Sanguimancy

Rain hammered down outside, the water spitting against the window and poured in streams from the slate tiles one the roof, cascading down onto the no-doubt already flooded stones surrounding the Clock Tower. The glass panes of the windows struggled against the wind, rattling in place. A cold draught howled in from beneath the bedroom door, the chill sending a shiver down Merrin’s spine.

There was no chance Merrin would make it into town to meet the others in time. Even if he had the strength to fight against the howling winds on the coastal path, there was no guarantee that the passage was unscathed. More than likely he’d find the steps down to the main footpath disintegrated from the weather or blocked by debris.

He’d have to wait until the storm had cleared to brave the route.

It meant yet another day inside. Another day confined to the walls of the Clock tower. Zane was home today, a rare day off from the ever-so-generous Madame Rosevin—which had nothing to do with the fact that if Zane couldn’t get home, she would have to house him, feed him, keep him warm, until the storm eventually passed. But that didn’t mean he had an actual day free from work, he had specimens to study in the form of time-sensitive plants that Merrin had no clue even existed. Unfortunately, Merrin was barred from helping, so that was off the table.

The wet weather meant his paintings took even longer to dry than normal. On top of that, he hadn’t made it into the market since, well, everything that happened, so materials were scarce enough as it was. He had charcoal, an endless supply if he so wished. But he’d ran out of surfaces in which to use them on that wouldn’t just work to create a mess.

Merrin looked around his room, scanning each and every belonging he had that could possibly work to cure his boredom. There were still a few bits and pieces from the Manor that he hadn’t catalogued, but cataloguing was useless if he didn’t have anything to compare the unknown pieces to. His desk was a scattered mess of shit he hadn’t finished, and it was all suspended until he could get the right pieces to use.

There was only one thing that Merrin could think of. One thing sat buried beneath his coat that he’d hidden away from prying eyes.

Merrin hauled himself up out of bed, the worn wood cold against his bare feet. Each step sent an ache through his still bruised muscles. Just another reminder that he still hadn’t recovered, and he was even close to being so.

It wasn’t hard to find it on his desk, despite the mess, and Merrin began to un-bundle the coat, careful to avoid jostling what was within. It felt endless, layers of leather and fur and dried blood. In reality it was no more than three, but it was all just twists of scrunched fabric that knotted against each other. The dried blood has sealed sections, flakes of it falling to the ground as he peeled the leather apart.

He felt the shift before he saw it, the tingling against his fingers so unmistakable. The coat fell away, discarded into a heap on the floor, leaving the book in plain view.

Deep red leather encased the tan pages, edges painted a red-tinged brown, no dissimilar to the dried blood on his coat. There was no writing on the cover, nor anything on the spine to even suggest what contents were hidden within.

Merrin held the book in a vice-like grip the whole way back to his bed, settling to the floor in the corner so that he was hidden by the separator and shelves laden within everything he’d found even remotely interesting.

He traced the edges of the book with a fingertip, a sparkling warmth spreading down his finger before dissipating at his wrist. He hated the way his heart fluttered in his chest, the warmth like a drug hazing his mind. He’d felt it only once before, when he first found the book hidden away in the old decrepit chapel. It had scared him then, alone and separated from the others with no help in sight. But Zane was just upstairs, a floor above him with footsteps audible from where Merrin sat.

It was just a book. Probably.

Merrin opened it to the first page, nothing but blank paper staring back. He flipped to the next, and again, and again. Page after page of nothing, not even age-stains, on paper so thin it was translucent even in the low light of his room.

Flicking through the rest of it, Merrin checked to see if it was all the same. But page after page proved no difference, not even when he reached the back cover.

So why did he feel like that?

He thumbed through the pages over and over until a sharp pain sliced across the edge of his thumb, and he pulled back with a jerk. Holding his thumb up to the light, he could see the thin cut, barely deep enough to matter, but enough to see the beads of blood well up above it. The beading grew without coaxing, and soon a small droplet slid from the pad of his thumb, dripping off the digit until it splattered against the book below.

In a second, the paper absorbed it, any sign of the blood melting away into the pages without even a trace. Merrin’s heart stuttered, leaving him breathless as the edges of his vision grew dark, but he couldn’t focus on that, all he could see was the book. Veins of crimson crackled across the surface as scrawled letters appeared one by one.

Heavy handed writing spanned the page in an endless paragraph that Merrin couldn’t even begin to read. He turned back to the front page, only getting a glimpse of a circular symbol before it faded into nothing once more, taking the warmth from his veins with it.

Merrin tried to squeeze more blood from the cut, but it had already sealed itself shut, leaving him with nothing but a small white line where the skin had separated. He should have just waited until he could get to the library, try and find something that explained what he was seeing. But the storm remained relentless, and his patience was non-existent after so long cooped up inside.

Reaching over to the shelf, the book tumbling to the floor in his rush, Merrin grabbed the first sharp object he found. A dagger.

Once he’d sat back down, Merrin lay the book out flat in front of him, fingers toying with the dagger in his hands as he took just a second to consider what he was even doing. It didn’t change his mind, and Merrin pressed the dagger to his finger, watching the skin give beneath the blade’s tip. Sharp steel sliced with ease, and Merrin opened a cut just bigger than the paper cut, but not deep enough that it would leave a scar. As the blood began to pool to the surface, Merrin held his finger over the book, using his thumb to coax out more blood.

The drop fell to the page, taking just a moment longer than before to disappear. Plumes of red light swirled from the page, the writing reappearing across the surface in the same hurried scrawl that he couldn’t decipher.

He turned back to the front page, the symbol in full view. The circle around the outside was spiked with jagged lines, each one a different length. An inner circle swirled in an endless abyss of red and black, a hypnotic array that burned itself into Merrin’s brain. All of his weight melted away, a shifting mass in his chest the only thing he could even feel.

Warmth flooded his body as another drop of blood hit the paper, the dark haze returning to his vision until all he could see was red.

Red.

Red.