The Conquering Dark: Crown by Clay Griffith, Susan Griffith Clay Griffith

as our own.”
    Simon spun the mare, trying to bring the restless horse under control. “Where is your Order now? Where are all the great magicians to help you?”
    â€œGone.” The corpse’s laugh was like dust from a tomb. “All of them cowards. Or dead. Gaios winnowed them in the years after Pendragon’s fall and drove others into hiding. He hated many, including your father, Miss Anstruther. If Sir Roland had cooperated with me, we might have exterminated Gaios, but your father refused my proffered hand.”
    Kate smiled with satisfaction.
    â€œYou Anstruthers never change,” the cadaver said. “Proud and ultimately pointless. How is dear Imogen? There is an example of Gaios’s handiwork that your father could have prevented.”
    â€œShut up!” Kate twisted her riding crop in her hands. “Don’t ever mention my sister’s name.”
    â€œDr. White abused her, broke her, mutilated her into an inhuman thing. The doctor was under Gaios’s command. Gaios has no respect for humanity.”
    Kate pressured her horse with her knee and faced him away from the groaning cadaver, back toward the way they had come.
    Simon said, “That’s odd talk coming from the mouth of a reanimated murderer.”
    â€œArcher, you know we are different. We’re magicians. We aren’t truly human. Most magicians choose to hide, but some, like Gaios, prey on the weak. And some, like us, protect the weak from such predators.”
    â€œLike us ?” Simon laughed.
    â€œWe may be allies of convenience,” the dead man said, “but we are allies nonetheless. We must band together or we will be obliterated separately.”
    â€œYou surely know that I have been banished from the aether. I have no power for you to exploit. Do you have a scheme to stop Gaios that doesn’t require magic?”
    â€œThere are ways to make you what you were, Archer. There are ways to reconnect to the aether. I have spent these last few months since our encounter with Ra, studying the possibilities. You see, when I was reanimating Rowan Barnes, I lost some of my powers when the filthy magic-eater touched him. However, I found a way back, and I can bring you along that same path too. Look closer at my condemnation.”
    Kate looked at Simon, confused. Then she heard the note pinned to the cadaver’s chest fluttering in the breeze. Housebreaker. Kate nudged her horse closer to the dead man as Simon’s hand slipped to his cane’s handle. She took the paper carefully, pulling out the heavy needle that fastened it to the shirt. She flipped the paper over and gasped.
    Simon rode closer because Kate sat in the saddle staring down with intense concentration. When he drew near, he could see the sheet wasn’t simple paper. It was vellum. It had once been a scroll and appeared quite old. The vellum was crowded with handwritten words in peculiar script.
    â€œMedieval?” he asked.
    â€œGerman. Probably ninth-century.” She nodded without looking up. “It’s blood magic.”
    The cadaver said, “It is called the Womb of Schattenwald. It will restore your magic, Archer. It is my gift to you.”
    â€œI don’t practice blood magic,” Simon replied icily.
    â€œI can instruct you.”
    â€œI mean I won’t do it.”
    â€œIt’s your only way. Without your powers, you stand no chance against Gaios. He will kill you and everyone and everything you love. Only blood has the power to open the road to the aether. You have been changed by some of the most powerful magic in history.”
    â€œSo a little blood will wipe away the magic of Ra? I find that hard to believe.”
    â€œA little blood? No.”
    Simon growled, “Do you truly believe I would lower myself to sacrifice some innocent just to regain my powers?”
    â€œNot some innocent.” The hanged man swung silently in his noose for a moment until