Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
As I tracked them with my raven, the wizard wrote, hope dwindled. In the forest, I found carnage. . . . Blood coated the next few paragraphs. Then: Gateway nearby to a realm of all undead immortals?
Between crimson smudges, Rök made out a word or part of one: mort or mord. “Why would he write about an undead realm in this entry? Do you think . . . ?”
Poppy’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “Something about that portrait on the landing struck me. The wife wore an armband. Rök, one of the three ghouls in the cemetery had that same armband! The mother and her two children have been here all this time. They were transformed into ghouls. The undead.”
“Of all the fates.” Rök stifled a shudder. “I’d much rather be moldering in the ground.” Understatement.
“The wizard did experiment to resurrect his family—not from death, but from undeath.”
She and Rök fell silent, both lost in thought.
That Ending of Everything heading continued to resonate with him. He felt sympathy for the wizard. If Rök had lost Poppy and their children to ghouls, he feared he would have done far, far worse than experimenting on subjects.
Poppy finally spoke. “When I picture those three forever wandering this property, I pity them.” She held Rök’s gaze. “But I also feel foreboding.” The witch’s confidence from the start of the night had vanished.
“Hey, we’re going to be fine,” he assured her, though her stark expression spooked him a touch. “No way three ghouls can get the best of immortals like us. You aren’t a seeress, are you?”
“No, my sister Clove is the budding oracle in our family. But sometimes I feel like I can borrow my sisters’ powers. I’ll make a shot only a warrioress like Lea could make, or I’ll know what cards someone is holding, like Clove always does. And right now I’ve got a bad feeling about those ghouls.”
To distract her, he said, “Why don’t you keep that journal? It might have some interesting history. At the very least, it’ll net you all kinds of forum cachet.”
She stowed the journal in her bag. “We’ve combed this lab. There’s no battery and no way out. I have to use my portal.”
“I’m against it in principle. If something happens to me, I need to know you have at least one more at bat.”
“We don’t have a choice.” She collected the pouch. “Unfortunately, I don’t know where we’ll end up. I’m too turned around to aim inside this castle, can’t plot a course for the foyer.”
What if her portal took them to another locked room? They could still be trapped within a trap.
She bit her lip. “Maybe I could try to get us outside?”
Outside. Away from this place! A part of him clamored for freedom.
But . . . “You told me those visitors won’t quit until you’re dead. Which means we have to break your curse. Tonight. Witch, I’m all in.” To deliver her from the greater, looming threat, he just had to protect his mate against more unkillable visitors, find a cursebreaker to rid her of them, then get her out of here.
She gazed up at him, her green eyes filled with an emotion he barely dared to name. Or claim—
GROOOOOAAN.
Rök and Poppy froze.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, “it really is alive.”
TWELVE
Poppy’s gaze combed the shadows. In the flickers of lightning, the creature crawled toward them with lurching movements, electricity sparking along his stapled wounds.
She could all but feel how much he must have suffered. “Rök, what are we going to do with him?”
“Do? Look at its eyes.”
She peered into the gloom. Whoa. Her empathy faded. The creature’s black eyes burned with raw malice. That wasn’t a man—not a he—but wrath embodied.
It opened its mouth wide, clawed hands reaching for them. My gods, it wants us dead.
“Behind me, witch. I’ve got this.”
“Let’s just get out of here.” She rubbed her thumb over her final pouch, and magic seeped into her. Rök’s selflessness—I’m all in—called to her own. Despite her desperation for the cursebreaker, she couldn’t risk him any longer. She aimed her portal for home. . . .
Magic said, Hard no.
Which meant there was no mystical way out of this place. She probed the castle for any kind of power source—maybe they could in fact shut down the battery—and tried to direct her portal there. The air shifted before her, opening a threshold to a dimly lit room. Looked like an attic.
GROOOOOAAN. The creature lumbered to stand. Must be seven feet tall!
“It’s walking!” Rök said in horrified wonder. “You seeing this?”
Poppy yanked on his hand. “Come on!”
With a last fascinated look, Rök followed her across the threshold.
She muttered the incantation to seal it. As the portal began to close, the creature roared with fury and limped faster.
Rök turned back and raised his sword to block. “Think again, fiend.”