I studied the narrow and crowded row houses pressing up to the street around us and wondered why this environment was so wrong for spell-casting. The row houses gave way to factories, and the factories to empty fields and scattered cottages. In a matter of minutes, we were beyond the city.
As we crossed a stretch of road bare of houses on either side, Lady Berri spoke again. “Now.”
She stood in the carriage and turned, flinging her hands out toward the darkness, and shouted, “Terra plica!”
The road beneath us rippled once, as if testing its strength, and then the whole landscape heaved upward. Someone cried out behind us, a note of fear hanging in the dark air.
The sky fell toward us. The fields shook.
Behind us, the road folded over on itself, like a bit of kneaded dough.
The cry cut off.
The horses whinnied in terror, but before they could bolt, the road finished its contortions. One final shudder, and it settled down, flat and rutted in the moonlight. I peered behind us at the silent stretch of road.
Whoever had followed us was gone, swallowed by a suddenly animate piece of earth.
I turned wide eyes on Lady Berri. I knew she was Lucifera, like Freddy, but I had never seen anyone fold earth as though it were only a bit of flour and water.
“Is he dead?” My heart galloped through my chest.
Lady Berri settled back in her seat, straightening her skirt as if earth-folding were an everyday occurrence. “Most likely. I’ve never had occasion to use that particular spell before. But needs must when the devil drives.”
A chill settled around me, more biting than the cool night air. Are we safe? I wanted to ask, but nothing seemed safe anymore. Not this errand. Not the suddenly strange lady beside me. It had been easy to trust a grandmotherly woman who wanted the same things my father wanted. But Lady Berri was not that woman.
I wondered if she ever had been.
“Let me see your ring,” she said.
I held out my hand. Lady Berri summoned a small Lumen lamp and examined the grotesquely grinning creature around my finger.
“I don’t like this spell,” she said, frowning. “This is not Herr Steinberg’s work. His spells are crude things, easily enough undone. But this…Someone powerful cast this.”
Uncle Pál, I guessed. “Can you undo it?”
Her frown deepened. She muttered a phrase, and pricks of light danced over the ring. She dropped my hand as if burned. “No.” She blinked rapidly and licked her lips.
I stared at her. I had never seen Lady Berri even mildly discomposed. The worry in her face sent fear spiraling up my throat. “We don’t have to do this,” I said. William was waiting on my signal. We could plan again.
She shook her head, her eyes bulging slightly. “We’re too far gone to turn back. A drive they might forgive, but not a death. We’ll have to risk it.”
“But I cannot break the Binding as long as I wear the ring. It burns me if I try.”
“Are you certain it prevents you? Or does it simply pain you to try?”
“It—” I stopped. I had not actually tried breaking a spell beyond the point of pain. “I don’t know.”
“You must try. The pain of the ring will be nothing to what happens if we do not succeed tonight.”
I swallowed sourness at the back of my throat and sat forward in my seat, wrapping my arms tightly about me. Despite Herr Steinberg’s horrible threats, I had never imagined I could actually die.
But at that moment, death seemed a terribly real possibility. Perhaps the Circle had already sent others after us, when their scout vanished. If they hadn’t, they would. Soon.
Once we arrived at Attila’s Hill, it took some time for Lady Berri to stage her spell. The earlier spell had worn her, and she kept pausing to breathe deeply. My own breaths were fast, shallow, frightened. Hurry, I thought. At last, Lady Berri set two fingers against my forehead and against my collarbone. Heat flared beneath her touch, sending a faint buzzing through my skull. “For protection,” she said. She pressed a bone knife into my hands. “Remember, you may need to feed the spell some of your blood. It was forged in blood—it must be broken with it.”
I reminded myself why I was here: for magic, for James, for Papa. For Gábor and the Romanies and justice. For Hungary.
Because a man had been swallowed by a fold of earth and now I had no choice.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward.
Heat prickled around me. A thin film of resistance.
The ring burned hot against my finger, a bright point of pain. It blazed higher, searing through my body, across my scalp. My breath caught at the sting. “I can’t.”
“You can,” Lady Berri said.
Even my blood was burning. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for immobility, as Herr Steinberg had promised. Would the Circle find us here, frozen? Or would Lady Berri bring my body back to Grandmama?
No. I would not be so weak. Anger brought my shadow self surging upward, and I released her. I would do this. I would not let the spell or pain block me.
The pain was sun-bright now, a whiteness at the edge of my vision. I cried out, and my shadow self flooded my entire body, riding the agony to my fingertips, and beyond.
I dropped to my knees. The air around me seemed to catch, and then split wide.
A thunderclap of pain so intense I thought I had died.
Then I was falling.
Air screamed past me, dousing the fire in my blood. I waited for the threatened Immobility spell to catch me, my muscles already tensed against the sudden cessation.
Nothing happened, save the wind in my eyes and my stomach somersaulting inside me. Had I broken the spell on the ring? A brief memory surfaced: my uncle’s eyes when he looked at Herr Steinberg. Had Pál even cast the Immobility spell?
I had just begun to wonder if I would ever stop falling when I landed.
A dense carpet of flowers spread across a familiar hillside. Only this time, the carpet was not violets, but Queen Anne’s lace, the filigree clusters of tiny white flowers bobbing on the wind. I plucked a stem and wrinkled my nose at the rank, parsnip-like smell. Not Queen Anne’s lace. Hemlock.
I curled my fingers around the handle of the bone knife and stood. I shook my hand, and Herr Steinberg’s ring tumbled to the ground with a faint thud. I smiled grimly at the discarded gargoyle. I had work to do.
Find the heart of the spell, Hunger had said. I looked around. There was nothing in the peaceful vista around me that suggested sacrifice, that demanded my blood or my broken heart. A gentle breeze tugged at me, urging me toward the forest of shimmering leaves. Hunger had told me not to wander in strange woods alone, but he was not here. And I must go somewhere.
A shadow fell across my face. I tipped my head back to see a falcon slicing through the air, half again the size of my beloved peregrines, golden striations across the back and tail. I brushed my fingers against Karolina’s necklace. A turul bird? A good omen, in any case.
I followed the bird along a faint trail through the flowers to the edge of the wood, then stopped. Shadows shifted between the close-packed trees, and I shuddered, thinking of the fene on Whitsun night. If I died here, in the center of a spell, would anyone know? Lady Berri might suspect when I did not return, but my body would be lost to the Binding spell.