Aunt Bethany held onto the edge of the altar, but her skin was so pale with cold she was nearly translucent. The bone-fire continued to burn, but it wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough.
They’d wanted the Sisters together, and near the portal.
Be careful what you ask for.
The house welcomed them, shielded them from magic. But it recognized Emma too. And her father. The first time the Sisters tried to claim her, it was her cousins’ blood that brought her back. It always came down to blood.
She used the iron nail Cormac had given her as protective charm, jabbing it into her witch mark. Her father glanced at her, then did the same to his palm with a dagger made of violet light. Her mother used her teeth.
At least this time Greymalkin blood would be used to a good purpose.
Emma slammed her palm down onto the floor of Greymalkin House. “Blood to blood, I banish the Greymalkin Sisters.”
Blood was family.
Friends.
Magic.
Lovegroves and Greymalkins, Madcaps and Keepers, witches and wolves, and Cormac the man she loved, who fought without magic more bravely than any of them.
“We need everyone!” Emma shouted. “Blood binds them! Gretchen!”
Ewan flung drops of his blood into the portal. The portal throbbed in response. Theodora crouched to add her own blood, but her gaze never left her husband. No amount of dark magic or searing cold could distract her.
Ewan pulled a rope of energy from the portal, snapping it like a whip. Seraphine screeched, choking on wasps as she was dragged out of the circle of ice and blood. The line of red at her throat dripped bloody ice. Ewan tossed her into the portal. Lark was next, all teeth and bloody tears.
Magdalena made it as far as the garden where she was met with a circle of Carnyx and Rowanstone girls with their hands extended, witch knots glowing. Agnes and Anabelle were chased back into the attic and down the staircase by Moira and her flock of feral gargoyles. Rosmerta was already caught, clawing at the glowing rope.
Emma smeared more blood on the floor, tracing a circle. Penelope crawled forward, adding hers. Gretchen slid in through the front door, disheveled and fierce. Tobias’s bloody hand turned to wolf paw when it touched the circle. Moira slid down the banister from the second floor, adding her handprint.
Magdalena fought free of her bindings, only to slam into a wall of magic. Her fury turned her hair to sharp icicles but they had nowhere to land. Agnes and Anabelle clutched each other, snarling snow and cold.
Ewan snapped his whips again, dragging them inexorably to the Underworld gateway. Snow turned to rain, turned to nothing. The frigid bite turned to a cool breeze. The Sisters were swallowed up, one by one.
On the altar, their bones burned down to ash, keeping them trapped.
The portal continued to pulse, bloated with energy.
“I have to go,” Ewan shouted over the crack and hiss of purple light. “I can keep the Sisters in the Underworld better from the other side.”
Emma dug in her heels, sliding closer to the hungry portal. Cormac looped a black jet pendant from the Order around her wrists, holding tight. The stone hissed and cracked in half. “Can you keep the Sisters from crossing back?” He shouted.
Ewan’s smile was sharp and sure. “There are enough victims of Greymalkin sorcery there to help me.” He wavered in the distorting heat and haze of the portal. Margaret, Alice, Lilybeth, Strawberry let themselves be drawn into the portal. Godric was the last to go. He smiled at Gretchen, that cheerful smile that always made her smile back, even now. His hand was a whisper of cold in hers and then he was gone. But he wasn’t truly gone, not really. He was just somewhere else now.
“And I have my own army, it seems,” Ewan said.
“And you have me,” Theodora said. “I’m going.” She was already discarding her old life like an ill-fitting dress. There would be no silver branch to bring her back. But perhaps she’d finally find peace. The kind of magical madness she’d suffered didn’t just go away, even when the spell was finally broken.
“Let her go,” Emma said softly when Cormac scowled. She’d lost her mother a long time ago. At least she and Ewan would be together. It was a kind of victory.
Besides, Emma had her cousins.
And Cormac.
And now, Greymalkin House.
***
Much later…
London melted.
Bad cheese was blamed for several hallucinations, too much wine for the rest.
The Order learned fewer lessons than might have been hoped for.
They did, at least, restrain Lucius with proper magical bindings and relocated him to Percival House along with Sophie. Gargoyles circled their rooms, night and day.
Gretchen turned into a demure, polite young woman.
But only because she also turned into a wolf in the privacy of her own home. Some secrets, as she’d told Tobias, were worth the curtsies and embroidery.
When she was twelve, their daughter Bree ran away in a fit of pique. She went to her aunt Moira who lived on the rooftop of the best sweetshop in the Goblin Market. Bree returned home straightaway when she realized just how high up a rooftop could be.
Daphne became headmistress of the Rowanstone Academy for Young Ladies. Society thought it a very charitable, helpful gesture. Gretchen broke in on a regular basis just to test each other.
The portal never fully closed and so Emma and Cormac moved into Greymalkin House to guard it. The house got used to them. It almost got used to the twins too, until the incident with the ferrets. Cedric was called in to help, while Penelope snuck the children books of questionable poetry from her shop.
The house, meanwhile, became a home.
###
Alyxandra Harvey, In a House Made of Bones and Teeth
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