A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(11)

I bled onto Mickelmas’s note, then grabbed Porridge—it sat on the table beside me, as I never went anywhere without it—and laid the bloodstained note into the red velvet lining of the trunk. I shut the lid and started swirling Porridge in slow circles. This was a standard sorcerer move, one that I found helpful when trying a new spell. The more basic the stave movement, the greater clarity I had in working the magic.

I’d been practicing in secret over the past two months. Seeking out little spells from Mickelmas’s trunk, I’d continued my unusual education in mixing sorcerer and magician magic. Words didn’t work for me, unlike most magicians. Perhaps it had to do with my stave. But finding the proper movement and focusing my will tended to help.

Now, instinctively, I sent Porridge in a slow, gliding figure eight over the lid. This was a maneuver designed to bring something up out of the depths of the water. I focused on the Ancients. Images of hideous Molochoron, a great moldy lump of jelly; fierce On-Tez, with her black wings and sharp teeth; Callax, with his great height and muscled arms; fire-breathing Zem; Nemneris, the giant glittering spider—visions of all the monsters coursed through my brain. Tingling began, starting in my elbows, shooting down to my hands. My blood and magic were responding.

How could I beat them?

My focus narrowed to R’hlem. I could feel it again, the slimy, bloody coldness of his hand on my throat. My feet slipping for purchase, and the way he squeezed and squeezed, choking the life out of me. The burning ugliness of his yellow eye, taking in my face as he strangled me.

A bloom of hatred warmed my blood. Embers sizzled against the lines of my hands. I imagined slamming a knife hilt-deep into his bloody chest.

How? How? Where do I start?

Porridge pulsed, and the lid swung open on its own. It had worked. With a cry of excitement, I looked inside to find a rolled-up canvas.

Not a book. Not a knife. If I was supposed to battle the forces of darkness with an oil painting of some lively spring countryside, I was going to hurt somebody.

“What are you?” I grumbled, unfurling the thing. “A portrait of dogs dressed in amusing outfits?”

“I love those,” Fenswick said, brightening at once.

I looked down at the painting…and my body went numb. Hastily, I knocked some bowls out of the way and laid the canvas out on the table.

Dear God.

“What in the Undergrowth?” Fenswick murmured, twisting his head back and forth to get a better look.

“The Imperator needs to see this.” My voice shook with excitement as I rolled the picture up and tucked it beneath my arm.

—

UNFORTUNATELY, WHITECHURCH WAS IN DEVON ON business, so I had to wait. Two days later, the Imperator sat in his chamber in the obsidian cathedral, the painting open on the table before him. His thin, veined hands traced the canvas. First, he flipped to the back, as I had, to make certain he’d read it right. Portrait of Ralph Strangewayes, at his home in Cornwall. Taming the bird. 1526–1540 or thereabouts.

He turned the painting over. It showed a bushy-bearded man, dressed in standard clothes of the Tudor era. He was a long-faced fellow with a gold-beaded cap and a doublet of forest green.

This was Ralph Strangewayes, the founder of magician craft in England.

Strangewayes stood in the foreground. Behind him, there was a small house, the magician’s home. The house wasn’t what had captured my attention, though.

It was On-Tez, the Vulture Lady. I knew the sight of her immediately: a large black vulture’s body with the head of a sharp-toothed, hook-nosed old woman. She flew high in the air above Strangewayes. Her horrible sharp teeth were bared in a dreadful grimace, her black wings fully extended.

Strangewayes didn’t appear discomfited by this at all. In fact, he was blithely holding a chain—a chain that stretched all the way up to connect to On-Tez’s ankle.

Here was a painting of one of the Ancients three hundred years before the war began. And Ralph Strangewayes, father of all English magicianship, apparently had not only dealt with the Ancients but been able to control them. To keep them, like pets.

Taming the bird, indeed.

I waited for Whitechurch’s response, trying not to bob up and down with excitement. After all, he could be angry with me for disobeying his orders. Well, they hadn’t been orders exactly, had they? More like suggestions. That’s what I’d told Blackwood on our way down here; he’d insisted on coming, in case he needed to speak up for me.

He waited by the doorway like a disapproving shadow.

“Where did you say you found this?” Whitechurch finally looked up at me.

“In my father’s collection, sir.” Blackwood lied easily. I hated that he had to do it, but mentioning Mickelmas’s chest was impossible.

“Mmm.” Whitechurch rolled up the painting. I held my breath. “Are you certain of the date?” he asked us quietly, looking from one to the other.

“I’m no expert, sir, but it looks real. I researched Ralph Strangewayes’s Cornwall home,” I said. No need to tell him my information came from one of Mickelmas’s books, The Ascent of Magic. “It’s in Tintagel.”

“You want to go there.” Whitechurch leaned back in his chair, absently stroking his chin.

“Yes,” I said. He stayed silent. Oh dear. “Strangewayes must have been able to control these creatures, if this painting is anything to go by. If there’s something we can learn…”