Within These Wicked Walls(19)

I leaned into the doorway, the spiders and their webs shifting away from the invisible protective sphere my amulet provided. Some of the webs didn’t move. I snatched one from my face, shoving it to the side. This closet had been so rarely used, actual spiders had mingled with the Manifestation.

I stepped inside the dense cross-stitching of webs, stepping carefully. The real ones were easy to spot, since they were the ones undeterred by my amulet, and I shoved them out of the way easily until I made it to the center of the closet.

Something rustled the webs ahead of me, like a puff of breath and a hiss.

Alone.

For a moment I held my breath, listening. There was a dull tap, and I jerked my gaze up to witness a giant spider crawling across my shield overhead. But that wasn’t what I was listening for.

Alone, the Something said again, this time beside me.

The spiders … the Manifestation … the house couldn’t have spoken to me. Still, the word unnerved me enough that I took out my pen.

You will always be alone.

I froze just short of igniting it.

There was no possible way it was reading my mind. Manifestations didn’t work that way. No, it was projecting a common fear. Most of the people who approached this closet could probably relate—

No one loves you.

“That’s not true,” I said, immediately feeling like an idiot. “God loves me.”

No one, the Something said.

I opened my satchel for a disk of silver, muttering, “Stupid Manifestation.”

No one loves you.

“You said that already.”

He does not love you.

I froze before burning the first stroke. “Who is he?”

I waited. I don’t know why I didn’t just work while I had silence, but the voice was so quiet I didn’t want to miss what it would say.

The breath moved the webs, which—oh God—had eaten away at most of my shield without my notice and were right in front of my face. One of the large glowing white spiders, its body translucent enough to display its viscera, reached out one of its spindly eight legs to me, the tip of it just short of my nose.

He will never love you, it said, the airiness of its voice making me tremble.

“Who?” I asked, my throat tense.

I saw the spider’s fangs flash in the meager light from the hall. Your father.

I felt something on the back of my leg and ran out into the hall. I brushed spiders and stray webs off me, taking a moment to catch my breath. If I hadn’t felt something, I might’ve still been frozen there, unable to cope with those whispered words.

I took another deep breath remembering those words … He will never love you.

And then I shook my head to clear it.

It was likely the Manifestation wasn’t talking about me at all. Magnus was the one who was cursed—maybe it was specific to him, or even his own father. And it wasn’t as if I had an actual father. Certainly no blood father I cared for. Only Jember, if he could be called that, and he didn’t have a paternal bone in his body.

Still … the specificity of it unnerved me enough that I slammed the door shut, rushing off toward the safer soot-covered room to cleanse it instead.





CHAPTER 9


When I entered the dining room, Magnus was sitting alone reading, his legs propped on the table. So it would just be the two of us—a relief and a stress combined. Magnus was a handful on his own, but at least I wouldn’t have to deal with Kelela, as well. One arrogant brat was more than enough.

I sat in my regular chair, wincing at the screech of wood on wood as I scooted it closer to the table.

“Evening, Andromeda,” he said, keeping his eyes on his book.

“Good evening.”

“Give me a moment and I’ll look at you.”

Odd how much that sounded like a threat.

“Oh, Magnus,” Peggy fussed, entering through the kitchen, holding two plates piled with something tan and red. “Feet down, child.”

He pulled his feet onto his chair, resting the book on his raised knees.

“Thank you,” I said as she laid a plate in front of me. It was a pile of long, pale … things, with a red sauce smothering it.

“Put your feet on the floor like a gentleman,” I heard Peggy say, though I was still trying to figure out what I was about to eat. Worms? But they didn’t seem to have any insides— “You’re not a cat.”

Magnus hissed at her, and I smirked and looked up.

Peggy’s face was flaming red. “Feet. Down.”

Magnus finally obliged, sliding his feet off to slap onto the floor.

She nodded in satisfaction, set his plate in front of him, and left the room.

He sat there, quietly, until we could no longer hear her footfalls. Then he slid his book down the length of the table, away from our food, and replaced his legs on top. And, as promised, he looked at me. “That woman would starve me on principle,” he said, picking up a small three-pronged tool.

I followed his example and picked up mine. “May I ask what this is?”

“You’ve never eaten pasta before?” Magnus sat upright, planting his feet on the floor, my ignorance seeming to make him forget he was trying to be defiant. “I fell in love with it after spending a summer in Florence.”

I’d meant the tools we were holding, and the word “Florence” didn’t mean anything to me, but I supposed it didn’t matter. I watched him stick the tool into the center of his pasta and twist. The pasta swirled around it, creating a small bundle.