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She bristled. “Yes well I can’t believe I’m the one who’s more worried about how much worse you seem to be getting! Maybe we should get Wisteria and Hemlock—”
“No,” he cut her off. “I’m not telling my two very judgemental older siblings that I let our father jam something awful inside me. I hope they never find out how badly I fucked up. You and I will have to figure it out on our own.”
“How can you be so cavalier?” She sorted through books, frantically skimming titles before organising them into piles. “That shadow could literally take control of you whenever it chooses… or have you forgotten?”
“I’m fine!” he snapped, his voice more defensive than he intended. “I’ve found a way to keep him out until we figure this out.”
“That’s a short-term solution at best!”
“You have no idea what my solution is.”
“Is it mental obsidian walls that act like a shield against him?”
“Fucking hell, Perine.” He raked his hands through his hair, his voice rising. “Are you telling me you’re somehow responsible for the walls in my mind?”
“Oh, calm down. It was your mother’s plan, I merely assisted her.”
“You put my life in the hands of a madwoman!” Oleander practically yelled. “You know what? We’re getting him out today. Read faster. We’re figuring something out because I don’t trust these damned walls anymore… not if my mother was involved.”
“The walls are good! But I suspect that mostly you’ve survived due to this… shadow deciding to wait for the perfect opportunity.” Perine paused, the air around them splintering as she carefully chose her next words. “…and I suspect until we decided to go to the Arcane Vaults it didn’t see you as a threat.”
The room pulsed with a thick, suffocating energy. Oleander knew, in that moment, that Perine was right. He had been such a docile host that the shadow had no need to hurry.
Sensing his unease, she slowly reassured him, “We are going to figure out a solution. Together. You don’t have to be alone in this.”
Oleander’s skin crawled at her words. The shadow was rising now, perhaps realising that they were going to figure out a solution to rid him of it.
He gritted his teeth and rifled in his pocket pulling out the large skeleton key he’d stolen from his father. “I’m getting this thing out of me today if it’s the last thing I—”
Without warning, the shadow that had once been a mere presence, surged violently against the obsidian walls surrounding his mind. It slammed against them, over and over again, until, to his horror, the thick walls shattered—crumbling under the force of darkness.
Icy sweat broke out across the back of his neck. He couldn’t breathe. His chest tightened like a vice, and he leaned forward, desperate for air but finding none.
“Oleander?” Perine was kneeling in front of him now, her hands cupping his cheeks, warm against his fevered skin. He tried to respond, but only choked gasps came out.
“Alright,” Her voice was strained, the faintest edge of panic creeping in. “Alright. I’m sorry but I think we just have to try our luck with the Arcane Vaults and hope that there isn’t really a monster there guarding it.” Her hands were steady, a calming anchor in the storm. “But I need you to get there first. Can you concentrate? You already know what the walls around your mind should look like—you just need to put them back in place.”
Oleander nodded shakily, his vision blurry as he tried to focus. He dug deep into his memory, remembering the great obsidian stones that had once shielded him.
“Good,” she said encouragingly. “Now connect them to a memory of a time when you felt safe.”
That was harder than it should have been. He first thought of his parents, but the truth was, being around them had never made him feel safe. It only ever put him on edge. He thought of Hemlock and Wisteria when they were children. When things had been simpler, when they were together, before everything had gone wrong—
But the darkness swallowed the thought, stealing it from his mind.
The fragile obsidian wall he’d begun to rebuild exploded. The smoke, thick and suffocating, consumed him.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
PERINE WILDER
Oleander slumped in his seat, inky smoke curling from his body. Peri stifled a sob, and with trembling hands she dug through her satchel until she found a tonic that made one temporarily weigh around half their original weight. She poured it down his throat and then began dragging his now strangely light body through the library.
She had to get to the Arcane Vaults.
The vaults had originally interested her as a place that might have housed this infernal earring she’d been searching for. Even though she’d eventually discounted it as a potential hiding place for the jewellery, the Vaults still held the opportunity to at least offer something to aid her in her search. The objects stored there were supposed to hold unimaginable magic.
