Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1)(79)

Black mirrors were used for scrying, and some people also used animal bones, though Nonna cautioned against using items touched by death. She argued the future should only be viewed by the living, that things rotting deep within the soil had broken down into something else, and moved on from this realm, and therefore were no longer worried about what was to come.

As far as I knew, Claudia only used a handful of gemstones or spell candles.

She rocked back and forth, whispering. Her words were rushed and laced with a frenzied panic. She wasn’t speaking exclusively in Italian anymore, and I didn’t understand half of what she said. I couldn’t help but fear she was repeating messages from creatures I wouldn’t want to meet in the flesh. I tried reaching for her again, not wanting to leave her alone in this nightmare.

She struggled to get away, but I wrapped my arms around her, smoothing damp hair from her brow. “Shh. Shh. The stars aren’t falling. We’re all safe.”

“Safe. Safe in chains and locks and black mirrors with no keys.” Claudia rocked in my arms. “I hear it, or them. It’s hard to tell. They’re all talking at once—the bones of the dead, and the dust of the stars, and the devouring moon with its vicious grin. The goddess who is and is not, is vengeance.”

A terrible suspicion pooled in my belly. “Did you use human bones?”

“It said I would know. That they’d tell me. The dead shouldn’t mind. The dead have no mind, no will. No memory. Our minds were made for forgetting. The locks don’t fit the keys. I only used the bones because it said to. Lovely stars were supposed to light the way, lead me to them. I was supposed to help. They won’t stop screaming . . . make them stop screaming!”

“Who’s screaming?”

“The damned! They think they burn, but there are worse fates than fire and ash.”

It was unnervingly similar to what Wrath had said earlier.

Claudia threw her head back and screamed, raising an army of goose bumps on my body. Lights went on in the monastery dorms. I held her tightly to me, trying to keep her from thrashing. She needed to be still before the brotherhood arrived.

“It’s all right. Everything’s all right. Breathe.”

“Black mirrors. Burning eyes. Death comes bearing friendship. Inferus sicut superus. The book needs blood. It craves it. Blood breaks it.” She shoved me away, and whipped around. “Hide your heart. Hide it before—” She tapped my chest, shaking her head. Tears streamed down her face. “Too late. They took the ticker, and tucked it away beneath rock and dirt. Death. Bones and dust and screams. Gone. Change is here.”

“What change did you see?”

“Angelus mortis. He’s coming and going, and is a cunning thief who stole the stars and drank them dry. He will take you. You’re already gone. In the end, you choose. But he’s also chosen. I’ll mourn. I am mourning. Like leaves on the wind.” Claudia plucked what I could only assume were imaginary leaves from the ground, and blew them from her palm. “The angel of death claimed you. Changed you. You are here, but not there, there is where you will be, your life is ended. Same but different. For eternity.”

I knew enough of scrying to know her warnings were not simply rantings, or signs of madness. I imagined this was similar to what happened to old Sofia Santorini when her scrying went badly eighteen years ago. It sounded like my friend was trapped between realms and realities, hearing a hundred different messages at once. I couldn’t imagine how terrified she must be, lost within the prison of her mind with no hope of escape. I hoped this wasn’t a result of the spell I’d asked her to work. If it was . . .

I gently took Claudia’s hand in mine. “Let’s get you to Nonna.”

“They’re all talking at once. It’s hard to understand. To listen. The same voice speaks above all others, cruel, smooth like silk and sweet like honey. Choose, it says. I wanted a taste. It was poison. I was not meant to know. He’s coming. No, no, no. He’s here, no longer there, but here. He walks among us, hidden in shadow. Like death.”

“Nonna will know what to do to help. We must go to her at once.”

She dug her nails into my arms hard enough to make me wince, and whispered, “Run.”





Thirty-Eight

“You mustn’t linger; he’s searching for you.” For a moment, Claudia seemed perfectly lucid. Then her eyes went wide enough to show off the whites, and the screaming began again in earnest. It was awful; bloodcurdling and unrelenting. Like an animal caught in a trap as a predator closed in.

I fought the urge to plug my ears. Or burst into tears.

I took a few quick breaths, and pulled myself together—a spell of cleansing enchantment was what she needed, at least temporarily. But those required rose quartz, salt, water, and alkanet root. All of which were at home and didn’t help us here.

A dormitory door flew open, and a few members of the brotherhood rushed outside. I tossed up a hand to stall them, and they reluctantly paused several feet away. I internally cringed when I saw Brother Carmine emerge from the back of the group. I hadn’t seen him in years.

Long-buried memories from childhood resurfaced. When we were younger, a few years after old Sofia Santorini used dark magic, he would stand on a crate in the market, screaming about the devil. We needed to leave. Immediately. If he saw Claudia like this he’d believe she was possessed.