“Shut up,” I said under my breath.
Patrick was touching the book lightly and studying it. “Unusual,” he said.
“Yes, well, Mother was—is—unusual. Can you read it?”
“The words are strange, but I think so. Ban Edevane—your grandfather, I mean—had me catalogue many books in many different languages, so I at least know how to pronounce them, I believe. Even if I don’t know their meaning.” He looked up. “Are you sure you want to risk it? For all I know, we really could be calling down a second Plague.”
“I have to try. For Mother.”
He nodded, turning to the first page of the spell. I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to prepare myself for whatever would happen. If resurrecting bone magic truly was Mother’s goal, would this unleash it fully upon the world? She might not have been powerful or skilled enough to write a spell and build a book strong enough to keep it guided and contained. I had seen the potency of even its faintest stirrings; I could only imagine the full force of it once freed. Or would it truly summon her back from wherever she had gone?
I felt like a child reaching for a sharp paring knife from the kitchen table, as if some more responsible person should intervene before I sliced off my own fingers. But there was no one to intervene, and certainly no one coming to save me.
Except Patrick, apparently, for a given value ofsave.
“It will be all right,” said Patrick.
His faith seemed entirely misplaced, but his voice steadied me. He put a finger on the text to keep his place and startedto read. As he shaped the strange, sibilant words, I watched his lips move and mimicked them as carefully and accurately as I could, remembering that even the slightest mispronunciation or dropped syllable could doom it all.
And if Patrick made such a mistake, I would never know. I had to trust him. Against all my instincts, I had to trust him. The irony was not lost on me.
As I repeated each line after him, my Hair coiled up and around me like the flame of a candle, tendrils reaching out to Patrick as he spoke and encasing us both in their bright copper maelstrom. Patrick barely seemed to notice. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he read the lines slowly and carefully, moving his finger along with the patience required to get every sound, every pause, just right.
As his mouth formed the final syllables of the spell, I repeated them, feeling them leave my mouth like something physical, as if I were coughing up feathers. When I had finished, the echo hung in the air of the tomb for a long moment before fading. My Hair drifted gently down to settle on my shoulders and Patrick’s, still entwining us both.
And … nothing happened.
Sickness churned in my stomach.
“Did we make a mistake?” I whispered. “Did we say something wrong?”
Patrick looked just as uncertain. “No, I’m sure I … No, it was right, I’m sure of it.”
“There must be something else.” I flicked through the pages of the book frantically, the letters dancing and dissolving before my eyes.
“Netta.” Patrick placed his hand over mine. “Stop.”
“No, that can’t be … It can’t be right. I did everything. We did everything.”
Baldbeak gave a warning rattle.Someone is coming.
“Someone is coming,” I repeated to Patrick, wide-eyed.
In one movement, he slammed the book shut, dropped iton the tomb, and enveloped all three of us in shadows, pulling us away from the tomb to behind another sarcophagus at the edge of the room. He crouched down, forcing me down with him.
We could still see over the top, and even though we would theoretically be invisible to anyone else in the room in his strange shadow-world, I was grateful for the comforting stone bulk in front of us. My heart pulsed wildly and painfully in my throat. Baldbeak hunkered down on my shoulder, his beady eyes unblinking. I remembered I still held the glim in my hand.
“Will they be able to see this through the shadow?” I whispered to Patrick.
“A little. Best to snuff it.”
I did, and the room darkened further. A little of its light must have been glowing out from our hiding place, through Patrick’s shadows, and I was glad I had remembered it in time.
“… not working as we anticipated.” It was the Pontiff’s voice, becoming clearer as he moved closer, echoing off the walls. He was making no attempt to speak quietly. Why would he? He had no idea that anyone was here.
“She assured me she would be here to unlock the magic,” he went on, sounding rather petulant. “Many of our mages have attempted to read it, with varying results.”
The specks of blood on the floor. Were those from the mages who had tried and failed? I thanked my lucky stars that Patrick and I had escaped any similar consequences.
