Chapter 37

The heaviness at our backs remained, and only gathered in intensity as we passed out of the cemetery's gate. I took a deep breath as we hurried through the snowy spread of a modern park, trying to shake the feeling.

Then I saw the flashing blue lights.

Emergency vehicles were scattered haphazardly along the street at the far end of the green. Beyond them, between the stately buildings, was a veritable mountain of snow. Twisted into terrifying shapes, rising nearly as tall as the buildings around it, the white blanket spread out over several blocks, almost as far as the eye could see.

A helicopter arrived as we did, sweeping a searchlight over the area as more and more police and ambulances sped toward the scene. Bystanders were gathering too, watching, trying to dig through the snow with their bare hands.

Searching for the dead.

"Great Mother," Sorceress Isolde breathed out. She looked to Kasumi, then the others, horrified. Kasumi observed the scene with her usual calm.

"What would you like us to do, my lady?" one of the other sorceresses asked.

"Go see if you can't find the bodies before they transform," Kasumi told her. "Will you be able to burn them without the mortals realizing?"

"Of course," the sorceress said gruffly .

I could have screamed. This was Avalon playing out all over again. Everyone who had died, their souls snatched from their bodies—their families would never get to bury their remains. And it would continue to happen until Lord Death and his hunters were stopped.

And Cabell, I thought. If it came to it, I'd drive a blade through his heart myself.

Nash hung back beside Neve, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked down at her, his face soft. "All right there, dove?"

I elbowed past him, taking his place beside her makeshift stretcher.

"Neve?" I said. "Can you hear me?"

Her veins were still pulsing with that same terrible light, but it was dimming now, and her skin had cooled enough for me to hold on to her arm. But her eyes were feverishly bright, and her expression was empty enough for me to know that she hadn't fully returned to the moment.

"Where … ?" she breathed out.

"You are going to the Council of Sistren, maiden Neve," Kasumi answered.

Neve's eyes found mine, widening.

"They're going to see if they can stop whatever is happening to you," I told her. When I took her hand, I realized her own bracelet had either burned away or been lost in Lyonesse, and it left me cold at my core. "Is that okay?"

Neve nodded.

"Cait?" she whispered.

I never had the chance to answer. Her eyes fluttered shut again. The interaction had barely lasted a moment, but it gave me relief, if not hope.

"This way," Kasumi said, guiding Neve's prone form forward.

The Victorian redbrick building was situated at the very edge of the park. A tall black fence surrounded it, each bar capped with a spike. It took a second look to realize they weren't merely decorative—each edge had been sharpened like a blade. Anyone who tried to climb the fence would find themselves disemboweled with one wrong move .

My top lip curled at the sight of the building. Victorian architecture was at best fussy, and at worst closely resembled a witch's candy cottage meant to lure in children.

"You've got to be kidding me," Emrys said, amused.

I followed his line of sight to the name carved above the front door. LAKE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL .

"Is this really a school?" I asked Nash.

"Sure is," he said, eyeing the nearby camera and buzzer box. "Just not for mortals."

Kasumi lifted a hand and the gate's lock released with a loud clang, then swept inward with a menacing groan. A ring of slender silver keys hung at her waist, and she took care selecting one before she and Isolde guided Neve across the courtyard and up the steps to the black door.

I should have expected it, of course, but it still took me by surprise that the door to the school led to another Vein.

We passed out of its spiraling darkness into a sort of grand entryway, like the lobby of a luxury hotel. Marble columns rose up to the soaring ceiling, but not even the opulence of its design could distract from the battle preparations that were underway.

All of the furniture had been turned on its side and crushed into jagged forms to fill the gaps between the innumerable rock spikes that jutted out of the stone floors. There was a single, narrow path through the destruction, one that must have led deeper into the building.

Emrys leaned over a tangle of brass and crystal and let out a faint whistle; it looked like someone had intentionally smashed a chandelier and left the shards on the floor to cut any creature that dared to tread over it.

Shouting voices, a heavy hammering, and furious scraping echoed through the building. At our approach, several sorceresses looked up from where they were finishing the work of carving sigils into the floors and walls. A fierce protectiveness rose in me as they openly gawked at Neve .

"No one else will be entering through that doorway," Kasumi told them. "You can line the path with curses now."

The sorceresses did as they were told, pushing up the sleeves of their robes and tunics and attacking the sigils with renewed purpose. But I heard their whispers, that single word following us as we continued deeper into the building. "Unmakers."

Something moved at my right, and I turned, jumping as my heart shot up into my throat—but it was only my own filthy reflection staring back at me. The walls were lined with mirrors as we reached the heart of the building. I noticed Nash studying its layout just as closely as I was, silently marking the path we'd taken, and all the possible exits.

That entry hall led into an expansive atrium, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a large garden, and, beyond that, the violet beginnings of a sunrise over a snowy mountain range.

Somewhere remote, I noted.

As we watched, the sorceresses who were gathered by the windows used spells to cover the glass with stone, sealing the room off from the outside world.

There seemed to be two distinct wings to their headquarters, one on either side of the atrium. Emrys placed a hand on my lower back, redrawing my attention to him. I followed his line of sight to where two upper levels were visible—maybe the building really had been a hotel once? I couldn't see the way up to either of them, not until Kasumi approached the eastern wall and triggered some unseen sigil. An enormous wooden staircase spiraled up from the stone floor.

"This floor will be fortified through cursework," she told us. "You will not return to it unless explicitly told to."

I bristled at that. "So now we're trapped in here with you?"

"It's all right," Nash said. "This is the safest place we could be."

"Somehow I doubt that," Emrys muttered. His gaze had drifted back to the sorceresses sealing off the wall of windows. They were unpacking several large crates of mirrors. "Hey, isn't that … ? "

A sorceress hung a familiar mirror on the center of the wall. Protective magic rippled over the frame's many beasts.

"She sold them the mirror?" I said in disbelief.

"You have to admire the hustle," Emrys said. "They must have figured out how to adjust the spellwork to trap the hunters and Lord Death."

"Yeah," I said. "But how are they going to trick them into being trapped?"

Kasumi guided Neve toward the stairs, ignoring the looks from the other sorceresses. "Isolde?"

"Yes, my lady?"

"Inform the others that there will be a meeting of the Council in the next hour, and have Davina meet us in my quarters."

"O-Of course," Isolde said, hurrying away in a swirl of skirts.

At the top of the stairs were two sorceresses carving yet more sigils into the floors. Magic rippled through the air around us as the spells were woven together like a protective net.

"They'll need to be more subtle than that," Kasumi said. "Layer in more masking spells."

A pale-haired sorceress glanced up, and with a start, I recognized her sullen face. It was Acacia, one of the sorceresses who'd held us captive in the vault. Gone was the prideful sneer and the immaculate gown. Her hair slipped from a high bun, and her face was streaked with sweat and wood shavings.

"You," she growled at me.

Emrys angled in front of me, his body tense.

"They are our guests," Kasumi admonished.

"She is an Unmaker, " Acacia hissed.

Kasumi lifted her hand and released a punishing blast of wind. Acacia crashed into the wall behind her, and I tried not to smirk. Now she knew how it felt.

The other sorceresses quickly turned back to their own work, careful not to meet the High Sorceress's eye.

"Finish here and join the others in the atrium," Kasumi said .

Acacia stood up with a scowl, dusting off her dress. Her voice was barren of warmth. "Yes, my lady."

We arrived on the third-floor landing and stared down the long hall. At the very end, where it curved left, was an imposing portrait of a dark-haired woman. There was something familiar about the forest around her—the lake at the edge of the frame.

"Morgan," Nash said, staring at it with a peculiar look on his face.

"Octavia will take you to your rooms to wash and rest," Kasumi said, sweeping past us with Neve. "New clothing will be brought up for you. Feel free to burn what you're wearing."

A sorceress materialized beside me and seized my arm.

"Don't touch her," Emrys said sharply, but I'd already extracted myself from her grasp.

"Do not leave your rooms until asked to do so," Kasumi said. When I tried to follow, more sorceresses appeared, blocking the way. "Food will be brought to you in due time."

One of the women grabbed Emrys, and a man with tufts of white hair took his other arm. The latter's eyes glinted aquamarine as he hauled Emrys away from my grasping hand.

Pooka, I thought. It was the same for the man and woman who took Nash. "All right, all right, I'm not fighting it— easy! " He twisted back to look at me. "Do what they say, Tamsy. It'll be all right."

The sorceress who had grabbed my arm, with her straw-colored hair and flushed face, eyed me with suspicion. Kasumi rounded the corner ahead of us, and the thought of Neve disappearing with her made my pulse run riot in my veins.

"Hey!" I shouted after her. Ahead, Emrys was strong-armed into a room, and Nash into another. "You said we wouldn't be your prisoners!"

Kasumi stopped, but didn't turn to meet my burning gaze. Somehow her glacial words reached me all the same.

"I promised nothing of the sort."