Page 47 of Serpent and Shadow

Blackstone remained silent for a few seconds longer.

Then, he spoke so quietly, I almost didn’t hear him.

“All right,” he said. “I’m lifting the shield around you now.”

I tensed the instant his words sank in.

Shield? He’d been shielding me? Clearly he hadn’t trusted me not to go after Bones. But now I wasn’t sure I trusted myself––

Calm down. Blackstone’s voice was flint-like, even inside my head. I can keep some of that back, just not when you’re hysterical. Try to relax. Don’t do anything.

I bit my lip, but tried to do as he said.

I tried to focus on my breathing.

I could hear my heart thudding wildly in my chest.

I was still lying there stiffly, breathing, listening to my pulse, when out of nowhere, the darkness behind my eyes abruptly changed.

“––Now kneel.”

I blinked, confused by the swirl of green smoke that filled the air, clouding my thoughts. I froze every part of myself, well before I realized I didn’t have a body. Nothing physical or organic existed to stop moving, or needed to breathe.

I felt like vapor, like a ghost.

In that silence, I let my vision slowly adjust.

Flickering green flames distorted the dimensions of the space.

Smoke swirled, confusing my ability to see.

It soon became clear I was in a cavernous room, hovering maybe six feet off the floor. Wherever I was, it felt underground. It felt damp and old.

Rough, stone walls rose on four sides. Muddy, greenish water spotted the high ceilings and dripped down from the corners of the room. A rectangular opening stood directly in front of me, leading to a steep slope upward. Something about that door and its tunnel reminded me of the Ancient Egyptian temple Forsooth created in the Aether for the Second Year’s Party. Hieroglyphs adorned the tunnel walls in gold and and black, along with larger images of snakes and various depictions of Anubis, Ra, Thoth, Ma’at, and other gods.

Someone next to me moved.

Their robes rustled, and the feel of being surrounded by magic pulled me.

My attention shifted there.

The bare profile of a pale, wrinkled face, shrouded in a black hood, appeared to be a less than a foot away. Yellowing teeth were visible through tight lips as he bared them at whatever held his full attention. He didn’t feel my stare. He didn’t notice me in any way.

I glanced to my other side and saw another robed figure.

Then another.

I followed the circle around where we all stood and saw over a dozen on either side, standing around a cleared space in the center of the room, and below the highest part of the ceiling. I saw a familiar face that was younger, and stopped on it.

Strangemore? It was undoubtedly him.

The last I’d heard he was in a hospital somewhere, but that had been months ago. He’d proven to be a monster in his own way, but Dark Cathedral? I hadn’t expected that.

The longer I looked at him, though, the more puzzled I became. Something about his facial expression looked off. His eyes looked different, a gleaming silver where they used to be violet, hadn’t they? Even his posture struck me as not how I remembered.

Something about his magic looked wrong, too.

Resurrected. Blackstone’s presence was a bare whisper. He is dead.