Home > Path of Night(8)

Path of Night(8)
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Now that I could be steady on my feet, I let Harvey pull me up. We walked into the kitchen to find Aunt Hilda spinning dramatically around.

She said in a voice of thunder: “Someone’s been telling lies!”

Harvey and I froze.

Aunt Hilda’s face broke into a sunny smile. “It’s me! I said I was making shepherd’s pie, but I’ve actually prepared something much more special. May I present … snakegazey pie!”

Aunt Hilda laid down the delicacy on the table with an air of pride. The short crust was a rich golden brown, with twists forming a little pastry pentagram. At every point of the pentagram, there was an eruption. Snake heads poked out from their lake of golden pastry, beadlike eyes staring, forked tongues tasting the air. The Academy students oohed and aahed.

“Might throw up,” Harvey murmured. “Gonna go talk to the kid.”

To please Aunt Hilda, I accepted a portion of snakegazey pie and took the empty seat beside Agatha. There was often a vacant place beside Agatha or Dorcas, as if they were saving it for Prudence.

Agatha’s voice was perfect for girlish whispers. “Why were you talking about Nick?”

The Weird Sisters had liked Nick. They’d dated Nick. All three of them, at the same time.

“Just saying how great Nick was.”

I realized I’d talked about him in the past tense. As if Nick was dead.

“He was better than great,” said Agatha. I started to smile. “Nick was the pride of the Academy. He would’ve been Top Boy, the leader of our whole school, if you hadn’t fouled that up. Then you got him expelled. For the grand finale, you did worse than kill him. Nick had a future bright as a morning star. Before you ruined his life.”

I pushed my bowl of snakegazey pie away and stumbled upstairs toward the sound of Harvey’s voice. He was on the attic steps with the ghost child. I leaned against the wall and watched them.

“Do you want to hear a story about a brave lady knight and a girl with dragons, sweetheart?”

Lavinia said in a sepulchral whisper, “I would like a dragon.”

“Who wouldn’t like to have a dragon!” said Harvey.

Lavinia edged closer. “A dragon made of darkness!”

Harvey mouthed, Kids. Weird stuff , over the ghost’s head at me.

I smiled, because he was so cute. Then I straightened up.

Harvey was objectively cute in the way penguins are cute. Not in any way that was specifically appealing to me. Only Nick was specifically appealing to me.

I ran past Harvey and Lavinia to the attic, where I pulled the drawing of Nick off the whiteboard. I wanted him with me, any way he could be. Witches didn’t really take couple selfies. I didn’t have any pictures of him, except for this.

“Hey there, you,” I whispered to the drawing, touching his face with a fingertip.

I ran down into my bedroom, carrying the picture of Nick pressed over my heart. I spun as though we were dancing together, then threw myself backward onto my bed and held the drawing to the light. In the drawing Nick wore the tuxedo he’d worn to take me to the sweethearts’ dance. His almost-black, curling hair was swept back and he was smiling, the way he did when he looked at me. His smile always made me smile too. He was so handsome.

Witch prom king , Harvey’s voice said in my mind. Nick kind of was.

Every girl has that fantasy about starting a new school, don’t they? That they’ll go in their first day and a guy will notice them. Not just any guy. The guy, the best-looking and most talented, the star of the school. The guy who could have any girl—or in Nick’s case, potentially all the girls at once—and who picks you. Instant sparks. Fireworks. I’d told Nick I was dating Harvey, but I was so flattered. I thought Nick saw something special in me.

Actually, Lucifer had commanded Nick to date me. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t bother me at all. Nick loved me now.

Harvey said Nick was my favorite person in the world. I didn’t know about that—was I going to pick a favorite aunt?—but Nick was up there.

Except Nick wasn’t in this world. Not anymore.

He was utterly out of reach.

As long as I can hold your hand , he’d said when he asked me out, willing to do anything I wanted.

I hadn’t held Nick’s hand often. Occasionally, when he was being particularly cute. Usually we just walked together. I’d thought maybe a cool, powerful witch couple should be like that, independent but side by side. I wished now I’d done it more.

Harvey and I used to hold hands every day, when he walked me home through the woods. Hands clasped, sure of each other, since we were little kids. Nick and I hadn’t had that kind of time. But we would.

Now I searched my mind for an endearment. I’d never called Nick by any, but Nick called me babe and Spellman . Maybe Nick would’ve liked if I had. I remembered Harvey’s voice, tender and steady, telling a child a story.

“We’re coming to get you, sweetheart,” I told Nick. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

 

 

H ell was full of books Nick had already read and hadn’t enjoyed. Even the ones Nick remembered liking at the time were different in hell, clever phrases turned clumsy, the gloss on the prose dulled, and the depth of meaning lost. He’d been puzzled before he worked out what was going on. He wasn’t actually reading the books. He was only remembering how it was to read them, his mind filling in the blanks with pieces that weren’t entirely right.

Nick sighed, pulled a hand through his hair, and tossed another book. It was fine to treat the books with disrespect, since they were an infernal illusion. This cavern wore the mocking appearance of the library in the Academy of Unseen Arts, where books had taught him how to live but shadows leered in every stack. From the corner of his eye, he saw black text across white pages turning gray and bitter as ash.

If he could have one book that was real. If he could have one .

If he could choose, he’d want Shakespeare. It seemed Shakespeare had written many important things. The mortal had mentioned Shakespeare as though everybody knew who that was. Nick went to some trouble to acquire the book, but Father Blackwood destroyed it, so Nick couldn’t read much. Then Sabrina referenced Hamlet—not a common mortal name, apparently—in a way that made Nick worry Hamlet might come to a bad end. Nick had been rooting for Hamlet.

Surely Romeo and Juliet would be happy.

Nick would pick Shakespeare, but he would’ve taken any book at all.

A piece of hell, for Nick, was a library in which no comfort could be found. He kept searching, though he knew it was hopeless, but now his gaze fell on a door rather than another book. There were doors everywhere in hell.

Certain doors, Nick avoided. When he was sick with exhaustion, those doors hung in front of him, promising release. Those doors were steel bars and beckoning shadows. They were the doors on a cage. Nick badly wanted to open the cage doors, but he didn’t trust his own impulse. He wanted it too much.

This door was carved wood, an ordinary library door. Nick tried the handle.

A blast of wintry wind blew the door open and hurled Nick through. He staggered into the snow.

Oh no , Nick thought. Not again.

Wind howled in his ears like wolves.

Black night was pierced by the sharp points of falling snow. He felt he was staring through the rips in darkness to a cold, white void.

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