Guardian of the Gate (2 page)

“Why do you look so surprised, Lia? You know that I will always find you.”

I take a moment to calm my voice, not wanting her to see my fear. “What do you want, Alice? Have we not said everything there is to say?”

She tips her head, and as always, I believe she can see my soul laid bare. “I keep thinking you are going to become wiser, Lia. That you will realize the danger to which you subject not only yourself but your friends. And what remains of your family.”

I want to be furious at the mention of my family,
our
family, for wasn’t it Alice who pushed Henry into the river? Wasn’t it she who consigned him to death at the bottom of it? Yet her voice seems to soften, and I wonder if even she mourns our brother.

When I answer her, there is steel in my voice. “The danger we face now is the price we pay for the freedom we will have later.”

“Later?” she asks. “When will that be, Lia? You haven’t even found the remaining two keys, and with that aged investigator of Father’s, you may never find them.”

Her criticism of Philip makes me flush with anger. Father
trusted him to find the keys, and even now, he works tirelessly on my behalf. Of course, the other two keys will do me little good without the missing pages of the Book of Chaos, but I learned long ago that it does no good to think too far into the future. There is only here. Only now.

She speaks again as if hearing my thoughts. “And what of the pages? We both know you have yet to locate them.” She looks calmly down into the water, running a hand over it much like the little girl. “Given where you stand in the whole situation, I should think it would be wiser to place your faith in Samael. At least he can guarantee your safety and the safety of those you love.

“More than safety, he can guarantee your place in a new world order. One run by Him and the Souls. One that will happen eventually, whether you aid us willingly or not.”

I did not think it possible for my heart to harden further against my sister, but it does. “More likely he will guarantee
your
place in that new world order, Alice. That is what this is really about, is it not? Why you worked in concert with the Souls even while we were children?”

She shrugs, meeting my eyes. “I’ve never pretended to be altruistic, Lia. I want simply to honor the role that
should
have been mine, rather than the one foisted upon me by the misguided workings of the prophecy.”

“If that is still your desire, then we have nothing more to discuss.”

She looks back into the water. “Perhaps I am not the best person to convince you, then.”

I think I am finished being shocked. Finished being frightened, at least for now. But then Alice looks up, her face wavering yet again. For a moment I see the shadow of the little girl before the vision settles back into Alice. It does not last. Her face ripples, settling on an oddly shaped head and a face that seems to change by the second. I am rooted to my spot on the river, unable to move even as terror overtakes me.

“You still deny me, Mistress?” The voice, once channeled through Sonia as she attempted to contact my dead father, is unmistakable. Terrifying.
Unnatural
. It does not belong in any world. “There is no place to hide. No shelter. No peace,” Samael says.

He rises from his sitting position by the river, unfolding himself to a height two times the size of any mortal man. His bulk is massive. I have the very real sense that if he wished it, he could leap across the river and be at my throat in seconds. Movement behind him demands my attention, and I catch a glimpse of the lush ebony wings folded against his back.

And now with my terror there is an unmistakable desire. A pull that makes me want to cross the river and wrap myself in those soft, feathery wings. The heartbeat starts softly and builds.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I remember it from the last time I met Samael on the Plane and am horrified once again to hear my own heart amplified and beating in time with his.

I take a step back. Everything in my being tells me to flee, but I don’t dare turn away. Instead, I walk backward a few steps, keeping my eye on the ever-changing mask that is his
face. At times, he is as beautiful as the most handsome mortal man. And then he changes again and becomes what I know he is.

Samael.
The Beast.

“Open the Gate, Mistress, as is your duty and your cause. Only suffering follows your refusal.” The guttural voice sounds not just from across the river but inside my mind as if his words are my very own.

I shake my head. It takes every ounce of strength I have to turn away. I do it, though. I turn and run, breaking through the tree line on the riverbank even as I have no idea where to go. His roar crashes through the trees as if alive. As if giving chase.

I try to block it out, smacking at the tree branches that scrape my face as I run, willing myself to wake from this dream, to escape from this travel. But I do not have time to develop a plan, for my foot hits a tree root and I fall, hitting the ground so hard and so fast that blackness clouds my vision. Pushing away from the ground with my hands, I try to get back on my feet. I think I will get away. That I will get up and keep running. But that is before I feel the hand grab at my shoulder.

Before I hear the voice that hisses, “Open the Gate.”

I sit up in bed, sweat dampening the hair at the back of my neck as I stifle a scream.

My breath comes in quick gasps, my heart thudding against my chest as if still in tandem with his. Even the light streaming
in through a gap in the curtains cannot ease the terror left in the wake of my dream, and I wait for a few minutes, telling myself that it
was
only a dream. I tell myself this over and over until I believe it.

Until I see the blood on my pillow.

Raising my hand to my face, I touch my fingers to my cheek. When I pull them back, I know, of course, what it means. The red stain tells every truth.

I cross the room to the vanity that holds the many pots of cream, perfume, and face powder. I hardly recognize the girl in the looking glass. Her hair is wild, and her eyes speak of something dark and frightful.

The scratch across my cheek is not large, but it is unmistakable. As I stare at the blood staining my cheek, I remember the branches and twigs scraping my face as I ran from Samael.

I want to deny that I have traveled unwillingly and alone, for Sonia and I have agreed it would not be wise to do so, despite the increasing strength of my powers on the Plane. It does not matter that those powers now surpass Sonia’s own, because one thing is certain: my burgeoning ability is nothing compared to the will and might of the Souls — or of my sister.

Pulling back the string of my bow, I hold it for a moment before letting the arrow fly. It sails through the air, landing with a
thwack
at the center of the target a hundred feet away.

“You landed it right in the middle!” Sonia exclaims. “And from this distance!”

I look over at her and grin, remembering when I could not hit the target from twenty-five feet, even with the assistance of Mr. Flannigan, the Irishman we hired to teach us the basics of archery. Now, standing in men’s breeches and shooting as easily as if I have been doing it forever, adrenaline and confidence surge through my body in equal measure.

Yet I cannot truly relish my skill. It is, after all, my sister I seek to defeat, and it may well be her at the other end of my arrows when it comes time to launch them. I suppose after everything that has happened I should be happy to see her fall,
but I cannot manage so simple an emotion when it comes to Alice. Instead, my heart is tainted with a convoluted mixture of anger and sadness, bitterness and regret.

“You try.” I smile and try to make my voice cheerful as I encourage Sonia to take her turn at the well-used target. This, even though we both know it is unlikely that she will actually hit it. Sonia’s gifts for communicating with the dead and traveling the Plane do not, as it turns out, translate to a talent for archery.

She rolls her eyes, raising the bow to her slender shoulder. Even this small gesture causes me to smile, for not so long ago Sonia would have been too serious for such lighthearted humor.

Threading the arrow, she pulls back on the string, her arms shaking with the effort of holding it taut. When launched, her arrow wobbles through the air, landing silently in the grass a few feet from the target.

“Ugh! I think that’s enough humiliation for one day, don’t you?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Shall we take the horses to the pond before supper?”

“Yes, let’s,” I answer without bothering to ponder the question. I am not eager to relinquish the freedom of Whitney Grove in favor of the tightly bound corset and formal dinner that await me later this evening.

I sling the bow across my back, packing the arrows within my knapsack, and we cross the archery range to our horses. Mounting up, we start across the field to a glimmering streak of blue in the distance. I have spent so many hours astride my
horse, Sargent, that riding him is second nature. As I ride, I survey the lush openness spread out in every direction. There isn’t another soul in sight, and the utter isolation of the landscape makes me grateful all over again for the quiet haven of Whitney Grove.

The fields here stretch in every direction. They give Sonia and me the privacy required for riding in men’s breeches and practicing with the bow, both pastimes that would hardly be considered appropriate for young women within the confines of London. And while Whitney Grove’s accompanying cottage is quaint, we have thus far used it for nothing more than changing into our breeches and the occasional cup of post-exertion tea.

“I’ll race you!” Sonia calls over her shoulder. She is already pulling away from me, but I don’t mind. Giving Sonia an edge on horseback makes me feel that we are still on equal footing, even if it is with something as simple as a friendly horse race.

I spur Sargent forward, leaning over his neck as his muscled legs break into a run. His mane licks like ebony fire toward my face and I cannot help but admire his glistening coat and superior speed. I catch up to Sonia rather quickly but pull back on the reins a little, maintaining my position just behind her gray horse.

She holds her lead as we cross the invisible point that has been our finish line through many races. As the horses slow, she looks back over her shoulder.

“Finally! I win!”

I smile, trotting my horse up to her as she comes to a stop at
the bank of the pond. “Yes, well, it was only a matter of time. You’ve become an excellent rider.”

She beams with pleasure as we dismount and lead the horses to the water. Standing in silence as they drink, I marvel that Sonia is not out of breath. It is hard to imagine a time when she was afraid to sit astride a horse, let alone gallop over the hills as we do now at least three times a week.

Once the horses have slaked their thirst, we walk them over to the great chestnut tree that grows near the water. Tying them to the trunk, we sit on the wild grass, leaning back on our elbows. The wool breeches we wear while riding pull at my thighs, but I do not complain. Wearing them is a luxury. In a few hours, I will be laced tightly into a silk dress for dinner with the Society.

“Lia?” Sonia’s voice drifts on the breeze.

“Hmmm?”

“When will we go to Altus?”

I turn to look at her. “I don’t know. When Aunt Abigail believes I’m ready to make the journey and sends for me, I suppose. Why?”

For a moment, her usually serene face seems to darken with turmoil, and I know she is thinking about the danger we face in seeking the missing pages.

“I suppose I’d simply like to have it done with, that’s all. Sometimes…” She turns away, surveying Whitney Grove’s grounds. “Well, sometimes all our preparation seems pointless. We are no closer to the pages now than we were when we first arrived in London.”

There is an uncommon edge to her voice, and I feel suddenly sorry that I have been so wrapped up in my own difficulty, my own loss, that I have not thought to ask about the burden that is hers.

I drop my gaze to the sliver of black velvet around Sonia’s wrist. The medallion.
Mine
. Even on her wrist as it is for my protection, I cannot help wanting to feel the soft dry velvet of the ribbon, the coolness of the gold disc against my skin. My strange affinity with it is both my millstone and my cause. It has been so since the moment it found me.

Reaching out to take her hand, I smile, feeling the sadness of it on my face. “I’m sorry if I don’t thank you enough for sharing my burden. I don’t know what I would do without your friendship. Truly.”

She smiles shyly and pulls her hand away, waving it at me dismissively. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lia! You know I would do anything for you. Anything at all.”

Her words soothe the worry at the back of my mind. With all the things to fear, all the people to distrust, there is a significant measure of peace in the friendship that I know will always be ours, whatever else may come.