Chapter 2: Astoria - Bound to Ruin

I’m still frozen in place when Lucas says, “Burn it.”

I blink rapidly, shaking my head quickly. “What?”

“The body. Burn it. No body, no crime.”

“Right.” The black flame would ash it quickly enough, leaving not a trace behind. It’s a quick, easy fix to our situation. But there’s no way a dead body and the Magistrate’s officers arriving on my doorstep are coincidental. This entire situation is beginning to reek of a setup, like this intruder was a sacrificial lamb for me to slaughter.

I step out of Lucas’ hold and stretch out my hand, my eyes warming as I summon my magic. My palm chills, black flames swirling in the center. Then something glints from the corner of my eye, snapping my attention to the corpse’s hand. I can barely process the familiarity. There’s… there’s no way.

More power pours into my eyes, lighting the room a shimmering green. With some coaxing, ripples appear along the hand, a sure sign of a concealment spell.

My heart stops when a gold signet ring on the middle finger comes into focus before disappearing, waiting for the next Bauer family member to claim it.

I scream, my flames exploding in my hand like a small bomb, sending more ash dusting down the walls. Strong hands grip me, but I rip from them, falling to my knees and crawling towards the body.

I grab the skinless face and force it towards me, panting. It can’t be. Not Valen. For the love of the Weave, please, not Valen.

The bone structure, the blue irises below the white film of death… They’re so painfully familiar. Lucas tries to calm me, but I shove him away with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. I pat down the body, gripping both slimy hands.

Tears soak my face as my fingers tingle with the power I pour into them. I have seconds before the Bauer signet ring becomes impossible for me to sense. It’s a miracle from the Tapestry that I saw a glint of it at all.

A prickle of magic, so faint that I almost doubt my own senses. I gasp, eyes snapping open to stare at the body. The right hand holds the ring, not the left. I scan the form over and over. I’ve memorized Valen’s body, and the shoulders are too wide. Valen is slender, whip-like and elegant like his mother.

No, this is not Valen. This must be his father, Vincentius. I snap my hands back as if I’ve been burned.

Vincentius. How? When? But Valen was just summoned to return to him hours ago. Is Valen safe?

Then cold horror shivers down me as my own words from days ago echo through my mind.

For what you’ve done, Vincentius, I will skin you alive like the snake you are. I will use all the magic I have to keep you a living, writhing wreck for as long as possible so that you return to the Weave forever remembering the pain of my vengeance. That I swear upon the Weave, you worthless, backstabbing piece of shit.

Did I do this? Did Vincentius appear at my shop in the dead of night, and I killed him to fulfill my oath of vengeance? No. Surely, I’d remember glimpses of it.

No, I didn’t do this. I’m being framed. I feel it with absolute certainty down to my bones. Someone murdered Vincentius Bauer the Third and dumped him in my shop. Someone so powerful that they could take down a Council of Four member, sneak him alive past my wards, and soundlessly slaughter him. The possible list of suspects is short.

My heart pounds, sweat chilling me when I press my trembling hands to my chest. Valen is going to kill me. His father is his whole world, and he witnessed my promise to kill Vincentius. There’s no way Valen will believe that I didn’t do this. Hell, Lucas doesn’t even believe me, and the man is blindly besotted with me.

Tingling begins in my toes and fingers. Dizziness has me swaying and I plant a hand down for stability. I can’t tell Valen who this is. I can’t tell anyone, not even Lucas. If Valen found out Lucas knew, he’d kill him too. No, I cannot incriminate Lucas in this more than I already have. It’s for his safety.

I’ll burn the body like we agreed, so no one will ever know. I’ll take the truth to my grave.

My fingers twitch, but do not ignite. Tears well in my eyes, surging sickness adding to the constricting within my chest. Could I do that to Valen? Hide the body of his beloved parent from him as he searches for his father? Burning the body would return Vincentius’ soul to the Tapestry, but he was the head of the Bauer family. It’s not that simple. There’s a passing of power ritual that must be done, for which Valen would need to be present.

The pressure from the Magistrate’s sigil builds, pummeling my mind as the officers outside grow impatient.

I make my decision. I can’t burn the body. Valen might’ve chosen the Order over me, but I love him too much to hurt him like that.

Warm hands slide over my shoulders and I gasp, whipping around. Lucas’ honey eyes pour into me, his brows and lips tight. He strokes me, and I nearly crack wide open and tell him everything, but I resist. I can’t afford breaking more than I already am, and speaking of it will definitely break me. Later, I’ll tell Lucas everything. For now, I’ll tell him just enough to get us through this.

“It’s a weaver.” My heart convulses, and I ignore the pain.

Lucas’ eyes widen before his head snaps towards the body. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I can’t burn him, not yet. I need to figure out if I did this. Because if I did…” My hands tighten. “Besides, he might be someone important.”

Lucas scans the body. “Do you think…” Pain tightens his features, and it softens his voice to a rasped whisper. “Valen?”

“It’s not Valen.” I don’t mean to snap, but the surge of panic makes me lose control. I wet my lips and try again. “I’d know if it was Valen.”

Lucas nods. “Alright. We’ll hide it until you get the answers you need.”

Relief washes through me. The weight of the summons is staggering, and I lean into Lucas’ warmth for strength. “We need to preserve it. Every moment the body is exposed to the air is more evidence rotting away.”

Keeping the body from disintegrating is my gift to Valen as an apology for this tragedy. He should be the one to burn the remains to ash. Then maybe Valen will believe I didn’t kill him.

I take a trembling breath and scan the body. I’ve never done something like this before, but the spell shouldn’t be too hard to piece together based off my expansive knowledge of magic. I slowly drag myself to stand with Lucas following my lead, his arm wrapped around me in case I fall. My hand stretches out, my magic surging once again, but pain rocks through me, my eyes flaring wide.

Flashes of the last preserved corpse I saw race through my mind. My beloved aunt, Viola. My father’s throne room. The drips from her corpse onto his chair. The bubbling along her face. Her scars from catching me at birth distorted from the pull of the ironwood crucifying her. Such agony on a soul all because she loved me.

Pain lances through my heart, and I snap my arm back to clutch it to my chest. I bow over, shaking my head wildly as I try to clear the memory of her body, of her last battle. I couldn’t even burn her body properly. I left her there. She sacrificed everything for me, and I couldn’t even do that for her.

Now I’m too corrupted to remember my own crimes. What would she think if she saw me now? Finally the Heir, but falling apart.

Suddenly, the embodiment of my curse throws its bony arms around me, its rotten breath all I can smell. “Are you sure you wish to dispel me?”

I’m gagging, acid crawling up my throat and threatening to add to the mess on my floor, but then Lucas pulls me in tight. His heat chases away the sickening sensation of the curse’s touch. “I can’t… I can’t…”

I swallow down all my fear, all my regret, all my shame, and shove it into the box within my mind of things I want to forget. Valen’s face resurfaces, and I push him back in there too. Later. For now, I need to focus. I straighten and wipe at my face harshly. My body hurts from the fire damage, but I can ignore it. I’ve endured far worse than sore hands and feet.

My voice is steadier than I feel, which is a damn good sign. “I can’t do the spell. I used too much magic earlier.”

Lucas releases me to approach Vincentius. “I’ll preserve the body in a sphere and stash it in the basement. You’ll need to shift the store to the mortal front to hide the blood.”

His threads begin wrapping around the remains like a cocoon. “At least they still think Aster Rosemont is real. If this whole thing isn’t a setup, then they’re probably here because they think ‘Aster’ is harboring the Archweaver’s runaway daughter after the bounty hunters chased us through the streets.”

I nod numbly in agreement. It’s a good plan, but there’s just one problem. I couldn’t get the store to shift when I was coming downstairs.

Now here we are. Fucked.

I at least need to try, and when it fails, we’ll come up with a new plan. With a harsh breath, I shake out my hands and say firmly, “Wish me luck.”

I sink my sore fingers deep into the magical web that thrums through my store. My fingers shake as I clutch the power. My bones ache and I grit my teeth. I prepare for the same resistance as before when it felt as if the cogs of the magic were rusted over. I turn my hands as if turning a crank.

The store shifts like the moon arcing over the night sky for the sun to rise in all its magnificent glory. The dead crystals sink into the walls and the gas lamps flare to life. The dark shadows are chased away, and my eyes sting from the sudden brightness. The grimoires slip into their pocket and the non-sentient, bound-paper stock thump into their spaces.

My lips part, and I don’t release my hold on the magic. I twist the other way, and the store shifts back, darkness swallowing the space. Again, I turn, and the bright, warm gas lamps fill the shop with a cheery light.

“What are you doing?”

I jump, releasing my hold on the magic. “What?”

Lucas stares at me with the body hovering beside him in a sphere. “Why are you switching it back and forth like that?”

That’s an excellent question, one whose answer gets stuck in my throat. My jaw aches, and I release my clenching as I search for an answer. “It… I…”

Why couldn’t the shop change earlier? Or maybe I’m remembering wrong. I look down at the blood and blisters on my hand. Perhaps it could always change, and it was me who was the problem.

My hands begin to tremble, and I shake them out. “It should’ve changed when the Magistrate’s officers began their summons. I was testing it to make sure nothing was wrong with the mechanics of the spell.”

Lucas nods, and I turn my back to him so he can’t see my raw expression. I wish he’d sense my half answer. I wish he’d push and ask questions. I’d even take an argument if it would give me answers. But instead, his boots thud in a retreating rhythm until the silk curtains rustle.

My world is crumbling around me. I can only hope that Lucas has enough sense to survive the fallout. He deserves better than to fall with me.

I can’t think of that now. Another hammering on the door rattles my skull as the Magistrate’s sigil bears down on me with a crushing pressure. I grip the sides of my head and snarl, “For the love of the nonexistent arachnid gods, give me a fucking minute!”

I’m sure the Magistrate officers can hear me now that the store has shifted, but they clearly don’t give a damn. The pressure in my skull doubles from their added force, and I nearly collapse.

Jinx trots out of the back room in her usual small, fluffy black cat form. Her blue eyes narrow in suffocating disappointment.

“Where were you? I needed you earlier and you didn’t appear. There was an intruder!” When she doesn’t respond, I try again more desperately. “There was a man, Jinx! He’s been watching me, and I was chasing him through the store. Did you not hear me?”

Jinx jumps and lands elegantly across my shoulders in her standard drape. The anchoring effect of my familiar in such a position is instantaneous. My heart steadies and my Soul Threads sing. I lean my head against my familiar’s fluffy one and sigh. “You have no idea how much I needed that. It’s been a hell of a night, Jinx.”

Jinx’s irritated voice fills my mind through our connection. It’s not over. We’ll discuss this later. You need to focus, Tori, or you’ll have an even worse night than you’re currently having. Now, throw on an illusion and answer the door before your brain explodes from the unanswered summons. We have enough mess to clean up without adding gray matter to it.

With a steadying breath, I straighten. My stained robe disappears behind dark slacks and a crisp emerald shirt. A silk vest tightens around my ribs and my shoulders relax with comforting constriction. My long, tangled copper hair shifts to brown and sweeps up into a trimmed, masculine cut that emphasizes the heart shape of my face. My green eyes darken to a hazel.

Aster Rosemont, the reclusive owner of Peripetia Bookshop, stands where my previously disheveled and panicked self once was. I release my breath in a long exhale, my lips tilting in a small smile. Finally, a sense of control seeps into me. If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend it’s a normal day at the shop.

With steady hands, I descend the three steps to my front door. The lock clicks free and I tug open the door. “I apologize for—” But my words are swallowed by a howling wind blasting in through the doorway, bringing a torrential downpour of rain with it, and nearly toppling me over. I snatch at the frame of my door, my blisters stinging, and widen my stance. Jinx’s claws sink into my shirt to prick my skin, and she tightens to be more scarf than cat to stay on. Holy nonexistent arachnid gods, it’s freezing. What the hell happened to summer?

I squint up at the sky. A crackle of nearly imperceptible static dances along the clouds, too thin to be lightning. When Lucas, Valen, and I fled the Archweaver’s estate, Vincentius Bauer the Third was leading an uprising against my Archweaver father. The clashing weaver magic within the Astrum Forest from their fighting must be building within the atmosphere and rolling off the mountains to pool down here in the bay.

If I wasn’t dealing with enough shit on my plate, I’d step out onto the streets to investigate further. But trouble is at my door.

My magic thrums and a shield ripples into existence. Not too strong so I don’t spook the Magistrate officers, but just enough so I can stand upright with dignity in the ferocious weather. I straighten my vest, the rain evaporating from me, before turning my attention to the humans who have added to my shitty night.

The two surly officers stand before me with coat collars pulled high to block the chill. The various pendants secured to the wool glow in the darkness and keep the storm at bay. The one on the right is human. Middle-aged, with a sharp, keen gaze that his warm, mustached smile doesn’t quite dull. The other is an Amur Guild magician. I try my best not to sneer at her. She has a few inches on me and is reed-thin even with the layers of coats. Her glaring gray eyes are so cold, they almost remind me of Valen.

All officers are in pairs like this. One human officer and one magician Guild member for protection. Otherwise, the officers wouldn’t stand a chance against a rogue magician or weaver. Dimitar thrives under this power exchange. It permits him to get away with so much while being the smiling face of the Amur Guild to the public. He’s the Magistrate’s most useful player within the city while being a living nightmare to the rest of us in the underground.

That magician partner can either make things extremely difficult or easy for me depending on Dimitar’s mood.

I slowly scan the woman, my nose tingling from all the magic in the air. Lucas once told me that the magicians who are contracted into the Magistrate’s service for these partnerships are Guild’s novices looking to cut their teeth within the magicians’ numbers. But as I behold the black wand clutched in the magician’s tight fist, I realize that this is not the case this time, and my skin ripples in horror. A glint of darkness travels up the twisting wood. This magician wields an Entropy token so rare and deadly that it could rival the Rosemont Black Flame.

Where Lucas’ rings and Dimitar’s tokens are fused to their bodies, Entropy tokens do not typically damage the physical form. Oh, no. It’s the mutilations from the rune work and amulets to keep their mortal souls from being devoured by the token’s Soul Thread that are the true horrors.

The lengths to which these types of Guild members will go to climb their vicious leader’s hierarchy is astounding.

Jinx’s claws sink into my shoulders, the pricks reminding me to avert my gaze from the wand. Tokens tend to vibrate when I gaze too deeply into their cores. No need to give the Magistrate any evidence that Aster Rosemont is more than an average weaver, albeit a skilled and competent one.

Which raises the question: Does this woman know who I really am? Is that why such a powerful magician is partnered with an officer?

I nearly look behind me towards the silk curtain hiding my back room. Protection tithe or not, I made a fool of Dimitar when I traded him my now useless grimoire. Now I shall face the consequences of my actions.

I slide on a pleasant smile. “Evening, officers. What can I do for you at this late hour?”

The human raises his voice to be heard over the storm. “Aster Rosemont?”

“Speaking.”

He brandishes an elegantly scrolled letter that thrums with magic. The oaths I was forced to swear when I moved to the city activate with the compulsion to obey. A sneer almost rips past my carefully controlled expression. The runes decorating the edge of the paper glow as he continues firmly, “We have a warrant to search your establishment. Move aside, or my associate here will move you for me.”