The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

The Sister

THE SISTER

On the final night of the Lyrids, the girl goes into the forest. She has pretended she wants to be a hunter, and she passed the first trial without difficulty. It’s easy to kill a nightmare when you have magic. When all you have to do is whisper the right words and watch as a golden arrow hits its target without error. It’s even easier if you’ve had your source buried in the forest for months, weakening the nearby nightmares.

She killed a siren. Her stepfather was so proud.

The girl feels only shame over that death. It wasn’t right to kill that creature—as a hunter or as a witch. But it was what she had to do if she wanted to get out of the Dianas. To finish the agreement she was bound to years ago that has to be fulfilled or everyone she loves will die.

She understands—loosely—why it must be her to cast the spell. It’s a long spell, longer than any other she has been taught, and the words are slippery. Her tongue doesn’t want to hold on to them, her brain doesn’t want to memorize them. It has taken her almost two years of practice and it’s only when she writes a song to go with the Latin that it all finally sticks.

She liked the melody so much, she ended up writing innocent words to go along with it. She sang it last month at an open mic night; her little sister told her it was the best song she’s ever composed.

The hills at the northern edge of the forest are sharp crests of granite. They break from the earth like fins. The girl climbs and dips, climbs and dips. Her heart pounds. Her fingers imagine strumming a guitar that isn’t there.

Light quivers through trees. A nest of will-o’-wisps. They watch her pass. They do not flee. The girl’s heart tightens. This is the last time she’ll ever see them.

Soon she reaches the granite hole in the ground, a dark gash in these shadows. It is a special place. One of a kind, said the Diana cornīx who first recruited her, and who first tasked her with this spell. Centuries ago, we Dianas interpreted the Purum Cor from the spirits’ magic, and we have waited ever since to find the necessary pieces. Now we have them: the granite walls, the Lyrids, the half human, half nightmare—and you, Jenna, with your pretty voice and pretty music, able to control it all.

The lēgātum has told the girl, of course, what the spell will actually do. Incantamentum Purum Cor. The Pure Heart spell. He knows its power. And the girl knows that if she really casts it, she will be sucked into the spell and die. Because it’s not her pretty voice that most appeals to the cornīx ; it’s her expendability.

But that is why the lēgātum is helping her.

Now here he is, stepping out from between a rowan and an elm. He is dressed in all black, with a cap pulled over his head. He’s usually so well-dressed and polished—even when knee-deep in compost—but tonight he looks disheveled. Disastrous. And she fears for half a second that he isn’t going to help her. That he has come to tell her he has changed his mind.

He hugs his hand to him, and even in the shadows, it’s clear the skin is burned raw. It has sloughed off to leave glistening flesh exposed to the frozen night.

That’s what magic does. A lot of magic.

“Your hand—what happened?”

He shakes his head. “I… had to cast a verba circumvolēns .”

“On who?” Circling-word spells are complicated—and magically intensive, requiring strict boundaries on what and who a person can speak to. Still, they should not leave scars like that behind.

The lēgātum ignores her question. “Is Grayson ready?”

“Yes, he’s ready. When the spell is finished, he has a ride for us. That way.” The girl points north, to the forest border where her boyfriend waits.

“Good. You’ll need to be fast when this finishes—run like you’ve never run before, Jenna. And I will handle the cornīx .”

Yes, right. The reason the girl is here. She nods obediently, even as her throat is closing up while she settles on the edge of the granite pit. She has always been struck by the strangeness of this place. In a forest made of weird, somehow this rectangle in the ground is even weirder. And she has never been quite clear if it was made by natural geology or spirit dreams or something else entirely. It’s so perfectly carved into the earth.

She has also never been quite clear how a half human, half nightmare came to live in Hemlock Falls. Whoever they are, were they naturally born? Or were they somehow created?

Jenna slips inside the pit. Her feet crunch on decaying leaves, compressed and rotted by winter. They are a soft, damp carpet of a tree’s shed memories. That’s a good line for a song, she thinks. Maybe I’ll write it once Grayson and I reach California. That’s where her birth dad lives. He’s a composer like Jenna wants to be.

On the higher ground nearby, the lēgātum paces. Whatever just happened to him, it was bad. But they both know that the Incantamentum Purum Cor is so much worse.

“I’m going to get started,” she calls from inside the pit.

“Yes,” the man agrees. He flips up his burned, ruined hand. Then he vanishes, and half a breath later, static scuttles over Jenna.

She feels instant grief, instant shame. The lēgātum doesn’t do magic anymore—that was the requirement if he moved to Hemlock Falls. And throughout this entire year that he has been helping Jenna, he has never broken that promise.

Until tonight.

Focus, she tells herself. Then she opens her locket, the one she usually lets Grayson wear, and she inserts the expected message. Ready .

The locket frizzes.

She shoves it into her pocket.

It takes a while—much longer than she expects—for the cornīx to finally arrive. So Jenna watches the sky while she waits. She watches the Lyrids fall, a meteor shower that has been observed and recorded longer than any other in human time.

A flash of shadow. A gust of wings. Then a smell like hot rubber, and the Crow materializes in a burst of mist. She wears her mask, as always.

Once upon a time, Jenna saw that mask as aspirational. She could become powerful as a Diana. She could work with the nightmares instead of against them. All she had to do was keep learning. Keep absorbing power and building spells.

A lie. Just like the Luminaries. All of it eventually ends in violence.

“You are here early.” The Crow’s voice is modulated by her mask, and for once, she is not dressed in black armor, but a billowy, silvery gown that slithers around her like the forest mist.

“I’m sorry.” Jenna points to the sky. To Vega beaming bright. “I saw the stars, and I got worried about mixing up the time.”

The Crow’s mask tilts. The golden beak glisters. “Indeed.” Though her voice is made of only hisses and snarls, Jenna senses skepticism.

It makes her stomach flip. “Can…” Swallow . “Can I begin?”

“Not quite yet.” The Crow advances on the granite pit. Jenna cowers, although she hates herself for it. “I would remind you, Jenna, to consider who will suffer tonight if you do not do as you agreed.”

“I’m going to do as I agreed—”

The Crow cuts Jenna off with a wave. “Your sister is with that Wednesday girl right now, did you know that? And I have no qualms about eliminating both of them if I must. Do you understand?”

Oh yes, Jenna understands. She also understands Bryant won’t like this, since the Wednesday girl is his daughter. And she understands that this version of the Crow is the real one. Not the patient one who trained Jenna, but this threatening woman in rippling silver.

Jenna steps gingerly through detritus to the lip of the pit. Her feet are so cold. Her toes so numb. “I’m going to do as I agreed,” she repeats, pumping all the certainty she can into her words.

And the Crow nods. Her head is at least ten feet higher than Jenna’s, an obvious representation of her power. Of who between them will walk free and who between them is caged. In the dark sky behind her head, Lyrid meteorites shoot by.

“Good, Jenna Thursday. I am relieved to hear it.” The Crow raises an arm. “You all may come out now.” At these words, shapes melt into the clearing, undulating and solidifying as if hiding spells are shedding off of them.

Jenna’s breath catches. She counts six hounds, two more crows, and three sorts of witches she has heard of but never seen: three owls, two boars, and a lynx. Fifteen Dianas in total, all right here.

Suddenly her plan feels impossible. Suddenly, Jenna feels so, so tiny. So, so trapped. What was she thinking? Why did she ever believe she could outsmart a cornīx and break free from this mistake?

“Now, Jenna,” the Crow murmurs, her voice less whispery, less modulated. As if she has given up trying to hide who she is since this child before her will die imminently. “Now you can begin.”

Jenna swallows. She has always known she would have an audience, even if she thought it would be an audience of one. The notes of her song are writ on her muscles at this point, and as she steps to the center of the pit, her pulse decelerates. Her breaths steady. This is just one more open mic night. One more concert for a Thursday clan dinner. Her audience of witches are like standing stones. The only movement is the breeze, twining through gowns and suits and pajamas and armor. Whoever these witches are, they come from all corners of Hemlock Falls—and possibly far beyond.

Overhead, the Lyrids fall in sharp lines. Arrows shot from a bow-shaped moon.

Jenna takes up a wide-legged stance on the frosted leaves. Gripping her source in her left hand, she pretends it is her guitar. Here are the frets, here are the strings. With her right hand she strums air. It would feel ridiculous if not for the intensity with which everyone watches her. Even the sleeping spirit seems to hold its breath.

Jenna inhales, letting her diaphragm pull in air and her soft palate rise. Then she sings the slippery words that are so hard for her brain to latch onto—or for anyone else’s brain. Because the words are anathema to logic. Anathema to self-preservation. This will kill you, her instincts tell her. This is how you and many others will die.

Mist swells around her, looking like bark peeling from a birch tree. Her source grows warmer against her sliding, squeezing, guitar-playing fingers.

Distantly, she hears a whisper, which is her signal. This is what Bryant warned her of.

“When you hear the whispers—that’s when you change the first word, Jenna. All it takes is one syllable. Change it, and the spell will begin to unravel.”

“But they expect me to die. The corn ī x will see when I’m still alive at the end.”

“No, she won’t, Jenna. Because I will be there, and I will make sure she sees nothing at all.”

Jenna is to the main summons portion of the spell. The first requirement beyond her voice and her source, beyond the Lyrids and the granite. She knows what the words literally mean, but she doesn’t know what will happen when she says them. Nightmare father, gone and slain. Lantern mother, spirit’s bane. Son of forest, son of pain.

It is on the first line that she is going to change a syllable. Incubo is what she should say; what she will say instead is encuba. It should be so subtle none of these looming Dianas notice…

Except when the words arrive, when the spell’s magic rattles into her with its fiery force—as more mist spews and snakes around her—she doesn’t change the word at all. She can’t . Because suddenly she is not the only one singing. All the Dianas in the clearing have joined in the song, and the power of their words crushes out Jenna’s resistance. Her song is now their song, and it has taken on a mind of its own. Their whispers are speaking through her. Horrifying layers that entangle her voice.

Jenna says incubo because that is what the whispers say.

And so, Jenna summons the Pure Heart.

She watches as it happens—she sees with eyes that are impossible to blink as the message of her summons goes shooting into the forest. It looks like a small sparrow made of mist—and in its beak it is holding something. A wolf’s jawbone, she thinks, although she has no idea why she would know this. The misted sparrow flies so fast, and it’s not as if she has ever seen a wolf’s jawbone before.

The words continue pouring out, Latin and unchanged. No, no—this isn’t supposed to happen. But she can’t change her tongue and mouth. She can’t stop her song. The mist swirls around her. It is pure fire, scalding brighter than the forest’s own mist.

She will die here.

Of all the figures, the Crow stands closest. Her gown flips and flies around her as if she too is engulfed in this boiling mist. She is also the loudest, her beak rising, defiant and domineering.

Pure Heart. Trust the Pure Heart.

The spell was not supposed to get this far. Jenna was never supposed to reach these words. She was supposed to be running away by now. Bryant was supposed to have jumped in to help her. Where is he? Why isn’t he here?

I am going to die.

Grayson will wait for no one.

Erica will never, ever see me again.

It is in that moment that something finally shifts. A flashing light that Jenna recognizes even as most of her brain and body are consumed by this spell still spewing from her throat in Latin.

Pure Heart.

Trust the Pure Heart.

The lights flash brighter. A host of blue fire carried on tiny, flittering wings. It is the nest of will-o’-wisps, and in their center is a mass vaguely human that Jenna’s gaze simply will not fix onto. Bryant and his hiding spell.

The will-o’-wisps attack the witches.

And the Dianas finally stop singing. They stir, they scream, they scatter. Golden arrows flash, clashing against the will-o’-wisps’ fury.

The Crow, however, keeps singing—and so Jenna does too. She smells her hair burning and sees flickers of shadow fire leap off her skin. She hears—far, far away—a voice that sounds like Bryant’s. Jenna, he shouts. Release it. Stop the spell now. Do not say the final words—

Bryant’s voice strangles off as if he has been discovered, defeated, destroyed. His help, his support… It vanishes like nightmares in the mist.

Jenna’s mouth continues to shape each vowel, each consonant of the final Latin phrases. The promise that every spell makes. The nail to close out the coffin. “Sumus”— no, no, no— “ ū nus”— no, NO, NO —“in somn ō …”

A will-o’-wisp bursts from the spell’s mist before Jenna. Inches from her face, it is a beacon of blue fire and perfect light. A tiny skeleton wreathed in power and dreamed up by the sleeping spirit. So beautiful, so fragile. Its eyes—empty holes inside a bleached skull—stare at Jenna with a sentience she feels more than sees.

She has never been this close to a will-o’-wisp before.

She has never had one take her measure and assess what course it will choose next. Are you a danger to me? Do you deserve to die?

Most nights, the will-o’-wisps know Jenna Thursday is no danger to them. They ignore her, just as she ignores them. But tonight… Tonight she is a danger. An explosive, apocalyptic danger to herself and everything else inside this forest. Inside this world.

I don’t want to die, she thinks. I want to live.

Yes, the nightmare seems to say. But you know it’s too late for that.

It’s true. Even if Jenna doesn’t really understand where everything went wrong, even if all she wants to do is warn Grayson half a mile to the north—even if all she wants to do is hug her little sister one more time and say, I will always love you even if I can’t be there…

Well, this will have to be the way Jenna says it. This will have to be the way she shows how much she loves them all.

Not all nightmares deserve to die. Not all Luminaries or Dianas either. But sometimes, it’s the only way to fix a mistake made many years ago, when a much younger Jenna didn’t know what she was agreeing to.

No! she thinks she hears Bryant say. Though if he yells that at her or at the Crow or at the will-o’-wisp, Jenna will never know. Because she says the opposite.

“Yes,” she tells the will-o’-wisp, and it’s the first word in what feels like eons that is not Latin, that is not part of the Incantamentum Purum Cor. She has stopped the spell. It will not finish.

The will-o’-wisps attack Jenna. They feast. They kill. Blood, blood, so much blood to stain the granite and that soft, damp carpet of a tree’s shed memories.

Piece by piece, drop by drop, note by note, the will-o’-wisps consume a vibrant, singing spirit that once belonged to Jenna Thursday. She becomes one more ghost sucked into the forest. One more dream fed to the spirit’s night.

And one more body for Luminaries to clean up tomorrow.