Page 61 of Salem’s Rise

Lucien’s gaze settles on my face.

“Jacqueline Mercer.”

“I acknowledge,” I say softly, because what else can I do?

Suddenly, a young man steps out of formation. I’ve seen him before in my Financial Accounting class, though I’ve never spoken to him.

“No,” he says. “I withdraw.”

Unease stirs through the chamber. The older woman beside him grabs his arm. “Thomas, don’t,” she cries, shaking him, but he doesn’t look at her.

Lucien closes the ledger with a quiet snap. “There is no withdrawal after the reading of the Invocation.”

“I didn’t understand,” the man—Thomas—says, his breath growing ragged. “My father said The Rites were ceremonial. No one said anything about death.”

An instant later, he cries out, dropping to one knee. At first, I think he has stumbled, but then I see the blood running down the front of his robe and the knife protruding from the side of his throat.

I never even saw anyone throw it.

Thomas claws at the handle, eyes widening in animal panic. Blood spills between his fingers and splatters on the ground. The woman beside him makes a broken sound but does not go to help him.

No one does.

My stomach turns violently as he collapses onto his side, legs kicking once against the stone before going still as the life fades from his eyes.

“The law has been acknowledged,” Lucien says, looking down at the body without any visible emotion. The room is silent as two masked attendants drag Thomas from the circle, leaving a dark streak of blood behind.

I am not sure why Silas wants me in The Rites, but I no longer feel grateful for his intervention. Maybe a short reprieve from death is mercy by Veil standards, but it feels like I only won myself a prolonged, possibly more painful execution in a competition where death is expected, withdrawal is impossible, and everyone knows the rules except for me.

I am most assuredly still going to die, just not immediately.

I am not sure which is worse.

Lucien lifts his ritual knife from the altar, its polished edge shining in the candlelight. The chamber bows as one, black robes whispering across stone, and the chanting from earlier begins again until it reaches a fever pitch. Then in one sharp, steady movement, he slices his palm open and lets the blood drip onto the book before slamming it shut. I feel his gaze settle on me once more.

“Let The Rites begin.”

November 5 (47 Days Until Dark Solstice)

Iwake before my alarm. For several seconds, I lie perfectly still beneath the old threadbare blanket in my dorm room, staring into the gray November light outside my windows.

The radiator clicks on. Rain taps softly against the glass. A normal morning in Salem’s Fall. Nothing appears different. And yet… everything has changed.

It has been five days since Veil Night.

Five days since I discovered that nearly everyone I trusted belongs to the secret society I’d spent months trying to uncover—a society responsible for my brother’s disappearance.

Five days since Rowan betrayed me, a room full of people debated whether to kill me, Silas prevented them from doing so, and Lucien Blackhollow entered my name into a competition where death is not merely possible but highly likely.

I still know little about what The Rites entail, though I’m not sure knowing more would help me. Charles Alden—Georgina’s father and apparently a senior “elder” in the Veil—had been appointed to chaperone me home after Veil Night because I had no recognized family representative at the ceremony.

I had to give the Veil credit. They might be ruthless killers, but they did have manners.

During the drive back to my dorm, Alden had explained the minimum their laws required me to know about The Rites. He had done it without softness, but not without integrity. There had been something judicial in the way he delivered each fact, as though fairness mattered. For all Georgina’s hostility, her parents seemed surprisingly decent.

I learned that the Veil was governed by whichever house prevailed in The Rites. For generations, that meant the Blackhollows. They were considered the strongest and the most capable of maintaining order among the families. Most recently, leadership of the Veil had passed from Lucien’s grandfather to his father, Ian Blackhollow, whose murder fractured the organization and nearly sparked an internal war.

A faction of the Hawthornes was responsible. Van’s parents. They believed Ian had grown weak and that the Veil required different leadership. During the subsequent power struggle, Lucien had ultimately taken his father’s place and has ruled as Veil Leader ever since. If the Blackhollows retain power after The Rites, Silas will presumably inherit that position.