Chapter Five

When I get back home, Anastasia promised herself, I’m going to make sure the servants get a raise.

She scowled, thinking words her mother would reprove her for even knowing, let alone saying. Her owner – she refused to think of him as her master – had an endless series of gruesome tasks for her, each one more unpleasant than the last. He seemed to trust her a little more, after forcing her to get her hands dirty, but it wasn’t a good thing. She cut up corpses under his direction, removing internal organs and cleaning bones, then watched in disgust as he reanimated the bodies or skeletons while turning the blood and gore into potions surrounded with an aura that made her feel sick. The stench was even worse, a ghastly stink that pervaded the air and oozed into her clothes. He wouldn’t have to use magic to track her down, she thought numbly, as she did as she was told and bided her time. The stink seeping into her hair would be easy for him to follow.

It didn’t help, she noted, that Avitus appeared to be on the brink of insanity. He could speak perfectly normally one moment and drop into a strange digression the next, speaking absolute nonsense or speaking in tongues that chilled her to the bone. She couldn’t help wondering about just what toll his magic was taking on his sanity, on his willingness to think twice before breaking the rules with an enthusiasm that scared her more than she could say. She wished she’d spent more time developing her own magic, when she’d had the chance, or at least mastering skills that would give her the chance to get away before it was too late. Her home seemed more of a distant memory with every passing day.

“You will never be free, even if you buy yourself out,” Avitus informed her, one evening. “The magics you’ve used, now, will cling to you for the rest of your life.”

Anastasia shuddered. There were certain magics, she’d been told, that were banned on pain of death and dammination. She was morbidly certain that whatever Avitus was doing was definitely forbidden, for all sorts of reasons, and that nothing – not even a willingness to testify against him – would save her from the scaffold, if the civilised world found out what she’d done. She couldn’t even tell her captors who she was, or why she’d been forced to help him, or …

“You need to practice your magic,” he continued. His skeletal face broke into a crude smile. “You’ll need it.”

He was not a good teacher, Anastasia discovered over the next two days. She had no idea when and where he’d learn magic, or how long it had been since he’d undertaken his apprenticeship, but he didn’t know how to show her more than the basics and snap at her for not being able to do the simplest of spells. She followed his directions as best she could, moving her hands in the right patterns and trying to channel the power within her, but results were very limited. She could summon a tiny flame, yet casting anything bigger seemed beyond her. She couldn’t even channel magic into a wand, using it to activate an embedded spell. The effort tired her, constantly leaving her hovering on the brink of despair. If only she could teleport! Or fly! Or something, anything, that would get her back home, before it was too late. Circe could be doing anything to her parents, anything at all. The longer it took to get back safely, the longer she’d have to bed herself in.

So learn, she told herself, as she cast the spell again and again. You don’t have much time.

“Keep practicing, when you have a spare moment,” Avitus ordered. “And make sure you clean the workshop before I return.”

Anastasia watched him turn and leave the shop, making a rude gesture at his back as soon as the door was closed. The workshop was a slaughterhouse, the floor and tables covered in blood and gore … she tried not to look down at her tattered dress as she started to work, mopping up the pools of blood and placing the chunks of flesh and bone in a bucket for later disposal. She had no idea what Avitus did with them and she didn’t want to know. The death wizard wasn’t the kind of person to give the remains a decent burial. She feared the waste was merely taken to the water and dumped in the ocean.

Her skin crawled as she worked around the living corpse on the far table. Avitus had been tending to the body as if it were a device, cutting out some internal organs and replacing them with magical constructs or organs collected from unwilling donors. He’d also strapped the corpse down, as if he expected it to wake up and try to escape. It wasn’t impossible, Anastasia thought, as she wiped the table down. She’d seen him reanimate dead bodies and skeletons. Why not one more? He seemed determined to see if he could put together a living thing from spare body parts.

She gritted her teeth, then made her way to the bookshelves. Her skin crawled as she reached for the nearest tome, her instincts warning her not to touch it. She ignored them and took the book, her stomach churning as she realised the leather covers were made from human skin and the letters inside written in blood. She could feel something brushing against her fingertips as she carried the book to the nearest table and forced it open, wondering if she was crossing the line. Avitus hadn’t forbidden her to read the books – she wasn’t sure if he’d forgotten or he’d simply assumed she couldn’t read – but she didn’t want to be caught reading it. The castle’s matrons hadn’t hesitated to dismiss maids who seemed inclined to rise above their station …

And how many, Anastasia asked herself grimly, were framed by Circe?

The thought haunted her as she stared down at the first page. Some sections were written in OldScript, others in a pictographic language she didn’t recognise. Her tutors had said something about pre-empire languages being driven to near-extinction, known only to a handful of scholars, but she hadn’t been paying close attention. She kicked herself mentally – she could have mastered a basic translation spell, if she’d thought she’d needed it – and forced herself to read through the book, trying to parse out the words. It was clearly written for someone who already knew the basics. A regular magician would have had no trouble understanding the book. She had to grind her way through, never wholly certain she truly understood the words. It was a nightmare.

It was also evil. Cantrips and curses that could castrate a man, sterilise a woman, ensure a child would never grow up … they rested within the pages, next to charms and incants that seemed mundane, even harmless. Anastasia had known how dangerous magic could be, but this … her stomach churned as she read through a detailed set of instructions for making a reanimated corpse, the words accompanied by diagrams of a human body cut open in gruesome style and guidelines for spells to keep the corpse in mortal stasis. It was ghastly and …

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She forced herself to keep going, looking for something – anything – that might help her. Rites and rituals for boosting one’s magic, spells to turn oneself into a lich … even a necromancer. She feared she didn’t have enough magic to make that work, and even if she did … necromancers were the enemy of everyone. The free state might turn a blind eye to a death wizard, as well as pirates, slavers, and the gods alone knew what else, but they couldn’t ignore a necromancer. If she tried … she gritted her teeth. If she tried, she’d go mad. The price was too high.

Her heart sank as she scanned instructions for making a victim obedient, from planting suggestions or commands into their heads to turning them into mindless puppets, none seemingly close to the spells cast on her. Avitus didn’t have her under his command … did he? He didn’t need to bother. She was his prisoner, unable to leave the shop without his permission, and yet she wasn’t compelled to follow his commands. He might have decided she was no threat to him, or … he might want an apprentice. The more powerful compulsion spells, according to the book, had permanent effects on the victim’s mind, reducing their willpower and making them servile even after the spell was removed. The unknown author didn’t seem to think that was a bad thing.

She kept going … and stopped, dead, as she saw the next set of instructions. A sorcerer could create a talisman – a fetish – from a living victim, using their blood and a sample of their skin, then use it to influence them. Anastasia’s blood ran cold as she scanned the instructions, parsing them out bit by bit. If Avitus had created a fetish using her blood, he could keep her from leaving or simply reach out and touch her from halfway across the world. In hindsight, it should have been obvious. A magician so interested in the workings of the human body would have no qualms about using magic.

There’s a resonance between the fetish and my blood, she mused. If she was understanding the instructions properly, the fetish had to be hidden somewhere within the shop. It couldn’t be very big either, not if Avitus had to carry it when he escorted her outside. Unless the leash could be adjusted … she cursed under her breath as she read the instructions. If I can find it …

The outer door rattled. Avitus was home. Anastasia hastily returned the books to the shelves, then made a show of busying herself as her owner ordered dinner and then went to bed. Anastasia returned to her blankets and forced herself to think, wondering if she had the nerve to make a fetish of her own. There wasn’t enough time to search the shop from top to bottom and even if she did, she wasn’t sure she’d recognise the fetish when she saw it. The instructions had suggested it might be nothing more than a piece of bloodstained cloth, unnoticeable in the chamber of horrors surrounding her. She would need something that would resonate with the fetish, something she could use to track it down. It was a risk, but what choice did she have? She was trapped.

She put her plan into action the following afternoon, when Avitus took his walking corpses to the buyers. It was hard not to feel nervous as she found a piece of cloth and a tiny knife, washing both thoroughly in hot water before pricking her skin to release a drop of blood. Her tutors had made it very clear she had to be careful with her blood, cutting the bloodlink before someone could steal a sample and use it to curse her. Or worse. A nasty thought ran through her head – Circe had had ample time to take some of her blood – as the droplet fell onto the cloth. She muttered the spell under her breath, hoping and praying she had enough magic to make it work first time. It was going to be hard enough hiding the evidence. Avitus had to be far more sensitive to the surrounding magics than herself. He couldn’t have worked in the shop otherwise.

Another nasty thought ran through her mind. How long had it been? Circe could have transformed her into an object for years, perhaps decades, keeping the letter of her promise while breaking the spirit. There were all kinds of horror stories about people being turned into objects and left to rot, the spell only breaking hundreds of years later and decanting them into a world where their friends and families had died long ago. She had no idea what had happened from the moment Circe enchanted her to waking up to find herself in the shop, no idea how long it had been … a surge of anger ran through her, followed by helpless rage. She had a long way to go before she could match Circe, if she ever could. If Circe was still alive …

The cloth trembled against her fingers as the magic took shape. Anastasia picked it up and closed her eyes, feeling the magic ebbing and flowing around her. The newborn fetish was drawn to her – of course – but there was also another link, another her. She turned slowly, trying to feel out the link. The fetish couldn’t be that far away … she opened her eyes and walked across the floor, cursing under her breath. Her presence was almost overpowering, making it hard to sense the fetish’s location. Anyone else would have a far easier time of it. She felt cold as she let the magic lead her up the ladder, into the makeshift attic. It was Avitus’s bedroom.

She had to force herself to go onwards. Her parents had given her stern lectures on the dangers of being caught in someone’s bedroom, pointing out it could end very badly. She hadn’t even been in her mother’s private chambers, not since she’d been a child. She looked around, half-expecting another chamber of horrors, but instead the bedroom was a strange mixture of crude and cramped. The bed was cold and hard, the mattress thin and uncomfortable; there were great piles of junk leaning against the walls, from tiny little knickknacks to magical devices and tools. She had thought he was being cruel to give her nothing but a nest of blankets, yet … his bed was harder and colder than the blankets. Ice ran down her spine as she realised the bed was made of human bone, warped and twisted into a nightmarish structure she knew she couldn’t have tolerated for a moment. The bed was just … wrong. She had no idea how he slept all night.

Perhaps he doesn’t, she mused. Or perhaps he doesn’t care.

She turned slowly, holding out her makeshift fetish. It drew her towards a pile of junk … up close, she thought it was a collection of dead children until she realised they were dolls. Disturbingly realistic dolls … it was a fashion, in the most exulted circles, for young girls to be given dolls that resembled them. She shuddered as she picked up a doll that looked like a miniature child, her skin crawling as she eyed the blonde hair. It was hard to escape the impression it was human hair, perhaps taken from the owner. That was asking for trouble, but … she shook her head. She didn’t know how long she had to find the fetish before it was too late. If he caught her in his bedroom …

And that would end very badly, she thought. Avitus hadn’t precisely forbidden her from entering his bedroom, but she had no legitimate reason to be there. If he suspected the truth, she was screwed. What’ll he do to me?

Her lips twisted as she let the magic lead her on, to something buried under the pile of dolls. She pulled them away to see a tiny doll, surprisingly crude compared to the others, with a handful of gold and black threads woven through the wood. Her fingers skittered back as she touched it, unwilling to make contact … she took a cloth, used it to pick up the doll, and put the others back into place before carrying the fetish down the ladder. The magic twisted oddly as she put the doll in her pocket, a faint sense all was not well nagging at her mind. She had the strangest feeling the doll was looking at her.

Creepy, she thought. If the doll were to be destroyed … she turned to the fire, took the doll in her hand, and discovered she couldn’t complete the motion. Her body simply wouldn’t follow orders to destroy the doll. She ground her teeth in frustration, then returned the doll to her apron and headed for the door. If she was right about how the spell worked, she should be able to leave as long as she didn’t get too far from the fetish. If …

Anastasia felt her heart race as she stepped through the door, half-expecting to find herself turning and kneeling in helpless prostration. It had happened twice. Avitus hadn’t bothered to punish her, when he’d come home to find her trapped … somehow, that was worse than being slapped or hexed or any other punishment she could imagine. He didn’t see her as a person, merely a tool … she walked down the alleyway, well beyond the point she was normally yanked back to the shop … delight flashed through her as she realised she’d been right! She could leave, as long as she kept the doll with her. She had no idea what would happen if she lost it later on, but … for the moment, it didn’t matter. She had some freedom back!

She was tempted to keep going, to leave the store behind, but she needed a plan. It was galling to return, to put the fetish back where she’d found it … she forced herself to do it, as her mind worked to devise a plan. She could leave the shop now, without him, and that meant … she could walk around the free state, to try to figure out where she was and how to get home. And that meant …

Watch out, Circe, she thought. Being free was a huge confidence booster, even if she knew she still had a very long way to go. She had taken something from one of the books and made it work. I’ll be after you soon enough.