Twenty-Three:
Tenebrae

It was raining on Bower Lake. Thick, silvery sheets falling upon Millfields without reprieve. Midnight had chimed and passed almost entirely without recognition; most of the residents asleep and unable to notice the glowing, golden-orange eyes occasionally moving between the trees outside. Jack hadn't actually meant to fall asleep. Once he'd calmed down from his earlier spook, he'd tried to help Tushaar with research. He supposed it was a mark of how well that was going if they'd both fallen asleep, sprawled amongst the books littering the sofa, legs half-tangled together. Only...now that he was awake, he wasn't sure what had woken him.

Everything was quiet, except for the patter of rain against the window panes. One glance at his pocket watch confirmed that the servants should have been in bed at this hour, so it was unlikely any of them had ventured up here. And the house guard didn't come up past the ground floor unless there was a party or trouble—besides, if it was one of the guard, things would have been a lot noisier. Both Judith and Evangeline's bedroom doors were still closed. A part of him wondered briefly if it was a thief, but, as far as anyone interested in Reaver's fortune knew, he was "busy and not currently accepting visitors"; in other words, in a foul mood and wishing not to be disturbed. That should have been enough to dissuade anyone with the intention of interfering with the house.

Could've been a dream, he thought, sitting up with a yawn. One of the books slid off his lap with a dull thud as he stretched and Tushaar cracked open one eye to glower at him. "Sorry."

He bent down to retrieve the book and set it aside. Perhaps he could sneak down into the kitchens for some tea and biscuits. Cook wouldn't be there to nag him at this time of night. And—

Something thrummed softly in the dim room.

Jack froze. As the sound repeated itself, he reached over and shook Tushaar awake. "D'you hear that?"

Tushaar slowly sat up, looking blearily around the room as he rubbed at his eyes. "Do I he—" Another thrum and he jolted up, wide awake. "The seal! Help me find the guild seal!"

Fumbling, they pushed aside books and papers with little regard for how much noise they were making. They couldn't seem to find it. Why didn't I keep it in my pocket? Stacks crashed to the ground in their frantic search; they only barely avoided smashing a pair of ink bottles with the help of Jack's quick reflexes. His hand brushed over something cold and pulsing and he snatched it up.

"Here! Here!" he gasped, shoving it into Tushaar's hands.

Tushaar activated it and, in tandem, they both anxiously called, "Hello?"

"Jack?" came a voice from the seal. It sounded...odd. Thick and somehow distorted, as if they were speaking quietly in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. "Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry. I-I—"

"Your Majesty?" he enquired, confused. "I can't—you sound odd. Is everything okay?"

"No. Please, I...I'm sorry. I tried. I thought I could help him, but he's gone. He's gone. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry, Jack."

It finally occurred to him that the reason she sounded so odd was that she was crying. His earlier feeling of unrest returned, curdling his gut and stealing his breath. He didn't know if he wanted to hear the answer, but he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Who's gone?"

As she spoke, he felt the seal slip from his fingers. The only thing keeping him from joining it, as well, was Tushaar's arms around his waist. A single thought echoed through his mind: no.

By the time she'd finished speaking with Jack, Victoria was more exhausted than before. The physical exertion and injuries she'd been exposed to within the barrow had taken a toll. Now, combined with the emotional stress of the night, she didn't think she could move from where she knelt. She didn't think her legs would support her. More so, she dreaded the thought of having to leave Reaver behind. And she would. If she got up, she would need to dig a grave or find another way to...to... She couldn't put it into words.

Exhausted, she could only sit there with her head on his chest, staring out into the darkened moors. Even her thoughts appeared to have deserted her.

The stars crawled by overhead. Distant and uncaring. She felt like she'd been here for hours, maybe millennia. The stillness seemed to absorb everything around her. Perhaps the night would swallow her, too, if only so she didn't have to face the morning.

To her left, she heard the creak of the caravan shifting before its door slowly opened. Soft footsteps whispering against the grass. A gentle hand pressed against her shoulder.

"Are you able to stand?" she heard Theresa enquire. When Victoria made no attempt to move or otherwise indicate she'd heard her, Theresa added, "He should be brought inside."

Victoria slowly raised her head. Her head felt like a balloon, barely held in place with a string. Her eyes were puffy and sore. It hurt to look up at her. "To what purpose?"

There didn't seem to be a point. The link would be gone come the morning, along with any chance of bringing him back. Bringing him along just seemed...inappropriate.

Theresa's expression revealed nothing of her thought process. She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and said once more, "He should be brought inside."

For a long moment, Victoria just sat there. Unwilling to move. Very slowly, she staggered to her feet. Her guild seal had been resting on her lap before and she barely managed to catch it and pin it onto her belt. There didn't seem to be a single part of her body that wasn't throbbing with pain, but she bent over and slowly manoeuvred Reaver into her arms. Her exhausted muscles throbbed in protest. With some minor assistance from Theresa, they managed to get him into the cart and laid him atop the cot.

"You should rest," Theresa said, once they'd finished. She didn't seem to notice Henrietta's annoyed clucks at their sudden intrusion.

"No, I—"

"Victoria, the world does not stop because we are in pain. Rest. It will be easier to reason with once you've regained your strength."

She waited for Theresa to leave, spare blanket in hand, before reluctantly beginning to strip down. She left her guild seal atop a small chest of drawers, kicked off her boots, and began unfastening the buckles that held her bits of armour and weaponry in place. Her clothes had dried oddly, clinging stiffly and scratchily to her body. She traded them for a clean set of trousers and a corset cover, absently noting their supply of clean clothes was getting low. She made a half-hearted attempt at putting the rest of her gear away before crawling into the cot and lying beside him.

Why did Theresa want you here? The thought came intrusively, utterly ignoring that her mind and body were already beginning to fade away from her.

"Hero?" Theresa called softly from the driver's seat of the caravan. "Did Stone tell you—?"

"Echo Hills," Victoria mumbled, struggling to keep conscious. "She said...the stone's in Echo Hills."

She was asleep within moments.

"We should do something!"

"There's nothing we can do."

"There has to be—"

"Jackson, listen to me! They are on the other side of the country! There is nothing we can do to help them."

Judith had been listening to their conversation ever since she'd been awoken by the sound of books falling over. She didn't think they knew she was awake. She almost wished she hadn't woken up—not knowing would have been better than this.

Jack hadn't taken news of Reaver's death well. She supposed it was to be expected. Reaver was one of Jack's last relatives, distant though they were. And Judith could still remember what it felt like to lose her family; the sudden realisation that there was no one out there to love you. No home to go to. She knew Jack had lost his parents, but loss was something that never seemed to get easier. Not that it endeared the others to her any more, but she had liked Reaver. Or...she'd appreciated that he was proof that someone could be born a Hero and could still choose to not be one. And that was all she really wanted in life now.

Still, she felt...bad. Unsettled. Partly because she didn't know what this would mean for the future, but mainly because Tushaar was wrong. There was something they could do. So maybe, ethically, bringing back the dead was frowned upon. But they could do it. The Queen had even told them how. And what was one death in the grand scheme of things? People died all the time—it wasn't as though Albion was safe with all the creatures lurking about.

What could you do about it, coward? a nasty voice in the back of her mind hissed. All you do is run away and hide.

She hesitated and pulled her red hair up into a bun. She didn't own any trousers, which would have helped greatly with easier movement, but it wasn't as though she could sneak out the window, anyway. Even if she successfully got out the window and climbed down the tower a full two stories to the roof, it was still a sheer four story drop to the ground from there. No, she'd be taking the stairs, thank you very much. But she had no idea what to take with her. Other than the little knife she used to open mail, she had no weapons. And she didn't think she could lift any of Jack's or Evangeline's. Not to mention she didn't know how to shoot; even if she found a pistol, it'd be wasted on her. She knew Tushaar had a chest from Samarkand that had something in it, but he was the last person she wanted to run into whilst sneaking about in their room. She supposed there were weapons elsewhere in the manse, but getting them without being caught and finding something she could use made everything infinitely more frustrating. She would need to make use of her other, loathed as they were, talents.

She waited at the door, listening until Jack and Tushaar had moved away. She heard the door to the main room close and carefully stepped out. The boys were gone—she suspected they were off to get tea or something stronger. Cradling her slippers to her chest, she crept after them. She knew the tower's stairs led into a servant's stair on the fourth floor and out onto the main hall on the third. However, she also knew there was a private, hidden, staircase leading to one of sitting rooms on the ground floor. She felt along the wall under the bottom of the stairs for the faint groove denoting the hidden door and slipped inside.

These stairs were pitch black and cramped; each step barely enough room for half the width of her foot to press onto. She clung to the wall as she traversed the descent and hoped she didn't fall. She stumbled out onto the tiny landing at the very end of the stair. Leaning against the "wall" before her, she tried to listen for any sounds of Jack or Tushaar's passage. She heard nothing.

Judith carefully opened the door and closed it behind her, leaving nothing but an innocent-looking bookcase behind her. The sitting room was dark but for the occasional slivers of light bisecting it from gaps in the drapes. Her feet sunk into the plush rugs as she crossed the room. She hated all the portraits lining the walls—it gave her the eerie feeling of being watched by hungry eyes. The boys were nowhere to be seen as she exited into the hall. The watched feeling followed her the entire way to the front door, as did the nagging thought that this was a bad idea. She didn't think she had much of a choice. Either she did this, or she spent the rest of her life regretting her own cowardice.

The lock at the top of the door was almost too high for her to reach; she had to jump about to unlock it before unlocking the main lock and pulling the heavy door open. Cold, damp air swept into the entrance hall. It was still raining. A lighter downpour than before, yes, but it still made no effort to stop. She slipped her shoes on and crossed over onto the top of the steps. This is it, she realized. Her last chance to turn back.

She took a deep breath and descended the stairs.

Two guards stood at the far end of the garden, the glow of their cigarettes gave them away as they huddled under their outpost in a futile attempt to avoid the rain. She knew two more stood at the front gate and at least one other was down by the docks. None of those ways would be a feasible exit from the estate for her. Besides, wandering the gardens in the dark was a slight hazard—winding plants, half-hidden statues, and that damnable fountain all gave her the horrible thought of tripping and falling right into the path of a guard. She wasn't willing to take that risk.

Instead, she slipped around the side of the house and into the woods. There were no walls or fences here, but the trees were so thick that they were hardly needed. She could barely walk for all the tree roots. But Judith tried to move as quietly as she could, not wanting to draw the attention of the house guard or Millfield's military guard as she crept onwards. She didn't want to be caught or sent back. Couldn't afford to be seen.

Judith was aware the only way she was going to pull this off was if she went somewhere where it was common for people to disappear and turn up dead. Somewhere like Silverpines. There were so many balverines there, a corpse wouldn't be looked sideways at. An "ah, poor sod; shouldn't've been walking alone" and that would be the end of that. She just needed to make sure no one would suspect it had been her. That no one would find out about it, if possible.

The dirt road leading into the Pines was deeply trenched by carriage wheels and horse hooves, but the rain had turned it into a muddy mess that seemed dangerously likely to cause a sprained ankle. She elected to walk in the trees instead. It was almost...calming. The first time she'd been alone outside since her parents' deaths. She didn't feel like a freak or something to be feared out here. Just at peace in the solitude of it all. She didn't even mind the lack of lamps to lead the way. What good did seeing things do when she knew there was always something waiting in the dark?

Something rustled softly overhead, sending a light drifting of leaves down from the treetops. Something else thudded from the next tree over. She paid neither of them any mind and kept walking. The wind seemed to howl through the trees and, far away, a wolf answered.

Inside, she was shaking but determined.

A balverine dropped down in front of her with an angry roar; it seemed perplexed when she didn't react other than to frown slightly. She didn't need to look up to know there were others in the trees above her. She pulled on her Will for the first time in years, gasping as it ripped painfully through her veins. Tiny flames blossomed within her palms. The other balverines dropped down around her, clearly deciding she was a threat. Judith tried not to laugh. A life for a life, right? Don't waste it.

As one of the balverines lunged for her throat, she unleashed her magic.

Victoria was fairly certain she was still sleeping. Something kept pulsing, annoyingly loud in the silence. On the other side of her closed eyelids, something was glowing. No...don't make me get up....

A clatter at the caravan door made her frown, snuggling deeper into the cot's warmth. She heard soft footsteps before—

"Is something the matter?" Theresa enquired, sounding as though she were speaking to someone.

"I...you're not Her Majesty," Jack replied, sounding distressed.

Victoria felt a tiny thrill of victory at understanding the ruckus had been her guild seal. Great. She could rest now. But the voices wouldn't shut up.

"No, I am not," Theresa replied, clearly amused. "Is there something I need inform her of?"

Jack hesitated. "I...well, I don't know. Tell her...tell her Judith's been missing a few hours; we can't find her anywhere and Tash's worried she did something reckless."

Judith's missing? As Theresa assured Jack that she would do so upon Victoria's awakening, she had the feeling that was something bad. Something she should be concerned about and possibly consider looking in to. But she was already half-asleep once more.

As she drifted off, she decided she must be dreaming already. For a moment, she thought she'd felt the steady beating of a heart within Reaver's chest.

AN: It's...uh...been a while. But we have a special occasion today. Today is this series's 10th birthday! Happy birthday, SA! It's been a long ride since those first words were written, and we have a long while yet to go. I look forward to taking the journey with all of you. 3 Thanks for the lovely decade; I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the series as much as I do.

Dev. Notes: Regarding the chapter title: in Catholicism, Tenebrae is a service held the three days before Easter and it involves the extinguishing of candles, almost like a funeral before the whole resurrection thing. In Latin, "tenebrae" means "darkness".