Page 49 of When Bones Whisper
With a heavy sigh, Katherine stepped away from the fire and walked back to the grimoire. “Your aura is fine,” she stated dismissively. “We must prepare and see if this will work. We can only hope the Avery family will not notice their sigil on the doorway before they enter. Follow me.”
Charlotte walked behind Katherine, surprised at how much the magic helped the pain in her joints. While the stiffness was not gone, the burning sensation was almost tolerable.
With a glance down the corridor where they’d met the ghost, Charlotte asked, “How long could we have stayed in the Realm of the Dead?”
“Not long and I warn you not to go there without me. When we travel between realms, our mortal bodies become the perfect empty vessels for demons who want to get a taste of being alive again.”
She was certain that the woman haunting her was a darker entity than the ghost. The sentient, creepy smile and a nauseating energy were enough to turn her stomach.
“How can you tell for certain what is a ghost and a demon?” she asked, although she knew a lot from the journal, a practiced witch would know far more.
Katherine’s voice echoed around the foyer as they descended the sweeping, dark staircase. “I suppose, the only way to truly know is if they show up in a reflection. Only demons can traverse the veil for long periods, and while in ghosts we see flickers of moments of full-body apparitions or orbs, in demons we can see them in mirrors or—”
“Windows.”
“Sure. They can also, occasionally speak into our minds, even paralyze us, temporarily of course.”
A lump formed in her throat. That was exactly what had been happening to her.
They reached the front door and Katherine got to work carving the Avery sigil—a wand with two knots—into the side of the wood doorframe where no one would think to look.
She took Charlotte’s hand and pressed her other to the marking on the frame, whispering the spell that would disable their magic once they passed the threshold.
While she’d always wanted to use magic and wanted to soak in the moment, her mind was elsewhere. Because the entity had shown up in the reflection of the window and that meant only one thing. A demon was haunting her and that mark on her hip, which was growing with each passing day, couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Chapter Fifteen
There were only just one day left until the ball and if she didn’t act now, then the Avery witches would surely die.
Ticking from the grandfather clock followed her as she crept down the corridor and into the foyer that next afternoon, careful not to make a sound while everyone else was sleeping.
Sunlight sliced through the stained-glass windows either side of the arched, double doors. She’d almost forgotten how good it felt to bask in the warmth of the sun.
Duke darted ahead of her, stopping in front of the main doors. Fortunately, no staff members were there. She lifted the skirt of her favorite pale-green tea dress, trying to think of anything else but the tightness straining her muscles. The throbbing in her back and knees deepened, the cold of the marble seeping through her slippers. With every step, the relentless discomfort clinging to her every limb worsened.
She knew it was coming after all the physical exertion she had done recently. If she had paced herself, it wouldn’t have been as bad, and she knew better. It was getting close to intolerable, but she only had to reach the sigil. Then she could rest.
A groan bubbled in her throat when she reached Duke, who tilted his head, his bright eyes blinking softly. “I’m okay,” she whispered but scrunched up her nose.
She looked at the Avery family sigil carved into the wood frame. When she grazed her finger on the wood, a zap of energy shocked into her nail beds.
Laying her palms flat against the wood, she recited the Latin from the grimoire that she’d memorized yesterday. The hum of magic whispered against her fingers as she siphoned the magic from the spell Katherine had placed on it, her heart hammering as every pulse burrowed deeper into her soul.
If any of them discovered what she had done, they’d surely lock her away, maybe chain her up in the cellar, but she had no choice but to take the risk. If Nathaniel’s plan succeeded, her own death would follow soon after. Even if she refused to perform the ritual after he discovered the truth, he wouldn’t stop trying to make her, and she couldn’t fathom thinking about the various torture methods he likely learned over the centuries.
She needed more time to figure a way out of this and unfortunately that meant keeping their enemies alive a little longer.
A wave of power washed through the room, making her gasp. The power ran through her like currents, spiking in hertorso. She pulled away from the sigil, heart racing when the last of the magic pulsed into her fingertips. She waved her hand over the door, but nothing except an echo of a spell was left lingering in the splinters of the carved marking. She only hoped no one would notice before the ball.
The mark on her hip burned when the magic seared back into her body, sparking pain into the necrotic center. Despite applying the tonic daily, it had only gotten worse.
Now run, while you have the chance.
The voice rattled through her skull, making her jump.
Shaking her head, she stepped back, gazing through the window beside the door. Even if she did somehow make it past the death hounds, she had no coin to get out of London, or England for that matter. She couldn’t return to her manor, and they would never stop hunting her.
No, the answer lay with magic. It had to. She just needed to get hands on her grimoires again without Katherine looking over her shoulder.
