Antebellum Awakening (The Network Series #2)(100)

Most of the witches walked past the High Priestess’s stately, regal form with emotionless faces. Many of them, especially the foresters and gypsies, dropped springs of Letum Ivy. The growing pile threatened to overtake her.

Across the high bailey near the Ranks flickered a little shadow that sent my heart racing. Instantly on alert, I straightened to see better. A familiar pair of foggy eyes met mine, and then another. Isadora’s hunched frame stepped out of the shadows, followed by Sanna. Both of them looked right at me, and I wondered if Sanna could see after all. We stared at each other, and I could see the mourning in their eyes. Isadora set a white lily on the ground, met my eyes again, and nodded once before disappearing.

I kept my eyes on the lily for a long time before turning back to the High Priestess. I wanted to see her sit up, snap at someone to stop staring at her, and take her place on the castle balcony with her usual sallow haughtiness. I’d give anything to hear her reprimand my curtsy. I’d even learn the correct way to curtsy if she’d just come alive again.

I sat there, my knees pulled into my chest, my scabbed, bandaged feet tucked underneath me, waiting for her to move.

But she never did.

Once everyone left, after thousands of witches traipsed through the high bailey, Papa, Tiberius, and I stood on the Wall near the Gatehouse. A contingent of Guardians, led by Marten, marched the High Priestess out to a protected graveyard that was nestled deep in Letum Wood. The Captains had already amassed their Guardians in the lower bailey to give them verbal preparations for the flood of new Guardian hopefuls coming the next morning, motivated by the attack on our homeland.

“What are you going to do now, Papa?” I asked, a hollow feeling in my heart.

“We are going to train and fight,” he said. “The West will need time to gather themselves back together. Dane will have to figure out what to do now that Mabel, and the West Guards, have failed.”

The Western Network had attempted an advance on the Borderlands, hoping to seize it for their control, at the same time Miss Mabel swooped in with her bat-like hordes. The Guardians held them back with a supreme combination of magic, skill, and brute strength.

“Will the war end with Miss Mabel’s capture?”

He scoffed, a short, quick breath packed with meaning.

“No,” he said. “This war never did begin nor end with Mabel.”

“So now we fight Angelina,” I said with a frustrated sigh. “A woman more powerful than Miss Mabel but twice as invisible.”

“Yes,” Papa agreed, his jaw tight. “If she is as powerful as you think, that is.”

He doubted Angelina’s role in all this, I could tell. Part of me couldn’t blame him. Angelina was virtually unknown, more ghost than witch. How could they fear a witch they’d hardly heard of before?

Perhaps that was the most frightening part of all.

“We’ve got something she wants,” Tiberius pointed out. He meant Miss Mabel, and the very idea sent a chill through me, reminding me of something the High Priestess said last year after Mama died.

This is a lot bigger than just you or me, Bianca. It has been for awhile. I only kept the obvious wolves at bay when I overthrew Evelyn. Now is the time to flush them all out. It will be a painful, dangerous process.

“Marten will remain our Ambassador,” Papa said. “He’s hoping to go to Diego in the Eastern Network to discuss what all this means. They must take some kind of action before it’s too late.”

“The Mansfeld Pact is still in place,” Tiberius said with a dark mutter. “Diego isn’t going to break the contract to help you. Not to mention that Mikhail is running low on metals for his army and the West has them in abundance.”

“They’ll violate the Mansfeld Pact and form an alliance, won’t they?” I asked, and Tiberius nodded with a quick jerk of his head.

“What about the Eastern Network? Will they fight?”

Tiberius snorted.

“They aren’t going to do anything. Diego is in denial. He holds to the Mansfeld Pact more tightly than any Network ever has because it originated there. There are no rules in war,” Tiberius muttered. “Diego loves rules. Bloody fool.”

Tiberius had been like a bank of coals since the night of the ball, burning and hot. Any attack on the Network enraged him, but such a successful campaign was a personal insult. Papa’s eyes narrowed, but I knew he wasn’t seeing the lower bailey, the formations, or the shouts.

“And the North?” I asked. “Who is going to warn them?”

“No one,” Papa said. “The North doesn’t care about what’s going on down here. They’ll take care of themselves.”

“But—”

“We’re going to fight this war the best way we can, B,” he said, intercepting my thought. “We’ll exhaust every avenue.”

“Including Angelina and the missing Book of Contracts?”

Papa pulled in a deep breath. Zane had personally scoured every inch of the ballroom and was unable to find the Book of Contracts. We had no idea where it went after the chaos on that devastating night.

“Yes, B. Every option. Don’t worry, okay?”

But I did worry. I worried about him, about me. About the Central Network and my friends. Would Michelle’s brothers go to war? Would Leda’s father still be able to support his family? What about Tiberius and Merrick?