Page 171 of Serpent and Shadow

Not with Blackstone there.

After Elysia left me, all the faces seemed to blend together.

I don’t know how long that lasted, either.

Eventually, the swirling crowd, the Dark Cathedrals that ventured closer to me to gawk and murmur to one another behind their hands and hoods, the goblets being refilled and clinked together, the gradually rising hum of voices and laughter and excited murmurs… all seemed to go still and silent at once.

Malefic once more positioned himself at the head of the room.

He stood at the base of the stairs, next to a low table covered with a scarlet cloth, just outside the two ritual circles painted on the black marble. A bottle stood on the satin cloth, next to a silver bowl, a very human-looking skull, and several talismans made of bones, feathers, gold, and jewels.

Panic started to hit me, as he stood there, his hands outstretched.

I focused on the gold bracelet I still wore around my wrist.

I’d tried to activate it before, when Quicksilver first threw me over his shoulder, but I’d been unable to move then, so incantations had been out of the question.

Malefic was close to me now. It might be my own real chance to try again, but I still couldn’t feel my sun primal, as hard as I strained.

I moved my right hand slowly and carefully so that it reached under my sleeve, finding the golden head of the snake. I fought to relax, hoping like hell no one would notice me opening my magic. I focused on the snake bracelet and rubbed the top of the snake’s smooth head.

“Maam rakshatu,” I mouthed soundlessly.

An image of Bones came to my mind.

Thinking it was from my connection to the golden snake, I tried to conjure the feeling of his magic, his specific presence. I rubbed the carving of the gold snake’s head with my thumb.

“Maam rakshatu,” I murmured.

Nothing.

I didn’t dare speak louder, not with how quiet everyone was now, but Blackstone had always told me the incantation was just a focusing tool at base, that it was the power and will behind the cast that gave it its power.

I rubbed the snake’s head again.

Maam rakshatu! I thought at it, trying to put more magic behind the intent.

I repeated the attempt to conjure Bones.

Again, nothing.

MAAM… RAKSHATU! I projected loudly from my mind.

I focused as hard as I could on the snake’s gold head as I rubbed it. I remembered every detail of the scales, the shape of it, its flat belly, its jeweled eyes. I remembered my fingers rubbing over every part of it, every irregular groove or nick in the gold. I’d stared at it so many times while Bones had been gone, I’d memorized every detail.

None of that helped me now.

The snake didn’t so much as twitch, or grow warmer.

I decided fuck the snake.

I closed my eyes.

BONES! My magic still felt inert, strangely heavy, like a windless cloud stuck motionless over water. BONES! WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU?

Bones didn’t answer.

Someone else did.