She missed running as a panther, racing Waysa through the forest. But she was happy to see her friends together again, and to be with them, at least in spirit.
With the Black Cloak strapped into Braeden’s knapsack as he rode on Waysa’s back, and her running along behind, the three of them made their way toward Rowena’s lair deep in the forest bog.
A haze of white feathery clouds shrouded the glowing moon as it slowly set and disappeared behind the western mountains. As the darkest shadows of the night fell through the forest trees, Serafina crept with Waysa and Braeden into Rowena’s encampment.
The small habitation had been damaged by Uriah’s attack a few nights before, and many of the surrounding trees had been destroyed, a grim reminder of why the four of them were there.
The sorceress emerged from the ravaged remnants of her lair wearing the dark hood and robes of her ancient druid kin.
Waysa waited with claws out just a few feet away, as Braeden stepped toward her.
“We’ve come as you asked,” Braeden said. “So what do we do now?”
“You can watch everything I do, but you’ll need to give me the cloak…” Rowena said.
“What are you going to do with it?” Braeden asked, stepping back from her. “How do we know this is what Serafina wants us to do?”
“Tell him that chicken and no grits is my favorite food,” Serafina said, “and that raspberry spoon bread is his.”
When Rowena repeated the words, Braeden said, “But tell me what you’re going to do with it.”
“I am going to try to repair it,” Rowena said.
“Repair it?” Braeden asked in confusion. “Are you going to give the cloak to your father?”
“That would be the end of us all,” Rowena said.
“Then what? What will happen when you repair it?”
“If all goes well, then it will begin to function the way it was designed.”
“Which means what?” Braeden asked. “You’re going to start sucking in people’s souls and stealing their powers for yourself?”
As Rowena and Braeden talked, a dark and foreboding fear soaked slowly into Serafina. She was beginning to see Rowena’s plan.
“When the cloak was torn during the battle on the Loggia, Serafina was splintered out into the world along with the black fragments,” Rowena said. “They are the remnants of the cloak’s innermost darkness. If I can repair the cloak properly, then it may pull those remnants and Serafina’s soul back into its black folds.”
“I don’t understand, what do you mean may?” Braeden asked. “Aren’t you sure?”
“No, I’m not,” Rowena said. “The cloak is severely damaged.”
“And if it doesn’t work, what happens to Serafina?”
“If I fail,” Rowena said, “I suspect that her spirit will disappear and she’ll be lost forever.”
“But if you succeed, it’s even worse!” Braeden said. “Her soul will be trapped in the cloak.”
“Yes,” Rowena said.
The frightening image of Clara Brahms’s stricken face flashed through Serafina’s mind. The girl in the yellow dress had screamed in horror when the cloak absorbed her. Serafina didn’t want to do this. She definitely didn’t want to do this. She hated this plan. She had been running and fighting, biting and clawing, all this time to escape the Black Cloak, to rescue people from it, to protect people from it, to defeat it. There was no way she was going to let herself get sucked into it. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than being trapped inside the Black Cloak. She’d rather die. She immediately started trying to figure out how she could communicate with Braeden and Waysa, how she could stop this.
“But if Serafina’s spirit gets pulled back into the Black Cloak, then what’s going to happen?” Braeden asked, his voice trembling with the same fear that was enveloping Serafina.
“I warned you about this,” Rowena said harshly. “I told you this was going to frighten you. You have to trust me.”
“But what’s going to happen next?” Serafina asked Rowena. “That’s what we need to know. Are you going to keep the cloak for yourself? Are you going to steal my strengths and capabilities? Or are you going to give the cloak back to your father? Do you think that will satisfy him and he’ll leave you alone? Do you think that will win back his approval? With the cloak, you’ll have everything! You’ll have all the power and all the choices!”
Rowena suddenly hissed like an owl and turned away, clicking her throat in disgust. “It’s impossible to explain it to you,” she said again.
“Explain what?” Braeden asked in confusion, not realizing that Rowena was talking to Serafina.
“You keep saying that, Rowena!” Serafina shouted at her. “But you have to explain it, or we’re not going to do it! Swear to me that you’re not going to hurt Braeden.”
“Are you talking to Serafina?” Braeden asked in confusion. “What is she saying?”
“Nothing of consequence,” Rowena muttered and began to walk away, the angry flick of her hand casting a blast of force tearing through the forest and snapping branches. Waysa moved rapidly between Rowena and Braeden, ready to lunge at the sorceress.
Bitter-tasting bile rose up in Serafina’s throat. This whole thing was beginning to feel like a trick. But then she remembered the night in the graveyard long ago. She had lured the Man in the Black Cloak into a trap. After the battle, she had tried to tear the cloak’s fabric with her hands, but the fabric had been far too strong. Then she tried to pierce it with a dagger. But the cloak could not be harmed by a normal blade. That night in the graveyard, she had pierced the cloak on the sharp point of the angel’s steel sword. She had cut the cloak to pieces. That was how she had destroyed it. And when she did, it released its magic in a great cataclysm of heat and smoke and haze, and all the victims that had been captured in the cloak were suddenly set free. She remembered seeing Clara Brahms’s body lying in the leaves on the ground. When the girl twitched and began to rise, Serafina had feared that she was a zombie rising from the dead, but she wasn’t. She was a little girl, freed from the dark folds of the cloak. And Serafina remembered that she had freed her mother the same way that same night.
“You’re going to repair the cloak…” Serafina said, “but then you’re going to destroy it on the angel’s sword…”
Rowena stopped and turned, relieved that she finally understood. “I do not know if I can succeed, but I am going to try…”