Chapter 5

Witches and alchemists fundamentally disagree on nearly every aspect of spell-craft. Witches earn their magic through study and practice. Alchemists make morbid trades in exchange for the necessary energy: a year of life for a beautiful face, a pinch of soul for lasting youth . . . Though I will acknowledge there is a proper science to weighing a fitting bargain, I fear that most alchemists cheat themselves when they do little work to gain access to such power. When magic isn't properly earned, the caster lacks respect for the arcane, and they're more likely to work the mystical energies in bad faith.

-Hecate's Guide to Arcane Philosophy

Quiet

T he voices calling my name sounded far away. I was floating on a cloud, content in that space between asleep and alert. A sharp pain in my mouth brought me surging back to full awareness. Tenderness seared my gums. Something skittered out from between my lips. The familiar prickle of hairy arachnid legs scampered across my cheek. More wispy limbs crawled through my hair. I was as accustomed to their touches as I was to the feel of my own skin and didn't flinch, worried I'd hurt one of them by mistake if I moved too quickly.

An outpouring of lightning beetles illuminated the shadowy chamber I found myself lying in. My shy assistants had been worried indeed to make an appearance in such numbers. They blinked against a dark canopy of stone and packed earth like glittery blue stars.

"There she is," Goose said, relief in her voice.

"You had us both fretting." Astor's face was hidden in the dark. I could barely make out her outline, backlit in bug lights.

"You hit your head hard," Goose said, lowering her voice to a soothing rumble. "You lost a tooth, but your spider friends set to patching you up right away."

I tested the repaired canine with my tongue. It felt tender but secure.

She handed something to me. I recognized the felt texture of my hat, and I gripped the wide brim hard before pulling it onto my head and giving myself a good once-over. The scar-weaver silk spells sewn into my clothing had protected me from the worst of the fall. I'd landed in a damp, slimy spot, but as I shifted my weight to sit up, my clothing quickly cleaned and dried itself.

I touched my throbbing skull tentatively, and my stomach lurched. My pulse thumped where my head hurt the worst. "I think I've concussed myself."

Goose held out her hand, proudly splaying her fingers. "I broke two digits when I landed. They were pointing the wrong direction. It hurt like the dickens! Nearly vomited when your spiders set the bone without much warning, but I'm all better now. Made my skin crawl to let them walk all over me like that, but your scar-weavers are as bossy as you are. 'Bout impossible to say no to any of them."

"I'm just trying very, very hard not to accidentally step on anyone," Astor said to the spiders, standing stiffly.

I wanted to smile, but my head hurt too much. I touched my brow and found something wet and warm there. Blood.

"That looks nasty. Could they fix your head for you?" Astor asked, kneeling carefully at my side. I could see her better there. Half her face was cast in blue light.

My assistant Anita scurried onto my shoulder, her tell-tale tuft of hair stuck up on her back. She flapped her pedipalps in a way that made me feel like I was getting scolded.

"She could fix me," I said, grimacing. "But she'd have to crawl under my skin to repair my bruised brain, and I'd rather I wasn't awake for something like that."

Goose covered her mouth and gagged.

Astor cringed. "Can't say I blame you. Are you all right to move? We could get you back to Prim. She'll patch you up without putting anything under your skin."

"That's a sound plan." I gave Astor my hand. Her palm was heavily calloused from her work with metals. She pulled me onto my feet with ease and braced my back with her palm.

"What is this place?" Goose asked, looking around. Her voice echoed.

The smell, the stones, and the moisture were all familiar, but my jarred mind took a moment to catch up.

"We're in the aqueducts," I said, peering upward in the direction of the steep, mold-covered flagstones. I expected to see sunlight farther up the incline, but there was only darkness. The specter must have closed the trapdoor after dropping us inside. Which unfortunately meant flying back up there on our traveling artefacts wasn't an option.

Flying anywhere down here with the lighting so poor wouldn't be safe. I'd barely made it through one fall. I didn't want to risk myself or my sisters in another, and if specters didn't want a door open, we'd have trouble getting through without the proper specialty.

"We haven't had a good look around yet," Astor said, releasing me so I could find my bearings. "We didn't want to lose you in the dark, and I worried your insects wouldn't listen to me."

"Gilbert?" I called, blinking around at the glittering lights, trying to find a certain chunky moth amongst them. "I could use your help . . ."

Gilbert the garlic moth came swooping in moments later, alighting on my shoulder. Anita scooted over reluctantly to make room for his sparkling wingspan.

The sound of moving water echoed in the distance. I knew where those tunnels would lead, but frankly that was a route I was in no hurry to take. Eckert Castle and the cistern beneath it was still a place I visited in my worst nightmares.

"I'd really, really like to get my sisters and myself out of here, please," I told my moth assistant. "I don't suppose you know why the clown dropped us down here, do you?"

His antennae twitched, and then he took to the air once more, flying in one tight circle before jetting off back the way we'd come. Gilbert stopped then, hovering in the air as though he were second-guessing himself. He wasn't quite the same since his injuries fighting the giant coffin-dweller. After a moment, he flew toward the center of the spacious chamber.

"Well, hold on now," I said, hoisting my skirts and hurrying to keep up. Goose jogged ahead of me. Astor had my back—a protective act I was as fond of as I was grateful neither of my sisters had bothered to shout at me for getting them into this mess.

They'd probably get to the shouting later.

Lightning beetles floated in tight swarms, illuminating the way before us. I headed down a slight incline into a cavern covered in what I thought were large boulders until I was close enough to make the details out better. The ground was covered in great mounds that came up to my hip, piles and piles of . . .

"Toys?" Goose wondered aloud.

My eyes adjusted slowly to the shadows. There were dozens of them in strange heaps, lumped across the ground. Children's toys: dolls and doll parts, the tiny furniture that went inside playhouses, and stuffed bears. I bent low to examine the ash-covered item at my feet. It was a knitted clown with button eyes and springy purple yarn for hair.

The toy was covered in an ash I recognized, the same ash the darkness had created after Rorick had defeated the massive coffin-dweller and I'd broken the wards on the mirrors, freeing the vengeful spirits and eternal consequences that haunted this place.

A prickling sensation ran down my back, a drop of liquid fear coursing through my spine. I nudged the toy back to its pile with the toe of my boot, unable to shake the sensation of hundreds and hundreds of eyes watching me.

A chime came from the pile next to Astor's feet. A collective gasp rang out, and we all spun to look at it. A toy sprang from its box, causing a small avalanche in its pile. Astor pulled her wand and fired, filling the toy with magic bullets.

What remained of the box sizzled and smoked at our feet.

"Oh . . ." Astor gasped, staring down at the shredded remains of the jack-in-the-box. "I may have overdone it there."

"That was absolutely the right decision," I said, grabbing at my stammering heart.

"Whatever that was, it deserved to stop moving forever," Goose agreed.

"Do you still have my lens?" I asked Goose.

"Shattered it in the fall, I'm afraid," she said, frowning. Removing her witch's hat, she dug inside, searching with her tongue in the corner of her mouth until she found what she was looking for. "Here we go. Mine's better anyway." She pulled out a larger lens, a glass piece that still had a small copper latch in the corner, like it had recently been lifted off the face of a clock. It was so large it required both her hands to wield. She hoisted it to examine the nearest pile of ash-coated toys.

Goose grimaced. "Oh, for Fate's sake," she breathed. "These aren't toys at all."

"Bones," Astor said weakly, peering over her shoulder. "Goddess save us, we're standing amongst piles and piles of little bones."

"Gilbert, please," I called, desperate to be gone from this place. Trailed by my lightning beetles, I stepped carefully between the next two piles. The moth guided me to a gravel-covered clearing where a large metal chest sat flanked by red and black balloons. An iron lock as big as my fist secured the front.

The sound of moving water was louder here. "Gilbert," I asked, "is this what I think it is? This isn't just bone mounds. It's a trial of arising?"

"Like in the myth of the goddess sisters?" Astor asked, sounding farther away. She'd stayed behind with Goose. They were shorter than me. The mounds came up to their chests.

Seeing them standing there beside the piles of toys, I recognized the game. "Have you ever been to a carnival?" I asked.

"Yes." Goose looked around, sweeping her lens from side to side. "And I don't like where this is going one bit."

"It's like the needle in the haystack game, or when they hide a coin inside piles of corn and dried beans. But there's a key in here somewhere," I told them. "The specters want us to have whatever is in this chest. But we've got to open it first."

"Ugh," Goose groaned, "but couldn't they just hand it to you?"

"I don't think that's how it works with ghosts," I said, "but they're not loquacious beings, so your guess is good as mine. Perhaps they like the games."

"We've got to search through all this?" Astor gestured at the piles, exasperated.

"And maybe keep your wand in your hand," I suggested, "in case we get a visitor we'd rather see full of holes. There are likely still coffin-dwellers about down here, corpse-eaters too, but they'll leave us be as long as we don't get too close to their nests."

I pulled gloves from the void in my pocket and put them on, ignoring the thudding of my pulse that still reverberated in my head where it ached the worst. At least the bleeding had stopped.

"Better get to work, then," Astor said, palming her revolver-shaped wand. Sooner we're done, the sooner we can leave this place."

I tried not to think of them as bones, tried instead to picture each grouping as what the specters wanted me to see: innocent toys. Not a femur covered in ash. Not a collarbone that was so small it had to have belonged to a child. The illusion was convincing. I picked up a doll and felt her plush body between my fingers, felt the linen of her little pink dress.

"Where do you suppose all these bones came from?" Astor wondered. "The circus? A graveyard?"

"Corpse-eaters leave the bones behind, don't they?" Goose offered.

"They often craft things with them," I told her.

After I made it through the third pile, I was caked in ash. A lingering scent of rot joined the smell of mold and broke the ethereal trick that kept my mind at peace while I searched. I stopped to let the spell in my clothing clean the fibers. I didn't want any part of the rot that had haunted the castle touching me, even if it no longer seemed dangerous.

"Got it!" Goose shouted, emerging from a pile of blocks and doll heads, holding her fist aloft.

The key itself looked like a toy, decorated in glass gems. She passed it over to me. It was heavy and cold in my palm. I carried it to the chest and slid it inside the lock without hesitation, eager to be gone from this place.

As I turned it, laughter rebounded around the cavern—the sound of children giggling—echoing off the walls, raising the hairs on my arms. Footsteps crashed around the chamber, and water splashed in the distance, like little ones playing in puddles after heavy rain.

"Hell's balls," Astor growled as the noises dissipated. "Do the specters have to be so bloody startling every second? Could they take a break from all that, please, and go find someone else to haunt for a bit?"

I replaced my hat and pulled up my cloak to protect my face before I opened the chest. Inside I found a thick, stout, cream-colored candle. I lifted it out and smelled the beeswax. It had no wick.

"Anything useful?" Astor asked.

"I'm not sure yet," I said, turning the candle between my fingers. I tucked the wax inside my pocket for safekeeping, then checked that there was nothing else within the chest, feeling the lining for hidden compartments.

The chest was empty, and the illusion had expired. We were now standing in a room full of disturbed bone piles.

"Come on, then." I gestured for them to follow me toward the tunnels where the water flowed loudly through the aqueducts.

I had no desire to see Eckert Castle ever again after what happened to Rorick and me the last time we were there, but there was no other way back to the surface.