Murder in concert shouldn’t feel so good. But there was a quick, wild flush in her throat and skin that pointed out how well matched they were, how well they worked together.
“Yvette,” Demalion said, his voice a breath in her ear.
“And the Corrective.”
They were in a short hallway that closed in smaller and smaller as it went—no wonder the guard had been waiting foolishly close to the door, probably trying to hear their approach over the suppression of sound. If he hadn’t been claustrophobic before, a stint down here would jump-start it.
The door at the end was open, waiting for them. It was barely five feet tall, and the stone around it was old and dark. Sylvie crouched as she went through, preferring aching thighs to bending her head and losing sight of the room she moved into. Her breath preceded her and let her know that the room was enormous and cold. Cavernous. She stepped out and tried not to gape.
Cavernous was right.
The space stretched out ahead and around them, a hundred feet long, half that wide, maybe more, full of shadowy spaces and movement. More LED touchlights studded the walls but didn’t do much for making light in the darkness. Sylvie thought about earthquakes and tsunamis and shuddered.
Movement at the far end was too clearly defined to be anything but human, and Sylvie headed in that direction, each step cautious, testing, looking for magical traps, gun steady in her hands; Demalion had her back, stolen gun held at the ready. Something slick and glossy snaked over the floor; she stepped across it, careful not to let it touch her. She’d learned her lesson with the curtains. Here, in the Society’s stronghold, everything was dangerous.
She heard Demalion’s steps hitch as he adjusted to mimic her avoidance.
“Don’t be so hesitant,” Yvette said. Her voice rang out, full of echoes in this space. “If you’ve come this far, you’ve killed all my guards and witches. Now it’s just me.”
“What’s he? Furniture?” Sylvie said, focusing her attention on a blotchy shadow near Yvette. It twitched against her senses like a hastily sketched illusion.
“
“Guards,” Yvette had called them. Sylvie knew better. They were witches also. Yvette was a liar. Would say anything to get them off guard.
“It’s hard to believe we’ve never crossed paths before,” Yvette said. “I knew we’d meet sooner or later. I must admit, I’d hoped for later.”
“Then you shouldn’t have worked so hard to get my attention,” Sylvie said. Yvette was exactly what she’d expected. Competent. Confident. Arrogant. All the hallmarks of a high-ranking witch.
Sylvie’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, to that sense of motion when no one in the room was moving. It was the spell—the Corrective. The entire room was dedicated to the spell, and the glossy slick that she’d stepped over hadn’t been a puddle or a rainwater rivulet seeping down from the earth above but actual flowing water. It traced an infinity loop around the room, following channels laid into the stone floor, but it was like no water Sylvie had ever seen or heard. It flowed in utter silence, a rush of black silk chasing itself, as heavy as oil, as black as space between the stars. It wound between two tall, slim stones like a cat’s cradle spun between two upraised palms.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Yvette asked.
“Yup,” Sylvie said. Something about the water was so unnatural, it was hard to take her eyes from it, even in a room with three witches and so much at stake. “Impressive. Deadly. You’re making people stroke out with your shiny little spell. Ruining lives.”
“Tiger by the tail,” Yvette said. “I do admit that we’ve lost our … finesse of late, but you’re partially to blame, crashing around without the slightest subtlety. You do keep stirring things up.”
“You’re the one who sicced monsters on your own people,” Demalion said.
“Not my monsters, not my people,” Yvette said. “Not my problem.”
“You lie about everything,” Sylvie said. “This is definitely your problem now. Or I wouldn’t be here with a gun.”
“If I had monsters at my beck and call, would I be trying to talk sense into you? Appealing to your better nature while your … friends are killing my people?”
“Maybe you’re just tapped out, used up all your monster spells,” Sylvie said. “Or maybe Merrow, with his persuasive ways, was your only monster talker. Don’t know. Right now, I don’t care. Shut down the Corrective, Yvette, or I will.”
Yvette nodded, and Demalion growled. Sylvie echoed his irritation. She knew that gesture. It wasn’t agreement, just Yvette conveying her understanding that this was how it was going to be: that Sylvie was unreasonable. “You don’t want me to do that.”
“I really do,” Sylvie said.
“Sylvie—” Demalion said. Warning: Close her mouth, get the job done.
She kept her eyes, her gun on Yvette, but nodded that she was listening.
“I don’t think it’s that easy,” Demalion said.
“She made it; she breaks it—”
“I don’t think she did. It’s not her spell to break.”
“Oh, Michael,” Yvette said. Her tone was disappointed and fond at the same time. “This is why I headhunted you for my team all those years ago. Why did you have to change sides? Always so quick to see the problem.”
“So it’s not her spell,” Sylvie said. “But it’s her coven, her people. She knows how to—”
“Do you know what powers this spell?” Yvette asked.
“The two stones,” Sylvie said. They reeked of god-power to her. Strong beyond human skills, despite the witch sigils carved into their surfaces. “The water isn’t just flowing around them. It’s coming
“It’s been doing it long enough to wear a deep groove in the stone,” Demalion said. “To make its own path.”
Sylvie jerked her gaze downward. He was right. The lip and side of the grooves were as smooth as river rocks. The river had made itself at home.
“Those stone pillars are extraordinarily rare,” Yvette said. “Do you know what they are? Where they come from? What had to be braved to bring them back?”
Water and memory together gave her the clue, and Sylvie robbed Yvette of the satisfaction of telling her. “They’re from the River Lethe.”
“Our founder,” Yvette said, “planned it. Dedicated her lover to Hades, sacrificed him, then traveled down to Hades to barter with the god of the dead to bring him back. All a ruse, of course. Hades said no, and she begged at least, let him forget her. Hades acquiesced. Took them both to the River Lethe, where she stole a pebble from both banks before Hades ushered her out. The god thought he’d won, never thought of her again. She took the stones and ran. It took her twenty years of experimentation and effort to grow them. Another ten to create the Corrective.”
“It’s the same one,” Sylvie said. She got it now. Yvette’s awe, reluctance, even the fear of the spell she was using. The age of the surroundings, the rarity of the ingredients. The difficulty of the spell … “The very same spell. You never reconstituted it; your people never let it lapse. It’s been running for—”
“A hundred and seventeen years,” Yvette said. “Long enough for the river to grow along with the stones. For the strength behind it to grow enormous. For it to reach out to any part of the world that we need changed. If you break this spell, the backlash of it will kill me and most likely everyone here.”
“I’ll take that chance,” Sylvie said.
BEFORE SHE FINISHED SPEAKING, THE ROOM ERUPTED INTO MOVEMENT, their cease-fire broken. Demalion’s free hand latched onto Sylvie’s waist and yanked her aside just as bullets furrowed the space where she’d been.
Yvette, that liar, had only removed part of the illusions on her guards. No wonder they had stayed as still as
