46. Aurelia

Chapter 46

Aurelia

" D on't kill him," I say quickly to my mates. I didn't know which one of them would be first to try. "Please. Just don't."

"I deserve it, Aurelia," Uncle Ben says, tears falling from both eyes. "I really do."

I quickly decipher the contract on his pale, exposed chest. If I came to him for help, he'd have to lead me into whatever serpent trap was closest to hold me captive. My dad must have plenty such traps all around, including at Aunt Charlotte's House. He'd really thought of everything and knew that if I was going to anyone for help, it would be Uncle Ben.

In being so kind to me, he'd made himself a target.

"You had no choice," I say softly, tugging his shirt back over his chest. "The best thing you can do now is go back and not raise an alarm. Can you do that?"

Uncle Ben nods, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.

Savage growls ferociously.

"There's no further instruction in the serpent contract," I say calmly. "He's not bound to do anything else, so we can let him go." I turn back to a sweating Uncle Ben. My kindest relative who was really out of his league in this dark business of my father. "Leave slowly. Don't run, otherwise you're dead," I advise, noting the pure violence coiling around Savage.

Uncle Ben nods, moving slowly the way we'd come. "Unravel the serpent curse on the tile." He nods to the stone Lyle has his right sneaker on. "Be careful, sweetheart. Read the signs. I'll try and clear a path if you come out."

I choose to ignore his choice of wording as he rounds the corner, and when the sound of his pounding feet fades away, I return my attention to Lyle's foot. Savage follows me closely while Scythe and Eugene examine the room for other dangers.

"Luckily for us, I've actually heard of a trick like this," I say, crouching down to examine the grey tile. "Rosalina used to tell me about the protections they had in the ancient Naga temples in India and South America. My great-grandfather must have been trying to replicate that."

"Can you undo it, angel?" Lyle asks quietly.

The tile is unmarked to the naked eye, so I shift my eyes into their eagle version. The stone sharpens in new focus and shimmery, decades-old letters appear. The instructions must have been written in blood, I decide, because of the ruddy oxidised brown colour. Serpent spells work the same as a serpent blood contract—there is an agreement made, instructions, clauses, and consequences given. In some ways, they're like poems laced with computer code.

"What happens if he steps off it?" Savage asks, his nose an inch away from the floor, delicately sniffing the stone.

"I imagine it's like an IED," Lyle says drolly. "As soon as I step off?—"

"Boom!" Savage cackles.

But my father doesn't want me dead.

The sound of rock grating on rock resounds about the chamber, making our heads snap up, looking for the source.

"Not boom," Scythe says. "Look."

He's pointing at a thick ledge that lines that entire room just below ceiling level. A cobra, open-mouthed in rage, is angled right at Lyle. Its stone throat is hollow.

"Not boom," I agree, looking back down at the serpent spell. "It looks like they'll shoot venom at you."

It would be enough to incapacitate me, but kill anyone else.

I'd been taught how to read these markings since I was a child, little puzzles written with paper and pen. I could construct one well enough, but to unravel one as complex as this? That's a different story. There are six identical lines sandwiched between longer instructions?—

Rock grinds on rock once again and I turn to see Eugene in the air, flapping next to a second serpent rotating to face us. A spear of anxiety shoots through me as my eagle eyes scan the ledge, looking for the fine lines in the stone that mark the presence of four more blocks with the potential to rotate towards us.

Six snakes.

And when the sixth snake turned it would likely trigger the shooting mechanism.

"They're turning at one-minute intervals," Lyle says quietly. "A safeguard against anyone that chooses not to move. You get hurt either way."

Four minutes left and counting.

"Everyone, quiet!" I snap. I sit down in front of Lyle, crossing my legs and leaning right over to make sense of the spell.

So the rotating snakes explain the six identical instructions in the spell. The first is the trigger and the last line would be the instruction to shoot what I guessed was venom or some type of poison.

I take my fingernail and attempt to scratch off the instruction to trigger the movement of the first snake. But the blood has long since seeped into the stone and my fingernail doesn't even make a dent in the markings.

Deletion won't work.

"Fuck," I mutter.

Lyle's power halos dangerously around him.

"Can't Lyle use his telekinesis to push the stone down and step off it?" Savage asks.

"Honestly, I wouldn't risk it," I reply quickly. "The force would have to be exact."

"Savage, come boost me up," Scythe says, stepping up to the wall where the fourth serpent will appear any second. "I want to take a look at them."

I don't even bother looking at what they're up to as Eugene gives a warning squawk, and five seconds later, rock grinds again.

So I can't delete lines of the spell, but Uncle Ben thought that it is possible. My great grandfather probably had some safeguards in place in the event of someone setting it off by accident, right?

"What if we rip them off?" Savage grunts as Scythe clambers up his back to stand on his shoulders. "Lyle, can you yank them off?"

"Don't!" I cry. "The spell will trigger if they're tampered with."

"What does it say will happen exactly?" Scythe asks. "It does smell like poison up here."

I blink at the last line of the spell.

The fourth snake rotates into position, the sound grating on my ears.

"Baby, I love you," Savage grunts, "but hurry the hell up."

Two minutes. I have two minutes left to figure this fucking thing out.

"The last line of the spell," I say in my calmest voice, "says that it's going to trigger all six to… That symbol means ‘chaos' or ‘anarchy'."

The groaning of the rocks for the fifth time practically slices the air in two.

"You three should get out," Lyle says. "Angel, you too."

Uncle Ben's serpent blood contract swims in my mind's eye. Hurriedly, I raise my left hand and focus on shifting my fingers into wolf claws. Black fur erupts from my skin and my nails elongate and sharpen. Before I can think about it, I slice the pad of my right index finger open.

A crimson bead drips out and I mark the stone, making a messy version of the symbol cease/stop at the end of the instruction for the final snake.

The symbol absorbs into the stone, settling alongside the rest of the spell.

Relief washes through me.

"Of course it wanted blood!" I cry. "I did it!"

But Lyle doesn't move his foot. Instead, Savage yanks me into his arms and runs out with me. Eugene squawks loudly in panic as he flees for the door alongside us. I try and twist to make sure Scythe and Lyle are right behind--

To see Lyle and Scythe diving for the door, as the sixth snake remains unmoving.

We all sigh in relief until a movement at the side of my eye makes my head snap up.

I don't even get to shout as a seventh snake, hidden above the entrance, snaps forward on a silent hinge, it's mouth open, shooting ancient darts in quick succession.

I should have suspected trickery from the start.

We all dive, Savage cushioning my landing with his own body allowing me to see Lyle batting away two fast-moving objects with his telekinesis?—

And a dart catching Scythe right in the neck.

"No!" I scream.

Savage lets go of my twisting form as Lyle and Scythe stumble towards us. I leap up and catch Scythe, or rather, he stops when I place my hands on his chest. He reaches up to the old-fashioned feathered dart poking out of his neck.

"I can heal you," I say, stopping his hand. "Wait."

But there are feet pounding down the corridor behind us.

They know we're here.