Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
“Did she hurt you?” he asks, grinding his teeth.
“No, she’s dead,” I spit out. “She’s dead. I hid in the shadows, using the magic, and Leona and Ana came in the room. They said they had Brom, that they were going to find me and do the ritual tonight, not wait for Samhain. And when my mother told them she didn’t want me hurt, they killed her. Right in front of me. Burned her alive. And on top of it, I think Leona is actually my grandmother.”
Crane just nods, his gaze intense as he tries to process what he’s hearing. “Where is Brom? Do you know?”
“In the cathedral,” I tell him.
He lets go of me and I feel unsteady on my feet. He strides over to his desk and pulls out the gun.
“But they said he’s gone. That the horseman has fully taken over now,” I add, on the verge of tears. “He’s completely possessed and not coming back.”
“As far as they know,” Crane says, putting his gun in the back of his pants. “They don’t know what we’ve accomplished with those rituals of ours. We may not have expelled the horseman from Brom but that’s only because Brom was holding on to him out of fear. We are still bonded, still united and tethered to each other. There will be no room for the horseman because he would have to possess us too. Now come on, get on your shoes.”
“Are we going to get him back?” I ask hopefully as I slip my boots on, even though terror has a hand over my heart.
“We’re getting our man back,” he says to me with pure determination. He comes over and grabs my face in his hands and kisses me deeply before he lets go and grabs my hand, pulling me to the door.
“Oh, I found this in Ms. Choi’s room,” I say as we go down the stairs quickly, pulling out the strange bottle from my coat pocket. “Maybe this comes in handy for something?”
Crane takes it from me, pausing in a patch of moonlight to read it clearly.
“Ah,” he says appreciatively. “This comes in handy indeed.” He passes it back to me. “Quick, drink what’s left of it. It should still work.”
“What is it?” I ask, taking off the cork, the metallic licorice smell wafting out.
“In the event that something goes terribly wrong tonight and they drug you, this will prevent the drug taking from taking hold. It’s a charcoal neutralizer. Drink up.”
I nod and swallow the contents of the bottle. I don’t want to think about what will happen if things go terribly wrong, but I need to be prepared for the worst, especially if Crane is.
We burst outside the doors of the building and together we use our shadow magic in synch, sticking to the darkness where no one can see us, while we make our way over to the cathedral. The building is dark except for a soft flickering glow coming through the upper stained-glass windows. No doubt the ceremony is already underway, but they won’t get far without me.
We creep alongside the stone building, trying to look in, but it’s hard to see past the colors on the glass, and we also don’t want to risk being seen outside the shadows.
“You know, I think I know what they did during our tests,” I whisper to him, my voice shaking. “When we were first admitted to the school.”
“What?” he asks as we stop beside a holly hedge, trying to see in through the next set of windows, though we can’t see much through these either.
“I think they opened us up the same way that they opened up Ms. Choi,” I say quietly, trying to press my face against the stained-glass. “Her nightmare was real, and they really did cut her open and take from her, one piece at a time, the way I’m sure they did to Vivienne Henry and the others.”
I pause, trying to push past the sickly feeling in my gut. “I think when we were first admitted and they did the tests, they weren’t sifting through our minds—they were sifting through our bodies. The Sisters opened us up and took a look at our insides. I think they were able to gauge how much magic we had in ourselves, how much we would be able to give them. So they could build us up with the classes, increase our capacity for magic, creating reserves they could eventually siphon from us.”
When Crane doesn’t say anything to that, I glance over at him behind me, and though he’s still partially hidden in shadow, I can see he’s staring at me with absolute disgust, his lip curled. “I choose to believe that’s not true,” he grimaces.
But he knows, as well as I do, that it is the truth. I don’t know what else the Sisters did to us, but there’s a damn good reason why none of us can remember our tests. They drugged us all with opium, literally sliced us open and prodded around, making sure we would be fruitful enough for them to eventually consume.