All That Glows

Twenty-Five

Although it’s still in the city’s grip of cement and electricity, Highgate Cemetery is a territory unto itself, a jungle of gravestones and corpse-fed vines. There’s a strange stillness in the air, as if the wind refuses to enter this sweltering forest of death.

At the edge of the cemetery, I kneel behind a cross-shaped grave marker and peer into the night. The moon is newborn in the sky, its whispering, watery light far too weak to rely on. But what mortal eyes won’t see, my magic senses well enough. The spirits here in Highgate are powerful, their magic strengthened by such an overwhelming presence of death. I feel both Jaida and Cari—old and powerful enough to be queens in their own right. Maybe they were, before the Old One roped them in.

There are other soul feeders here as well. Sentinels, guards, messengers. Highgate is a fortress.

I stay still against the cross, gauging my options. Without Breena, this entire mission is much riskier. One stupid mistake and I could get unmade.

I’ll need a disguise. My aura is distinct, impossible to alter, but I can still change my appearance (something to afford me at least a few seconds of escape). My limbs shorten, peach hair and creamy skin spoil into a Black Dog’s shadow-eaten fur. The paws feel heavy, webbed. I stumble even after a few practice steps—it’s been years since my last shape-shift. The flame-haired girl has become like a favorite dress I hate to shed. Anything else just feels awkward, itchy.

I lope along the nearest row of gravestones. My run grows smoother, swifter with each passing marker. I slink between headstones that slant and crumble like long neglected teeth, relying almost as much on my new, keen sense of smell as I do on my magic.

Something about these graves unnerves me in a way it hasn’t before. Death feels closer than it ever has.

You’ll die for him either way. Breena’s words are haunting, inescapable here. She must have thought I had made my choice. That I decided to leave her and so many other things behind for Richard’s sake.

But that’s what I’m doing. Isn’t it? I’m here, slinking through weathered, lichen-stained stones, without Breena, ready to get exposed and unmade, all for him.

So it’s not the death that terrifies me. It’s the change, the unwinding into something I’ve never been. How can I live without magic?

There are no answers as I wedge my way deeper into the cemetery. Stones shift, take stranger shapes. There are crops of crosses. Angels and cherubs lounge in long, weeping grass, the curves of their faces worn away by hundreds of polluted rainfalls. Other faces, less heavenly, more skull-like and leering, gape under stony starlight. Each step past these markers pulls me farther into the sphere of the soul feeders’ magic. Combined with the dark, eerie spell of the cemetery, it’s almost intoxicating.

At last, I come to a place where I can go no farther. I huddle behind an unmarked grave and peer through overwhelming clusters of grass. Before me, in a clearing, is an entire crowd of soul feeders. Signs of a semipermanent camp litter the area, both visible and not: a smoldering clump of wood and charcoal by the foot of a larger gravestone, the unwinding structures of old spells, the pile of bones shoved into the far corner of a crypt.

I lay motionless, barely able to breathe as I watch the gathering. Real, massive Black Dogs tread a well-worn path around the camp. The grass under their paws is broken, wilted, exposing the dark, fertile soil of the cemetery’s underbelly like wounds. Green Women and Banshees form a strange, almost unintentional circle around the ringleaders, as if they don’t want to get close. The sight of them together, in peace, is unnerving. Like cats and dogs shoved together in a crate, keeping eerie harmony.

Jaida and Cari. It must be them. The two spirits, beautiful and regal in their borrowed bodies, rest on a hulking marble tomb at the center of everything, flecked by the fire’s dying light. Not a word passes in the group. They sit, as silent and almost as still as the tombstones around them. It isn’t a meeting I’ve stumbled on. It’s a messaging center.

I study them, noting the numbers of their guard. There’s no way I can slip unnoticed through that ring of restless spirits. I’d half expected Jaida and Cari to be holed up here on their own, waiting discreetly for words from the Old One. But this, the presence of so many soul feeders, shows me the truth. It’s not a single death they want. It’s a war. A war against the mortals and those protecting them.

A mournful, jarring cry calls my attention to the skies. For a fleeting moment, the white slice of moon is blocked out completely. I crouch close to the ground, praying that the bird doesn’t see me. The animal flies on, unconcerned. It lands, a ruffle of white and black feathers, and struts proudly in a little circle. A magpie. The Old One’s errand-bird.

The Banshee retrieves the scrolled message from swaggering bird, her glare unyielding and calculating as she reads. It’s the Green Woman, Jaida, who betrays her emotions. Her tongue runs along the edge of her berry-red lips, looping in a nervous repeat. Her eyes leave the paper, straying into the shadows beyond her guard. Something’s changed. Her body seems stiffer. The midnight hackles of my back bristle as her stare passes over my broken grave. Her eyes are terrible, green searchlights, uprooting every vine and blade of grass in their path.

“I’ll take care of it,” Cari tells the Green Woman, her voice as emotionless as her face. “You should accompany the bird back north.”

Jaida’s eyes snap back out of the bushes. “I’ll leave at once.”

The Green Woman is flying straight where I need to go. All I have to do is follow. My body quivers, too full of excitement and fear.

Jaida stands, her spring-green dress falls flawlessly into place. Then, with the speed of a shooting star, she’s off.

I force my paws into inching slowness, despite my urge to chase the soul feeder. It’s only when several trees are between me and their camp that I launch into the sky, melting into its velvet canvas as a sleek raven. Like the Black Dog, the bird’s form is jerky at first. My wings are tentlike and clumsy. Jaida and the magpie have a decent head start; their bobbing silhouettes are already fading into the far-off darkness. If I let them go too far, the trail will be lost.

I cast a spell: a tiny bit of magic to propel me forward. The words, the small spark of light, hurtle me through the star-spangled sky. I realize too late that this was a mistake. The spell wasn’t as subtle as I thought, for on the ground, someone was watching.

Another’s magic shoots under me, past me. It catches the tips of my feathers, singeing them into nothing. I try to move my wings, but they’re lead. My flight becomes a sickening plummet; the heavy earth lurches forward to meet me.

A clump of vines breaks my fall. I blink through this new hammock of leaves. Nothing seems hurt. Apart from the smoke wisping out of my wings, I’m fine.

“Track her!” Cari’s command carries through the night, blanketed by heart-wrenching howls.

The Black Dogs are searching, seeking to root me out of my fragile hiding place. I struggle to sit up, but nothing happens. Not even a twitch of my dark raven legs. Then it hits me. The spell, Cari’s magic, wasn’t supposed to fry me. It was meant to freeze me, to rob my muscles of their will. I’m paralyzed, trapped.

There are distant snaps, howls, and sniffs—signs of approaching hunters. Time for me to produce a counterspell is fading fast. I repeat spells frantically in my mind, feeling the force of the magic swell through numb limbs. None of them click.

“It’s a woodling. I feel her. She’s close. Keep searching!”

I want to close my eyes and stop my ears, to shut out the snarls of my hunters. Words, fragments of spells rush through my head with panic too extreme to control.

It’s over, a despairing voice cries out in my thoughts. If, when, Cari catches me, she’ll be sure to silence me. Unmake me.

Crack. Dry twigs break so close they sound like the snapping of bones.

No. I must live. For Richard.

His face rises up beyond my parched, glazing eyes. With it, in the last possible moment, comes the spell. Áhredde. Áhredde. Áhredde. A wingtip twitches. A clawed foot curls into itself. I shake free. Howls of my pursuers carry like wind, whipping against my ear. They aren’t far—I have to move fast.

Flying is out. The Banshee’s magic will only rip me out of the sky again. I need to be close to the ground, faster than the dogs. So I slip into the skin of a fox: fur of fire and nimble, dancing paws.

There’s no time to grow comfortable in this new shape. I dash out of the underbrush, tearing free from the thin, scratchy vines. My feet carry me fast, making quick, instinctive turns to throw the snarling Black Dogs from my trail. Their breaths fall, hot and heaving against my tail, as I dart ahead. As hefty and large as northbound wolves, they can’t slip through the same gaps my fox form can. I gain a few meters by ducking, leaping, and weaving through the labyrinth of Highgate.

My heart pounds, a frantic reminder of my preserved life. It isn’t only the dogs giving chase. Banshees and Green Women blot the skies. I’m surrounded on all sides, except the path directly ahead, running for my life.

Finally the cemetery gate swims into my exhausted eyes. I push past exploding agonies in my muscles, run for it. The fox’s slim frame fits perfectly through the bars. I’m on the other side, breathless, but I don’t stop running. A simple gateway won’t hold the angry soul feeders. I’ll only truly be safe in Buckingham, under the protection of the Guard.

My legs won’t last. The left one limps from an encounter with a gravestone. It won’t be long until I collapse. Flying is my only choice; I must enter the skies so thick with hostile spirits. I can’t even breathe right as I lope back into human skin. My body lifts off the ground in a rush of forced magic, shooting me down the street with the speed of a race car.

London whips by. Every blurred block saps a little more of my magic. At first, I treat the blocks of buildings like gravestones, slipping in and out of them to lose my pursuers. But the toll is too much.

Just before the river, my magic falters. I land softly on the street and pick myself up, wobbling on barely recovered feet. The old cramps return. I cry out in pain, but I can’t stop. Stopping means death.

I hobble down the sidewalk, sticking close to the many buildings I pass. After two blocks of this painlanced race, I begin to despair. There’s no way I can keep this up all the way to Buckingham.

Then I see it. My blue-and-red savior: a sign for the Underground. My leg bones jar against each other as I push into a final, desperate run. I half slide, half tumble into the station entrance and collapse by a Cadbury vending machine, limp and without breath.

But at least I’m underground. My powers seep back through the once-white grout of the station’s tiled walls. The only other people who trot down the steps are a slightly intoxicated, giggly couple and a gang of strangely dressed teenagers. I gather every ounce of energy that trickles back into me, until finally I have enough strength to make it to the trains. I push myself onto unsteady feet, shuffle through the turnstile and trek down the remaining sets of stairs to the trains.

It’s no secret that the Frithemaeg are stationed at Buckingham. I’d hoped, in my furious flight, to beat the soul feeders back, to reach the shelter of the gates and the Guard before they did. That chance died with my broken steps. In all likelihood, they’ve set an ambush around Buckingham, waiting for me. I can’t go back there. Not yet. For now I’ll stay on the train, making endless loops underneath London, saving my strength. I sit, rest my head against the window. The station falls behind in a streak of light as the train snakes off into the many wormholes of the Underground.