SIXTY-FOUR
"We were wrong," she said, the words tumbling out in a murmur as she held her wand at the ready. Her gaze snapped about edges of the magical boundary, cognizant of Antonin turning his head to scan the opposite side, as though inherently moving in counterbalance to her.
Impossible, unnatural cries and blood curdling noises filled the air—scraping and chittering and the bone-against-bone sound of gnashing teeth. Even with all she'd experienced since the day she'd learned she was a witch, Hermione Granger admitted to herself she was terrified right now.
But she was also vehemently angry. Not at the creatures nor the Book, not even the situation. At herself, for not fully understanding all this time.
"They didn't need me to find the Book—they've known where it was all along."
Antonin slipped his hand around her arm and turned her to face him. Those beautiful crimson eyes glittered dangerously in the darkness, his strength restored by her blood … and by the Book's acknowledgement of his uniqueness amongst the creatures swarming outside the ward.
"They know the only way we can break my curse—the only way we can use it at all—will be to tear down its protections," he said, her words prompting him to make the same realization.
A new sound rent the air, like crystal shattering against a tile floor, and they ripped their attention from each other to find the source.
The creatures outside, their bodies blurred for how frantically they moved, were hurling themselves against the ward. Their forms collided with the barrier and slid down, oozing across the surface like ink before coalescing back into shape and trying again.
"Can they actually break through like that?" Antonin asked, as disturbed as he was morbidly curious.
"I think …." Her brow furrowing as she tried to turn the situation over in her mind, to calculate amidst the terrible sounds all around them—and here she'd been worried that levitating a vampire's body down the road would've drawn undue attention. Thank the Lord they had an elder witch running interference for them back in the village. "I think having one like them inside the ward might make it possible."
"The Book had to loosen its defenses to permit me entry?" The upir reprimanded himself. This was all so bloody complicated.
"There's … there's no chance of doing any of this later; there's no time. It has to be tonight, now!" Though she was hardly thrilled with the idea of doing the same type of magic she'd witnessed in her dreamed vision with a horde of nocturnal entities watching, there didn't seem any other option. "The Book is buried at the base of that tree. You find it, I'll focus on constructing my own wards—plural—so when this one falls, we'll still be safe."
"No, no." Not waiting for her argument, he scooped her off the ground, closing the distance to the tree and its company of lost graves in a blink. Setting her on her feet again, he ignored her perturbed glare. "Cast your wards from here. If you're not quick enough, or they're stronger than we think, I might not reach you in time to help if we're separated like that."
Something screamed beyond the barrier, cutting through all the noise already crowding the air, and Hermione hated the way she shivered at the sound. The drekavac.
Marshalling her focus, she nodded and raised her wand, preparing to begin casting. "I understand. I'm ready."
Antonin waited until he felt the first brush of her magic against his senses before he turned, dropping down to claw inhumanly strong hands through the earth in search of the long-missing tome.
