Before either Seff or I could react, the viscount snapped his fingers. Seff’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he crumpled in a heap on the ground.
MONOLOGUE
Iwas hallucinating. I had to be—or I couldn’t trust my eyes anymore, as I stared down at Seff’s unconscious form, crumpled on the ground. Before I could say or do anything, the viscount snapped his fingers again, and vicious black ropes, conjured as if from thin air, twined up my arms, binding my wrists together.
It took me more than a few seconds to make sense of what was happening. I just looked back and forth, between the viscount and Seff, and down at the ropes that bound me. The viscount was a magic wielder. Holy Goddess. The implications of this barrelled into me with the force of a freight train.
“You can wipe that look of shock off your face now. Yes. I have magic. And no, my son doesn’t need to see it. It’s disgusting and unclean. But useful at times like these.” The viscount crooked a finger, beckoning me to toward him. My feet moved of their own accord—or more accurately, of his accord. That rope wound back up my arm and around my mouth, gagging me, squeezing tight against my tongue and teeth. The corners of my mouth started to tear around the unwanted intrusion. The ropes at my wrists twisted viciously, cutting into the delicate skinthere. And still he called me toward him, and still, I could not refuse.
I couldn’t even struggle as my body moved. I remembered my lessons with Rory—the types of magic that could be wielded. This had to be the mind magic. And I could nowfeelwhy it was so abhorrent to the people Beneath Lutesse. He could have made me do anything he wanted. My body didn’t belong to me anymore.
The viscount gripped my upper arm; his hands felt so wrong. His eyes roved up and down, appraising me. I felt true fear and panic when he touched me—what would he do to me? What could he make me do with this power of his? I tried desperately to connect to the place where that black fire lay dormant within me, but it felt empty. As if my outburst had spent all the magic I had stored in that place where it slumbered. My reserve of magic, as Rory had explained, had run dry.
The viscount chuckled, sensing my terror as he pulled me alongside him. He led me into the mausoleum, roughly pushing me inside. I fell to the ground, stumbling without the use of my hands. My knees tore open as they hit the marble floor. The sun had dipped below the horizon; it was pitch-black inside the monument.
The viscount blew into a brazier that hung from a wall within the chamber, casting an eerie green light into the place. It was ancient and dusty, the floor scattered with dried leaves and detritus; the family members of its occupants were either dead or long gone from Lutesse. Panic rose like bile in me. There was no one here to save me this time. And I couldn’t do anything to save myself. My magic was all but spent. I was going to die here, or worse, and no one would ever know.
“I’m sure you have questions.” The viscount grasped me by the shoulders and hauled me to my feet, shoving me back against the wall of the mausoleum. “Unfortunately, that’s going to haveto stay in place. We can’t have you using that power of song now, can we?”
He tsk-tsked as if it were a shame that I had to be gagged like this. As if it were for my own good. “But I’ll try to answer the questions Ithinkyou have.” He smiled; it was a horrible sight.
“My magic is different from yours.” Erik de Barras looked down at his hands, wiggling his fingers as if he could see the strands of power moving between them. “I realized, when I was a child, that I was unusual—I could manipulate people and things. I thought it was wonderful—what a way to get what I wanted. Until I recognized what it truly was—heresy. How could I, such a staunch believer in the One True Faith, have this power that was against everything we fought for? I will admit it caused my faith to waver back then,” he said, in that pompous voice. I wanted to spit at him that I didn’t care about his stupid backstory. I wanted to kick him in the groin and run. But those ropes were now winding down my legs, binding my ankles together—as if he could sense the direction of my thoughts.
“But God works in mysterious ways. I came to believe that I was given this power for a divine purpose. And so, I used my magic to undermine the Demon Queen’s cause. To strengthen Scion—the One True Church. To further the cause of what is good and righteous and pure,” he continued. I was going to be sick. He was insufferable. “Sometimes, I admit, my methods have had to be unsavoury. But I did it all for righteousness.” He crossed his right hand over his heart, solemnly swearing that everything he did was justified. Do as I say, not as I do—what is good for me is not good for you. How many people had this man condemned to death, while he himself hid that ability away, using it to hurt others? I didn’t know whether to be disgusted or horrified. I landed on both.
“It was when I was on a missionary trip as a young man that I discovered my other hidden talent,” the viscount started toreminisce. He certainly liked to hear himself talk. “I was in Erinn—horribly damp place—attempting to convert the local heathens to civilized religion.”
I stopped struggling when he mentioned Erinn. I stopped moving against the ropes that bound me. The whole world stopped.
“It was there that I found out I could sense other magic wielders. If they used magic around me.” The world slipped out from under me. I was untethered—floating through space.
“There were so many of them there. And since they practised the Old Ways, most were just out in the open using magic. Disgusting.” He shivered. “I was able to eliminate hundreds of them.” He sounded gleeful—gleeful about murdering hundreds of innocent people.
“There was one woman in particular who proved… difficult. She fought like a wildcat. Gave me this scar.” He moved a few strands of white-blonde hair away from his hairline, revealing a pale line of scar tissue there. “She tried so hard. It was almost a shame to see her burn. But alas, such things must be done in the name of righteousness. So says our God.”
The world was spinning too fast. And I could see it coming—what he was going to say next. But my mind was still spiraling, grasping, unable to get purchase.
“But it was her son who gave us a run for our money.” He laughed as I felt my heart drop out of my body. “The poor wretch threw himself onto the pyre trying to save his mother. Gave him such a horribly disfigured face.”
I was going to vomit—I couldn’t. I was going to scream—I couldn’t. Tears leaked from my eyes. The gag cut into my mouth hard as I shook against it. Ciaran…
He had said he had a sordid history with Scion. Why had he never told me that the viscount was the one who... It dawned on me. Seff had known too. It was why he thought Ciaran was tryingto get back at his father in the first place. Goddess, I was so stupid not to have seen it. I had been so willfully ignorant about Seff’s family. I was disgusted with myself.
“Maybe you know him?” the viscount continued, looking pensive. “Ciaran Fahy?” The rage and grief in my eyes must have betrayed me. Betrayed how I really felt. “Oh, youdoknow him. How fitting.”
I struggled hard against the ties that bound me. A stream of curses were stifled by the gag, blood and spit filling my mouth, pouring out around it.
“When I realized he was the one making so much trouble for me here in Lutesse…” He smiled, shaking his head. “Well, I knew I had to get him off the streets. Unfortunately, that poor priest was collateral damage. But, such is war.”
He had set up the explosion at the church to frame Ciaran? I wondered if there was anything the viscount wouldn’t do for this cause. It was clear that he truly believed that what he was doing, what he had done, was justified. It was terrifying.
“I’ll admit I didn’t see you coming, Seraphina.” He shook his head. “I truly thought you were just Seff’s plaything. I was going to let him have you if he wanted. Even though you are, truthfully, far beneath him. But the heart wants what it wants. Or, I suppose, the cock does.” He gestured toward me, as if it were only too obvious why Seff would have been interested in me. As if my body was the only thing that I could possibly have to offer. “But then you sang at the gala.” He shrugged. “And I knew what you were. I knew what had to be done.”
My eyes and throat burned as I struggled in vain.
“You see, not only can I sense other magic wielders, if I find one—especially one as untrained and untried as you—I can manipulate their magic.” He smiled—the sight was hideous. Nausea gripped me—my guts churning as he continued his villainous monologue.
“You were so worked up that night.” He laughed, and I could do nothing, horrified at what I guessed he was about to admit. “Your magic was roiling around just beneath the surface. It was so easy to grab onto it—to take control of it. To use it to damn you completely.” He smiled—something from a nightmare in the eerie green light from the brazier. “I took it for myself and used it to bring down the chandelier.”
