Page 47 of Sharpen Your Claws

He didn’t want Charmaine to get hurt, but deep down, he knew the more who helped, the better the outcome could be for his patients. For all of them. She had put a lot of work into helping until then. She would be distraught if he abandoned her to finish the job, and he understood that, but he nearly lost her once.

“If anything were to happen to you—”

“Something could happen to you, too,” she interjected and flinched when she slammed a cup in the cupboard. Nothing broke, causing them both to sigh. Then she linked their arms. “We will do this together.”

“It seems I have no say in any of this,” he said, aggravated and only mildly relieved. “I’ll gather supplies and I have a few things I must do. I will retrieve you from here in two days. Evera and Nicholas will lead the way to Faerie. They know of a shimmer we can take with no one knowing.”

She shook her head. “Of course they do.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have work to attend to before you coerce your way into even more trouble,” he said, earning a tender smile from Charmaine.

“You certainly couldn’t have expected this to go any differently,” she said.

“I hoped you would understand and not have a death wish.”

“One might argue you are the one with a death wish.” She kissed his cheek. “I will see you in two days.”

Downstairs, Bessie gave him a kiss too. He couldn’t look her in the eye, knowing he was about to put Charmaine in danger. He told himself they would be alright. They battled Fearworn and survived, but all luck had to run out, eventually. It certainly felt like his ran out.

He returned home, but nothing was the same. Nicholas returned to him, but their future was bleaker than he ever imagined. Believing he lost Nicholas was tough. If he ever had to take Nicholas’ life, he knew he couldn’t do it as much as Nicholas believed otherwise. The utter fool.

Nothing worked out the way he wished it would. Perhaps that was his punishment from the Holy Soul.

He laughed at his own thoughts. He didn’t believe in deity’s, certainly didn’t believe they cared about morality. If they did, the world wouldn’t be so grim. Only creatures of malice would conceive of a world such as theirs and let atrocity after atrocity roll over the lands and its people, especially the ones least deserving of it.

Yet, the thought made an unpleasant sort of sense. He took the lives of monsters and monstrous men. Men, who had minds of their own, the capabilities of rationality and morality, but chose otherwise time and time again. Still, if the Souls were real, they would curse a man like him and, frankly, he felt he deserved it.

William took a carriage to Heign’s Magical Society, located on the western side of the city, where businessmen scurried from their gentlemen’s clubs to their banks and favorite liquor stores. The west side always reminded him of his father’s office, smelling of liquor and cigars, until he came upon the magical society. That always had a pleasant aroma from the vast garden surrounding the estate. At eight stories high, the steeples threatened to scratch the stars from the skies. An unknown power kept the stones an awe-inspiring red, like the most sought after rubies.

The carriage pulled through the arched entryway carved from stone where depictions of mages stood as if to guard the society’s secrets. The paved street lead into a courtyard encircled by benches where mages took to reading or shuffling around the columns with their arms full of books.

A pair of heavy doors stood open, granting access to everyone. However, he knew better; he may have the Sight and could walk the halls, but only the best of the best were truly welcome at Heign’s Magical Society.

Alogan’s public library housed the most basic knowledge of the Sight, but their genuine work remained hidden behind locked doors he could never imagine passing. Henry spoke of them, though never shared where they were even after Richard got wine into him. William always wondered if someone had somehow silenced the mages to prevent their secrets from spilling but, if that were true, he would never know.

The magical society wasn’t as flashy as the king, though no one could deny the grandeur of the interior. Paintings depicting famous mages lined the walls and sculptures discovered from the ruins of Alogan sat beneath glass to be admired and protected.

A boy with a fuzzy mustache that wasn’t quite grown right sat at a front desk. Piles of letters surrounded him as he sorted into compartments along the wall. He jumped when William called out to him. Wide brown eyes fell on him, slightly mortified, then relieved. The poor thing probably suspected a superior arrived, upset that their letter was late, or he didn’t sit as properly as he should.

“Good morning, sir. How may I be of assistance?” The boy bowed his head.

“Good morning. My name is William Vandervult. My brother Henry Vandervult works here. May I speak with him?” In such a silent hall, his voice echoed.

“Ah, yes.” The boy swept to an enormous book beneath the desk. He dropped the book on the table to flip through the pages. “He’s on floor seven. Please, let me escort you to him.”

The young mage scurried down the hall. The keys along his belt jangled, ricocheting off the walls, then the spiraling stairwell.

“You said he’s on floor seven?” William peered up the steep stairwell that made him dizzy. There were no lanterns to light their path, only the windows that cut harsh shadows across the stairwell.

“Indeed.” The boy smiled like walking seven flights wouldn’t be a pain. He settled on the stairs, then pulled out a key. He realized William wasn’t on the steps and grabbed his arm. “Please, step behind me, sir.”

William did so, then gripped the railing after the boy put a key into a hole in the wall. With a turn, the stairs creaked and moved. They swung around, up and up, slowly but not as slowly as he needed. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, willing his breakfast to remain in his stomach. Then the stairs stopped. He’d have fallen if he weren’t gripping the railing like his life depended on it.

“This way,” the boy said with the nonchalance of one who had done that a thousand times.

The upstairs varied little from downstairs, save the many red oak doors. The names of mages scrawled across each one caught the chandelier light, glistening in gold. At Henry’s door, the boy bowed and excused himself. That left William alone.

Henry wouldn’t only have answers. There would be questions, too. Out of all his brothers, Henry was the last one he could ever possibly deceive. Arthur was the most gullible around his family because he couldn’t fathom any of them having ill will. Richard could be deceived if one knew how to turn a phrase. Henry could sit in front of the best poker players in the land and call their bluffs.

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