The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (56 page)

Stephen and Timothy grabbed her at the same time.

“Don’t,” Timothy said. “Don’t go near it. Not yet, and not for some time, and never alone. Always bring Stephen with you. Only you and he can find it. It will not be open for much longer, but even closed, you must be careful of it until you are stronger.”

“There are no handles,” Emily said, motioning to the place where a doorknob or lever should be.

“No, there are not,” Timothy said, sounding a little rueful.

“What is it for?” she asked.

“Its function is that of any door,” he answered. “To keep things in, to keep things out, and now, briefly, to let things through. In a moment, I will go through it, but I will do so through another way. You will know when this happens; do not wonder how. You will simply know. And this is your duty, Emily Elliott, one which you must uphold, or the whole world may fall around our ears. When you know I have passed through, you must close the door again, and you must walk away.”

Stephen’s hand tightened on Emily’s. She felt her throat constrict. “But there is no handle,” she repeated in a whisper. “You will not be able to come back through again.”

Timothy said nothing, only nodded.

“No,” Emily whispered.

Timothy reached out and stroked her face. “Am I of greater worth than the whole world, Emily Elliott?”

“Yes!” she said, wiping her tears from her eyes as they fell.

Timothy’s eyes were wet too as he laughed and bent to kiss her. “It is not for you to save me. That is the task for another, and you may not take it from him. But before he can do this,
I
must save
him
. And to do this, I must go through the door.”

“I never made you a charm,” Emily whispered, her voice breaking. “I wanted to make you one so special, stronger than anything. I kept meaning to, but I never did!”

He had to wipe his eyes now as well, but he was lighter all the time. He touched her chin. “
Donnasa
. You gave me the most precious, most powerful charm of all. You gave me yourself.”

One last kiss. Stephen was looking on, but Emily did not care, and in her heart, she knew he understood.
My Lady
. When Timothy opened his mouth over hers, she took him inside, kissing him with her whole heart, her whole soul, giving herself to him completely. It was not a carnal kiss, and it did not burn. It lit her heart instead, filling it, lightening it, making it brighter and stronger than ever before, and it had never, in fact, been weak.

When they broke the kiss, the door beside them was shining like a sun.

“That will make it a bit better,” he whispered and brushed his lips against her cheek. He released her, and she watched as he kissed Stephen, more gently, but Stephen shut his eyes tight and urged the kiss to linger. Then at last this too was done. Timothy took the lantern back from Emily, smiled at them, and made a low, graceful bow. Then he turned to the darkness, taking the light with him. Emily held fast to Stephen’s hand as they watched it go, growing smaller and smaller and smaller, until at last it was not there at all, and he was gone.

* * *

Jonathan began moving almost as soon as he had consciousness again. His head was pounding, and he felt exquisitely queasy, but he climbed to his feet, grabbing his knife. He was outside the abbey. Why? He had been inside. He had been arguing—pleading—with Whitby.

Whitby. With the sword.

He turned to duck back inside, the door still open wide and waiting, but as he moved, he looked up at the sky, and it occurred to him something was wrong. He slowed, and then he stopped. The magic dome. The spell. It was gone.

Madeline.

He began to run. But when he burst into the foyer, the witches’ Council was already coming down the stairs. He raised his knife and prepared to charge, but before he could take so much as another step, one of the veiled women raised her pale white hand and said, “Cease. This is unnecessary. The matter has already been finished. The heretic has been dismissed.”

Jonathan stumbled, dropping his knife. His skin was hot, his chest tight, and the top of his head felt as if it were swelling away from his skull. No.
No
. He could not be too late. He could not have failed her this way. He could not.
He could not!

But the truth was there in their faces. Jonathan cried out, reached for another knife, and let it fly. The witch it was aimed at lifted her hand and deflected it effortlessly.

“This attack will be ignored, but another will not,” she said. Her voice was entirely flat: no irritation, no upset of any kind, only the sort of admonition Jonathan’s nanny had given him when he was six.

Jonathan clenched his hands at his sides and stared down the pack of somber women. They moved silently into a semicircle before him, filling the foyer with the heavy whispers of their clothes. Their veils were thick and dark, letting him see nothing at all of their faces, and he knew beneath the swarthy black they were completely hairless, every one. They were cold and stale and ugly, frozen monoliths of control.

The one who had stopped him lowered her hand, and then she reached up and lowered her veil as well. She looked at Jonathan with serene empathy. “You loved her, which is to your credit. But it is your passion that undid her, young man.”

“No,” he shot back. “That was your cold communal heart. You didn’t even hear her! She said there would be no trial, just destruction. Nothing—no defense! No posits, nothing! No chance for retribution! The fucking Cloister monks are kinder!”

Even when he swore at her, the witch would not be moved to anger. “There was no need. We knew what she had done, and what she had not done, as soon as we entered the parish.”

“Did you see, then, that she saved me? That she sacrificed herself on your perverted altar to save me from—” He cut himself off and swore under his breath. “You don’t care, do you. You don’t care for her or for me or for anyone. You
are
like the damned monks. You only care for your creed. All else is so much noise on the wind.”

“You cannot be expected to understand the intricacies of the Craft,” the witch said, still unmoved.

“I’ve lived your cursed Craft,” he shot back. “I’ve grounded her as she stepped into the Void. I’ve
fetched
her from the Void. I’ve watched her suffer to serve. I’ve watched her peel herself away by layers—all for this!”

“You upset yourself for nothing, young man.” The witch opened her hand. “She is of Us now. She is returned to the magic from which she pledged herself. Her Circle is complete.”

She was my circle, not yours
, he wanted to shout, but he said nothing. They would not hear. He would not waste his breath.

Madeline. Madeline was gone forever.

The witch closed her hand and nodded, apparently taking his silence for acceptance. “Our work is finished here. A new witch will be assigned when her name is revealed to us. We Sisters of the Council now depart.”

Jonathan choked on his rage. “You—
what
?”

“We go. There is no more work here for us.”

Jonathan pointed to the lake. “There is a demon loose in the parish, and you propose to
leave
?”

The witch looked surprised. He watched her lift her head, and he knew she was tasting the air, reading it, checking for the demon. She lowered her head and smiled at him as one might a mad, amusing puppy. “There is no demon here. This is your passion run away with you again, child.”

“Then you are blind as well as stupid!” Jonathan shouted back.

“Yes, well, that’s the trouble with witches,” a voice said from the balcony above. “To see the truths they need to see, they must close their eyes to so many, many things.”

Jonathan looked up, and his heart broke all over again. The demon stood there, smiling brightly. It was wearing Charles.

The witches looked at each other, wary for the first time. They broke their circle carefully, reforming it in the other direction to face the speaker on the balcony. The demon looked amused and leaned over the rail, tucking one of Charles’s feet behind its leg, and it dangled one arm casually over the side as it watched and waited.

It hurt Jonathan to look at him. The voice was the same. He looked the same, and yet he was so changed. It was Charles’s body, and yet Jonathan knew at once it was not he who stood there, the boy he had called brother all his life. Even without the eyes, which were now nothing more than sucking points of darkness, he was wrong. His face, his mouth—it was as if someone had unfastened Charles and put him on as a suit.

The demon held out its hands, smiling blithely at the witches before speaking to Jonathan again. “Poor lambs, they can’t help it. They have to choose, you see. It’s why they remove themselves so completely, why they cannot marry.
You’re
not stupid, Jonathan. You understand it’s passion that makes life. The pain. The sacrifice. The loss. These crones, they think hair and sex are sacrifice enough. They are wrong. That is only sacrifice of pleasure. But you—oh,
you
. You have bled for so many, and you will bleed again before this day is through, your sweet blood washing over my tongue. You will be my first, my sweet first. You, and then the rest.” It extended Charles’s hand to Jonathan, palm cupped and ready for offering. “The cup, love. Fetch my cup and your demon. Put the latter on and bring the other to me. We will meet in the tower, the place of your choosing. We will fight, and I will eat you up.” It grinned a terrible grin. “Such an honor for you. The last Perry. The one who lost to me.”

The witches, who had been glancing at each other in stunned silence, turned back to the demon and faced it down. “Who are you, strange young man, to say such things?”

The demon turned that smile on the witches, eyes glowing a strange, uncomfortable green. “I am an important lesson. Let us see what you and your Craft do with this.”

As Jonathan watched in horror, the demon grew, extending out of Charles’s body as a great dark shadow that spanned over the entire hall. Like a breath of wind, it swooped down and ate them up, all twelve, all at once.

Jonathan fell back against the wall, shaking as the demon wiped its mouth daintily with the tail of Charles’s coat. Then it laughed.

“Oh, that was fine.” He burped, then rubbed his stomach. “Chewy.” He sighed and tilted his head at Jonathan. “Not first then, I’m afraid, for you. I apologize. But this is better. Thirteen. Such a powerful number.” He grinned and waved his fingers in an eerily Charles-like gesture. “See you upstairs.”

Then he was gone.

Jonathan stared at the quiet foyer, empty now save himself. After several seconds, he remembered to breathe. Then, shaking, aching, dying over and over again, he let the sadness rise inside him.

Failed. I have utterly, utterly failed.

He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he let out a strangled sob when he turned and saw Timothy beside him.

“Timothy, Goddess save you,
run
! Charles—he’s gone, and the demon—
Madeline
—”

Timothy squeezed his shoulder gently. “Hush. It’s all right. It will be all right, I promise you.”

Jonathan’s laugh was mad. “Timothy,
they’re dead
. The witches killed Madeline, and the demon killed Charles.” His laugh broke and he began to sob again. He felt his mind unhinging inside his skull, which was the worst cut of all.
And on top of it all, I will go out a madman, like my father before me…

Timothy kissed his hair, a soothing gesture. “Come with me now. I will show you where I put the cup. You must take it to the tower room and face him, as he said, but you will not be taken by the demon, and you will not face him alone. I will go with you.”

“Timothy—” Jonathan tried to protest, but he didn’t have the heart to speak any longer.
So long. I fought it all for so long, and now it is all lost…

“We must hurry.” Timothy tugged on him insistently now, and more from lack of energy than anything else, Jonathan let himself be towed. He went with Timothy through the halls, up the stairs, down again, round and around until they were in the courtyard. For a moment, with no warning, Timothy disappeared. Then just as quickly, he was back again. He was carrying the Elliott cup in his hands.

Jonathan shook his head, dazed. “Here? You hid it here? In a
bush
?”

“Not exactly.” Timothy put the cup aside and took Jonathan’s hands. “You must listen carefully now. We do not have much time, and I will not be able to speak to you this way again once we are in the tower. You will take the daemon inside you once we arrive, but you must use what you learned by carrying it in Catal, in fighting the monks, to keep yourself separate from it. Let it wear you, but do not give in to it.” He reached out and touched the medallion in the center of Jonathan’s chest. “She will help you. She will be waiting for you. Her spell will help strengthen you and keep you safe.”

“Timothy, she is
gone
—”

Timothy shook his head. “She is hiding. You must help him to find her. Tell him to fetch her, to look for her in the place where he has found her before.”

Jonathan dared to hope, but it almost made the pain worse. “Him…?”

“Charles,” Timothy said. “But no more questions. You must listen now.” He waited until Jonathan nodded; then he continued, still holding tight to Jonathan’s hands. “In the tower, let demon fight demon. This is very important.” Timothy nodded to the cup. “Let your House demon use your body, but do not fight the Elliott demon yourself, no matter how it provokes you. Wait. I want both of them weak and tired before I act, as weak as they can be made, but you must conserve your strength.”

“You—what can you do?”

Timothy pressed his fingers to Jonathan’s lips. “Do not ask. All I can say is that you must not stop me, no matter what you see. Trust me that what you see is not the only thing that is happening, and that whatever happens is what I choose. If you try to stop me, many, many people will die. And you will never see Madeline again.” Jonathan opened his mouth to argue, but Timothy shook his head and let him go, reaching for the cup again. “Come. We have no more time. We must go.”