He left us there, smiling at his own wit.
The rest of the day pa.s.sed as it usually didwith meals and gossipand it also pa.s.sed as it usually did not. I had begun trying to craft in my free time, something Lia thought was a very good idea. We practiced shooting pale smoke at each other. But nothing would happen except for coughing fits. "It"ll happen. I know that now," said Lia. She winked at me.
"I guess," I said. I wasn"t so sure. Lux"s pep talk was like a band-aid. I needed a new one now.
"Where there"s smoke there"s fire," said Lia, encouragingly.
At dinner Ballard was with the rest of the werewolves. I saw him drinking from his moon flask, pretending like the rest of the Meadpalace didn"t exist. He, Paolo and Locke were sitting together. Ballard shook his head forcefully, like he didn"t want to hear anymore. Locke got up and left him, after which Paolo paid attention to his steak, and Ballard stared at a spot on the wall.
Most of the vampires, by this time, had stopped coming to the Meadpalace. You saw them, time to time, in the hallways, but they rarely if ever engaged people in conversation, keeping mostly to themselves. The Wiccans were also distant. It was a good thing that each particular race had somewhere they could go, because the more I saw, the more it looked like we were getting tired of each other.
I wondered if every Wiccan, werewolf and vampire was a social misfit, and then, when I thought about it, yeah, we kind of all were. At least we had that in common!
I left Lia and went to go back to my dormitory. But before I could get there I was hailed by someone I had not seen in a while.
It was Asher, and he was motioning to me like I should follow him. He looked guilty about something, almost as if he had done something wrong, or was about to, like he had carnivorous b.u.t.terflies gnawing at him or something.
I said, "Hey, what"s up, Asher?"
"Come with me," he said. Wouldn"t you know it, he led us straight to the s.p.a.ce in the wall, I had seen him coming from once before. And there were the stuccoes with the sculptures of the warriors on them. Asher felt around, trying to find the finger hold which would allow him to open the secret pa.s.sageway.
"This is a cryptoporticus," he said. "It leads to the columbarium."
Crypto-what? Columbarium-who?
"Hurry! We"ll be safe there!" he said.
I followed after Asher. Ballard"s and Gaven"s vouching for him wasn"t the only reason why I felt safe; I had come to trust Asher. He took a torch from a bracket on the wall and whispered secret words to it. A flame lit. The entrances closed and we were standing in a small tunnel which went on for as far as the eye could see.
I saw various niches in the walls, Asher said were called loculi. They had urns tucked into them.
"There are the ashes of the warriors that were killed when a great war was fought here, Halsey Rookmaaker," he said, pointing them out. He wasn"t going to start that Halsey Rookmaaker nonsense again, was he?
"It was their sacrifice that repaired originally relationships between shapeshifters and Immortals. Follow me."
He guided me as fast as he could through tunnel after tunnelwhat looked like trenches. You could still see where the ghosts of soldiers had fought and died.
"Where are we going, Asher?" I said.
"There"s no time. Hurry!"
I hurried after him as fast as I could. When we finally got there, he entered into a circular room, which was like the Pantheon, except buried deep underground. An oculus in the ceiling fed into daylight. The Columbariumthe vaulted tomb.
Five funerary urns the size of living people stood in the corner, as well as other tombs. "The Five Fallen," he said. "Five immortal vampires who died defending Rome. They rest now with the Dog Kings, in the royal columbarium." He saw me looking up. "Above us is the fighting pit," said Asher.
"So this must"ve been what Gaven was talking about," I said. "The tomb of his forebears. The Columbarium. But there are vampires?"
I asked Asher about this. He said, "Wethat is, shapeshifters and other Supernaturalshave not always hated each other... Much. Don"t get me wrong. We"re not the best of friends. But this Gatheringplace was selected to honor the pastin an attempt to try and prevent it from reoccurring."
In the center of the room was a large and ornate sarcophagusthe kind Egyptians used to bury their mummies in. It looked like a man and woman had been sculpted on the cover of it.
"Rhea Silva," he said. "She was said to possess all eight of the Wiccan Virtues. She found her true mate. They rest now, in peace, at an eternal banquet."
The man and woman looked peaceful, powerful, old.
"Asher. I think I may be her," I said. "This super witch they have all been waiting for. I have disturbing nightmares. And my mindit can go places. When I asked Gaven about my visions, and the thing which is chasing me, he said it may have been "the Calling", what werewolves feel before they change."
"I see," said Asher. "You think you may be one of them, a Witch Shifter. It"s true. Such beings have existed. Before the change, as you call it, young warriors are possessed of their Animals... in their dreams. It is only natural."
"You mean, it will try and become one with me, that I may be a werewolf?" I said.
Was that what the monster was that was chasing me? My Animal? Before I became a Shifter?
"Who were your parents?" asked Asher. "Forgive me." He could see that he had made a fur paw. "So you, like me, Halsey Rookmaaker, are outcast, too.... You know, this animal may be your Other, or it may not be, but I perceive incredible things for you" He wanted to say my name again. "If you are this One, then this would be your Mecca. Rhea Silva was a true Level Nine Wiccan. She was not any of the Virtues. She was all of them. Beyond Fledged. She was also a Witch Shifter and she could See."
"You mean like you do? Is that why you are here? Did you seesomething? Me? Did you see something with me?"
"Camille asked me to come here," said Asher. "She wrote to me about you. She said you deserved the right to look, even though her husbandand these were her wordsworried that you might overreact, if you saw what was happening. Halsey needs to know, said Camille, for her own illumination, WHAT THESE THINGS ARE," said Asher.
"What what things are?" I said.
Asher blinked.
"Do you know, Miss Rookmaaker, who and what, the Dioscuri are?"
"I have heard that name before," I said. "But I do not know what they are."
"They are here with usin Rome," said Asher. "Even Prague is nervous. They have sent their emissaries, the two twins. Two very deadly men. Never speak to them."
"I haven"t. I won"t. But who are the Dioscurvy?"
"Dioscuri." Asher trailed his torch along the rounded walls of the werewolf tomb. I saw the figures battling in two dimensions. "The stuccoes tell the tale of the First War," he said. "The Dioscourges, on the other hand, tell the tale of the Second."
I didn"t follow. "But what Second?" I said. "I thought there was only one war. The First War. You mean to say, there"s another?"
"The Dioscuri have, indeed, begun to predict of late a second war," said Asher.
"You mean..."
"They are Seers. The most powerful kind. But they are untrustworthy."
"But what are they?" I asked.
Asher shook his head.
"Not just what, who. They are... alive in some strange sense. Avoid them. And most importantly, the twins. They will be missing you soon. I would like to meet you here tomorrow night. We will throw our minds together, eh, and cast out, to see what we may see. I have certain things I wish to show you. Among them Lennox. And the Agonies."
Time moved like sludge, when it used to flop out of the taps in my old apartment building. The clawfooted tub reminded me of Lennox. I wanted to wallow in memories of him but I couldn"t afford to right now. Lux was going to be showing me what dark aether looked like today, and I couldn"t miss it. I got out of my bed and got dressed. Lia was already at breakfast when I got there. I was piling my tray up with foodcalf"s liver and sauteed onionswhen I turned and saw Ballard. He had a Succo del Gatto in his hand. It was thanks to the werewolves no doubt that our menu had become, shall we say, more K-9-friendly. Ballard"s dog"s body looked tired, careworn. "I suppose I would shirk my responsibilities, too, if I thought I was special," he said to one of the betas, whose name I didn"t remember. Ballard moved on as if he hadn"t seen me.
I told Lia about it but she told me not to think about it.
"It"s my brother"s misfortune that he considers himself the only important person in the world. We need to concentrate on us now. Otherwise, we"ll get left behind."
"So have you decided on your House, Lia?"
"I dunno," she said. She dug through her robes. I saw some of the same brochures I had received. And some other ones. "This one says they have an excellent library full of arcana, but I"ve always felt pulling your face out of a book to be more beneficial when it comes to deflecting a whammy or some other curse, don"t you? I don"t want to suffer the effects of the kibosh just because my eyes don"t work anymore because of all the books I"ve been reading, you know what I mean?"
"I guess," I said. "What about that one?"
"Ravenseal," she said, handing it to me.
I flipped through it. It showed lots of pictures of Prague. And was that?
"The Districts of Magic," said Lia.
It was an alcove of the oldest Magical city.
"Entirely magical population," she said.
It looked like a combination of algae-infested stone masonry, and dark forbidding alleyways. That was where the Vampire Hunters and other monsters lived. "And also," said Lia, when I told her this, "it"s where the House of Houses resides. And I don"t mean Ravenseal."
I looked at her questioningly.
"Honestly, you need to read more," she said, which I thought was contradictory. "Ravenseal isn"t the be-all and end-all. They"re just a House. One of hundreds, maybe even thousands. It is this House," she said, taking the brochure and flipping through it to one of the pages, and tapping the picture, "that is the Master House. The one beholden to none. They don"t recruit anyone."
I looked.
"Apparently the twins are from it," said Lia.
A huge and ancient edifice soared above the rest of the Districts of Magic, there in Prague. Its golden dome flashed in the non-existent sun. The Master House.
"Everybody wants to go there. Including Veruschka Ravenseal. Or so I"ve heard," said Lia. "All the Mistresses are jealous of her, because apparently her time is coming; she"s going to be made a member. The Master House will select her; it"s apparently an opportunity that cannot be refused."
Lia petered out. "Is that where you want to go?" I asked her.
But Lia had dropped her fork in her fegato alla Roma, and was trying to fish it out.
"I can"t even eat like a werewolf anymore," she said. "Where do I want to go? I want to go here. To Rome. I don"t want to go someplace else. This is my home, Halsey. Besides, I would miss Gaven too much."
Lia got this faraway look in her eyes "We"re supposed to be married soon," she said. "He asked, did I tell you? I can"t wait to go on our honeymoon...."
I had lost Lia. I continued to look at the Ravenseal brochure, but really I was thinking about something else.
It didn"t escape me that certain marks (X-amount out of such-and-such) had been awarded to the Initiates, based upon their performances at the Wiccaning, and the marks had been posted for others to seejust not us; and just not our Marks, but our futures were in the balance. Who would go where was more important than anything else.
Lux snapped his fingertips like a pair of dull flints, trying to spark a blaze; finally he seemed satisfied because his band of Virtuosity glowed brilliantly, and he said, "I can only show it to you. I don"t go there myself. Unless in a moment of absolute need."
The aether, he meantthe bad kind.
"It really is much easier if we all form a circle," he said.
So, with Lux directing us, the other Neophytes and I formed a circle, linking our hands; it was just my luck I had Vittoria for this handfast, gripping my palm with her own, sweaty one. Lia was on my other side.
"Your hand feels like a dead fish, V."
"If you say so, H."
"Ladies..." Lux closed his eyes. I could see something curl down from his delta, but if he whispered magic words or only thought them, I couldn"t tell. Next second my eyes were closing and it was like we were being linked, the other Initiates and I.
Everyone was pushing everyone, except it was all in our heads.
When Lux spoke, it echoed in that distant, internal-external, near-far, weirdo wacko way, which meant that we were all talking to each other without speaking, using only our minds to communicate. I also had a sense like I was in a vast mansion with hundreds of locked doors, and also, huge, open, breezy places; the places the Initiates did and did not want others to see.
"That is why we are called Houses," said Lux, eliciting a number of oohs and ahs from the excitable Neophytes. Any kind of secret explanation for anything to do with magic sent a thrill down my back. "And, really, why twelve is all we can ever be. Any more and it doesn"t become a House, so much as a train station."
"Choo choo..." said someone.
The other Neophytes and I spent a few minutes running in and out of each other"s bedrooms. All good-naturedly. Then Lux said: "Let me show you one of the bas.e.m.e.nts."
I saw it. Like a dark nebulous cloud. When I went to reach for it, I could not touch it.
"That is the aether. The dark aether," said Lux. "Some of you may have experienced it during your Wiccanings."
I went for it.
"Selwyn had it," I said.
Somewhere I could feel two people"s hands in my own, but it was really far away.
"He used it to hide from me. I couldn"t get through it," I said.
"We all have a little dark aether," said Lux.
"You said the Mark is positive aether. Can it not reside in the body where the dark aether is?"
"A trenchant and profound question-slash-observation, Vittoria, of soon-to-be-Ravenseal," said Lux. "You may think about studying Marks at some later date. To answer your question, I don"t know. Maybe."
"Veruschka said there were some places she couldn"t go, when she was in my mind. Was this what she meant by that?" Vittoria continued.
"Yes," said Lux.
I didn"t tell them that this must"ve been what Maria had seen in me, when she said I had dark powers lurking there. The negative aether.