Her knees collapsed to the wooden floor.
He’d died alone, thinking she hated him. Had he thought she hadn’t come home on purpose?
Sobs raked through her throat.
She was alone.
Her parents had given her away, frightened of what she was.
Caspian was dead, their future stolen before it had even begun.
Now Ignatius was gone. She hadn’t even said goodbye or gotten the chance to tell him that she had loved him like a father, even after everything.
Keira was alone. And in that moment, in that dusty, empty room, it all seemed like it was entirely her fault.
She was asleep, or something miserably similar, when Thaddeus planted himself before her face on the floor and cawed purposefully. Perhaps she hadn’t been sleeping, but she’d fallen so far within herself that it hardly seemed to matter.
Keira opened her eyes but made no effort to move.
Thaddeus pecked her cheek.
She swatted him away.
He flapped indignantly and came to perch on her hair, pecking at her forehead.
Keira growled as she sat up. She supposed she couldn’t lie on the filthy floor forever, even if any alternative sounded entirely untenable at the moment.
A groan escaped her as she moved her stiff muscles. Thaddeus landed on Ignatius’s desk, scattering the papers and kicking up a cloud of dust with his wings.
“Oh, move!” Keira said through a cough, waving him away.
He flew off to watch her from the top of a bookshelf.
Keira didn’t pay him any mind as he sulked. The papers on the desk had taken her attention.
They were diagrams of experimental charm circles, writings on spell theory, a few alchemical recipes. On the very top:
The Last Will and Wishes of Ignatius the Red.
It was incredibly concise.
I leave all of my rightful belongings on this plane to my ward, Keira. No other will inherit nor pilfer this bequeathment withinher lifetime or that of her children or her children’s children.
This testament, written in my own hand, will stand, exceeding all others, and shall not be contested.
It was clear to her that spellwork had been laid into this document, powerful enough to extend beyond his death, deeper magic by far than even the Domus charm. Keira looked down at the paper again. The tower was hers. The books, the spells. He’d left it all to her.
Guilt rushed over her as she looked at the state of it all. She’d set a new Domus charm, Keira decided. She didn’t intend to stay here for long, at least she thought not. But she would preserve it. A warding circle would defend it well from intruders in her absence. Keira’s eyes drifted to the familiar books. She marked the ones she would require. The sense of purpose, even if it was a fleeting one, let the air back into her lungs.
Perhaps it was hope.
Keira worked as the hours passed by her, unacknowledged and unfelt. As she opened the old books and traced her finger along the pages, grazing over Ignatius’s own annotations, it was like hearing his voice in her ear. But even more, she felt a part of herself awaken. It had been a long time since she had done such complex spellwork. She greeted the challenge like an old friend.
Reworking the Domus charm was new to her. She’d worked a much simpler version once as part of her course work at the Arcanum, but nothing as sophisticated as the one that governed the tower. Ignatius’s preceding markers guided her through the task. After many hours of sketching and studying the existing work, Keira began to carve her own. The effort was draining, but Keira persisted. Her mind even wandered enough to consider laying a Domus on Grimlocke House. Fate knew that the party were poor housekeepers, especially when they left for weeks on end. It would be difficult given the lingering malaise alreadypossessing the house. Perhaps with enough study she could find a way to banish that too.
In the long quiet hours, Keira pondered whether she would return to Stormhaven, to invest herself more in a life there. She caught a brief glimpse of a future among the Blades, something more than a temporary circumstance, a true home. Grief stained the image before it could fully form. She couldn’t. Not yet. But when she was ready… maybe.
When at last she stood, the circle complete, she felt the tower sigh around her. The Domus went to work immediately, appalled by the state of things, she supposed. A great wind carried through the house. Keira covered her face as the gale of dust and debris flurried down the stairs, collecting as it went until it exploded out the open door. In its wake, Keira coughed and sputtered, even as at least a dozen mice scurried out after it. She wiped her hands on her pants with a satisfied look, admiring her handiwork.
