Page 134 of Architecti
“Where can I find a codex?”he breathes.
Her body jerks left and right like she’s being shot.She must be fighting the wraith inside her.Her face contorts and reforms.Serene one moment, gnarled the next.
“Not somewhere…” She screams then, her voice descending into the grating rasp once more.
“Maybe you should let her go, Bastien,” Midnight says.
“Midnight’s right, time to send her back.”Lex fists a load of salt and reinforces the circle as best she can from a distance, chucking the salt at the thinner places.
“No,” he pleads.“We’re so close.What do you mean ‘not somewhere?’”He asks, inching nearer and nearer the salt circle.
Lex glances at me and then to Midnight.He’s losing his ability to let go.We need to act.
“Someone,” she shrieks, every trace of softness gone.
“Bastien,” I plead.“Now.”
“I can’t,” he sobs.
His knees are dangerously close to the edge of the circle.All three of us use our bodies to push him back away from his sister.
“Please,” he whines.“She’s all I have left.”
“You have us,” Midnight says and kisses him on the forehead, finally understanding that he needs comfort and not encouragement.
The wail he lets out reaches straight into my heart.This is why we don’t bring relatives back.It’s too hard to say goodbye all over again.
“I love you,” he says, over and over.“I’m sorry.”
“S… S… Someone,” she manages.
“The codex is a person?”I blurt.
She nods.
Bastien and Calyx hold each other’s gaze for a moment longer.Calyx is bent forward, her shoulders heavy, exhausted.Bastien draws his hands together and splits them.The magic holding her here severs and she dissolves, her hand outstretched, seeking one more touch.
He kneels, blood pouring from his nose, his hand still outstretched.It’s no longer pain in his expression but agony.It’s so acute I’m not sure if he will ever recover, and it’s my fault.They did this for me, and all I’m doing is causing them pain.Bastien slouches, Midnight pulls him to the ground.He curls up into the foetal position.Midnight spoons him from behind, Lex snuggles into his chest, and they let him cry.
People never die when we want.But perhaps that is the only way it should be?If we knew when our end would come, like Midnight, would we eat ourselves up contemplating how to live meaningfully?Or would we bury our head and deny the truth.
We’re all messed up, whether we fight fate or face it.
41
Midnight
Nine Years, Five Months,
and Twenty-Nine Days To Go
The first thing I do when I haul myself off the bedroom floor is shower, drink a toxic amount of coffee and then march myself back to the cemetery I summoned Ignatius in.
Fuck Aurelia.
I intend to break my contract and spend the rest of my life wishing her a sickening amount of bad karma.
I draw the same salt circle as last time.Even though it didn’t contain him, I feel safer making it.
