The Nightmare Dilemma

31 The Crow King

The sound of jangling keys greeted us as Eli and I came down the third-floor hallway of Monmouth Tower toward Room 337. Faustus Culpepper stood in front of the door, his hellhound sitting beside him.

“Hey, George,” I said when the hound turned its head at the sound of our approach. Its eyes glowed like flashlights in the dark light of the hallway. George made a whining sound that I decided to take as his friendliest form of greeting.

“Hey, Mr. Culpepper,” Eli said as I bent and gingerly patted George’s head, his black coat more like scales than fur. I was relieved George stood still for the petting, but he made it clear that he was simply allowing the affection rather than enjoying it.

“Hello.” Culpepper didn’t look up from where he was still sorting through keys. A moment later he identified the correct one and slid it into the lock. “You two be quick about this. Don’t disturb anything, and make sure you lock up when you’re through.”

I straightened from my hunched position. “You’re not going to stick around until we’re done?”

“Nope.” Culpepper brushed his knuckles against his head. He wore his hair military short, no doubt a leftover habit from his time in the Marines. Culpepper was a Metus demon, the kind that feeds on fears, but tonight he had his glamour firmly in place, hiding his horns and keeping the green glow out of his eyes.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, one, because I trust you not to do anything too stupid.”

“That’s comforting,” Eli muttered.

Culpepper flashed him a dark look. “And two, I don’t want to risk being involved if you get caught.”

I raised an eyebrow, tempted to point out that his one and two seemed in direct opposition to each other, but really, what would be the point? “All right,” I said. “Thanks for doing this.” Not only had he answered his cell the second I called him, but he’d headed out to meet us right away. We needed to find this proof quick so I could get back to my dorm and write a dream journal about the Telluric Rods.

Culpepper nodded as he twisted the key in the lock and pushed the door open. Then he turned away, giving the hellhound’s leash a soft tug. “Come on, George.”

Eli and I waited as Culpepper and the hellhound disappeared around a corner.

“I’ve got to admit, the guy’s growing on me,” Eli said. “He still weirds me out, but he’s a handy contact.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, following after him.

Eli searched for the light switch and turned it on. I blinked away the spots in my vision and scanned the room. It looked more or less the same as it had the last time with a cluttering of books and papers across the desk. Eli made a beeline for them while I examined the bookshelf and the objects I knew had belonged to Marrow.

I eyed the spyglass and the spinning compass long enough to observe the layer of dust covering them. The dust was a good sign. It seemed they were just there for decoration, inconsequential leftovers.

Finally, I turned toward the desk. I slid open the drawer where Corvus had kept the book before. It was still there, and I pulled it out and set it on the table.

“Is that it?” Eli came around beside me for a closer look at it.

I nodded, trying to ignore the way my pulse reacted whenever he drew near. Cursed, we’re cursed. I shut the thought down as tears threatened. “I’ll try to find the page. You keep looking.”

“All right,” Eli said, his voice far too quiet, and I wondered if he’d heard something in my voice—the same painful longing made worse by the certainty of knowing it could never be.

I shrugged it off as best I could, focusing on the book. It took next to no time at all to find the page with the three-ringed symbol, because a small notebook had been wedged into the book on the very page.

“Here it is.” I pulled out the notebook then pushed the book toward Eli. While he examined the page, I flipped through the notebook. I recognized Mr. Corvus’s messy scrawl. Most of it seemed like random notes and gibberish, but then one of the clearer sentences caught my eye.

Only the blood of the twelve can undo the circle.

It was the same sentence I’d decoded during detention. I quickly scanned the rest of the page, and in seconds my skin began to crawl. I couldn’t make much sense of it, but there were a lot of references to blood and sacrifice.

“Eli, look at this.” I handed him the notebook. His expression grew more concerned with each sweep his eyes made over the page.

When he finished, he raised his gaze to mine. “This doesn’t tie him to Kirkwood, but it’s worrisome.”

“No kidding.”

Eli set the notebook down. “Let’s keep looking. There has to be proof here somewhere.”

“Right.” Feeling a welcome burst of energy, one strong enough to temporarily ease the ache in my heart, I resumed my search of the desk.

Eli and I both became so focused on the task at hand that neither of us noticed the door opening a few minutes later. One moment we were alone in the room, and the next two men strode in. I barely had time to register shock when a spell struck me in the chest. It hit hard enough to knock the wind out of me, but I was unconscious before I finished falling.

The first thing that registered when I woke was the instinctual knowledge that moving was going to be painful. My limbs had the aching, numb feel of muscles deprived of proper blood flow from lying far too long in an awkward position. I opened my eyes, holding as still as I could, even as panic began to build inside me. All I could see from my current location was a stone floor, dirty and cracked from age. I was lying on my side, my arms tied behind my back.

All at once the memory of being in Mr. Corvus’s office with Eli came back to me. Two men had walked in and attacked us with sleeping spells. But not just any men—Captain Gargrave and one of his Will Guard.

As if thinking his name had conjured him into life, I heard Gargrave say from somewhere above me, “This one’s waking up.”

“Good,” another voice replied. “Just in time.”

Closing my eyes, I shifted sideways onto my back and to the direction of the voices. Pain shot through me from the roots of my hair to my toenails. The worst of it was in my shoulders and neck. How long had I been lying like this? Hours for sure.

I opened my eyes to see a low-hanging stone ceiling above me, easily as dirty and cracked as the floor. Right away it put me in mind of a medieval dungeon, although that might’ve had more to do with the torture currently being inflicted on my body. Bracing one leg against the floor, I tried to roll over onto my other side but couldn’t manage it.

“No need to struggle so hard,” Gargrave said, his voice suddenly much nearer than it had been before. “Ana-acro.”

I screamed as the spell hoisted me into the air by the ropes around my wrists. The magic jerked me to the right then dropped me into a wooden chair. For a moment I couldn’t see or think or do anything until the pain receded.

Then finally I looked around, getting my bearings at last. It seemed my first judgment had been correct. This was a dungeon, or at least it was underground. The air possessed that damp smell like the tunnels at Arkwell. There were no windows, and the only light came from torches hung on the walls. So no electricity either, it seemed.

Captain Gargrave stood a few feet in front of me. He was wearing his usual red and black Will Guard uniform, but he had the sleeves rolled up, exposing his thick forearms. I spotted an intricate black tattoo running up his right arm from wrist to elbow. It took a second for my brain to puzzle out the shape. Those black marks were a flock of crows in flight. Gargrave, not Corvus, must’ve been the crows in Eli’s dream.

The moment I made the realization, my eyes fixed on the man standing a few feet behind Gargrave, his face partly hidden in shadows. Even still, I recognized him. I’d never met Titus Kirkwood in person, but I’d seen his image often enough. Once again I was struck by the strong resemblance he bore to his nephew.

“What are you doing?” I said, struggling in vain to free myself. I couldn’t see the rope binding me, but I knew it was silver and made of magic, simply by the painful tingling in my skin where it touched. “Where’s Eli?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Titus said in a voice that belonged in one of those annoying mud-slinging political commercials. “He’s here, too.”

I jerked my head around, trying to locate Eli in the semi-darkness. Then I saw him lying a few feet away near the wall. Like me, his wrists were bound behind him.

“Ana-acro,” Gargrave said again, and Eli’s body rose into the air. He cried out, coming awake at once. Gargrave deposited him into the chair next to me.

“There now.” Titus rubbed his hands together. He was a tall, broad-chested man with blond hair slowly giving way to gray and a pointed, severe chin. “The dream-seers together as they should be. It really is a shame that it’s come to this. Your talents would’ve proved useful, I’m sure. I tried to keep you out of the way long enough for me to finish my business, but it seems it wasn’t meant to be. You’ve learned too much.”

I glared at him. “How do you know what we’ve learned?”

A cold smile slid across Titus’s face like a snake. “Why, from your own mouth. I knew tonight was your last chance to predict the attack on Lyonshold so I had Captain Gargrave slip a listening device beneath Eli’s door earlier this evening. Bugs, I think ordinaries call them. Such a strange euphemism. But highly effective when brand-new and animation free.”

My mouth fell open at this news, and I cringed at all the things he must’ve heard. Not just about the Telluric Rods and our plans to search Mr. Corvus’s office, but also about the dream-seer’s curse.

“If you didn’t want us to find out, you’ve shouldn’t have relied on someone else to do your dirty work,” Eli said, surprising me by how quickly he’d recovered and caught up.

Titus examined his hands, the skin around his knuckles oddly discolored. “I only use these for the delicate situations.”

I scoffed. “You mean like beating up your nephew?” I expected Titus to react with anger, but his lips parted into a smile revealing a row of perfect white teeth.

“Yes. He’s always been a delicate situation, I’m afraid. Just like his mother.” Titus clapped his hands. “But enough wasting time.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “The ceremony will be starting soon, and I need to be away from here when it does.”

“Where are we?” Eli demanded.

“Lyonshold. In the dungeon of Senate Hall, to be precise,” Titus said. “And I’m well aware that you know what’s coming next. Even without the dreams, your detective work has been quite impressive, although it helped that my nephew was so eager to betray my secrets.”

“You can’t do this.” Eli jerked against the rope binding him, but Gargrave pointed his staff, freezing him in place.

“Go head and keep struggling,” said Gargrave. “I would hate for this to get boring.”

My head buzzed with the realization of where we were and when. No wonder moving had hurt so much. We must’ve been under that sleeping spell for nearly eighteen hours. “Abducting us was stupid,” I said, trying to draw attention off Eli. “We’re the dream-seers. Someone has to have noticed we’re missing by now.”

Titus smirked. “Oh, I think not. You’ve been suspended from the festival. Everyone thinks you’re back at Arkwell, pouting in your dorm rooms, no doubt.”

I started to ask him how he knew about the detention, but I realized Gargrave had been there. Now that I thought about it, Gargrave had been everywhere, he and his men always lurking in the shadows, watching, waiting. Paul was right. His uncle had a long, powerful reach. I’d seen enough of the Will Guard to know how loyal they were to their captain—a man loyal to Titus Kirkwood. Really, using the Will Guard was brilliant. They could be anywhere on campus at any time and no one would question what they were doing.

“Lady Elaine will notice,” I said, refusing to admit defeat. “I never entered my dream-journal last night.”

Gargrave chuckled. “We entered one for you. What with dreams being so erratic, it was easy to take snippets from your prior entries and mesh them together.”

I felt myself pale. This had been well planned, and I wondered how long Titus and his men had been spying on Eli and me. Probably from the moment they decided to sink Senate Hall into the sea. That also meant they’d known the moment Paul had contacted us.

I stuck out my chin. “Our friends will miss us.”

Titus cocked his head. “Which one? Her perhaps?” He motioned to the far corner, and my stomach dropped at the sight of a long black braid with hair as glossy and fine as silk. “Wake her,” Titus said to Gargrave. “But do it more gently this time. I’ve had enough screaming.”

Gargrave strode over to Selene and muttered a spell. Selene began to stir at once, moaning loudly from the pain of ill-used muscles. Gargrave stooped and picked her up, depositing her in the chair to my left.

I glanced at Selene long enough to determine she was okay. At least for now. I assumed they must’ve taken her last night when they abducted Eli and me. She wasn’t wearing pajamas, though, but the black coat she’d been tailoring for her home ec class. Seeing her here was a blow, but at least there was no sign of Paul.

Titus stepped up to Selene, grabbed hold of her chin, and tilted her head back as he examined her face. He sighed. “It’s such a shame we had to bring you into this. I’m quite fond of your mother, and I know she’ll miss you terribly. But you shouldn’t have gotten so involved with these two.” He motioned toward Eli and me. “You know too much as well, I’m afraid.”

Selene didn’t respond, just sat there, her expression a mask of calm but her eyes livid. I knew in that moment that everything Paul had ever said about his uncle was true. He was a monster, a man who took pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. In a way, that made him even worse than Marrow, who simply didn’t care about the suffering he inflicted.

Titus released Selene’s face and stepped back. “Now on to business.” He reached into his front pocket and withdrew a cell phone. My cell phone. “We need to discuss the data my nephew hid inside this. I have a feeling that you know how to access it.” Titus approached me and held the phone a few inches from my face.

Right away the instructions and the pass code ran through my mind.

“Oh, she knows,” Gargrave said. “She’s thinking about it now.”

I jerked against the ropes holding me. I felt an odd pressure in my mind, the presence of someone else trying to break in. If it weren’t for the sessions I’d spent with Mr. Deverell, I wasn’t sure I would’ve recognized that pressure for what it was. Instinct took over, and I pushed back against it, forcing him out of my mind. Gargrave winced, and I flashed a smile at him, momentarily gleeful in my victory.

But it had come too late.

Titus rubbed his hands together. “Excellent.” He took a step toward me. “Now, I’m going to give you one chance to make this easy for everyone. Tell me how to access the data hidden on this phone, and I promise that you and your friends will not suffer.”

I gasped as the full meaning in his words reached me. He didn’t say that my friends and I would live. Oh, no. He had brought us here to die. It was just a matter of how quick and how much pain we endured beforehand.

“Don’t tell him anything,” said Selene.

In an almost casual gesture Gargrave backhanded her. Selene’s neck rocked back so hard I was terrified it might’ve broken, my fear intensified by Selene’s silence—she hadn’t uttered a sound as the blow fell. But then I watched her lower her head back down, and I realized she had held it in with a force of will far greater than any I’d ever known. There weren’t even tears in her eyes, despite the blood trickling from the side of her mouth.

“What’s your decision?” Titus said.

Doing my best to mirror Selene, I said, “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

Titus sighed. “Ah, yes. I figured as much. But no matter. We just need to find the right pressure point. Everyone has one, you know.”

My gaze flicked automatically to Eli, bile climbing up my throat of the thought of them hurting him.

But Titus glanced at Gargrave. “Let’s try Paul first. Carry him if you must.”

Every muscle in my body tensed as I watched Gargrave turn and leave the room only to return a few moments later with an unconscious Paul dangling in the air in front of him, held there by silver ropes. One look at Paul’s face told me that he’d needed to be carried in. Shiny black bruises covered his cheeks, and his right eye was swollen shut. His lip was split in three places. Gashes ran down his arms and legs, the wounds visible through his shredded clothes.

The last of my hope that someone would notice we were missing dissolved. There was no one else. Not even Lance, who was still in Vejovis.

Gargrave broke the spell, and Paul fell to the ground with a sickening slap of flesh against stone.

Titus made a clucking noise. “Looks like you need to revive him. Again.”

I fought back the urge to be sick, and I realized the reason why he’d chosen to torture Paul over Eli was simply from the pleasure it gave him. Titus pointed his staff at Paul and spoke an incantation I didn’t recognize. A moment later Paul’s uninjured eye slid open. It swiveled around in his head as he surveyed what he could from that position. He looked terrified.

“Paul,” I said, wanting him to know he wasn’t alone anymore. “I’m over here.”

He turned his head in my direction, and when he saw me his whole body convulsed. “No,” he screamed. “Don’t you tell him, Dusty. Don’t you dare. No matter what.”

I flinched at the sound of his fury. There was no lie in him now. He meant what he said. He didn’t want me to give his uncle the knowledge no matter what they did to him.

But I didn’t know if I could do it.

Mustering all my willpower, I forced my gaze away from Paul and onto Titus. If I could block Paul out, pretend he wasn’t there, wasn’t suffering, then maybe I could manage it.

But my resolve faltered a moment later when Gargrave kicked Paul in the stomach. “Save the screaming for when it counts.”

“Stop it!” I shouted. “Don’t hurt him.”

Titus flashed a triumphant grin at me. “Oh, yes. I do believe this will work after all.” Then he pulled the watch off his wrist and disengaged the glamour to reveal his wand. It was short but as thick as a billy club. He raised it above his head, and for a second I thought he intended to use it as a club.

But he pointed the tip at Paul and spoke a word I didn’t know but which made all the hairs on my body stand up on end from the sudden surge of magic. Green flames burst out from the tip of the wand and covered Paul from head to foot, enveloping him like a swarm of insects. Paul writhed on the floor, the veins popping out in his neck as he struggled against the pain, holding in a scream.

“Don’t watch, Dusty,” Eli whispered from beside me.

I knew he was right, but I couldn’t look away. The green flames danced over his body, leaving the skin beneath shiny and red as if burned or bitten. It didn’t matter which. What mattered was that it hurt.

Titus broke the spell a moment later, and Paul slumped against the ground, a moan of relief escaping his lips. His skin was red but not blistered and burned as I’d expected it to be. For a second I thought it was over, but Titus conjured the spell again, the green flames brighter than before.

Paul couldn’t keep in the scream this time. The spell seemed to rip it out of him. The sound of his pain cut into me like jagged glass. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t watch him suffer when I had the means of putting an end to it.

“Stop!” I screamed. “I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to stop.” I knew that once he had what he needed Titus would kill us, but I didn’t care. At least it would be over.

Titus broke the spell and faced me, one hand on his hip, the other hanging at his side with his wand pointed at the floor. “Go ahead then.”

“Don’t, Dusty,” Paul whispered through bruised and bloodied lips. “I’m not worth it.”

I ignored him. I needed all my focus now. Gargrave was good at mind-magic, and he was paying attention. I needed him to know I was telling the truth. “To access it press the home button three times and then swipe to the left twice.”

“Stop!” Paul lurched to his knees, but Gargrave kicked him back down.

“Yes, now we’re making progress.” Titus flipped the phone around so that everyone could see my instructions had worked.

I exhaled, my heart beating in my throat. “And the pass code is—”

“Don’t, please don’t,” Paul said, his voice a moan now.

“Five-two-one-one-three-eight.” The lie came easily. Thank goodness my locker combination was six digits.

Titus beamed as he started to enter the numbers, and I spoke a silent prayer that they’d already tried to open it twice before and that this time the phone would self-destruct.

“Wait,” Gargrave said.

Titus’s fingertip froze on the screen. “What is it?”

“She’s lying.”

My heart rate sped up, but I managed not to blink or fidget. “No, I’m not.”

Titus frowned, his gaze shifting from Gargrave to me then back again. “I thought she had you blocked out?”

“She did, but he didn’t.” Gargrave pointed at Paul. “Not this time. I caught it. Just for a second when she said those numbers. His surprise gave him away. They’re wrong, and he knows it.”

Titus lowered his hand from the phone’s screen. He came forward and looked down at his nephew. Then he looked up at me, his expression appraising. “It seems I might’ve been wrong about the pressure point here. If she won’t cave for him, maybe he will cave for her. Kaio-dontia.”

I didn’t have time to react, not even to flinch. The green flames enveloped me, obscuring my sight and muffling my hearing. But these things only mattered for a second, because in the next there was nothing but pain. I was being burned alive, the flames like a thousand flies eating away at my flesh with teeth made of red-hot needles. I screamed without even being aware of it, the sound an involuntary expulsion of the agony charging through my body.

A blur of movement flashed before my eyes as Eli lunged in front of the spell, trying to block it, trying to absorb it into himself. For a moment, the pain eased, but then Gargrave struck Eli in the temple with the head of his staff. Eli fell and didn’t move again.

“Don’t hurt her. I’ll tell you. Don’t hurt her!” Paul’s voice barely registered in my ears. It seemed far away, nonexistent.

Titus made a flicking gesture with his wand and the pain increased. I screamed with my whole body, tears pouring from my eyes. Stop stop stop oh God make it stop. Stop please stop.

“Three-eight-seven-eight-nine-seven!” Paul shouted.

The spell broke, and I fell back against the chair, trembling. Cold sweat coated my body, but the agony was over. At least physically. I’d never been more relieved in my life, no matter that it lasted only a moment.

Forcing my eyes open, I watched as Titus entered the pass code. The smile that broke across his face a second later told me all I needed to know. He had gotten what he wanted. He held in his hands the power of the Red Warlock—the name of every magickind willing to start a revolution.

Titus put the phone to sleep a second later and slid it into his front pocket. Then he leaned over and patted his nephew on the head. “Thank you, Paul. I’m glad you served a purpose at last. And how ironic it is that love was your downfall. It was your mother’s, too.”

Paul didn’t struggle, but sagged against the floor, defeat like a paralytic drug spreading through his body.

I wanted to scream and jump up and strangle this horrible man with my bare hands, but I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe as the aftereffects of the spell lingered on.

“Shall we kill them now?” Gargrave asked as Titus straightened up.

“No, leave them. We shouldn’t risk their death being traced back to us. If their bodies are found in the wreckage, there will be questions.” Titus engaged the glamour on his wand, turning it back into a watch. He checked the time as he slid it on. “We’ll let the sea take care of them.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “That is, if the building doesn’t do it first.”

Gargrave looked like he might argue, but then he nodded.

“Let’s go.” Titus turned around and headed for the door. He paused just before it and swung back around. “Oh, one last thing.” He walked over to Eli, still lying unconscious on the floor. He stooped and pulled Eli’s wand ring off his thumb. “I wouldn’t want any of you to believe this was going to be your saving grace.”

By Selene’s quick intake of breath, I guessed she’d been thinking it, at least.

Titus smiled. “If he wakes before the end, be sure to tell him that it wouldn’t have worked anyway. This isn’t a true wand. I had the power source inside it bound with a spell designed to suppress his dreams. It was the perfect solution to keeping you two off my trail after that useless girl failed to deliver my curse. Well, almost perfect.

At once, I realized the spell on Eli’s wand must’ve been the source of the fog in Eli’s dreams. All except for that last one. In his frustration, he’d removed the wand before going to sleep. A lucky break. Not that it mattered now.

“Nevertheless,” Titus continued, “it kept him from doing magic, and that is good enough for me. No ordinary should ever be allowed to pretend to be what we are.”

With that, Titus shoved the ring into his pocket and turned for the door, Gargrave following after him. I watched them go, dread pounding in my ears. When the door slammed shut, I knew they had won.

And now all that remained was the long wait before dying.