Sorcery of Thorns (35 page)

He had steadied himself against the wall, blinking hard. She was about to ask whether he was all right when he set his glass down on the windowsill, sloshing champagne over the rim. She hadn’t touched her own
drink, wherever it had gone, but evidently he hadn’t been as careful. Now that she looked more
closely, she made out the darkness of his widened pupils. His color was high, his cravat disheveled.

“Nathaniel . . .”

“Will you come with me?” he asked quickly, as though he feared what she might say. “I’d like to show you something.”

She hesitated, her chest tight. “What about Ashcroft?”

“I suspect
that we might not need to worry about him any longer. Not tonight. Possibly not after tonight, either.” He looked down, a muscle shifting in his jaw. “I just thought that we—”

The realization came upon Elisabeth swiftly, leaving her dizzy. If suspicion took hold against Ashcroft, everything would change, and soon. There would be no more evenings in Nathaniel’s study, heads bent close together,
sharing dinner by the fire. She would have to face her future, and her future might not have him in it.

“Yes.” Before he could have second thoughts, she took his hand. Distantly, she observed that the music had turned sweet and sad. As though she had stepped outside her body, she watched him wrap her in his coat, exquisitely careful, and draw her out through the glass doors at the end of the
hall.

The night air cooled her flushed cheeks. Their footsteps crunched along the path toward the gardens. Somewhere close by, a fountain splashed. Tall hedges enfolded them, perfumed with the wistful scent of blossoms past their prime, and Nathaniel’s arm warmed her side. After her attack in the hallway, she felt drowsy and dreamy and strange, weighed down by the unsaid words between them.

At last they reached a gate, nearly hidden by the hedges. Nathaniel found a latch and let them inside.

Elisabeth’s breath caught. Summer hadn’t lost its hold on this secret place. Roses flourished in a hundred different shades of
pearl and scarlet, their heady perfume drenching the cultivated paths. At the end of the walled garden stood a pavilion of white marble, shining in the moonlight, its
balconies overgrown with vines. They walked forward arm in arm, passing beneath arbors that dripped with blooms, the paving stones carpeted in petals.

“How did you find out about this?” Elisabeth asked, as they climbed the pavilion’s steps. She felt as though it might vanish beneath her feet at any moment, like an illusion.

“My parents used to bring me here when I was young. I thought it was
the ruin of an ancient castle. Maximilian and I would play for hours.” He paused. “I haven’t been back here since. He would have been fourteen now—my brother.”

Silence fell between them. They had reached the top. Over a balustrade twined with blossoming white roses, the view looked out across the gardens, back toward the palace. Its windows sparkled like diamonds in a stone setting, the towers
framed by stars. They were too far away for Elisabeth to guess where the ballroom was amid all that light: a different world, one filled with music and dancing and laughter.

Sorrow constricted her throat. She considered Nathaniel, his pale features just as distant. She didn’t know what to say or how to reach across the gulf between them. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him, as everyone
else had done, everyone but Silas, whose service came at such a terrible cost. The pain of it sang inside her like music, every note a wound.

“I’m sorry,” Nathaniel said. “I didn’t bring you here to tell you about my family.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Please. Never apologize to me for that.”

“It’s hardly an appropriate topic for a celebratory occasion.”

She saw him drawing inward, preparing
to lock himself away. “You aren’t like Baltasar,” she blurted out, realizing this might be her only chance to say it. “You know that, don’t you?”

His face twisted. For a terrible moment, she thought he might laugh. Then he said, “There’s something you have to know about me. When my father began researching the ritual, I knew exactly what he was planning. I never tried to stop him. I hoped that
it would work. I wanted them back, Max and my mother. I would have done any evil thing to have them back.”

“You were twelve years old,” she said softly.

“Old enough to know right from wrong.” Finally, he looked at her, his eyes bleak. “My father was a good man. All his life, he was good, except for the very end.” His expression said,
So how can there be any hope for me?

“You’re good, Nathaniel,”
she said quietly. She placed a hand on his cheek. “You are.”

Beneath her touch, a tremor ran through him. He looked at her as though he were drowning, as though she had been the one to push him, and he did not know what to do. “Elisabeth,” he said, her name wrung from him as a plea.

Her heart stopped. His eyes were as dark and turbulent as a river in midwinter, and very close. She felt as though
she stood on a precipice, and that if she leaned forward, she would fall. She would fall, and drown with him; she would never resurface for air.

She tilted toward him, and felt him do the same. Her head spun. Nothing could have prepared her for this: that she would experience her first kiss in moonlight, surrounded by roses, with a boy who summoned storms and commanded angels to spread their
wings. It was like a dream. She readied herself for the shock
and the plunge, for the quenching of this agony inside her, which strained her soul to breaking.

Their lips brushed, divinely soft; the barest touch, more intoxicating than the perfume of the roses. “You don’t taste of champagne,” she breathed out dizzily, wonderingly. “I thought you would taste of champagne.”

This time, he did laugh.
She felt it as a shiver of air across her cheek. “I didn’t drink any. I thought I had better not.”

“But—” She drew back, and looked at him. Had she imagined that moment in the parlor? The moment he had suddenly lost his balance, seemed disoriented, right after he’d looked outside and said . . .

The hair stood up on her arms.

“Is something the matter?” Nathaniel asked.

“I don’t know.” She glanced
around. “If you didn’t want to talk about your family, why did you bring me here?”

“I . . .” His brow furrowed. “Oddly enough, I can’t precisely . . .”

He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. Because he hadn’t made the decision to bring her here—someone else had. She yanked up her skirt and drew Demonslayer, whirling to face the rest of the pavilion.

In the shadows, someone began to clap.

“You
caught on more quickly than I anticipated, Miss Scrivener,” Ashcroft said, stepping into the moonlight, poised in midclap.

Elisabeth could barely breathe. “You cast a spell on him,” she whispered. Demonslayer trembled in her grasp.

“Now, there’s no need to fight me,” Ashcroft said. “I’ve only brought you two here to make a simple transaction.”

He reached behind himself, and yanked. Iron chains
rang out against the marble as a slim figure went sprawling at his
feet. At first Elisabeth couldn’t make sense of what she saw: long white hair, fanned unbound across the stone. A beautiful face contorted with suffering, sulfurous eyes downcast.

“Give me the girl,” Ashcroft said to Nathaniel, “and I’ll give you back your demon.”

TWENTY-SIX

T
HE BLOOD DRAINED from Nathaniel’s face. For an instant he looked years younger, a frightened boy on the verge of losing everything once more. “Silas?” he asked.

The chains shifted. Silas looked up at Nathaniel, his eyes
clouded with pain. The effort of even that small motion seemed to overwhelm him. He subsided against the marble, his eyes sinking shut.

Nathaniel stared. Inch by inch, his expression hardened, like the portcullis of a vault winching down. When he was finished, he had no expression left at all. He took a step toward Ashcroft. “What do you want with Elisabeth?” he demanded, each syllable as sharp
as glass.

“Haven’t you figured it out? To reach Prendergast, naturally. I know Miss Scrivener can access him.” Ashcroft smiled blandly at the horror on their faces. “You aren’t the only ones with a scrying mirror, you know. You really should look into your household wards, Nathaniel. Some of those old spells haven’t been updated in centuries. And you might want to tidy up your study as well.”

Elisabeth’s stomach roiled. As clearly as day, she saw the devices on the desk of Nathaniel’s study, with their many lenses and mirrors. All those evenings she had thought herself safe by the fire—Ashcroft’s presence now darkened those memories like a stain. She struggled to wrap her mind around the violation.

“You were just pretending in there,” she realized aloud. “You wanted us to think that
we had won.”

“Not the most agreeable experience, granted, but it hardly matters. In a few days, no one’s going to care about ballroom gossip.”

Blood sang in Elisabeth’s ears. Her grip on Demonslayer tightened. Without thinking, she moved.

“I wouldn’t,” Ashcroft warned, halting her in her tracks. He twisted the gryphon’s head on his walking stick, and a sword slid free, brilliant in the moonlight.
He placed the edge against Silas’s white throat, where it sent up a curl of steam. Silas didn’t move or make a sound, but his eyelashes fluttered, as if he were struggling to remain conscious.

“This one wasn’t easy to subdue,” Ashcroft went on, “even with a trap in place. I have half a mind to kill him, simply to rid myself of the trouble.”

“Wait,” Nathaniel said, his voice raw. Ashcroft looked
up, expectant. The sword shifted minutely from Silas’s neck. From a distance, Elisabeth heard Nathaniel finish, “I challenge you to a duel.”

“A sorcerer’s duel?” Ashcroft laughed. “Good gracious. You do know those were outlawed by the Reforms. Are you certain?”

Tightly, Nathaniel nodded.

“Oh, very well,” Ashcroft said. “This should be novel.”

“Nathaniel,” Elisabeth whispered.

He met her eyes.
Deliberately, he flicked his gaze toward
Silas. Then he pivoted on his heel. He strode all the way to the opposite end of the pavilion, where he turned to face them again, gazing at Ashcroft across the long expanse. His voice rang out as he rolled up his sleeves. “The rules of a duel are thus: we may not involve our demons. No weapons, aside from sorcery. Once we begin, we fight to the death.
Do you accept?”

“On my honor,” Ashcroft said. His ruby eye twinkled. He slipped his sword through his belt and strolled forward, placing himself opposite Nathaniel.

Ashcroft wasn’t planning on playing fair. But neither was Nathaniel. The moment Elisabeth freed Silas, it would be three against one. She tensed, preparing herself. As Ashcroft and Nathaniel bowed to each other, the time between
each heartbeat stretched to an eternity. Neither of them rose from the bow. She glanced between them, uncertain. Their eyes were shut in concentration; under their breath, they were both murmuring incantations.

Nathaniel was the first to finish. He straightened with a whip of emerald fire in his hand, its flames spitting green embers onto the marble. But when the whip lashed across the pavilion,
Ashcroft sliced his hand through the air and harmlessly swatted it aside. A torn sleeve revealed that he had transformed his arm: the skin was armored in golden scales, his fingers tipped with claws. When he smiled, his canine teeth lengthened into fangs.

She didn’t have time to watch what happened next. She dove for Silas, falling to her knees beside him. Her hands roved over the chains that
bound his wrists behind his back, encircled his chest, his waist, his legs. Wherever they touched his bare skin, they left raw, steaming welts. He stirred beneath her touch, but didn’t seem in full command of his senses. Her heart skipped a
beat when his cuffs rode up, exposing blackened marks on both sides of his arms, as though they had been impaled on an iron spike.

No matter how frantically
she searched, she couldn’t find a weak spot, a join, or even a lock holding the links in place. It was as though the chains had wrapped themselves around his body and seamlessly fused together.

Silas drew in a labored breath. “Miss Scrivener,” he rasped. “Behind you.”

Elisabeth spun. An elegant figure was draped over the rail, leaning against an arbor lush with late-blooming roses. A stray beam
of moonlight revealed leisurely fingers dangling from a knee, their lacquered claws the color of blood. The rest remained indistinct, veiled by blossoms and shadows, but Elisabeth knew who this was, even before she spoke.

“Do you take my master for a fool?” Lorelei’s voice dripped with satisfaction. “He would not leave Silas unguarded. Though I confess, I enjoyed watching you struggle.”

Elisabeth
raised Demonslayer between them. Nearby there came the crack of Nathaniel’s whip, and shortly afterward a choked-off cry of pain. She couldn’t tell whether it had belonged to Ashcroft, or Nathaniel. She didn’t dare take her eyes from Lorelei.

“Lay down your sword, darling,” the demon said. “We don’t have to fight. If you surrender yourself, my master will take you back. You’ve already had a taste
of how well he treats his guests. New gowns every evening, chests full of jewels, and as many plum dumplings as your heart desires. Doesn’t that sound tempting?”