The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(90)

Until now.

There should be a signature on the tablet. The wizard’s name, a symbol, a pseudonym like the ones necromancers take on. Something to identify but not incriminate. A curse tablet won’t work without it.

I crouch to my knees. If there is a signature here, it will be somewhere along the bottom. But it’s hard to see. The moonlight’s not as strong down here, and there’s dirt clumped around the edges. I brush it away, and I see part of a symbol. Words. I keep brushing until, finally, it comes into view. A rose. And his motto: What’s done is done; it cannot be undone.

I fall back against the crumbling wall. Press my head into my hands, and I give myself a minute to feel it again. The betrayal, the disbelief, the horror, the truth: somehow sharp and numb, all at once.

Blackwell is a wizard.

I jump to my feet. Yank the Azoth from my belt. And, using every ounce of strength I have, I swing.

The silver blade sings against the stone, the sound echoing through the tomb like a scream. I can feel the power of it crawling through my limbs, filling my heart, my head, so strong I’m drunk with it. I swing again, and again, and again, the impact of silver on stone sending sparks that ignite the darkness.

“Elizabeth!” Schuyler’s voice cuts through the clatter. “Can you hear me?”

“Schuyler!” I call back. “I’m here! The door—it’s the tablet now. Help me break it, okay?”

There’s a pause, then an enormous, resounding thud that shakes the tomb, showering me with dirt. There’s another thud, then another.

I swing the Azoth, over and over, until a narrow crack appears in the center of the tablet. It’s beginning to break. I keep swinging; Schuyler keeps kicking. The split grows longer, wider, until a bright green light issues from its center, snaking through the opening in tendrils: down the tablet, up the walls, across the ceiling, squirming and undulating as though it were alive. I step back, away from whatever magic the light possesses, but it’s no use: The trickle of light grows until it’s nearly blinding. Then with a rush of wind and a shattering noise—like ice breaking across a frozen pond—the tablet crumbles.

I leap out of the way, but I’m not fast enough. Pieces of the broken tablet fall on top of me, and the weight of them throws me on my back, knocking the breath from my lungs and the Azoth from my hand and burying me in a heap of rubble and stone. I wriggle under the debris, shifting the stones off my stomach and limbs.

“Schuyler.” I cough, my voice raspy from the dust. There’s no answer. “Are you there?” I wait for him to reply. But there’s nothing. Just the sound of my own ragged breathing and a soft, steady rushing noise. It sounds almost like… almost like rain.

I feel a sudden chill. It wasn’t raining when I went into the tomb. And there was no sign of it, either; the sky was crisp and black and full of stars. What does that mean? It could be that I’ve been in here longer than I thought. It is Anglia, after all, and the weather changes fast. But it could mean something else, too.

I’m still in the illusion.

I get to my feet. Retrieve the Azoth from beneath the dust. Step carefully over the debris, make my way up the stairs and through the trapdoor until I’m outside again. It’s pouring. Icy rain is coming down in sheets. There are puddles everywhere. It’s been raining for a while. And Schuyler—whose voice I heard just seconds ago—is nowhere to be seen.

I feel a rush of disappointment, then terror. Because if I’m still in the tomb, still inside the illusion, it means I didn’t really destroy the tablet. Worse than that, it means whatever my biggest fear is, it’s still to come. And if my biggest fear isn’t dying alone, or watching John and everyone else die in front of me, then what is it? What could be worse than that?

It also means I was tricked into using the Azoth when I didn’t need to. I can feel the power of it still thrumming through me, whispering to me. Wanting me to use it. To take the power it offers me: to destroy, to break, to kill.

I thrust it back into the scabbard, exchanging it for a pair of serrated knives. Then I step into the rain.

I’m still at Blackwell’s, I can tell that much. I can see the flag-topped spires on the towers, the looming stone walls. A jagged flash of lightning brightens the sky. Thunder rumbles in the distance. I take a few tentative steps, my feet sinking softly into the mud. I scan the grounds carefully: the hedge maze in front of me, the trees that surround me. Something is out here, waiting. I know it; I can feel it.

Finally, I see it: a pair of yellow lamp-like eyes staring through the trees ahead. Then with a rustle of leaves and the snap of a branch, it comes for me.

The creature lumbers into the clearing, a huge, ratlike thing, the size of a horse but with six legs instead of four and a long, barb-tipped tail, filled with poison. Another of Blackwell’s creations. I’ve seen it before, in training. It’s slow and clumsy, but what it lacks in speed it makes up for in numbers. It travels in packs, as rats do. Which means there are more of them.

I send both knives flying, aiming directly for the eyes. That’s the only way to kill it, to put out both of its eyes. I manage to hit one but miss the other, and the rat stumbles onto its side and lets out an ear-splitting shriek. It’s calling the others. I pull out another knife and run toward it, leap over the whipping tail, and plunge it into the other eye. The rat shudders and dies, but I feel the ground trembling and know more are coming. I whip around to see three of them heading right for me.