A Book of Spirits and Thieves (Spirits and Thieves #1)(58)

“Wrong,” Barnabas growled. “This is your doing.”

“My doing?”

“Don’t you know? Summoning spirits, trapping spirits and shadows . . . raising the dead. You are a necromancer, my young friend.”

“A what?” he exclaimed.

“Death magic is your gift.” Barnabas grinned broadly as if he’d just presented Maddox with a delicious pudding for dessert. “Now, let’s run very fast before we’re torn into pieces, shall we?”

He didn’t have to be told twice. Maddox ran, chasing after the surprisingly swift Barnabas, dodging the clawed hands of the rising dead. He focused only on the stone fence before them. Once they got there, Barnabas scaled it without a problem, even while juggling the sharp sword and dagger.

Maddox had the copper box tucked under his arm and did his best not to touch the enchanted lock. “I can’t climb a wall with this. I’m not sure I can even climb a wall without this.”

“Throw it!” Becca suggested. “And do it quickly! They’re coming!”

Heart pounding, Maddox shouted, “I’m throwing it to you!”

“Go ahead!” Barnabas called out.

Maddox hauled himself back and launched the heavy box over the stone wall. He heard a pained grunt from Barnabas’s side, which told him it had been successfully caught.

“Now go. Go!” Becca urged. “Hurry!”

He felt at the wall, trying to get a handhold. He managed to get several feet up before his grip slipped and he fell back down to the ground.

“Not good.” Becca wrung her hands. “Either climb faster or send those things back to their graves.”

“I don’t even know how I raised them!”

“Then that leaves you with one choice. Climb! Now!”

“Talk, Becca. Say something—say anything—to help distract me.” His hands shook as he tried to grasp the jagged stones, and he began to bleed from the effort. How had Barnabas done this with such ease?

“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Hey, you know what? Your world is a complete mess. It’s violent and cruel and bizarre and scary, and I hate it. There’s, like, literally only one thing I like about it.”

He wasn’t surprised that she despised this place where she was trapped. He wasn’t so fond of it himself. One day, when he had the money and the means, he would travel somewhere far away and never look back. “What’s that?”

“You,” she said simply, and as he locked gazes with her, her smile managed to enchant him utterly. But then her smile turned quickly to a scowl. “Now, hurry up, would you? Go!”

Hand over hand, he climbed the wall, this time not slipping before he got to the top. Two dozen corpses covered with rotting flesh stumbled and crawled toward him, reaching up to try to grab at his ankles. If he’d taken even a moment longer, they would have been successful.

When he jumped down to the other side, Becca was already there waiting for him.

“Luckily, it seems as though the dead can’t climb,” Barnabas observed. The box sat next to him on the ground, undamaged. “We’re safe, but we need to keep moving. It won’t be long before Valoria learns we’ve escaped. It’ll take her a little while to deal with the newly undead, so that buys us a small amount of time.”

Maddox wasn’t budging from his spot. He crossed his arms. “Did my father tell you that I’m a . . . a nacromincer.”

“Necromancer,” Becca corrected.

“Necromancer,” Maddox repeated firmly.

Barnabas nodded. “He did.”

“Why can I do this . . . death magic, as you called it? Why can’t I do magic like others—like witches?”

“That, I can’t tell you. What I do know is that you’re powerful, and I need your magic to aid me.”

“I don’t even know how to harness it properly. How can I help anyone else?”

“You agree that Valoria is evil?”

“Of course I do.”

“And she needs to be stopped?”

“Yes, but that’s impossible. You can’t stop an immortal goddess—not here and not in the South. It’s well known that many rebels who remain loyal to King Thaddeus’s legacy have tried and have died in their attempts. And even if you were successful in vanquishing Valoria, there’s still Cleiona to contend with.”

Barnabas flicked his hand in dismissal. “I’ll deal with the other one later. One goddess at a time, my young friend.”

“I’m not your friend. I don’t even know you. You need to tell me what your plan is right now or I refuse to go a step farther.”

Barnabas glared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“Fine. We’re taking that box to the most powerful witch I know, the one who told me it existed in the first place. Its contents harbor the means to send someone from one world to another.”

Maddox shot a look at Becca. Her eyes were wide with shock at Barnabas’s claim.

“Other worlds.” Maddox couldn’t believe his own words. “Such talk is . . .”

“Madness?” Barnabas grinned. “Perhaps. But there’s only one way to know for sure.”

“This is it. This is what I need.” Becca drew closer to Maddox. “If he’s being honest, this could be the answer we need to send me back home.”