Chapter 5

5

EVANGELINE

M y living room was covered with so many books and papers, it looked like a bomb had gone off in a library. Every single horizontal surface had been pressed into service, and a few of the vertical ones, too. The stupid dark magic detector Marcus had given me had been abandoned in a desk drawer, joining an assortment of random magical junk.

"I love that you're leaning into the murder board aesthetic," Isabella said, waving at a spot on the wall where I'd pinned up a bunch of scraps of paper. She'd gotten back to town earlier that day and had come over as soon as I asked for her help. Now, she was curled up in the window seat, and the neon lights of the laundromat across the street from my place cast a red glow over the side of her face.

Isabella was easily my coolest friend. Although, to be fair, she didn't have a lot of competition. I had a lot of acquaintances but not many close friends. Even if I'd had dozens of them, I was pretty sure Isabella would have still come out on top. She was tall, lean, and emphasized her height even more with thick-soled combat boots. She dressed almost exclusively in black, which made her stark white afro pop even more against her dark skin. With her usual silver jewelry and matching eyeliner, she was ethereal and intimidating.

Right now, she was wearing pajama bottoms emblazoned with smiling cartoon bats, and a tank top with a dancing skeleton across the chest. She'd washed off her makeup, and her hair was in a protective silk wrap she'd enchanted to touch up her roots as she slept.

"It's not a murder board," I said defensively. "If it was a murder board, I'd be connecting stuff with string."

"Oh, of course," Isabella said. "How silly of me."

"Rookie mistake," I agreed, shaking my head in mock-disappointment.

There was a gentle "mrrrp?" from the corner, where my familiar was curled up in a large plant pot.

Isabella raised her eyebrows. "It sounds like the special little man is awake."

I patted the sofa next to me. "C'mere, buddy," I called.

Pothos's little head peeked up from the inside of the plant pot, and he hopped down, shaking soil out of his fur. Pothos was… probably a cat. He looked like a cat, anyway, although his fur was green with a few white spots, and he tended to grow flowers in his sleep. He acted like a cat. Well, he acted like an orange cat, which was like a regular cat but with about thirty percent fewer brain cells.

He'd followed me home from the Garden District one day, and when I tried to leave him outside, he'd managed to make his way up to the fire escape and squish his little face against the window. I'd taken the hint.

Pothos hopped up onto the sofa next to me and slammed his dense little body against my thigh. With that exhausting work completed, he immediately went back to sleep.

"Your contributions are incredibly helpful," I told him, scratching him between the ears. "You're a valued member of this team."

"Sooo," Isabella drawled. "Tell me more about this hot vampire you keep running into."

"I never said he was hot," I protested.

"Well, is he?"

"That's… not relevant," I said.

Isabella laughed. "I'm just saying, arrogant drama queens have always kind of been your type."

"That's true, but it's still rude of you to point it out like that," I said. "Besides, he's a De Montclair. Even if I was into him, and that's a pretty big if , I wouldn't want to get caught up in vampire family politics. Everyone knows that entire clan has a lot to say about bloodline purity."

"I'm not saying you should marry him," Isabella said. "I'm just saying you could use a bit of fun. Stress relief."

"I'm fine," I told her. "Now, are you going to help with research, or are you going to bother me about my sex life?"

"What sex life?" Isabella grumbled under her breath, but she grabbed a book and started leafing through it.

By the time we finally found something, we'd ordered and devoured a pizza, and Pothos had woken from his nap, charged around the apartment frantically, then taken another nap.

"I think I might have gotten something here," Isabella said. "Hang on, let me…" She pulled out her phone and typed rapidly, then nodded. "Here, take a look. This book has a footnote that references a manuscript on magical craftsmanship, and I had a hunch that turned out to be right."

She stuck her phone in my face, and the picture on the screen was a high-definition image of a yellowed page covered with dense Gothic script. "Say hello to the Gottenheim Artefaktbuch," Isabella said. "Lucky for us, the Verstecktestadt Zaubermuseum just digitized their collection, so the whole manuscript is on their website."

"I don't think you're ever allowed to make fun of me again now that I've seen you get excited about museum digitization," I told her.

She rolled her eyes. "I hooked up with one conservator who was part of the project at the conference. And I also think digitizing stuff like this is important. I contain multitudes."

"Lucky for me," I said. "So, what does this German manuscript I'm not going to try to pronounce tell us?"

"It tells us the ascendancy array is mentioned in a prophecy, and that the prophecy is kept in a shrine."

"So, what, we need to go to Germany?" I asked.

"This is the exciting part," Isabella said, her eyes alight with excitement. "You see this bit here?" She pointed at a bit of the text on the screen, which looked exactly like the rest of the page to me. "This is a description of the shrine, and I've seen this exact place before. Maybe it was in Germany originally, but now it's in the Valley of the Forgotten."

I sucked in a breath through my teeth. The Valley of the Forgotten was the sort of thing parents used to scare little baby witches into behaving. It moved around the world, sucking up stray dark magic. It tended to lurk around the outskirts of different magical cities to feed, trying to tempt in unsuspecting people to trap. It didn't stay anywhere long—a few weeks at most—before it showed up in another location to start its cycle again.

"We have no idea where the Valley's going to turn up next, though," I pointed out.

Isabella shook her head. "Check this out," she said. "I took this when I was coming back home this morning." She pulled up a selfie on her phone that showed her far above the city, basking in the early morning light as she rode her broom. Her hair matched the clouds behind her perfectly.

"Uh," I said. "You look great?"

"Well, duh, but that's not the important thing."

I frowned, taking a closer look, then zoomed in on the background of the picture. There was a thin crescent that seemed out of place in the forest around the city. The trees were different, much darker than the ones surrounding them. The shape of them was curled around the city like an open mouth.

"It's here," I said. "Shit, it's here."

"Exactly," Isabella said. "Which probably means there's a shit-ton of dark magic being used somewhere in the city that drew it here, but that's above my pay grade."

I grimaced. Knowing my luck, I'd probably have to deal with that, pay grade or no. I went to grab my jacket, but she tugged at my wrist. "Are you crazy?" she asked. "We can't go running into the Valley after dark without any prep."

"But—"

"Trust me," Isabella said firmly. "We really shouldn't mess around with this place. It's dangerous. We'll go in the morning, okay?"

"You don't have to come with me," I said, but she just rolled her eyes.

"Don't be stupid. Of course I'm coming with you. Now, come on, let's clean up a little and talk some shit."

Later, once papers had been cleared away, plans had been made, and wine had been opened, we flopped on the sofa, with Pothos purring up a storm between us.

"Yeah, I don't know," Isabella was saying. "It's just stressful, you know? And all the apps are garbage. If I see one more picture of a boring-looking guy holding up a fish, I'm gonna lose my mind."

"Why do they always pose with the fish?" I asked, refilling my glass. The wine was very cheap but very effective, and the more you drank the better it tasted.

"Maybe they're trying to prove that they can provide, but in, like, a hunter-gatherer way?" Isabella hypothesized. "Maybe I'll just stay single for a while. I'm so tired of dressing up for a first date and then finding out the guy's a prick."

"I've just stopped bothering," I said. "Witch men are always so goddamn arrogant, and human guys are either freaked out by my magic or way too into it…"

"Last time I dated a werewolf, my cycle synced with the full moon, so it was like double PMS, and I definitely can't deal with that again," Isabella said. "Cramps and a hyperactive wolf at the same time? Total nightmare."

"I guess that would be a perk of being with a vampire," I said thoughtfully, then waited until Isabella shot me a quizzical look. "They'd be fine with period sex."

"Oh, my God," Isabella said before hitting me with a pillow. "Nasty. Nasty! If you find out with Mr. Spooky Vampire Prince, you've gotta promise to tell me."

"You're a nightmare," I told her fondly.

The next morning, we set out bright and early. Isabella had spent the night on the sofa, but one of the pockets of her purse was actually a portal to her closet, so she was impeccably dressed in fresh clothes. Even her outdoor gear was goth, complete with sleek black boots.

We trekked through the woods, pausing every now and then to pass a Thermos of coffee back and forth. It was a cool, sunny morning, and it was early enough that the dew was still burning off the fallen leaves. The morning light shone down through coppery autumn leaves, and the birds overhead sang cheerful arguments at each other. I caught Isabella's arm and pointed through the trees to the small shape of a porcupine snuffling though a patch of wintergreen. She caught my eye with the giddy grin of a dyed-in-the-wool city person seeing wildlife up close, and I couldn't help but return the exact same smile. We watched silently as the spiky little creature shuffled into a hollow log before we kept moving.

For a while, I forgot myself. I was just on a hike with my friend, looking at the changing foliage, and enjoying the crunch of pale bark underfoot. Then, abruptly, it was impossible to ignore what we were really here for.

The border between the Valley of the Forgotten and the regular forest was impossible to miss. The difference was as stark as leaving a nice warm building and stepping into a snowstorm. Whatever made up the core of the Valley, it clearly didn't bother with camouflage, or with luring its prey in slowly. It was an apex predator. By the time you'd set foot in its territory, you were already lost. Crossing over the threshold felt like walking into a spider web in the dark but times a thousand. The trees had glossy leaves, such a dark green they were almost black, and they hung with waxy white berries on red stems. The fruit let out a rancid, sickly-sweet smell that made me queasy. It was almost like we'd stumbled into a photo negative, the pale-barked and golden-leafed trees we'd passed before suddenly replaced with tangled black branches and dark foliage. The birdsong that had been a constant since we started the hike was gone all at once, as though even sounds knew better than to come here.

The trees grew so close together, it was almost impossible to see the sky. The fragments I managed to see through the thick leaves were dim. Either it had suddenly gotten a hell of a lot cloudier, or the magic of this place was blocking out the sun.

"This is… not a good place," I said. Massive understatement.

"Yeah," Isabella said. She looked tenser than I'd ever seen her. "You can say that again. Come on… I'm pretty sure it's this way."

"You're pretty sure?" I repeated, a little more nervously than I would have liked.

"I haven't been here in a long time," she said. "I was just a kid the first time I went into this place. But trust me, it was hard to forget."

I followed her down a twisting path. "What were you looking for last time?"

Isabella sighed. "I was looking for my aunt," she said quietly. "She was, uh… She was a dark witch, just like I was raised to be, but she got in too deep. The power started to take over. She got lost in it. One day, she went into the Valley of the Forgotten and never came out."

"Isabella, I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

"I don't really talk about it a lot," she said, giving a one-shouldered shrug. "But it's why I stopped going down the dark magic path."

"Did you ever manage to find her?" I asked softly. "Your aunt."

Isabella's jaw clenched. "No. What I found wasn't her anymore. Come on. We need to keep moving."

I wasn't sure how long we walked. Space seemed fluid and unreliable in the Valley, and I got the feeling I shouldn't put too much faith in my senses. We passed a stream of rusty red liquid swarming with tiny fish. Fragments of an old, crumbling stone wall were slowly being covered by moss, but every stone I could see had a face carved into it. Deeper in the forest, a small hill shifted slowly as if it was breathing. A throbbing started in my temples, and my breakfast was threatening to make a second appearance.

"I don't feel so good," I said.

Isabella's eyes went wide when she turned back to look at me. "Shit. The Valley's trying to feed from you. Here, quick, give me your hand." She grabbed a little glass jar from her purse and began to trace patterns on the back of my hand with the thick yellow paste inside. "Golden root, frankincense, and rue. This should help ward it off." She murmured a few words close to my knuckles, and the paste started to warm up. The pain in my skull faded, and my stomach began to settle.

"Thanks," I said.

"I would've put it on you earlier, but it usually takes this place a while to start trying to pull magic from people unless they're extremely powerful."

"Maybe I'm just tasty," I said. "Mosquitos always go for me, too."

We both knew my magic was barely above average. My spell casting was good, and I was clever enough and quick on my feet, but I wasn't terribly powerful. Marcus insisted that was for the best. Apparently, witches with a lot of raw strength got sloppy, relying on brute force instead of subtlety and precision.

The poultice did help a lot, luckily, and we kept moving. Neither of us were eager to stay in one place for too long. After what felt like hours, we reached a clearing full of flowers the pale yellow of old bones. They came up to our waists, and we had to walk through them carefully, mindful of the thick roots making the ground uneven. At the far side of the clearing was a cliff face, and at its base were three huge slabs of stone that leaned against each other to make a triangular structure at least forty feet tall. A stream trickled down from the top of the cliff, splitting down the angles of the rock slabs. In their shadowed shelter sat a huge figure.

The statue was made of dark gray stone, worn smooth by the elements. It had been carved with its long legs folded underneath it, and it still rose up high enough that it barely fit in the alcove. Its limbs were exaggerated and angular, with over-defined ropey muscles, its face a warped mess of teeth and eyes. It had three mouths—one diagonally on each cheek, and one where a mouth should actually go. The middle one had been sculpted into a melancholy twist, but the two on either side were grinning widely, showing off sharp stone fangs. It had three more eyes than it should have, with one vertically on the forehead, and one on each side of its jaw. All five eyes glowed brightly, casting shadows that made the face look even more distorted. One of its lanky arms was resting in its lap, and the other was raised to its chin, stretching out away from its face like it was blowing a kiss. Strips of metal were wrapped around the stone like jewelry, forming rings, arm bands, countless necklaces, and a jagged crown.

"This… isn't what I pictured," I said quietly. It didn't feel right to speak up.

"I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure it's gotten worse since the last time I saw it," Isabella murmured back.

"Where do you think the prophecy is hidden?" I asked.

"The book didn't say. I guess we should… search it?" she said.

We both stared at the statue.

"I really don't want to touch that thing," I admitted.

"Neither do I. Rock, paper, scissors?"

"It's fine," I said. "We've got this. It's just a statue. A really, really creepy statue."

I took a deep breath and moved toward the statue, picking my way through the tall wildflowers. It looked even worse up close. There was a band of metal I hadn't seen at first wrapped around the center of its lower edge like a chunky lip ring. The light coming from the statue's eyes glinted across the surface, highlighting the words carved into the metal in a language I didn't recognize.

"I think I found the prophecy," I called over my shoulder. "We're going to have to climb up the statue to get a proper look at it."

I tried to figure out the easiest path up to the statue's face. Maybe if I went up one of the arms, I could use the over-sculpted muscles and arm bands as handholds? It was worth a try.

Isabella had come up behind me and was staring up at the statue's mouth. "Want me to try it? I've got a longer reach than you."

I shook my head. "I'm a better climber. I started going to a rock-climbing gym after that job at the abandoned clock tower. Spot me from down on the ground?"

Isabella nodded. "Be careful," she said. "Want a boost?"

I wiped my hands on my pants and nodded. Isabella bent, and I put a foot in her hands, letting her hoist me up enough so I could pull myself into the statue's lap. I jumped onto one massive stone forearm and walked up it until I hit the elbow. The stone was weathered enough that it was pretty easy to get a good grip, and I clambered up to the shoulder quickly.

Now for the risky bit.

I picked my way around the sculpture's face, first grabbing the inside of an ear and then swinging myself to the jagged curve of one of the mouths. The fangs were thin enough that I didn't trust them to support my full weight, so I was forced to put my hand inside and use the lip to hold myself up. I inched down the curve of the horrible mouth until I could drop and land safely in the statue's raised palm.

I breathed out a sigh of relief when my feet hit the solid stone. The inscription on the metal band was a lot more complicated than it had looked from the ground. Leaning forward, I traced my fingers along the unfamiliar runes.

As soon as my skin touched the cold surface of the dark metal, the statue's huge stone hand closed around me.