“Really? But you are quite familiar with magic. I mean, I was studying with humans and we both learned the basics but you know too much, I'd say.”
“I had time to learn.” Another dry response left his mouth.
After a couple of minutes of silence and snow creaking underfoot, they came out to a clearing in the middle of the woods.
Several small stones were rising above the ground dusted with frost. Violette's attention was immediately drawn to the crypt towering above the ground, looking like a small temple dedicated to some ancient God or Goddess. The stones beneath its shadow turned out to be graves with the names carved under the hoarfrost – they came to a graveyard.
The shrill bird cry broke the dead silence.
Chapter 8
IN THE MURK OF THE CRYPT
Crows.
Crows had never been a good sign in the human world, however they were highly respected by wizards. As a symbol of a wise, cold mind, royalty and rigor, it was an honor to have a crow sit at the top of your house and a great privilege to have them as an animal assistant. But for humans a crow was a sign of death and tragic ending. They believed these birds would come flying if someone was fated to die soon.
Violette remembered clearly her human neighbor was truly mad and frustrated when crows were choosing her house out of all the houses on the street. She didn't know why this woman was so convinced about the crows being such a menace to her but she had fought them for as long as Violette remembered. And it prompted her to think – what if she was alone because all of her friends and loved ones died?
Violette’s mind forced the image of her neighbour, standing with a long broom and trying to get rid of a crow from the rooftop of her house. The bird was very stubborn and didn't want to leave. That day the woman told her that all her life they've followed her around and it was never a good sign, as if they were haunting her. And despite how little Violette was, she started being very cautious about these particular birds, partly because she was seeing how much her neighbor had struggled with them. Perhaps it made sense that there's so many crows at graveyards – everyone there was already dead.
Theblack bird, sitting at the top of a cold gravestone, was staring at the guests with curiosity until Dante drove it away, continuing his way.
Violette looked at the crow once again as it landed on another stone.
“If you wanted to bring me to the cemetery to kill, it was actually kind of smart but I would politely reject,” she needled.
A sharp chuckle escaped Dante’s throat.
“I already told you, if I wanted you dead I'd have killed you much earlier. I had quite a few chances already. Remember the robber?”
“Oh, so you hired him. I suspected it, to be honest," she played along.
“And you got me again.” His brows twitched.
The huge old doors to the crypt had no handle, no lever, nothing that could be grabbed onto and unlocked – only ornate patterns in the center that resembled coiled vines with leaves.
Violette was studying the columns when Dante ran his hand over the pattern and they, as if alive, crawled to the sides, revealing a seal. She didn't have time to scrutinize it as he pressed his palm on them and the doors opened. The ensuing sound disturbed the centuries-old silence of this place, the sound similar to that of touching a stone that hadn't moved for an eternity. A light night breeze blew inside the crypt and a murky haze slowly began to creep into its depths. The ominous feelingcrawled under Violette’s skin, raising the hair at the back of her neck.
It didn’t look like someone had been here recently. Nevertheless, Dante moved forward without hesitation. Violette took out her wand, with a light shake it lit up, radiating a warm soft light.
They went down a long, cold corridor. Old pieces of cobwebs, covered in dust, hung from the ceiling. The smell of a hundred years of mustiness lashed the skin.
Violette's wand was illuminating the stone walls, leading the way deeper into the room. As soon as they entered the crypt itself, Dante lit a lantern and it glinted with a blue ethereal glow, plunging a room in state of night under the light of the moon.
Violette's gaze lingered on a stone coffin in the middle of the room, where there rested a person, apparently of no small importance. A table pressed to the wall sparkled with jewelry and boxes, covered in a thick layer of dust. On the other wall – an enormous portrait of a beautiful woman whose dark hair was crowned with gold.
“Who is buried here?” Violette brought her wand closer to the portrait to scrutinize.
“A person whose fault it is we are in this situation,” Dante said with an already familiar coldness.
Her eyes ripped off the portrait. “What has she done?”
“She made this mask,” he replied dryly.
“What did you doto her that she decided to curse you?”
“Me?” He abruptly stopped, his back visibly stiffened.
