Chapter 1: The Summoning Ritual
The chalk lines pulsed. Violet light bled from the pentagram I had spent three hours drawing, each symbol perfect, each drop of my blood mixed into the pigment exactly as the grimoire demanded. My silver pigtails hung limp against my shoulders, sweat beading at my temples despite the chill in the room.
"By the threads that bind the unseen," I whispered, my voice cracking on the third word. "By the knots that hold the dead to their names. I call you forth from the spaces between. I give you form. I give you purpose. I give you will."
The pentagram flared. The air turned sharp with ozone, and every loose page in the room tried to fly at once. I squeezed my eyes shut, felt the magic tear through me like a hook through cloth, and when the light died, something breathed in the corner of my dorm room.
I opened my eyes.
He stood there. Tall, far taller than I'd imagined, with shoulders that seemed too broad for the cramped space. His skin was gray, aged leather stretched over a frame built from pieces that didn't quite match. The stitching was visible everywhere. Across his chest, down his arms, over his flat stomach, dark threads that glowed faintly purple like embers under ash. Ragged black hair sat uneven on his skull, as if someone had hacked it off with a knife.
I had built him from a drawing. From fragments of alchemical theory and a description hidden in a forbidden tome. I never expected him to be so real.
He blinked. His eyes were dark, almost black, and they fixed on me with a calm that made my stomach flip.
"You summoned me," he said. His voice was low, rough like gravel, but not hostile. Just stating a fact.
"I did." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. I cleared my throat. "I'm Graves. I found you in the library. The forbidden section. You were one of their failed experiments."
"I remember the dark. The waiting." He tilted his head, studying me. "Your magic gave me will. Your voice gave me purpose. What is the purpose you seek, Graves?"
My cheeks burned. In the books, I'd read about summoning for power, for knowledge, for conquest. I had spent months planning this moment. And now that he was here, bare chested and huge and looking at me with those patient dark eyes, all my carefully prepared speeches went out the window.
The thought I'd been suppressing since I read the passage about his construction surfaced again.
I let my gaze drop. Just for a second. Just to check.
The charcoal trousers he wore sat low on his hips, loose and simple, tied with a leather cord. And beneath the fabric, a bulge that made my breath catch. Not just big. Disproportionately, impossibly big, a thick ridge pressing against the cloth, visibly larger than my forearm.
"Graves," he said. "Your purpose."
I swallowed. My heart hammered against my ribs.
"I want to study you," I said. "I want to understand how you work. Everything about you." My voice dropped. "I want to see all of you."