The memory came without warning, as it always did.
Evander stood in Gregor's study, listening to the old necromancer explain the contents of the book, and suddenly he was twelve years old again, kneeling in a cellar that smelled of earth and old death, trying not to cry.
"Concentrate," Gregor's voice said, but it was the Gregor of fifteen years ago, his glamour fresh and complete, his manner urgent with the need to train a broken child before the child broke completely. "Death energy responds to will, not emotion. If you let your feelings guide the magic, you'll lose control."
Young Evander stared at his hands, watching pale light flicker between his fingers. The power had emerged three days after his mother's execution, bursting from him during a nightmare that had set his bedding on fire with cold flames. Gregor had found him cowering in the corner of his hidden room, terrified of what he had become.
"I can't," the boy whispered. "I can't stop thinking about her."
"Then think about her deliberately. Channel the grief into purpose." Gregor knelt before him, skeletal hands concealed beneath warm gloves, glamoured face expressing compassion that was no less real for being artificial. "Your mother was a ghost speaker. She could commune with the dead, hear their voices, pass messages between the living and those who had passed. That's what the Church killed her for. Talking. Listening. Providing comfort to the bereaved."
"She wasn't hurting anyone."
"No. She wasn't. But the Church doesn't distinguish between those who speak to the dead and those who command them. To them, all death magic is the same corruption, the same threat to their authority." Gregor's voice hardened. "They're wrong. Death magic covers a whole range of abilities, from the gentlest communion to the darkest domination. Your mother occupied one end. I occupy another. And you, young Evander, have the potential to explore territories neither of us have ever touched."
The boy looked up, tears tracking down cheeks still smudged with ash. "You want me to become a necromancer. Like the stories. Like the monsters."
"I want you to survive. I want you to learn control before your power destroys you. And someday, when you're ready, I want you to help me ensure that what happened to your mother never happens to anyone else." Gregor rose, extending one gloved hand. "The choice is yours. I can return you to the surface, set you up with a family who will care for you, give you a normal life far from anything to do with death magic. Or you can stay here and learn what I have to teach."
Young Evander took the offered hand.
"Teach me," he said.
The memory faded, leaving Evander standing in the present, Gregor's voice still explaining the book's contents. The transition was seamless, his expression unchanged. Fifteen years of practice ensured that no one could tell when the past had claimed him.
"The Codex of Binding," Gregor was saying. "One of the original texts from before the sealing. It describes techniques for containing spiritual entities, trapping them in vessels that can be controlled by a sufficiently skilled practitioner."
"You want me to bind a Death God?"
"I want you to understand how the original sealing worked." Gregor set the book on the table between them. "The Lords of the Grave weren't defeated through combat or destroyed through superior power. They were contained through binding rituals that exploited their own nature against them. Death Gods are, at their core, creatures of compulsion. They cannot refuse certain commands if those commands are framed correctly."
Evander studied the book's cover, noting the subtle wrongness that radiated from its surface. The leather had probably been human once. The clasps were definitely bone. The whole thing vibrated with contained knowledge that pressed against his awareness like whispers at the edge of hearing.
"The sealing is failing," he said. "I felt it during the confrontation with the vessel. The barriers that hold the Lords are weakening."
"They've been weakening for centuries. The original binders knew their work wouldn't last forever. They built mechanisms for renewal, methods that could be employed by future generations to reinforce what they had created." Gregor tapped the book's cover. "Those methods are documented here. Along with the cost of employing them."
"There's always a cost."
"With death magic, the cost is usually death. The irony is not lost on those of us who practice the art." Gregor's glamoured face shifted into something like a smile. "The sealing requires anchors. Living practitioners who sacrifice their continued existence to become part of the barrier. The original anchors died three centuries ago. Their replacements lasted perhaps a century each. The most recent died seventy years before your birth, and no one has stepped forward to replace them."
"Because doing so means death."
"Because doing so means something worse than death. The anchors don't simply die. They become part of the seal itself, their consciousness trapped in eternal vigilance, their souls bound to a duty that never ends." Gregor's voice dropped. "I've spoken with one of them. Once, years ago, when I was young and foolish and thought I understood the full scope of what we faced. She was a woman named Vera, one of the founding anchors. Three hundred years of awareness without sleep, without rest, without any relief from the burden of holding back gods. She begged me to find a way to release her. I couldn't."
Evander filed this alongside everything else he knew about the forces he fought. The Death Gods were not merely powerful. They were patient and eternal, relentless in ways that made human persistence look like the attention span of mayflies.
"The vessel mentioned cultivation," he said. "She said my family had been marked for generations. That I was shaped before I was born."
"Your grandfather." Gregor's expression grew troubled. "Marcus Ashcroft. A ghost speaker like your mother, but more ambitious. He heard the whispers of the Lords and, unlike most who hear such things, he listened. Made small agreements. Accepted minor gifts. He thought he could use their power without being used in return."
"He was wrong."
"He was human. Humans always think they can control forces larger than themselves." Gregor moved to the window, looking out at the night-shrouded street. "Marcus died before you were born, his soul claimed by the entity he had bargained with. But the bargain itself continued, passing through blood to your mother, who refused it, and then to you."
"What does the bargain entail?"
"Service. The Lords of the Grave have many servants, most of them unaware of what they truly serve. Vessels like the one you encountered are rare. More common are the influenced, practitioners who have been touched by Death God power and whose actions subtly serve their masters' goals without conscious intention."
"Am I influenced?"
The question hung in the air, heavier than it should have been.
"You are marked," Gregor said carefully. "The attention of the Lords has fallen upon you, and that attention cannot simply be withdrawn. But influenced? No. Influence requires acceptance, and you have never accepted anything they offered."
"The power I used in the crypt. When the suppression wards failed. That wasn't my magic."
"No. It wasn't." Gregor turned from the window, his glamoured face grave. "What you accessed in that moment was something the Lords have been building in your bloodline for three generations. A reservoir of death energy, accumulated through the bargains your grandfather made, waiting for someone strong enough to tap it."
"I drew on power that came from them. Doesn't that make me their tool?"
"It makes you a battleground. The power is in you regardless of whether you use it. The question is whether you direct it, or whether you let it direct you." Gregor crossed to the table, placing one hand on the Codex of Binding. "That's what this book can teach you. Not just how to bind spirits, but how to bind aspects of yourself. How to contain the influence that has been woven into your blood without destroying the abilities that make you what you are."
Evander reached for the book, feeling the wrongness intensify as his fingers approached. The leather seemed to pulse beneath his touch, warm where it should have been cool, alive where it should have been dead.
"How long will the training take?"
"Weeks. Months. Perhaps longer." Gregor's voice carried the weight of consequence. "And during that time, you'll need to avoid drawing attention. No assassinations, no confrontations with the Inquisition, no dramatic exercises of power that might reveal your location to those hunting you."
"The Silent Watch."
"Among others. The vessel that escaped knows what you are, Evander. She'll have reported to her masters, and they'll be taking action. Every time you use death magic on a significant scale, you create ripples that those with the sight can detect."
"So I hide while my enemies hunt me."
"You prepare while your enemies underestimate you." Gregor's smile returned, carrying centuries of experience. "There's a difference. Hiding is passive. Preparation is active. You'll continue your work as a healer, continue building relationships with the people of the Warren, continue appearing to be nothing more than a skilled physician with minor magical talent."
"And meanwhile?"
"Meanwhile, you learn what this book has to teach. You develop techniques for containing your own power, masking your presence, becoming invisible to the forces that seek you." Gregor squeezed his shoulder with a gloved hand. "Your mother's death was not the end of your story, Evander. It was the beginning. Everything since then has been preparation for what comes next."
"Which is?"
"The war that's been building since before you were born. The one between those who would break the sealing and those who would preserve it." Gregor released him, moving toward the door that led to deeper chambers. "Come. The first lesson begins now. And I warn you, it will not be pleasant."
Evander followed his mentor into the darkness, the Codex of Binding heavy in his hands.
Behind him, in the shop's front room, a floorboard creaked.
Neither of them heard it. Neither of them saw the shadow watching from the corner, or the gleam of silver that marked the badge of the Silent Watch.
The hunt had found them.
