we take a quick walk around the whole house?” Gabriel suggested. “Maybe something will stand out.”
That sounded sensible enough. But by the time we’d finished surveying the floor we were on, we had a rough count of three hundred snake circles.
“And I’ll wager there are even more behind this,” Gabriel said, working at the lock of a heavy door in the back of the house. “Are you certain there’s no magic keeping it shut?”
There was so much magic in the air this morning that it was a little hard to tell, but I couldn’t smell anything. “I don’t think so. It’s probably just mechanics—or rust. Let’s not waste any more time on it. We still have the whole upstairs to see.”
Gabriel poked at the lock again with one of the keys he’d grabbed from other doors. When it didn’t yield, he followed me up the staircase.
Upstairs the rooms were much darker. As we walked into yet another dim, snake-ridden room—this one with only a few damaged window slats to let in light—I started to regret the impulse that had brought me to Audelin House. “There’s no end to them,” I said to Gabriel. “And look at those scorch marks on the walls. For all we know, Scargrave burned away the circle we need.”
“Keep going,” Gabriel urged. “The right one might be just around the corner.” He cracked open a door in the darkest part of the room. “Or then again, maybe not.”
His voice sounded odd. I hurried over. “What’s wrong? What did you see?”
“Not a thing. The room’s too confounded dark.” He pulled back the door, revealing an opening as black as pitch. “The room doesn’t have any windows, I gather. Or if it does, they’ve been shuttered over.”
The darkness in that room seemed to be more than a matter of shutters. There was a stillness there that I hadn’t felt elsewhere, a watchfulness. It felt as if the darkness were waiting for us.
Part of me wanted to slam the door shut. But what if the right snake was somewhere in there?
If only I could still conjure up a light to see by, as my godmother had taught me. But like all other Proven Magic, that song was now out of my reach—and I’d yet to find a reliable way of controlling fire with Wild Magic. Here in Audelin House, with its history of burning, I thought I’d better resort to more prosaic means of making light, even if it took more time.
“I’ve got a tinderbox,” I said, digging into my sack. “And candles.”
“Hand them over,” Gabriel said. “No one can strike a flame faster than I can. Not even you, Chantress.”
I’d long since discovered that kindling flame from a tinderbox was not half so interesting as kindling one from song, so I was happy enough to let him have the honors. But evidently my tinderbox was not what he was used to, because he took a long time over the job. While he fussed with the flint, I investigated some of the snake circles on the blackened walls.
“When did you last use this tinderbox?” he finally asked me.
“Last spring, I think. Maybe longer.” Traveling as I did with my own men, I was rarely called upon to light a fire.
“Well, you need a new charcloth. It’s smothering the sparks, not catching them. We’ll need some other kindling.” He stood up, tinderbox in hand. “There was some straw by that door downstairs, the one that wouldn’t open. That would do. And I might have another quick look at that lock while I’m at it.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“No need—unless you want to.”
“Then I’ll stay here and keep checking this wall of snakes.”
“All right, then. I’ll be back soon.”
After he left, I peered into the dark room again. Beyond the dim shadows at the door, the darkness was so complete that I felt for a moment as if I were looking out on nothing at all. A desolate chill went right through me. There was something more than mere darkness here.
I reached to pull the door shut, but as I did, I heard music coming from somewhere deep inside the room—a sweet, golden song that sounded familiar. A song sung by someone I never expected to hear again.
My mother.
It wasn’t a living voice, of course. The Shadowgrims had turned my mother to ash. But a Chantress could sometimes leave a song behind her—a song-spell only another Chantress could hear. My mother had done that in a letter she’d written to me