several more spells. I found
Intactilis
, which was the spell to make someone untouchable. The notes were very clear with this spell. It could only be cast once. If your untouchable died, there would be no way to create another one.

“Wow, Mab gave up her one shot with Faith. Of course, it wasn’t like she used her for that purpose,” I muttered.

Not all of the spells referenced other spells, but this one did: it pointed to
Occidere
, or to kill, which hovered in the air before me.

The warning on this page was vague, but there was some mention of her brother, which I assumed was Harry since The Boss still had his untouchable, Quaid. Apparently, there were only two ways to kill an untouchable: you had to be the one that made them untouchable or possess the power of the realm that made them, which I’d sort of guessed. You still had to actually kill by hand, which also made sense, and was another thing I’d assumed since casted spells and most other magic didn’t work on untouchables.

Mab was clearly trying to make Faith un-killable. I guess she didn’t count on me getting any of Harry’s blood.

I still needed to find the
gemino unicae
spell, the twin of the one unique. Leafing through the book wouldn’t help, but then I remembered
Dismiss
and just thought of the spell I needed.

The pages of the book in front of me flipped to the end.

The handwriting on these pages was much more polished. It was still young, but more practiced. It was an index of the book, but the spell I needed wasn’t listed. There were pages past the index, so I kept turning.

This section was an appendix of sorts containing a very interesting note about debts. According to the note, a debt could be repaid by providing a greater compensation than what was requested, but like several of the other entries, this one also had a warning.
Perception of the value must be considered greater by a majority of those present.
This remark seemed random, until I read on.

If the payment is determined to be deficient, the original request must be honored and another favor offered
. The notes warned against using the rule, as it was generally considered to be a fool’s choice and would almost certainly result in having to give three favors. The original favor requested, the freely offered first favor that was determined to be deficient, and the final favor of their choosing.

At the bottom of the page was a final word of advice written in pencil.
Don’t ever give out a favor
. I hoped I didn’t have to regret giving Ronin a favor. It had seemed like the only option at the time, but I’d keep the young Jayne’s warning at heart for future favors and try to avoid them at all cost.

I turned the page expecting to find another appendix. Instead, I found seven spells that weren’t indexed. All were written in a much more decisive hand.

The
gemino unicae
was among the seven. Before I could review them, however, I was interrupted by a loud noise from the hall.

Raising myself above the museum to look down at the map view, I surveyed the area. Mace’s green-ish dot appeared to be walking back toward the room where I’d left him. I wasn’t sure why this surprised me—it wasn’t like he’d had a reason to obey me. Maybe I should have just been glad he wasn’t lost. I noticed a section of the map that looked different, as if a room was missing, which reminded me of the room that had literally disintegrated around me. As I watched, the map reformed new walls as if the room were never there.

Without opening my eyes, I snapped a line to the front room and jumped there, startling Mace. He was lying across the settee as if he’d been there snoozing all along. I didn’t call him out on his walkabout. I just grabbed his arm and returned us to the apartment.