“How are you immune?” Aidan asked.
He tried to keep his voice steady, tried not to wince as Jeremiah slowly unwrapped the bandages from his arms. Slowly, because the dried blood peeled at his skin, ripped open scabs, and sent fresh streams of blood down his flesh. Made him wince and fight back the darkness. Even the unwrapping was another form of torture.
“By the grace of God,” Jeremiah said. “In His glorious light, not even shadows may seep.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible, when you have faith.”
Aidan knew he would get no further. Not when ideas of faith were involved. “But why?” he asked through gritted teeth. “Why did you take over the Guild? I thought we had a treaty. I thought we were on the same side!”
“We were never on the same side.” Jeremiah paused his unwrapping to stare Aidan down. “You made that abundantly clear when you kicked me and my followers from Glasgow. Do you have any idea how many we lost in those early days? How many fell to the darkness? No,” he continued, resuming his work, “we were never on the same side. You may have destroyed Calum, but you have no love for the living. None who use magic can truly value the world they desecrate. Liberation can only be gained by the erasure of your kind. All who use magic must be brought to the light.”
“That’s genocide.”
Jeremiah grunted. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Jeremiah didn’t give him a chance to question further. He placed a bare hand on Aidan’s arm, right over the brand, and squeezed. Blood trickled between the man’s fingers, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Magic will be banished from the land,” Jeremiah said through Aidan’s scream. “But first, you will find your way to the light. And you will do so by telling me how such darkness entered your heart. The Dark Lady stirs within you. I will know how she got there. I will know how her words became your own.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aidan managed, his words more gasps than anything.
“I think you do,” Jeremiah whispered. He reached into the folds of his cloak, and Aidan flinched back, expecting the worst.
What he hadn’t expected was the onyx shard Jeremiah pulled from his pocket. The same shard as he’d seen in the vision. The shard that Tomás and the Dark Lady both wanted him to find.
Aidan tried to keep his expression calm, stony. But he couldn’t keep his heart from racing with recognition. He hoped Jeremiah didn’t notice the slight increase in surging blood.
Jeremiah held the shard in the glittering firelight. Examining it. And examining Aidan’s reaction.
For his part, Aidan tried to look anywhere but the shard. This close, however, and the crystal felt like a whirlpool. It pulled at his senses and snaked through his thoughts, demanding attention. Demanding worship. He could no more pull back from its power than he could from the siren song of Fire.
Aidan’s eyes were glued to the crystal, to the serpentine coil of silver wrapped around its length and the sigils sketched into the surface, their sharp shapes inlaid with pewter.
Symbols that seethed with power.
And maybe it was his imagination, maybe it was a trick of the candles, but shadows seemed to ooze around the shard, drifting over Jeremiah’s palm like fog, twining to and from the crystal, as though it absorbed and expelled the light. Even the runes seemed to twitch and move, dancing in patterns he could almost understand. In those movements, Aidan heard a whisper. Faint and feminine. The same unearthly hiss as Fire. Consume, devour, destroy. Burn them. Burn them and be mine.
For some reason, that voice filled him with hope.
“Yes,” Jeremiah said, his words fogged. “It calls to you. You cannot deny its pull.”
Aidan blinked. Peeled his gaze away from the shard, which felt like tearing off another layer of skin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your lies are opaque as blood,” Jeremiah said. He turned the shard back and forth in the light, but he wasn’t looking at it—he didn’t stop searching Aidan’s eyes. “What does this speak to you? What does she speak?”
Aidan shook his head. He refused to look at the shard again. He’d already given too much away with his shitty poker face. “It’s a rock. What makes you think it would say anything?”
Jeremiah just smiled, pocketed the shard, and turned toward the table of torture instruments.
Aidan struggled against the bonds. He had to stall. Had to get Jeremiah to talk. To do anything. Anything other than continue the torture Aidan knew awaited him.
“Please—”
That was the only word Aidan could manage through the fear that choked his throat. Fear, and need.
If he could get the shard, he could get out of here. He was so close. So close. But the only thing in his future was pain.
Jeremiah didn’t acknowledge Aidan’s plea. The man’s bloody hand hovered over his tools, their silver dulled with Aidan’s caked blood. Jeremiah’s fingers waved slightly as he selected, and he actually hummed to himself, something that sounded less hymnal and more ’80s rock. Sweat dripped down Aidan’s skin despite the chill in the room. Jeremiah enjoyed this. He loved every minute of it. Even this was a part of the torture—the long, drawn out anticipation as Aidan awaited his fate. The knowledge that literally nothing Aidan could do would prevent another session.
“Hmm, yes,” Jeremiah mused. Aidan shrunk at the pleasure in his voice before even seeing the instrument. “Yes, I think this will do quite nicely.”
Jeremiah picked up an object, and the blood drained from Aidan’s limbs.
He struggled against the bonds as Jeremiah stepped over, holding the bloody cheese grater before him like an offering.
“I seem to remember you reacting quite favorably toward this one,” Jeremiah said. He knelt down before Aidan.
“No, please,” Aidan began, but Jeremiah shook his head.
“Begging will get you nowhere, my child. Only repentance. And you will only repent through answers.” He reached out and placed the cold, serrated metal against Aidan’s chest. Right above his nipple. Aidan’s breath burned his throat, quick as a rabbit.
Jeremiah looked positively delighted at the fear in Aidan’s dilated pupils.
“You will scream. But even that is music to our Lord and savior. That is the song of redemption.” He smiled. “When the screaming is over, your secrets will flow freely. We will learn why the Dark Lady seeks you, and through our work, we will free you from her clutches.
“So sing for me, my son, and let your sins burst free like blood.”