Page 54 of Serpent and Shadow

“You mean the loyalty oath?” he asked, sharper. “The one to Dark Cathedral?”

“Yes,” I said.

Alaric paused, then gave an unconvincing shrug, tugging at the end of one sleeve under his knee-length purple coat.

“They did,” he acknowledged, without looking up. “The spoke the oath over me and everything. But I didn’t agree to it. Because I hadn’t actually consented, the ritual just sort of fizzled. My father was so angry, he gave me the tattoo anyway, and spoke the other thing, about readying me to be a vessel for one of their Resurrecteds. He’d decided I was hopeless, I suppose. Then that fiasco at the Sanctum happened, thank the gods… and I was freed.”

I swallowed harder, nodding.

“That’s pretty fucked,” I commented.

“It is,” Alaric agreed. “But it felt like a victory, honestly. He couldn’t make me take his perverse vow willingly, could he? He tried, but he failed.”

I bit my tongue until I tasted blood.

“So you would’ve had to agree on some level?” I clarified.

Alaric shrugged. “Well, sure. That’s how magic works, isn’t it? All magic is a kind of pact you make with the gods and beings of the Aether. It won’t work if the party involved isn’t willing. That’s doubly true when it comes to being bound.”

Alaric paused thoughtfully, gazing up at the dark ceiling of the shed.

“I think with a real vow,” he added. “Like what my father wanted from me, implicit agreement would never be enough. A fear of saying no wouldn’t cut it, either. One would have to actually agree to the terms of the vow. The ritual would fall apart unless the vow-giver actually, truly submitted to the binding in word and thought. It cannot be faked. There’s no way to pretend. One must mean it. Wholeheartedly.”

I didn’t answer.

I wasn’t even sure I was surprised.

Maybe because I’d already known.

Hell, Bones had more or less told me.

12

Training

It was April.

Finals for Spring Term had taken place the week before, and I’d somehow, miraculously, passed all of my classes, although my grades had taken a pretty dramatic turn and definitely not for the better.

No one lectured me about that.

None of my teachers said a word, no matter how abysmal my work, or how low of a passing grade I managed. I hadn’t even gotten a particularly stern word from Blackstone, although I’d half-expected him to fail me when he saw the pathetic excuse for a talisman I’d strung together for his final exam.

It was inconceivable on one level, that it was already the fourth month. When I thought about it differently, however, it struck me as equally inconceivable that so little time had passed. It felt more like years since that first morning of January.

Technically, I was still in my spring break, with classes resuming the following week, but as I hadn’t gone anywhere, hadn’t changed focus, or even much of my out-of-class schedule, the only difference was, I didn’t have to bother with the distraction and wasted time of sitting in lecture halls for large chunks of my day. I could devote every minute to the projects that actually mattered to me, even if they felt maddeningly out of reach.

“Focus,” my instructor growled.

My jaw tightened as I cleared my mind. I kept my body weight centered, my vision half-focused, but roughly on the area of his chest.

I’d been taught to do that by Bones, so I would see and react to anything my opponent was about to do with either their hands or their feet. Something about using my peripheral vision, rather than a pinpoint focus, allowed me to catch the movements even before they began.

“Why are you waiting?” Quicksilver grunted. “You didn’t wait out in the gardens that morning.”

A bolt of purple fire aimed for my ankle.

I yanked it back without thought, right before I threw up a shield, one of my favorites from the dozen or so in my repertoire now. The fact that it happened to be one Bones had taught me, rather than one of the dozen or so taught to me by the man I faced off with now, had absolutely nothing to do with it.