So that’s all. My deepest gratitude to you, as always, for your help. I’m sure you were anticipating more information than what I’ve given you, but hopefully it will be of some use.
Our love to Mark and Cristina, and to you of course. And above all, glory to Kraig.
Julian
ASH
Janus,
You ask if I saw them. Yes, I saw them.
I was in the throne room, among the lesser court, in disguise. I saw you as well, in your falcon mask; I did not realize you had been hunting for the Queen. She was afraid they know I am here, among the Seelie, and that they sought me. It was clear to me they know nothing. They did not so much as glance in my direction. Certainly, they do not know what is to come.
You ask why I went. I was curious, and I recalled them from Thule. And I wondered if she would be with them, but she was not. It was a peculiar magic drew her to me, and I wonder at it still, but you need not worry there is sentiment attached to my musings. The Nephilim interest me, perhaps all the more so because they do not understand that they are doomed. That is all.
—Ash
EMMA
Dear Jem,
As promised, here are the latest updates on the House That Wouldn’t Stop Being Cursed. Spoiler alert: I think we’re going to need your help again. (Ask Kit if you don’t know what a “spoiler” is.)
Here’s where we are: we’ve assembled all six of the items—we think—that are tied to the curse. We placed them all in the dining room together and lit some candles, but nothing happened. Julian said it was like we were trying to get the objects to have a romantic evening together. He suggested we play some smooth jazz in there. I guess it was overoptimistic to think things would be simple.
During the past few weeks, we’ve collected a number of books on curse-breaking. And looked up some stuff about it on the Internet, though I have to say you never know with “online” whether you’re accessing a real magic spell or something tied to a mundane game. Julian, of course, hadalready read the books, and noted the similarities between most of the curse-breaking spells. They all require cursed objects to be brought together, and for candles made of pure tallow to be lit. Fortunately we were able to grab tallow candles at the Shadow Market, and we arranged them in a circle around the objects. When we lit them, it did look very mysterious and magic-y. Unfortunately, tallow candles smell terrible when they’re burned. Kind of…meaty. But not pleasantly. Unpleasantly meaty.
We combined several of the Latin spells in the books to try to make something happen. You know,We call out for the curse laid upon these objects to be broken, in the name of the Angel Raziel.We tried to make ourselves sound very important, like we knew Raziel well and would be having a pint down at the pub with him once the curse breaking was over. And if the curse didn’t break, boy, would he be mad!
I’m sure you’re horrified that we decided to do this ourselves, and you’re right, we shouldn’t have, but we were just so excited to have all the objects that we thought it was worth at least a try. After all, how wrong could it go?
Answer: very wrong! A chill, clammy wind immediately rose up inside the dining room and swirled in circles, blowing out most of the candles. I started shivering, not because it was cold (although it was suddenly very cold) but because my skin was crawling. I had a terrible sense of encroaching darkness, like my vision was beginning to fade at the edges. Julian started paging through the books quickly, looking for some kind of cancellation spell.
And then the music box on the sideboard began playing by itself, because of course it did. And not the tune it usually plays, which is a Strauss waltz. This was some other tune, something dissonant and harsh (as harsh as a tinkly music box can be, at least). And it was loud, much louder than was possible, like the sound was being picked up and whirled around the room.
“Nooo.” It was a harshly breathed word, and I felt a presence sweep into the room. Rupert, half-transparent and looking furious. He swept a glowing hand through the candles, snuffing out the flames. Thank the Angel, the wind died down and the chill went out of the air. The smell of rancid beef began to dissipate. And I felt like I could breathe again. Julian and I stared at each other.
“Nephilim,” Rupert breathed. It was more emotion than we’ve ever heard from him. “Nephilim—do not play with magic. Tatiana played with magic. She was… destroyed.” He was so upset that the features of his face seemed to be rearranging themselves, his eyes widening to be huge like an anime drawing. His mouth turned down at the sides. “Not worth destroying yourselves,” he whispered. “Find another way. Or leave me prisoned.”
And with that, he disappeared—he kind of flew apart in white-silver pieces, like papers blowing on the wind.
A shudder went up my spine. Rupert. I think I liked him better when he could only move things around in the dust.
Julian suggested that maybe we need Rupert’s “silver band” to make things work, but we are very confident itisn’t in the house. And we’ve found not a single clue from Rupert, from Tatiana’s diary, from anything else that might help us find it.
So…we could use your help. We need a warlock to do the right magic. And before you say it, yes, we know we should have contacted a warlock before we tried any magic. We’re feeling pretty lost. The more we look at the items we’ve collected, the more we wonder if one of them is wrong. We’ve followed some sketchy clues to find them, after all. And we’ve bothered Hypatia, Magnus, and Ragnor so much that I don’t think we could bear to have one of them come and then tell us it’s the objects that are the problem.
So…would you and Tessa be willing to come visit and check things out? Maybe you’ll be able to tell something about the objects since you recognized some of them before. And between an ex-Silent Brother and a warlock I’m sure you’d bring enough magical wisdom to work out what we should be doing. We’d love to see all four of you, in fact, if you’d like to make it a family outing. We can watch Mina for you! There will be scones! And now that the faeries have gotten rid of all the hogweed choking the gardens, they’re looking very nice. Lovely for walks, or if Kit is in a teenage brooding mood, they’re great for brooding. Did I mention the scones?
Love,
Emma
KIT & DRU
KIT
Hey Dru
