Page 24 of The Rut in the Road

I knew Mason and Ward didn’t approve of necromancy, although I wasn’t completely sure why. Everything I’d ever seen about necromancy seemed to link it with evil, but I didn’t think that was why my bosses didn’t approve of it. If they’d thought so, they wouldn’t have allowed Archie to even make the offer—and they probably wouldn’t have let him stay at Beyond the Veil.

What I should have done was ask why they didn’t approve of it. Ward had told me he didn’t like it, but he’d also told me that it was my business whether or not I wanted to learn it from Archie. I didn’t know what to do with that—generally speaking, I tended to agree with most of the things Ward approved or didn’t approve of, but he hadn’t really given me much explanation for his distaste for necromancy. Neither, for that matter, had Mason, and Mason generally very much liked explaining things.

This left me uncertain of what I should—or shouldn’t—do.

I also knew that my magic and Archie’s wouldn’t be the same—that a death witch and a necromantic warlock would necessarily relate to magic differently, because witch magic and warlock magic weren’t the same. And that meant that whatever lessons Archie might give me might go awry—things might not work or, worse, they might do something dramatically unexpected.

It was the second of those that worried me now, in the darkness of the night. I was fully prepared for failure—I’d experienced more than my fair share of that while struggling tomake my psychic abilities do what I wanted them to. But how did you prepare for the unpredictability of magic?

Every lesson I’d struggled to learn, whether on my own or from Mason or Ward or Sylvia, had been about control. Controlling when my psychic abilities would or wouldn’t trigger. Controlling my death magic so that I wouldn’t kill people or animals. Controlling my emotions so that they didn’t trigger some sort of magical outburst.

Necromancy wasn’t going to be about control in the same way. It wasn’t going to be about blocking my magic, but channeling it, transforming it, choosing when to unleash it.

I could kill with my magic. I knew that. I had done it. But that was like letting go of everything, all at once, and allowing my fear or rage to pour out in the direction I wanted it to go. Usually. I grimaced. I didn’t like that Garraway had been able to deflect my magic. I didn’t like that it hadn’t killed him, and I didn’t like that it had killed Mulrooney, instead. It wasn’t that I felt a particular level of guilt about Mulrooney being dead—he’d kidnapped me and clearly had no qualms about beating me or killing me—it was that I hadn’t chosen to kill him, and yet he’d ended up dead as a result of my magic, anyway.

It was that unpredictability that had me the most concerned.

I knew that I could keep my magic under control as long as I kept itfullyunder control. The same thing had been true of my psychic abilities. As long as I didn’t use them—as long as the walls were firmly mortared in place—it was fine. It was when I started trying to work with those abilities that they became chaotic.

And I was very afraid the same thing was going to happen again.

This time, with death magic.

When the consequences could be so much more serious.

5

He wasn’tsure exactly what was going on with this case, but he didn’t like it. It had Rayn upset, for one thing. Not just saddened by the unnecessary deaths, although he was pretty sure that was part of it, but genuinely upset.

Sylvia had come to tell him that the boy—no, not boy, he reminded himself, because although the dream-persona Rayn had adopted when they first met had been a child, the man who worked with him now was aman, not a boy—had agreed to learn necromancy from Archie.

He wasn’t entirely certain what he thought about that. First instinct had been revulsion, but then he’d reminded himself that Rayn wasn’t either Preston Fitzwilliam or Oliver Picton. He wasn’t doing this in order to artificially extend his life by killing others.

He might not like necromancy, but it was a set of skills, a kind of practice, just like any other form of magic. Whether it was used for good or evil had to do with the practitioner, not the magic itself.

He had to remember that.

I sighed,wishing I hadn’t read the pen left on the table—but I’d known it was Ward’s, and he’d been distracted, his forehead creased with worry lines, his smiles shorter and smaller than they usually were. I’d wanted to know why. I thought perhaps either Archie or Sylvia might have told him about my interest in learning necromancy—and I’d been right.

Maybe I was getting better at reading people. The ones I knew, anyway.

I didn’t know that I liked the idea that my choices were causing Ward stress or worry, but I also didn’t like the idea of having to make all my choices to please other people. But, at the same time, I owed him my freedom, my sanity, and my life—without him, I’d be a shell, or dead.

How much do you have to give up for someone who did that for you?

I didn’t much like the fact that most of my adult relationships seemed to be structured around owing other people far, far more than I could ever repay them.

Ward and Mason and Hart for saving me from Tranquil Brook.

Melissa and Sam for helping me recover from Tranquil Brook.

Ward,again, for giving me the job at Beyond the Veil.

Mason,again, for teaching me to control my magic.

Raj, for saving me from the well and forgiving me for having invaded his dreams.

Which meant that I felt a lot of guilt about the fact that I knew Ward and Mason wouldn’t like me learning necromancy, even though I knew they wouldn’t stop me or probably even say anything. But I still felt guilty because I knew they didn’t like it.