Ash’s amusement sang through her body as a laugh would have sung through her ears: appreciative but humoring her too.
Jared would have said, I’m in. What’s our next move?
Kami turned her face away from the fires around Aurimere and looked out on the town. She told herself the fire was too hot, and that was why her eyes were stinging; that the smoke had got into her throat, scorching it, and that was why it ached. She lied to herself because she did not know how she would put herself back together if she fell apart.
Sorry-in-the-Vale from this vantage point was all gold angles, roofs and spinning weathervanes under a sky pale and sick with long winter. She thought about Jared, his face that was all angles and harsh lines, one cheek marked with a long white scar and eyes the color of the sky above their town. He looked cruel until he smiled, and all his smiles were small and brief.
She had always thought that Jared looked like he fit into the town and the woods around it, maybe because he was one of the sorcerers this town had been created for and ruled by for so long. Maybe because she had always thought he looked like home.
“Didn’t you love him?” her mother had asked. “Didn’t you kill him?”
Ash, the constant unwanted guest in her heart, said, You’re not the only one who misses him. He was my brother. I barely got the chance to know him and now he’s gone.
She was not the only one who missed him, but she was the only one who could not accept his death.
Kami had tried to go on with her newspaper, had tried to cope with being linked to Ash and her mother being more and more under the sway of Aurimere. She had tried to carry on, and she had kept hoping.
Everybody was always telling her she was wrong: Angela and Holly with their quiet sympathy, Ash with the sharp grief that cut into every hope she had, and now her own mother in simple words, in the cold light of day.
Jared Lynburn is dead.
The crackling of the fire stuttered and hissed. Kami spun around to see the fire had parted, like water parting at a god’s command to make a passage from the door of Aurimere House to the road that led into Sorry-in-the-Vale.
Kami watched Rob Lynburn come out of the great doors of Aurimere House, over which was written the legend YOU ARE NOT SAFE. He looked around with a smile, lord of all he surveyed.
Until his eyes fell on Kami. His genial beam flickered for an instant and then steadied. He simply smiled and let his gaze pass over her, as if she was a part of his town and thus a possession, something utterly insignificant over which he had absolute control.
His sorcerers followed him in a procession down the road to Sorry-in-the-Vale.
The last one was scarlet-haired Ruth Sherman, one of the sorcerous strangers Rob had called to enjoy the magical benefits of his town, the power that his sacrifices would offer. She was wearing her hair loose, trailing like a comet’s tail, and in the wake of that scarlet trail, the circle of fire closed with a sound like a whisper in a hush.
Get everyone, Kami told Ash in her head. She felt his dread as well as her own, drowning out all courage. Come quickly. I don’t know if they killed Jared, but I think they are going to kill someone else.
Kami followed where Rob and his sorcerers went, down the broad golden expanse of Sorry-in-the-Vale’s High Street. Inn, sweet shop, grocer’s, gift shop, the little café where they sold scones and lemonade, and just before the church, the town hall.
It was only a small building, though it was one of the oldest: four hundred years old, Cotswold stone. Kami remembered the details about it because one of the Somervilles, her mother’s family, had built it. Under the eave of the low roof, almost hidden in shadow, were golden words: MUNDUS VULT DECIPI.
It meant: The world wants to be deceived.
The Somerville who had built this place had known about sorcerers, Kami thought. He had seen the town turning a blind eye and letting the victims be sacrificed.
There were people filing into the town hall.
Kami had not seen this many people in weeks. At the beginning of Rob’s bid for power, everyone had pretended life would go on as normal. Everyone had talked a little more loudly and brightly than before, and continued determined on their course, thinking the sorcerers would sort it all out. Now that Rob had won, the streets were emptier, voices were fading into silence, and the shelves at the grocer’s were half full and never restocked. When Kami passed by the windows of houses, she saw curtains moving and glimpsed scared faces hiding as soon as they were seen.
This was why Rob had waited. This was how Rob had got them to cooperate. He had known that people could not last long under the silent remorseless pressure of fear, that they would give up anything in hope that the fear would end.
This many people meant that Rob had called them here together.
The hall had a wide black-painted door, its handle twined with wrought-iron weeds, as though it had lain once at the bottom of a lake. Kami saw it fall shut behind the last of the crowd, and she ran up the steps and closed her hand around that wrought-iron handle.
Kami pushed open the door and saw a table, spread with white, saw the glow of light through stained-glass windows land on long golden knives. She saw the man, bound and gagged, on the altar.
Kami charged over the threshold. Ruth Sherman placed herself between Kami and the pale altar, her red brows raised.
“No sources allowed,” she said, and knocked Kami back across the threshold, flat on the stone steps.
Kami had been able to fight sorcerers better once, before they had all fed their power with blood: when she had been linked to Jared, and the magic had flowed easily between them.
Now invisible blows and kicks rained down on her, as if the very air was assaulting her, telling her, “You are not welcome here.”
Kami, we’re coming, said Ash.
I have some advice for you, said Kami. Come faster.
She was curled up like a worm, so she turned, jackknifed on the stone, and grabbed Ruth’s foot, pulling her weight out from under her. But the air that had hurt Kami caught Ruth and held her in place as if by invisible supporters.
Kami thought of standing outside Aurimere, watching the windows flicker orange and being unable to see inside. She thought of the bloodstained floor in the attic.
Ruth Sherman’s hair burst into flame.
Kami shoved her into the street and ran inside the town hall.
It was too late. It had probably been too late by the time Ruth tossed Kami like a rag doll onto the stone steps.
Kami had seen this before with a slaughtered fox, seen the stained tablecloth and the candles. She had even seen what the knife could do to a person.
But she had never seen the whole ritual as it played out. She had never seen Rob Lynburn’s golden head, limned by the stained-glass windows as if he was a saint, bent over his work. She had never seen the golden knife drowned in someone’s lifeblood, running like a dark red river over the shining carved surface of the table.
She wrenched her gaze away from Rob. She looked at the white altar turning crimson, and into the slack face of the dead man.
Chris Fairchild, the mayor. Kami had seen him talking to Lillian once, and she had not appeared to be paying much attention, but at least she had been talking to him. Kami had never seen him do much, but he was their only symbol of leadership besides the sorcerers.
The magic is greater, her mother had said, if the sacrifice is willing.
Rob had talked to the mayor, and the mayor had promised him a sacrifice. He had given himself up for the town. Rob Lynburn had killed him, cut him open with his golden knives, and all the sorcerers’ power was increased with his blood. The power came to Rob through the Lynburn blade, and then he would spread it to his followers like a king distributing largesse.
But not all these people were Rob’s sorcerers. Kami looked at the faces of the people watching, and saw they looked sick but not surprised. Kami’s guess had been right. Rob Lynburn must have summoned the people of Sorry-in-the-Vale
to come see this.
Most of the town had not come. Most people must be hiding in their homes, turning their faces away. But enough people had obeyed. There were ordinary townspeople in the town hall, and they had just sat and watched this horror come to pass.
Kami scanned the faces of the audience, recognizing them, burning into her mind who had been there. She saw Sergeant Kenn, a policeman she would once have trusted to keep her town safe, standing in front of the altar and guarding his leader as he killed. She saw Amber and Ross, two kids from her class, sitting with the sorcerers and absorbing the power. She searched, with a fear that made her vision swim as if she could protect herself from seeing, for her mother’s face in the crowd.
Claire was not there. She had not submitted to the sorcerers in this. It was the only mercy Kami could find on this cold morning.
Kami stood in the aisle between the half-full rows of seats, and looked once again at Rob Lynburn.
She concentrated, drawing together the magic she had but could not always command, and all around Rob the stained-glass windows exploded into glittering, sparkling fragments so tiny they looked like dust that shone. They fell all over the stone floor, and the chilly light of day illuminated starkly what Rob had done.
“Murderer,” Kami called out. “That’s what he is. That’s what you all stood and watched. He won’t stop. He won’t stop unless we stop him.”
Everyone turned to face her. Rob’s gaze on her was steady. He looked amused.
Someone grasped Kami from behind, put a hand over her mouth, pulled her close and held her tight to his chest.
She knew who it was, knew it wasn’t an enemy and didn’t attack, because of the voice in her head.
Kami, please, please stop, Ash begged her.
She was a better fighter than Ash, but he’d caught her by surprise and was holding her locked to his chest, using his desperation to save her.
Over and above that, worse than anything, were his feelings pouring over her and crushing her: desperation to save her, yes, but despair too, utter lack of hope, consuming fear of his father, and the powerful, terrible urge to flee and hide. Kami tried to fight free of him, body and mind both, but it was so hard.
Rob came walking toward her down the stone aisle. Kami felt Ash tremble against her, felt his horror and fear and love for this man. He removed his hand from her mouth and put his other arm around her, less restraining her than clinging to her now.
She refused to tremble, even when Rob stopped in front of her and stroked her cheek, lightly, with his knife. She felt the hot smear of the blood and the sharp edge of the blade.
Kami raised her chin and glared at him.
“Don’t kill her yet,” said Rob in a casual voice to his followers. “She’s got herself linked to another one of my sons. But I already cut one son loose from her, and I’ll free the other. After that she will be beneath my notice, and you can do anything you want.”
“Oh,” said Ruth, magic turning her blackened hair red again, like a sea of blood drowning out ashes. “I will.”
Rob turned away from Kami and Ash toward the townspeople sitting in the hall.
“A willing sacrifice has been given to me, and my power is stronger than ever. But you did not offer me a winter sacrifice on the day appointed,” he said. “Your sacrifice was late. I hope that I have taught you all a lesson, and I will expect evidence that you have learned. I want you all to give me tokens to show that you have submitted. And at the spring equinox, I want you to choose me another sacrifice.”
There was a murmur of dismay from the crowd, as if they had honestly thought that death would make them safe. Kami heard a sob, wild and loud, and saw Chris Fairchild’s wife collapse into a neighbor’s arms. Rob looked around, mouth curved as if smiling at a private joke.
“One more sacrifice. One more season. Then I promise you on my word as the Lynburn of Aurimere, there will be peace for Sorry-in-the-Vale.”
Rob and his sorcerers left. Ash hung onto Kami, his heart beating a wild frantic rhythm against her back, even after they were gone.
Kami heard the whispers of the people around her, rising up to the low ceiling, slipping out of the broken windows, saying that they had no other choice, that everything would be all right, that there would be advantages, that the old ways were the best ways, that they could not be held responsible. She saw women taking their hair down, about to snip it off as a token for their sorcerous leader. Nobody was looking at the dead man on the altar.
She did not have to listen long, because finally the others arrived, all of them running, sunshine-haired Holly, tall, dark, and terminally idle Rusty, and Kami’s best friend in all the world, Angela. Holly was trembling. Even Rusty did not look his usual unconcerned self.
Angela took one look at the altar and curled her scarlet lip.
“Goddamn sorcerers,” she said. “It is the goddamn weekend.”
A few people looked outraged by Angela’s flippancy, but Holly smiled a tiny smile. Angela did not notice anyone’s reactions, because she was busy making threats.
“Ash, let go of Kami this minute or I will punch you in the face.”
Ash let go of Kami. Kami punched him in the arm.
“I didn’t know that all my choices were punching,” Ash said, rubbing his arm.
“Don’t ever grab me like that again,” Kami told him. “Or your whole life will be punching.”
She crossed to the stone steps where Angela stood, and Rusty made room for her beside his sister, so she could lean into Angela a little. Angela glanced down at her face.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is it this, or is there something else as well?”
“My mother,” Kami said quietly. “She told me something about Jared today.”
Angela grasped Kami’s hand and held it tight. That gesture, and the look on Holly’s face, let Kami know that they had already expected to hear news of Jared’s death. They were both utterly unsurprised.
She looked at Rusty. He was frowning slightly, biting his lip. He looked conflicted.
“Cambridge,” he said, “can we go somewhere and talk?”
Kami followed Rusty down the steps and away from the building that bore the words that promised all men would welcome deceit, the building where people she’d thought she knew had watched a man die.
Rusty was moving fast, as Rusty, lazy as he was sweet, hardly ever did. Kami could barely keep up with him.
“What’s this about?” Kami asked.
Rusty glanced over his shoulder at her. There was something apprehensive about his look, as if he was not quite sure she would still be there. Or as if he was not quite sure he wanted her to be.
“You’re going to be angry,” he predicted.
Chapter Two
Buried Alive
The last two times Rob Lynburn had opened the priest hole, Jared had tried to kill him.
The first time, Jared had tried to strangle Rob with his bare hands, and the second time he had used a weapon. There were not many weapons available when buried alive in a wall. The body of Edmund Prescott, twenty years dead, his fair hair turned white and brittle and hanging like spiderwebs in his gray sunken face, was all that Jared had.
Jared had shoved up Edmund’s sleeve, rotten and disintegrating under his hand. Underneath his clothes, Edmund’s body had shriveled to nothing but papery skin over bones. Jared tore the skin away and ripped a bone free out of the forearm.
He had spent some time—he did not know how long, time was hard to tell in this lightless trap—sharpening the bone against the stone wall of his prison. Hiding the bone in his sleeve, he waited.
Rob had lifted him out, and Jared had pretended to be more drugged than he was, head lolling, mumbling something about help and his mother. Rob had bent over him, almost seeming concerned.
Jared had whipped out his weapon and tried to plunge the bone into Rob’s throat.
He had caught Rob unawares. Some of Rob’s sorcerers had been with him and one had grabbed Ja
red’s arm, pulling it back, so the wound was shallow instead of the gaping hole Jared had planned. The next minute, Jared had been pinned to the floor by the sorcerers as he struggled and lashed out under their hands, Rob’s rage washing over him as magical pain.
Rob had taken hold of Jared’s hair and banged his head, rhythmically and sickeningly hard, against the stone floor.
“Very resourceful, my boy,” he’d said. “I’m impressed. Don’t try it again.”
They had left Edmund Prescott’s body in the priest hole with him, but Jared had not tried it again. They would be expecting it now.
The food they gave him was drugged with something that made him drowsy and his magic not work. At first he did not eat it, but it became clear the choice was eat drugged food or starve to death, and the food let the days slip by faster, filled them full of dreams.
He was sitting with his head against the wall, dreaming, when the priest hole opened, a pale square of light on the wall above him. He felt himself being dragged up by magic, back against the wall, helpless as a puppet on Rob’s string.
The light of day hurt his eyes: he squinted, dazzled, and in his blurry vision Rob’s face almost looked kind.
“How are you today, Jared?” he asked gently. “Ready to be a dutiful son?”
Jared was lying on the ground. He knew he must look pitiful, dirty from the grave below, not able to see or stand: he tried to raise himself on one elbow and could not quite manage it—the elbow kept slipping away from him.
“Yeah,” he grated out. “I’ll be a good boy. Don’t put me back down there.”
Sight and sound slipped out of his reach: the last thing he saw as his vision darkened was Rob’s proud smile.
Jared woke up in his room in Aurimere. He remembered a time when he hadn’t liked his bedroom, its high ceilings and the rich red velvet drapes, but now it was his, his yellowed old books piled in a corner, his weights kept under the bed, the whole room familiar as his aunt Lillian’s voice in the hall. Just lying on his bed was a profound and amazing relief.