Rory Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 13

Three days after the binding, Rory hadn't slept. She'd missed her sigil class twice. She'd fallen asleep in herbalism with her cheek on a mortar. Void wouldn't let her rest. Every night the black cat sat by the door and stared until she got up and followed. Every night he led her the same way: down the east stair, past the kitchens, along a corridor that ended in a wing sealed with iron bars and dust. The left wing had been closed since before her mother was born. No one taught in it. No one talked about it. Void didn't care. He pressed his forehead to the bars and yowled once, low, and the pressure in Rory's chest kicked up like a struck match. A sconce down the hall flared. She jammed her palm against her sternum and dragged a sigil across her skin with a chewed pen. "You're doing it again," Luna said from the dark behind her. Her best friend stood in her pink robe with her arms crossed. "You went cold last night and I found frost on the window. Rory. Talk to me." "He wants in there." Rory nodded at Void. "When I don't go, I leak." "Then don't fight him alone." Luna's voice stayed flat and calm. "Ask the shadow boy. He owes you a lesson." Rory found Kael the next morning in the courtyard, alone at a stone bench, tie loose, sleeves shoved to the elbow. She said it fast before she could stop. "My familiar keeps dragging me to the left wing. If I don't go, I burn things. If I go, I hit a locked gate. Help me." Kael looked at Void. Void stared back. "Familiars don't pull without a reason." "Then help me open it." He stood. "Once. Tonight." At second bell Kael met her at the iron bars. He put one hand flat on the lock. His eyes went black. Every shadow in the corridor slid toward him and pooled at his wrist. The lock clicked. The gate opened an inch. Void shot through the gap. Rory followed. The pressure in her chest eased at once, clean, like a window opening. She almost laughed. Then Kael grabbed her sleeve. "Stop." The corridor beyond wasn't empty. Sigils were burned into every stone, floor to ceiling, and they were fresh. Someone had been keeping them lit. At the far end, chalked on the wall in a hand Rory knew from margins and old paper, was one word. Convergence. Her grandmother's writing. Here. Inside a wing sealed for decades. Behind them, footsteps. Measured. Unhurried. Headmistress Aphrodite stepped into the light with her hands folded, her face very still. "Out," Aphrodite said. "Both of you. Now." Rory didn't move. She stared at the word on the wall. Void wound around her ankles and did not look away from the Headmistress.