Chapter 17

T here was something odd about the atmosphere at the castle. A lack of…something. It took a moment to pinpoint it, but when I did, ice filled my veins.

Where were the whispers of welcome? Where was the chilly presence of the castle specters?

I didn’t say anything to Ordell because Ariella was with us. One problem at a time.

“You mentioned books earlier,” Ordell said to Ariella. “Did you know we had a library?”

So that’s where the showdown would happen. Okay, I could live with her knowing where all the books were if she was never going to get to enjoy them.

“I didn’t.” She clasped her hands under her chin and fluttered her lashes.

I wanted to punch her in her fake face.

“Let me show you,” Ordell said.

I hurried to catch up. “Mind if I tag along?”

“Oh, you don’t have to stay,” Ariella said to me before placing a possessive hand on Ordell’s arm. A hand which I itched to cut off. “Ordell can show me around and keep me company until Ezekiel wakes.”

“Ordell works for me.” I smiled thinly. “He’ll be driving me back to the chapter house.”

She pouted prettily. “So soon?”

Oh God, how had I not picked up on how saccharin sweet she was? Sickly so. “We have time to see the library, though.”

“Yes, let’s.” She hooked an arm through his and allowed him to lead her through the passages.

We were close to sunset. Maybe half an hour away. We could get this done before Ezekiel woke.

Hemlock was already in the library, and he didn’t look surprised to see us, which meant that Ordell must have filled him in.

Good.

“Oh, hello.” She threw a charming smile Hemlock’s way, and he returned it with a scowl.

“Close the door,” he ordered.

I hurried to oblige, and a ripple passed over my skin.

“What was that?” Ariella let go of Ordell and stepped away from us, her gaze flying about the room.

“What was what?” Hemlock asked.

She swallowed and shook her head. “Nothing. I thought I saw a shadow.”

“Did you?” Hemlock said. “Or did you feel the magic in the air?”

“Magic?” She frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I walked up to her and pulled the potion from my pocket. “Let me demonstrate.”

Her gaze dropped to the bottle as I uncorked it. “What is that?” She tried to step away, but Ordell and Hemlock flanked her, penning her in.

“Magic.” I threw the contents in her face.

She cried out in shock as the liquid hit her skin, and then her face began to bubble and melt.

“Fuck!” I put distance between us as she clawed at her skin, screaming as if I’d thrown acid at her. Holly had not been exaggerating about the bubbling skin part.

“Is it meant to do that?” Ordell asked.

“Yes.” But it looked awful. “It’s working. Just wait.”

Ariella fell to her knees with her hands over her face. Her dark hair lightened to blond, soft waves tightening to something coarse and curly.

“Oh fuck…” Hemlock said.

“No…” Ariella whined. “What have you done?”

“Look at us,” Ordell demanded. “Show us your face.”

She shook her head. “Please…”

“Now!” Hemlock boomed.

She slowly lowered her hands and tipped her face up to us. Round, almost cherubic, with a snub nose and large brown eyes. Pretty, but nowhere near as beautiful as the glamour. Nothing like the woman who was meant to save Ezekiel.

Hemlock exhaled. “Who the fuck are you?” He reached for her, and she shrank back with a sob.

“Hem!” Ordell stepped between them. “You’re scaring her.”

“Scaring her?” Hemlock asked incredulously. “She’s been wandering around the castle wearing a fake fucking face for weeks. Who the fuck are you? Tell us what you’re doing here. Who sent you? You tell us everything or I’ll make sure you’re left with no face to call your own.”

He hovered over her like an avenging dark angel, and I couldn’t help but be a little aroused.

“Okay, okay!” She held up her hands to placate him. “I’ll tell you what I know, but please, don’t hurt me.”

“I’m not making any promises,” Hemlock growled.

Ordell stepped in and held out his hand to the woman. “I won’t let him hurt you. Just tell us what we need to know.”

She blinked back tears and allowed him to help her up.

I knew he was playing the good hunter to Hemlock’s bad; we did the same play in the Order from time to time, but I still didn’t like the fact that he was willingly touching her.

“Sit down.” I indicated the armchair in the middle of the room—Hemlock’s favored seat when he lounged in here.

She parked her ass and looked up at me warily. “How did you know?”

“ I’m asking the questions here. Start from the beginning. Who are you and who sent you here?”

“My name’s Ruby, and I’m just an actress. I was hired to play a role. Coerced more like. I mean I’m not getting paid, at least not in money.”

“Start from the beginning,” Ordell said gently.

She took a shuddering breath. “My fiancé died six months ago. His heart stopped for a minute. The paramedics were able to resuscitate him, but when he woke, he was different. He’d changed. He had these… powers , like…magic. Then these people came for him and took him away. They said he was dangerous. An Onyx mage or something. Anyway, they took him, and I tried everything to find out where, but no one would help me.”

“Onyx mages are rare,” Hemlock said. “The mageri council must have protocols in place to locate them.”

“They do.” I knew it because a friend of mine had been in a similar position—turning and having to hide his nature. Onyx mages were part human and part mageri in a world where the union between human and mageri was forbidden. Mageri magic was a gift from the fae, and to maintain its purity, mageri prohibited procreation outside of their bloodlines. But it still happened. Hybrids were born. And nothing untoward happened to them unless they died before their twenty-fifth birthday. If that happened, they reawakened as Onyx mages.

“What happened then?” Ordell prompted her.

“A man came to see me. He offered me a deal. Work for him and he would get James back. He said it would be for a few months and all I had to do was act. They gave me a breakdown of how to behave. Told me I needed to charm the vampire king and that he would want to protect me. But the main instruction was to keep you away from him.” She looked at me. “He said that I needed to drive a wedge between you and the vampire king. That was the main objective.”

Me? This was about keeping me away? But why? Unless…

“Oh shit,” Hemlock said, his wide-eyed gaze on me.

No, I couldn’t think about that right now. “What did this man look like? Did he tell you why he needed you to do this?”

She shook her head. “I can’t remember his face. When I try, all I see is a blur.”

“A mind rub spell,” Hemlock said. “Only a fae or mageri could do one.”

“Or a witch,” Ordell said.

“But witches were wiped out a century ago by a mystical plague, weren’t they?”

“Not in the dome,” Hemlock said to Ordell. “Not without detection.”

Wait a second… “Are you saying witches still exist?” The dome was a protective ward that covered our city and kept the nasties from the Rim out of it. “I thought they all died.”

“Most did,” Ordell replied. “It’s complicated, but Hemlock is right: A witch wouldn’t be able to get into the dome.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just want James back.” Her eyes welled. “I miss him so much.”

“No one comes back from Wormwood Prison,” Hemlock said. “Not unless the mageri council releases…” His eyes flared.

Ordell’s mouth flattened. “No, that makes no sense. Only the highest level of the council knows about this. They know how dangerous?—”

“You’re right. It can’t be,” Hemlock said. “Whoever planned this lied.”

“But they also know about the curse,” Ordell said.

Something about her story didn’t sit right, and then it hit me. “You came to Ezekiel from the House of Spirit.”

She blinked sharply. “No, I didn’t. I joined the carriage carrying the veins en route to Branwood. The driver was paid to allow me to board, and the other veins were told I was a late arrival.”

If that was true, then I could cross the House of Spirit off my list as a suspect. My scalp pricked, and I turned to the stacks for a moment as the sense that I was being watched washed over me. But there was nothing but shadow waiting between the aisles.

“There’s more,” Ariella, or whatever her name was, said. “One night I heard two men talking. The one that hired me said they needed to stop the curse from breaking but keep the vampire king awake and coherent. The other one said something then…” She chewed on her cheeks. “He said, ‘Let’s hope the hunter fools don’t reveal the truth this time. If Ezekiel finds out the Singers are his brothers, then our plan could be ruined.’”

“What?” Ezekiel stepped out from the book aisles, a tome clutched in his hands. Oh God, he’d been in here all along?

Hemlock and Ordell froze.

“What did she say? That you…” He looked from Ordell to Hemlock. “You’re my broth—” He dropped the book and clutched his head. “Oh…Oh…” He fell to his knees. His eyes rolled, and he keeled over.

“Fuck!” Hemlock rushed toward him. “Quick.”

“What’s happening?” the woman cried.

Ordell slung Ezekiel over his shoulder, and Hemlock ran for the door and yanked it open. The air fizzed with power. “Close the door behind us,” he said to me. “It’ll reactivate the ward to hold her here until we can deal with her.”

So wards could be created in Dracul territory after all. Or maybe this was a Hemlock ability?

“Wait, please!” Ariella ran toward us.

“Sit down!” I ordered before slamming the door and running after the guys. “Where are you taking him?”

“Safe cell,” Hemlock said. “For his own protection and ours. His memories have been unlocked, and he’s about to relive his past, and that includes his time with Loviator.”

I followed at a trot. “In that case, he’ll need someone with him.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Ordell snapped.

“I don’t care. I’m not fucking leaving him.”

“Fuck it,” Hemlock said. “Then we’ll all stay with him.”

We descended a flight of stairs, and Hemlock shoved open a heavy door, letting us into a musty room with no windows and half the room cut off by bars. A bed, a desk, and a bookcase lined with tomes lay beyond.

Hemlock unlocked it, and they carried Ezekiel in and placed him on the bed. I reached out to smooth his dark hair off his face, but Hemlock gripped my wrist.

“Don’t. We need to get out.”

He led me from the cell, and Ordell locked it.

“Will the bars hold him?”

“They should,” Hemlock said. “He hasn’t grown strong enough to take shadow form yet.”

But he had. “He took shadow form when he saved me from Shay.”

“Who?” Hemlock asked.

“I’ll fill you in later, just…what do we do?”

Hemlock gritted his teeth. “I’ll have to apply a ward.”

But his magic came with a cost, one he’d probably already paid today for creating a ward on the library door. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. This is on us. We fucked up. Again.” He gripped the bars, and they lit up soft blue. The color spread all the way across the cell. “He won’t be able to use his abilities now.”

But amber veins were crawling up from beneath Hemlock’s collar. “Hemlock…”

He strode for the door. “I’ll be back.”

He left, and a hush fell over the room.

Ordell and I stood side by side in silence watching Ezekiel sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Ordell said finally.

“What for?”

“For not listening to my gut when it told me that Ariella couldn’t be Arabella, not when Ezekiel’s connection to you was so strong. I focused on her appearance rather than her heart.”

“It’s not your fault. Someone is playing games. Someone knows everything and is determined that the curse isn’t broken.”

“Ariella said they told her she needed to play a part for a few months…the year isn’t up for nine…”

Good point. “Then what are they planning?”

“I don’t know, but we need to figure it out.”

“This has probably put a dent in their plans. Ariella said they wanted Ezekiel coherent.”

“Yes,” Ordell said. “But how much of that was true? What if they wanted her to overhear it?”

“No, if they wanted to stop us from breaking the curse, they could have just found a way to reveal the information to Ezekiel. Why bother sending a fake Arabella to the castle?”

“Good point.”

“Someone wants to stop us from breaking the curse long enough for their plans to take shape. We need to find out what those plans are and who’s doing the planning.”

“One thing is clear now, though,” Ordell said, his warm gaze on my cheek. “You’re her…You’re our Arabella. You must be. And whoever sent Ariella to put a spanner in the works believes it too.”

My stomach trembled because I’d fought not to think about that for the last few minutes. Impossible now that he’d broached it. “We don’t know that for certain. Like you said, I don’t look the part. Maybe they saw how attached Ezekiel was to me and didn’t want to take any risks. Best to keep us apart just in case.”

“You don’t think you’re her?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I care about him.”

Ordell sighed. “Then all you need to do is focus on that and hope…Hope that his connection to you is enough to help him fight his way out of his nightmare and back to sanity.”

“What about Ariella?”

“We should go speak to her again. See what else she knows.”

I didn’t want to leave Ezekiel. “You go. I’ll stay here.”

He looked torn.

“I’ll be fine.”

He exhaled. “Stay away from the bars.” He pointed to a bench by the door. “You can sit there. I won’t be long.”

He left, and I parked my ass on the bench. Long minutes ticked by, and the full impact of this situation hit me.

What if I was her? Arabella. Reborn. If I was, then I’d loved him once, enough to fall into hell with him. It would explain why I was drawn to him. No…I couldn’t allow myself to believe it. Not until there was concrete proof. If my heart got involved, and the real Arabella showed up…

No. I’d do what I could to help him using the connection we had and then…then we’d see.

Movement in the cell pulled me out of my thoughts.

Ezekiel stood at the bars, his golden gaze fixed on me.

“Ezekiel…” I stood slowly. “Hey, you’re awake.”

His throat bobbed as he scanned my face. “You’re here…”

“Yes.” I moved closer. “I’m here.”

“My head…” He lightly touched his temple. “It hurts.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But it will get better.”

His mouth turned down, and he made a soft choking sound.

A sob.

My heart lurched, and I bridged the distance between us, wanting nothing more than to hold him. To comfort him. “I’m here. I promise I won’t leave you.”

“I know,” he said. “I know and I’m sorry. So sorry.”

I was close enough to touch him now. To push my hand through the blue haze and graze his cheek if I wanted. Ordell’s warning was nothing more than a whisper in the back of my mind as I reached for Ezekiel.

He lifted his chin, and his sob turned to a growl. The next moment, his hands were wrapped around my neck.

“You think you can fool me,” he snarled. “You think you can wear her face and make me want you. Die, you bitch!”

He squeezed, and my scream died in my throat.