Page 58 of The House Saphir
After a long silence—“What if she is not the only one?”
“Who else do you think will come? The duchess?” Mallory giggled and wagged her fingers in mockery of the ghost who was said to haunt this very house—though Mallory sought out the apparition every time she walked by and had never seen anything but rats and spiders. “All right, that’s the last of them. Are you ready?”
She expected Anaïs to argue again, but, chewing on her pinkie nail, her sister merely nodded.
Mallory had spent days memorizing the incantation, even going so far as to convert the spell into a simple song so that the words would be as fluid as gossip from the baker’s wife. It was far more complicated than the petty magic spells she’d worked in the past. But then, summoning a spirit from thedead was a much more complicated matter than dyeing a bully’s teeth green or making an enemy’s breakfast sour in their stomach.
Still, Mallory knew she could do this. She was going to be a powerful witch someday, like Mother. And Grandmother. And—long ago—Gabrielle Savoy. The greatest witch of them all.
After this night, she and her sister would be the same. No more god-gift. No more curse.
She used the blade of a bone-handled knife to draw blood from her finger, letting three drops fall into the circle.
They reached across the circle and took hands, framing the candle between their arms. Mallory kept her eyes on the candle flame as she chanted the spell—her small voice wavering as she sang every word of the unfamiliar language.
Anaïs remained silent, her grip on Mallory’s hands slowly tightening.
An odd screeching gave her pause. Wings flapping in the chimney. Only a bat trapped inside.
She kept going. She was halfway through the fourth repetition when the flame changed color. From orange and white to bluish black.
The candle tipped over—but at the moment it should have clattered to the floor, it instead vanished into the nothingness that yawned open between them. Anaïs gasped and tried to pull away, but Mallory held tight.
Gabrielle, she thought.I wish to speak to Gabrielle Savoy. Please grant our wishes, that my sister and I might share the same magic. That she will not be ashamed of who we are and what we can do. Please, Gabrielle…
But it was not Gabrielle Savoy who emerged from that bottomless void. It was a shadow, curling and shapeless at first, with hands like claws. It emerged from the depths to grasp at the floor by Mallory’s knees. It climbed onto sharp elbows, a hiss and a gurgle coming from somewhere in that writhing mass. It lifted its head—what must have been its head, for there were two eyes glowing like gems, staring straight at her.
Mallory screamed. She let go of her sister’s hands, hoping that would break the spell and send the thing back to Verloren, or whatever lay beyond that black pool.
But the creature kept coming. First onto hands and knees, then drawing itself upward with agonizing slowness, towering nearly to the ceiling.
“Sweet little witch…” it seethed. It lifted one long arm, pointed a clawed finger at the base of Mallory’s throat. She wanted to scream, but her fear had her voice in clutches. “I shall grant your wish… in gratitude for your troubles.”
It continued to speak, but Mallory did not recognize the words that followed. The mellifluous cadence of the old language, punctuated by the creature’s rasping hisses. Then, blinding pain tore through her, and she thought the monster had killed her—driven a knife straight into her throat.
The last thing she heard was whistling—a strangely jaunty tune—before the world faded away.
When Mallory returned to consciousness, Anaïs was trying to put out the flames that licked at the wallpaper from their toppled candle.
For a long moment, Mallory couldn’t talk. Something was wrong. On the inside. Something was wrong with her.
She pressed a hand to the base of her throat, flesh burning where the demon had touched her. “It… it’s gone,” she whispered.
Anaïs spun toward her, startled. “Mallory! You’re awake! Quick, use your magic to put out these flames.”
Mallory gaped at the smoldering wallpaper. Horror swept over her. She knew the words well enough, but when she spoke them, the flames did not die down. “I… I can’t. It’s gone. Sister. It’sgone.”
Ultimately, Anaïs ruined both of their cloaks putting out the fire—a loss that hardly registered when they told their mother the next day, because what were a couple of cloaks when her youngest daughter had just had her magic stolen from her by some dark creature that had crawled up from the underworld? Their mother had mourned the loss of Mallory’s magic, but never as much as she mourned for it herself.
As for the new ability the demon had given her? The death magic that was now burned into the center of her chest?
Mallory did not notice it until the fire was put out. Only then did she see the third person who stood in the room. Who had, perhaps, been there the whole time, clutching a bloody blue shawl and glaring at her with quiet distaste.
For the first time in her life, Mallory could see ghosts.
“It’s a good thing you’re alive,” said the duchess in her tart, nasally voice, “because I was about ready to tell you to go find your own mansion to haunt.”
“Mallory?”
