Page 113 of The City Of Fractured Memory

Impossible.

How can someone die twice? I examined those bodies myself, there’s no way they could’ve been alive. Unless…it hits me like thunder, the staggering realisation that we’ve been skirting around the truth the entire time. The tranquillising spell. We assumed it had gone wrong. But we must have been wrong.

But right now, I can’t focus on my mistakes, on the insanity of it all. This case, these murders…they feel horrifyingly insignificant now compared to the only thing that matters, that consumes me. I stumble across the room, Riven close on my heels.

“Where is she?” I scream, but still no one moves. “Tell me where she is!”

I grab the nearest cloaked figure, my hands fisting in the material of their hood as I shake their shoulders. A young, bearded man stares back at me wordlessly, a small smirk on his face. I shake him again.

“Tell me where Stryx is.”

Again, he says nothing. Just stares.

I release him with a huff of anger before turning to the woman next to him and receiving the same response. The tension in the cavern tightens around me like a noose. The cloaked figures remain silent, unblinking, their stillness maddening. My panic swells, growing into a furious, choking scream.

“Where is she?!” My voice echoes, raw and desperate, bouncing off the fog-laden walls. My hands claw at the air, at the circle, at anything that might yield an answer. The silence stretches unbearably long.

Then, a loud, slow clap thunders through the cavern, piercing the silence.

It echoes like a drum, each strike reverberating through the cavern and rattling the mist. I freeze, heart thundering in my ears.

From a side tunnel, stepping into the hazy light, a figure emerges. Calm and composed. Nauseatingly familiar. Her presence alone commands the room as she claps mockingly.

Impossible…

“Finally, the chosen one returns.”

She steps into the light and my blood runs cold.

Vesper.

She sneers at me with pure venom.

“You’re late.”

Forty-Six

My brain refuses to comprehend her presence. This is impossible. She literally died in my arms. And those seers…I’m certain they were dead, I examined their bodies myself. Not only that, but she looks remarkably well for someone who’s apparently spent the last year bedridden from a degenerative curse.

She looks down at me with a pitying stare, her mouth turned in a mockery of a frown as she holds up the Codex of Thorns. “I can see your brain working from here, it’s quite the sight,” she chuckles. “Did you really think I was dead? How sweet. Did you cry over me?”

I spare a glance in Riven’s direction, searching for answers, but he looks as pale as I feel. From the look on his face, he didn’t know either. Like me, he assumed they were all murdered, the victims of a ritual gone wrong.

She huffs dramatically. “Fine, I’ll put you out of your misery. It took a lot of my magic, but I managed to perform a perfect–”

“Tranquillising spell. I know,” I cut in, glaring at her.

She raises her eyebrows. “Well done, Detective, I underestimated you. Though you clearly weren’t clever enough to realise that it worked, were you? Done right, the spell imitates death perfectly. It was risky, though. It only activates when at least two litres of blood have been spilled—I’m surprised the others survived. Though they had to be dealt with, unfortunately.” She gestures to their now actually dead bodies. “Turns out they didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. They turned on me when I brought them back, but no one does that and lives.”

She looks so pleased with herself, it’s sickening.

“A spell that is so strong that it permanently imitates death? That’s no mortal magic,” Riven accuses. “What are you playing at?”

My breath hitches. “The Veyne,” I whisper to him. “She’s been channeling it. She must have been the one who chased us in the Archives, the one behind the rituals, the murders. Stryx said she could feel the magic resonance. This whole time, she must have been pretending the curse was killing her, using it as a cover.”

Clearly it seems many members of this cult are familiar with this awful magic, the reason for me being taught it as a child now clear as day. Riven turns back to his sister, glaring at her furiously and she shrugs.

“We’ve been busy building an empire, brother, sacrifices needed to be made. Of course, we had to work from the shadows, lest you realise our involvement. You have always been a meddling little wretch–”