Ban Morin went to the wagon and removed several volumes, one at a time. Milady flicked her eyes over them before nodding to one. “That.”
He opened the book to the first page, setting it beside Mother’s book on the stone. Milady muttered under her breath as her eyes swept over it, then shook her golden hair back over her shoulders, and laid her hands flat on the pages. She began to speak the words of the spell in her other volume in a clear, bell-like tone.
My eyes went to her fingernails. I could see nothing happening so far—she was too far away. When she had finished speaking, however, she stepped back a pace and winced as she removed four loose nails from her fingertips, easing them out from the root and letting them fall to the floor with atink.
For a moment, nothing happened. Even the dust motes in the air seemed to hang suspended. Then, an arm burst from Mother’s spellbook, straight up, fingers spread. It was nothing but bone.
Ban Morin cursed, and I heard the jingling of the Pontiff’s chain of office as he stumbled back. Patrick said something under his breath, and Baldbeak clicked his beak almostinaudibly. My stomach lurched. I could see the skeletal hand fumbling about blindly, searching for something to grab onto.
It found it.
I saw Milady’s slim hand reach out and clasp it in her own.
“Margotte,” she said.
“What is that cursed thing?” spluttered Ban Morin.
“My sister,” said Milady over her shoulder, not a trace of a tremor in her voice. She turned back to the bony hand that gripped her own, and whispered, “Margotte. My sweet. Come back to us.”
The bone that protruded from the book was white and clean, gleaming so brightly that it almost looked wet.
“They did it,” whispered Patrick. His face was pale. “Is that really your mother?”
“I don’t know,” I breathed, staring at the bony hand.
Despite Milady’s initial triumph, they wrestled with the spells for what seemed like an hour, but was probably only twenty minutes or so. Milady and Ban Morin took turns, riffling through the spellbooks. Even with all their efforts, they did not progress much further—but the air of the tomb thrummed with power, bitter and pulsing.
It had become uncomfortably warm in the Tomb of Kings. Ban Morin stripped down to his shirtsleeves, and his heavy features were slick with sweat. The Pontiff was fanning himself in one corner, seated on the edge of a sarcophagus. One arm and one shoulder had emerged from the book now, thin brown veins climbing the bone like ivy. Milady was gloveless, her fingertips slick and shining with sweat. Her voice was admirably steady, however, as she continued to read, pronouncing each syllable with clean precision.
“It’s no use,” she said at last. “Only my sister can unlock the spellbook. And she was drawn into it, somehow. It’s like trying to open a chest with the key locked inside it.”
“So itisworthless,” said Ban Morin flatly.
“There has to be something else we can do,” said thePontiff. “She’s your sister. Surely, as you said, there is enough blood shared between you for the wards to recognize you and let you in.”
“Blood,” repeated Ban Morin thoughtfully. In a sudden movement, shocking in its brutality, he grabbed Milady’s wrist and twisted it, turning it so her bare wrist faced up, pale and vulnerable.
“Cut it,” he said.
“What?” Milady’s eyes were wide.
“You heard the man. Blood. It needs blood. And it has to be you.”
She turned pale. “I can’t.”
“Oh, comeon, Sybil.”
“You do it, Sawl.” She shut her eyes. “I can’t look.”
I heard her cry as the silver flash of a knife in his hand came away from her white skin.
“Stop now! That has to be enough, surely.” She struggled against him, but he drew her closer to the book and held out her hand to the groping arm. Even as she screamed and wriggled against him, the blood making her slick in his grasp, the skeletal hand found her fingers and gripped her tight.
The blood ran down Milady’s fingers and onto the bone. The veins entwining it grew dark and fat as sated ticks, the blood seeming to be drawn into them, running down through the skeletal arm and into the book itself, which wicked it up thirstily.
“Let me go!” Milady screamed.
“No,” said the Pontiff, who had abandoned his seat and taken a step forward. “It’s working.”
