“Just about!” Alex yelled back, his voice only just audible above the roar of the wind rushing in their faces.
Eventually, they reached the remnants of an ancient wall, the stone crumbling apart. Above it, on what might have been parapets, stood grisly gargoyles, staring them down as they approached. They looked like demons, their faces twisted, ghoulish wings covered in moss sprouting from their backs.
The castle beyond it, however, wasn’t nearly as Gothic.
The Kelpie jumped easily over a gap in the wall, leading them into stretching gardens that must have once been beautiful, making Alex think of landscaped lawns containing quaint benches and stunning patches of exotic flowers. Now, the plants had overgrown, taking back their land, no longer keeping to the neat squares they’d once been grown in. Roses and violets writhed all over the stones and former fountains, blooming brightly. Wisteria hung low like willow trees, casting a purple sheen over everything it shaded from the sunlight. Giant oaks and silver birches towered above the gardens too, growing to monstrous heights, having been left to their own devices.
Everywhere he looked, Alex saw something else that pleased the eye. There were exquisite statues in a Grecian style, carved from marble, still holding their shape. Tiny figurines shaped like fairies and brute-faced gnomes hid among the foliage too, giving the castle an otherworldly air, like something out of a bedtime story. Alex half expected a princess to wander through singing a sweet song that would stay in his head for weeks, but the place was empty, its last inhabitants long gone.
As for the mist, there was none of that here. It seemed not to have touched the plants and animals, taking only the lives of those with magical blood inside their veins. A twinge of sadness prickled inside Alex as he wondered what this place might have been like before the plague of the Great Evil rose to terrorize the people here.
Up ahead, the castle came into view. It had evidently once been a glorious, regal place, surrounded by a glittering moat. A few of its golden-tiled spires were still intact, and the pure white walls still showed through the years of dirt, though the rest of it had fallen into disrepair. Great, gaping chunks had been torn out of the sides, the stained-glass windows mostly smashed in, several towers having crumbled in on themselves. Alex was about to ask Ceres why she and her people hadn’t tried to make it habitable again, but it was clear this place was beyond repair, even with a hundred hands helping out.
Ceres halted her Kelpie at the edge of a drawbridge, its rickety planks leading across the moat, which still sparkled despite the wreckage it protected. They jumped down, and Ceres removed the bridle from the Kelpie’s snout, hooking it back onto her belt. With a snort of its nostrils, the hulking beast arced gracefully down into the water of the moat, sinking below the surface.
“Needs a paintjob,” Alex joked, looking up at the enormous building.
“Needs tearing down,” Ceres replied grimly.
Sharing a glance, they walked across the rotting beams of the drawbridge, careful of their footing, and reached the other side. A heavy door of pure gold met them, with two knockers shaped like stag’s heads, though one side was already wide open. They ducked inside, only to find more decay within. In the grand reception room, the marble tiles were covered in piles of debris, several statues smashed to pieces on the ground. A chandelier lay in the very center, the diamond embellishments holding their shape, unbroken by the impact of the fall from the ceiling above, though the expensive fixture lay on its side, resting where it had fallen.
More debris fell as they walked, a large chunk of rock narrowly missing Alex’s head. Their very presence seemed to be upsetting the fragile balance of deterioration the castle had set in motion, and Alex knew they were going to have to find the pit quickly. Of course, where they were going to start was another matter entirely—the castle was huge.
“Any idea where the pit could be?” Alex asked.
Ceres nodded. “I’ve scouted out this place before. I think I remember the way,” she replied, alleviating Alex’s anxiety. At least someone knew where they were going.
They wandered through vacant hallways littered with fallen masonry the size of Alex’s body. Smashed windows lay to either side of them, some looking out over the beautiful gardens, others showing overgrown courtyards. There was a pond in the center of one such courtyard, and Alex could see fish the size of small dogs swimming peacefully beneath the murky surface. It always amazed him how nature could thrive in adversity and emerge from destruction.
Ceres paused beside a door at the end of a corridor filled with torn paintings of the people who had once lived here. She pushed tentatively. It gave, creaking open with a rusty groan. Beyond it was a throne room, the two thrones still standing in the middle, though they were covered in a thick layer of gray dust. A stag’s head rose above the back of one, its sapphire eyes still glinting, while a doe’s head rose up above the back of the other, one ruby eye missing. Alex almost made a joke about it, but held his tongue, realizing how deeply inappropriate it would be.
“Remind you of anyone?” Ceres asked, pointing at the doe, a wicked smile upon her face. Alex laughed, the tension breaking.
She moved around the backs of the thrones, searching for something underneath the throne with the stag’s head on it. She gave a cry, presumably finding what she’d been looking for. Alex hurried around to see a trapdoor had swung loose in the floor, a musty, earthy scent rising from a steep set of stone-hewn steps visible beneath. They were very familiar-looking steps.
“I think this might be the place,” Alex whispered, feeling as if he were in a museum.
Ceres raised an eyebrow. “Well, yeah, that’s why I brought you here.”
Alex flushed. “I was just agreeing with you,” he said. Something about Ceres always left him on edge. Sometimes she was the smiling daredevil; other times she was the sharp-tongued warrior who made him feel like an idiot.
“Ladies first,” she said, gesturing toward the open trapdoor.
Alex stepped down, descending into the earth. Ceres followed, her footsteps echoing behind him. At the bottom of the steps, there was a narrow door, but before Alex even pushed it open, he knew what he would see on the other side. He was not disappointed. A cavernous walkway led to a set of huge gates, and beyond that…
What should have been a lofty cave with a deep fissure in the center was in fact a lofty cave with no fissure whatsoever. The pit that should have been there had obviously, at some point after the mist rose, collapsed in on itself, rendering it unusable. Stepping closer, Alex saw that a golden bird lay still at the top of a pile of rubble, half buried by dirt and rock.
“Maybe the mist caused it to crumble so another spell attempt couldn’t be made at the same pit,” Ceres mused, crouching to grasp some of the dirt in her hand.
“You think Virgil sent us on a wild goose chase?” Alex asked, frowning.
Ceres shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me. I’m not sure he’s as eager to participate as he’s claiming; he’s probably trying to buy a little time. Wouldn’t you, if you had to do it?” she said, her tone surprisingly compassionate.
“I don’t know,” Alex replied, trying to put himself in Virgil’s shoes.
There was a scuffle in the shadows across the room, followed by the sound of someone clearing their throat. A figure slowly emerged, but Ceres was already sprinting over the rubble pile, barreling into the shadowy shape with all her might, taking it down before it could strike. In the confusion, Alex caught a glimpse of horn-rimmed spectacles and over-rouged cheeks.
“Ceres! Ceres, get off her—she’s a friend!” he yelled, though the squat figure of Siren Mave was doing a fine job of holding off the rampaging royal. A black cloud of magic was rippling around Ceres, lifting her up and away, though her limbs were flailing and magic whipped from her hands in wild motions.
“Siren Mave, let her go! We’re all friends here!” Alex cried. To his surprise, Siren Mave actually obeyed, lowering Ceres to the ground with an unceremonious thud
before removing the cloud of magic.
Ceres stood up indignantly, dusting herself off. “Who is this woman?” she snapped, flashing a sour look at Alex.
“She won’t do us any harm,” he replied. “Sorry about that,” he added, turning to Siren Mave.
She gave an awkward curtsey. “No harm done. Nice to see you’ve got a useful protector for once!” she remarked tartly. “Anyway, I thought I’d drop in, seeing as you’re getting things all wrong again, and Elias seems to have gone AWOL. Looked like you could do with a little divine intervention.” She chuckled to herself, smacking her lips.
“Elias is busy researching,” Alex said, jumping to the shadow-man’s defense.
“Is he now? If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. He’s probably swinging from a rafter somewhere, pretending to be a hammock,” she scoffed.
“Anyone going to introduce me?” Ceres cut in, looking suspiciously at the squat woman.
Siren Mave stuck out a plump hand. “Siren Mave, pleased to meet you. And you must be Ceres, yes? I must say, what a wonderful operation you’ve got set up at Starcross—very quaint idea. Very heroic. Good while it lasted, eh?”
Ceres scowled. “What did you just say?”
“Ignore her,” Alex warned. “We have bigger things to deal with.”
Ceres didn’t say another word, though her savage expression said everything. Siren Mave smiled before turning back to Alex.
“Now, where was I?”
Alex sighed. “I’m getting everything wrong?”
“Of course!” Siren Mave nodded vigorously. “I just thought I’d come and say you were barking up the wrong tree.”
“Well, I can see that now,” said Alex, pointing to the caved-in pit. “You didn’t think to tell us before we came out here?”
Siren Mave shook her head. “Where would the lesson be in that? Anyway, now I have your attention, let’s have a little spot of history, shall we?”
Alex shrugged, while Ceres remained silent.
“Not the most enthusiastic response, but… Well, I’ll take what I can get. Both of you are right about the mist causing the pit to cave in, by the way,” she began. “This is what the tales mean about a haven ‘falling.’ Well, that and the destruction of anyone stupid enough to stick around while the mist is rising. But, mostly, it’s this. The mist rose, killing everyone, and the pits crumbled, along with the castle, given that the pit is dug into the foundations of a place.”
Alex frowned. “Why would they dig a pit into the foundations?”
“Only place to put them!” Siren Mave pronounced. “You see, the pits had to be dug as close as possible to a magical building, so a containment spell could be used to get the mist below the earth. However, without essence to feed it, the mist can only be held below ground for a short period of time. All the spells in the world can’t keep it at bay—aside from the obvious,” she continued, flashing an amused smile that showed specks of red lipstick on her teeth.
“How come it’s not here now, then?” Ceres asked, evidently too intrigued to stay silent. “The mist, I mean?”
“The big question, and one I’m glad you asked,” enthused Siren Mave. “The original containment spell was already beginning to fail, but it was exacerbated by Virgil’s failed spell attempts. It was around this point that Julius, in all his wisdom,” she muttered sarcastically, “decided to implement the essence system. An ill-advised advisor told him it would be the best course of action, and he naturally got a kick out of the idea. So, he went ahead with it. As a result, the mist was drawn away from the peripheral havens, to be contained only within the circle forged by the four havens that are, more or less, still standing,” she explained, giving Alex a knowing look. “It created a ring-like barrier around the Great Evil, keeping it in only within that circle. As such, Starcross and the other fallen havens are protected from the mist… Well, as long as that circle holds.”
Alex felt a wave of panic flow through him as his mind wandered toward the mess he’d made of Spellshadow, and then thought of Stillwater. It had been a long time since the latter had had essence poured into its pit. After all, Helena had never made it back with her sack of half-essence, given Julius’s abrupt arrival there. Yes, it had definitely been a while since the Great Evil had been fed from there. With Caius gone, too, at Kingstone, Alex realized it was unlikely that the keep’s pit had been fed either, unless Julius had taken it into his own hands.
Alex sighed. “So the reason you’re telling us this is because… if the other havens fall, then the mist will spread to places outside the circle?”
“Correct.” Siren Mave smiled cheerily.
“Great,” Alex replied drily.
“We’re wasting time here,” Ceres cut in. “We have to find a new location, and fast. I don’t want Julius sniffing you out, Alex.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Alex said with more confidence than he felt.
“Just remember, when the moment comes, ensure the spell is properly witnessed by all who are involved,” Siren Mave warned, giving Alex the kind of vague comment he had come to expect from his shadowy advisors.
He wanted to scream at her, demand to know what she meant, but knew there was no point. Before he could even think about the spell, and everything it entailed, they needed a place to perform it. Without that, all of this was pointless.
Turning on his heel without another word, he raced from the derelict pit, with Venus’s words running through his mind: “The sands of time are running swiftly, and you’re down to a handful of grains.”
He could feel each one slipping through his fingers.
Chapter 15
After bringing the Kelpie back up from the murky depths of the moat, Ceres and Alex raced back through the beautiful landscape, the golden sun shining down and warming their faces as they rode. Alex, however, barely even noticed the scenery, his mind was so preoccupied.
As they charged along, he couldn’t help but think of the words Siren Mave had spoken as they left. As usual, her cryptic message had left him exasperated. Why couldn’t they just tell him what he needed to know in plain terms? He knew why, since she and Elias had explained the curse that bound their lips, but it didn’t make figuring out the puzzle any easier.
“Who was that woman?” Ceres asked, as they rode.
Alex smiled grimly. “I’m not sure even I know the answer to that.”
“How did she get to the castle?” Ceres pressed.
“She moves between realms as she pleases,” Alex explained. “I don’t know how she does it, so there’s no point asking me that either. She’s… not exactly human, if you catch my drift?”
Ceres nodded, falling into silence. Alex could almost hear the cogs whirring in her head, as she tried to figure out the toady woman, and how she fit into all of this. The story was a long one, and it wasn’t a tale Alex was in the mood to tell.
Upon returning to the camp, they headed straight for the windmill. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Demeter, watching them from the farm, but the auburn-haired man made no move to follow.
Alex burst through the door of the windmill, striding straight toward Virgil’s cell. “Did you know it was unusable?” he asked angrily.
Virgil sat up, startled. “Know what was unusable?”
“Don’t play dumb. Starcross Castle, did you know it was unusable? Were you sending us on a wild goose chase?” he demanded.
Virgil shook his head, a confused look in his eyes. “No, why would I?”
“The pit has caved in. Did you do one of your spells at Starcross Castle?” Alex pressed.
Just then, Ceres walked up and rested her hand on Alex’s shoulder. “It could’ve just been the mist, Alex, as your strange friend said,” she commented softly, evidently trying to calm him.
“Maybe so—or maybe you sabotaged us, sending us there to buy time,” Alex countered, his gaze still firmly set on the squirming figure of Virgil.
“Step away from my son,” a voice called sweet
ly from the other side of the room, though there was a hint of a warning in her words. Venus was standing up against the bars, her beautiful eyes piercing Alex’s soul as he turned to look at her. “Your anger is misplaced. Come over here. Speak with me a while.”
As much as Alex wanted to keep raging at Virgil, he found he couldn’t deny the queen’s request. Seemingly on autopilot, he began to walk toward her, but Ceres’s hand held him back.
“Don’t go up to her cell,” Ceres warned, but Alex was helpless, and found himself doing as Venus had asked. He shook off Ceres’s hand and took a seat on one of the low guard stools that sat beside the queen’s cell.
“He did it on purpose,” said Alex quietly, feeling foolish.
Venus smiled a glowing smile. “No, Alex, he didn’t. When my husband took Virgil to do that awful spell, Starcross Castle wasn’t one of the places he took him to. If the cave has fallen in, it has nothing to do with my son,” she said firmly, her voice utterly compelling. Whatever she said, Alex instantly believed—it was impossible to resist.
“Maybe I was wrong,” Alex replied shyly.
“I can see you’re under a lot of stress, Alex. I know how difficult that must be for you,” Venus said soothingly. “Perhaps you simply wanted to vent, and my son was the easiest target? I don’t blame you. Stress can make us all do silly things sometimes.”
Alex felt he could get lost in the eyes that gazed at him so intently, as if he were the only person in the world who mattered. Her smile was exquisite, her voice so musical, her tone like a lullaby. He couldn’t help but be drawn by this woman, even though he could feel Ceres’s burning stare somewhere behind him. He would have looked, but he was transfixed by Venus. Ceres had backed away farther, keeping her distance from the cell.
“I am quite stressed,” Alex admitted, nodding slowly.
“Of course you are—who wouldn’t be, in your situation? Look at you, a young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and after what happened at Spellshadow, I can only imagine how immense the pressure must be to get things right this time,” she said, her voice so soft he was forced to lean in to hear her better. “Tell me, why are you so stressed, Alex? What is going on up there?” she asked, reaching through the bars to gently touch the side of his temple. Her touch was like an electric shock to his system, his heart pounding.