Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(91)

“You can’t seriously go looking by yourself,” he said, gently rocking Iman in his arms.

“Why not?” I asked. But I already knew.

Hal looked down at the baby sleeping in his arms. He didn’t have to say a word.

“I know.” I deflated. “Every time we leave him to go out, I worry. And the thought of leaving him to go somewhere that could be dangerous . . .” I bit my lip. But everything relied on it. How could I turn down the first solid lead we’d had on the Fatestone?

“You’re a good mother,” Hal said softly.

I wasn’t prepared for the tears I had to suddenly blink back. I had never thought I would hear those words, or that they could belong to me. I recognized that for all the importance Nismae placed on family by blood, Hal wanted a family built on choice, with the person he loved and trusted most: me.

I had always thought if only I knew my parents, I’d be different. Better. Whole. Right. But they hadn’t chosen me, and they hadn’t given me the chance to choose. Now I got to decide what kind of family I wanted.

I knew the answer.

“I have to go,” I said. “Promise me you’ll stay with Iman until I return. If something happens to me . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I will. But I wish you didn’t have to do this.” Hal looked at me sadly.

“Me too, but I promise you that I won’t do anything with the Fatestone without talking to you about it first, all right? I want this to be a decision we make together,” I said. The relief of sharing the weight of it with him made it so much easier to bear.

His expression relaxed a little. “I’d like that,” he said, then smiled at Iman, who was just waking. “Should I tell you a new story?” he asked the baby. “Once there was a sheep named Shep, who liked to swim. . . .”

After leaving Iman safely in Hal and Zallie’s care, I took a lantern from near one of the castle doors and slunk outside. In the dead of night, the palace gardens were empty other than the occasional guard. I used my Sight to avoid them without any trouble. My shadow cloak protected me from anyone else who might be using the Sight. The hedge maze towered over everything else and was devoid of the fragrant and colorful blossoms that decorated most of the other gardens. A few turns into the maze, the barest thread of something shadowy tugged in my Sight. The deeper I ventured, the stronger the pull of the magic became and the more wild the hedges. I followed the trail of power through the empty maze until I reached the hush in its center, where tangled walls of greenery blocked out all sound.

All that stood in the center of the maze was a small fountain, old and stained, with vines crawling haphazardly over it. Water burbled from the mouths of three stone birds on top to cascade down tiered sides into a basin. The pulse of the magic beneath it was as sure and steady as my own heartbeat.

I sighed and took out my knife. I already knew what it would take to unlock the secrets of this place.

As soon as a few drops of my blood fell into the water of the fountain, the earth groaned beneath my feet. An archway burst out of the earth on the far side of the clearing, showering soil as it rose. Dirt and knotted roots clung to the damp stone, beneath which a dark hole opened to reveal a stairway.

Dread crawled slowly down my back, but I couldn’t turn back now.

As I entered the cave, the scent of must and earth hung in the stale air, making it hard for me to breathe. At the bottom of the stairs, a narrow tunnel continued farther into the earth. The lantern cast a pool of light around me that felt far too small for the enclosed space.

While it seemed as though the walls had once been smooth and polished, fissures now ran through them and the edges crumbled at the seams where they’d been tiled together. The tunnel wound into the ground, branching out in dozens of directions. I followed where my magic led. The deeper I traveled, the more the tunnel narrowed. Several times I had to duck to avoid tree roots that had punched through the passageway from one side to the other, leaving piles of rubble all over the floor.

Finally, the tunnel opened up into a large room. Something about it made the hairs on the back of my neck rise as I entered. I held up the lantern to look around, and immediately wished I hadn’t. The ward in this room had taken more than one enchanter to create—and they were all still here.

Skeletons hanging from the walls with arms outstretched and fingers entwined encircled the room in a bony embrace. Jeweled charms dangled from nails hammered through their foreheads. Their jaws were wired shut, the metal holding them together rusty. I couldn’t imagine why it had been done, but the horror of it made my mouth go dry.

A twining rope of power moved through their linked hands. They had cast the same kind of ward on the room that the coliseum had—one that prevented seeing any magic within it from the outside. That was why I hadn’t been able to find this place with my Sight.

At the center of the room, a stone tomb protruded from the floor. A statue loomed at one end of it, the folds of her marble cloak cascading in a canopy over the grave. Like the dais in Veric’s Sanctum, the surface of the tomb bore a handprint on the top with a blood groove. The stone of the handprint was cool to the touch, and my fingers came away smudged with dust.

My heart beat so loudly in my ears that I could hardly hear my own thoughts.

I reopened the cut on my finger and let my blood drip into the handprint as I had in the Sanctum. Slowly the flat stone atop the sarcophagus slid away. I tried not to think about the layers upon layers of earth above me, or the bones waiting for me below. They were just remains, just one more thing I had to face to get what I needed.