I kiss him on the check. “I’m glad.”
“What are you looking for?” he asks, seeming to want to change the subject.
I let him. With a jolt of pure determination, I toe the wretched sampler aside and open the nearest cupboard. “I’ll know when I find it.”
28.
We search for hours.
Piece by piece, I pull everything out of the cupboards and scrutinize each half-completed sewing project. Then I inspect the tools and the furniture, moving chairs, and settees with Njål’s help. There are no loose floorboards, no secret panels in the wall. The window bench does open, but I only find piles of sumptuous fabric, silks, and velvets perfectly preserved and fit for a queen. Of course, there’s white and silver cloth, same as the baron and baroness wore the night they named Njål their heir.
“This is maddening,” I mutter.
I’m exhausted and ready to give up when it occurs to me that I haven’t looked inside the pillows and bolsters. I study them all, checking for something hidden, and when I come to the chair that the baroness was using in my dream, I find odd edges within the upholstered cushion. Without hesitation, I cut into the fabric and uncover a book. It’s a vile thing that radiates malevolence, leather the exact hue of dried blood, with arcane symbols burned into the cover; the tome also carries a faint stench, like charred flesh and sulfur.
The moment this thing sees daylight, the voice stirs in my head, full of spite. Human skin, touch and see, human skin, so soft and supple. There’s no fear from it as I slam the door between us, no worry that I’ve located a weakness. I hope they continue underestimating me, as everyone always has.
Njål doesn’t need to caution me. If it wasn’t safe to touch the sampler, I certainly shouldn’t pick this up with my bare hands either. It was important enough to hide, so it must be critical. I find a pair of old gloves tucked into a sewing basket, waiting for centuries to have the dangling lace mended, and pull them on, protecting myself from this artifact.
Even before I grasp the thing, it fills me with revulsion, trying to force me away with an echo of the deterrent spell. I fight through the urge to flee, and crack open the spine. Gods, why does it sound so gruesome? Even the pages being flipped remind me of the scratching of old, dry bones. With growing horror, I read the notes—experiments run and spells attempted. This appears to be a working grimoire, though not of anyone who was ever human. I’m reading accounts of infernal magic, much different from the benign power I’ve been using.
All the alchemical notes aside, it’s an account of how the baron and baroness perfected the art of stealing bodies and devouring souls, and they did it for centuries before Njål came. These wretches are unfathomably old, and . . . they never left.
I remember the explicable wounds on Njål’s body, his cryptic words, and I’m suddenly sure. This is what he’s hiding in the east wing. He’s protecting me from them. He can’t leave, and he can’t kill them, because they’re preserved by the curse, just as he is. They’re the cause of the grim web drawing energy from the land even now, destroying the natural balance of the seasons to prolong their lives. The baron and baroness are still here, and they’ve created this endless, encroaching winter.
They must have some power over him, even now. Njål said something about “the call,” and maybe he hears the voice I mentioned. It must be one of them, crawling into my head, trying to get me to do their bidding. That will never, ever happen.
But I can’t tell him that I know. He might try to stop me, either out of fear for my safety, or because he’s unable to resist some unnatural compulsion as part of the curse. No, I must finish this quickly and quietly. I can’t let on that I finally understand what’s happening here. Or what’s waiting in the east wing.
“What is that?” he asks.
Does he really not know?
I turn, trying to keep my expression neutral. “It’s a spellbook. I think it belonged to the baroness. I suspect that destroying it might weaken your curse, however. It appears to retain some power even now, long after she’s gone.”
His gaze flickers away. Yes, I’m right. Njål is a terrible liar. And she’s not gone at all. He managed to contain them somehow, but none of them can leave. Or die. Until I came, they were at an impasse.
“Do you think so?” he asks, a hopeful note lilting the question.
“It can’t hurt to try.”
We head out of the sewing room and return to the kitchen, where I attempt the promised destruction. The damned book has protections on it, layers and layers. I can’t cut it with a knife and when I throw it in the fire, it doesn’t burn. Cursing, I pull it out with metal tongs and try another tactic.
Closing my eyes, I assess the magical binding that keeps the book safe from harm. This looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before, red and seething, as if malice has become an arcane shield. I can’t find any loose threads, only smooth edges, no weakness I could use to break this apart or dismantle it.
Before I go, I shift my attention to the east wing. The keep is riddled with tendrils, but now that I know what to look for, I follow two particularly leprous threads and find the slow, faint pulse of life—or un-life, perhaps—as these two fiends ought to have been long dead. One of them lashes out with a burst of psychic force, noticing my attention, and my head is throbbing when I pull back.
“Don’t fall ill again,” Njål says, touching my cheek with a worried expression. “Give yourself time to study the problem.”
I understand that he’s not afraid. He’s cohabitated with these monsters for ages, but I no
