Page 123 of Mortdale

He jumped on the sill, leaned on his fat backside and lifted a leg to scratch his side. “She gave me a fat, juicy deer to tell you that your vampire helped her escape Crimson Weaver. The witch is safe.”

I collapsed to my knees. Relief and agony scorching my lungs.

It was near the start of November, but the ground had already gathered a layer of frost. The Basilica gardens were not only dead and burned, but the soil rotting. New roots had poked through the layer of charred silt, their tips frosted. The root gasses had filled the air; though foul, they also had a sugary smell—like acetone.

“I can’t believe you convinced me to do this,” Liam whispered as he followed me into the strangely-empty sacred Basilica grounds. “I’m a dead man walking. Stake me though the heart already, crazy lady. I’m as good as gone.”

“Where’s everyone?”

“The clergy will hold a vigil mass in the city centre as the power of the king transfers into a new vessel. To honour Lamuel, who sired his own successor by turning them with a bite.” He grabbed my elbow, holding me back before we stepped into the compluvium. “There’s one heartbeat getting closer to us. Stay here,” he told me, backing away into the shadows of the tall pillars.

A humming melody slipped into the air, dragging my attention to the gardens just outside the periphery of the compluvium. The sound grew louder and clearer the closer I got to the wide, stone well. Bracing my hands against the round walls, I stared down the empty dark depths of the water. The sweet smell of honey was stronger, nearly choking.

“Miss Briar.”

I turned around, facing the once-dead human now turned vampire acolyte standing only a few feet away from me.

Fredrick’s smile was mechanical, forced. Pulled at an angle like the strings on a puppet. “You should not be here. Agnes will be very upset that you have disobeyed her. What would happen to Ethel if you upset her?”

The corner of his face started melting, peeling off his jawbone. “You should go home, Miss Briar,” he said, reaching to smooth back his skin as if attempting to stick it back to his bone. “While you still can.”

“It’s Lady Duncan.” I lifted my lantern farther up, casting more light over him. “And her heart is at the bottom of that well, isn’t it? Poisoning the water. That’s why she ordered Sybil to convince the Basilica to burn the flowers. That’s why you’re here. To make sure no one finds out anything about it. And if anyone were to find it, they would blame it on the Basilica because you’re a vampire.” It explained why he remained undercover as an acolyte—no one would doubt a thing about Agnes.

Twenty-seven years ago, after she’d killed her husband, with Sybil’s help, she’d cursed her own heart, thrown it into the well, and slowly poisoned the entirety of Mortdale. Agnes was smart—too smart. The Madness had never truly been a curse, only a symptom of it; a dark root slowly poisoning chaos without leaving any single trace of magic. Any vampire and witch who'd fallen in love had been infected by the curse. It led to a witch taking their own life, and their vampire lover slowly going insane from heartbreak, infected with despair. It wasn’t madness, it wasn’t rage. It had always been heartbreak—the symptoms of a love curse without actually being cursed.

Cassandra and her husband—they’d been some of the many who’d died because of Agnes. All this time, the answer had been staring at me. Cassandra had asked me to leave Logan. It had been to protect him from the same fate she’d succumbed to. When had she known that I’d started imagining myself falling in love with him?

Cross my heart and hope to die. The words echoed from that day. The promise she had made me for Ethel’s safety. The lie she’d so easily sold me so she could justify fulfilling Logan’s demand. It had never been about solving their deaths. I was only something that had been standing in her way.

I walked backwards until my spine hit the stony walls of the well. “What has she done to Ethel?”

“Your friend is safe.”

“She’s at the coven?”

He nodded.

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

The creature angled his head to the side, taking a few more steps in my direction. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

His head swung back with a crack, twisting at an odd angle, as the kerosene Liam was pouring down on him from the roof of the Basilica drenched him.

Just as Liam dropped a lit match on him, I pushed off the rocky wall and jumped into the well. The cold water broke against my skin like a thousand pieces of glass. Only darkness filled the periphery of my vision that was starting to blur from a chill that shook my bones.

Unconsciousness gripped my mind in a static hold, letting me float in and out of my body. Until something warm pulsed in the depth of the water, stirring me awake.

A white familiar phantom floated farther down the clear waters, guiding my weak body patiently. Cassandra held a hand forward, letting me hold onto it until I could finally see the rocky dregs.

At the very bottom lay a heart, blackened and still beating. Dark veins grew from it, spreading over the entire floor of the well bed. They climbed for metres, farther and farther into the darkness around. And only the Goddess knew how far they went into the earth.

I could feel my lungs burning, searching for air, but I kept swimming until my fingernails scraped against the rocky bottom of the well and I could wrap my hand around the soft, charred organ.

I pulled and pulled with all my might, screaming into the vacuum of water when it wouldn’t pare off the rocky bottom. How deep had its roots spread? Was it too late? Had it always been too late?

My mind fought and fought, but my body slowly slackened, surrendering to the arms of the icy waters. I expected relief to flood my veins as I yielded, as I stopped fighting for the first time in my existence. As I stopped fighting to live. But there was no relief. Only terror and pure agony.

And then the water shifted, a large hand covering mine, pulling the heart.