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For the dreamers who rarely saw themselves in stories and on stages.
You belong in the spotlight. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Kallia.… The Star
Jack.… The Master
Demarco.… The Magician
Aaros.… The Assistant
Canary.… The Entertainer
Erasmus.… The Ringleader
Mayor Eilin.… The Judge
THE FAMILIES
The Alastors
The Fravardis
The Vierras
The Ranzas
Not all magic is good magic.
Few people can use it, even fewer are born to it. Since the closing of Zarose Gate, our world has toyed with the magic that poured into the air generations ago, turning the insignificant into the extraordinary. The human into the divine.
But even within the divine lies ugliness.
The disappearances of female magicians throughout the years is an ugliness that cannot be ignored, though others might try. Is this foul play by coincidence, or competition? The pattern is undeniable. The silence, deafening. In a world where men rule the stage of magic, it’s been a public secret that any woman who dares rarely makes it into the spotlight. It’s also an undeniable truth that the more others try to extinguish a flame, the greater its power must be. Why else destroy light if not envious of its radiance? Such speculation is not popular opinion, and thus, regarded as rumor. For in the world of magic, a woman’s place lies in the quiet shadows of labor magic, the encouraged path. The safer one.
Because the ones who dare most often disappear.
—Lottie de la Rosa, “The Disappearing Acts,” in issue #84 of The Soltair Source
Never come to Hellfire House without wearing a mask.
It was one of the rare rules in a joint without any. The only rule the master of the club did not mind following. He blended in with the sea of suits and white masks that arrived every other night, switching appearances from crowd to crowd. A bartender one moment, a dealer at the card tables the next.
Only his face remained the same, half-masked and haunting. Like a prince who relished the bloody crown on his head, and the ghosts that came with it. A face almost hardened by beauty, though glints of youth ran deep beneath soft black eyes. It always shocked new guests, to see him. The master of the House was rumored to be a dragon of a man. A monster. A magician who had no mercy for fools.
Only those who dared slur the word boy in his face understood how true those rumors were.
To the rest, he played the devil on all shoulders, leading patrons to his bar and game tables, guiding them toward his enchanted smoke lounge to drown in curated memories. The warmth of first love, the heady rush of triumph, the immense joy of dreams come true. The master kept a selection of sensations, and one hit of the pipes delivered magic the people came crawling to his house to taste.
They had no idea the show that was in store for them.
The master of the House sipped his short glass of scarlet whiskey in peace, tapping along the wide black strip over his brass knuckles. He’d long since manipulated his attire, sitting casually at a card table and savoring the mayhem. Raucous cheers erupted from the next table as dice rolled out across the surface. Smiling Hellfire girls in black blazers and masks of lace denied patrons begging for a dance. Loudest of all, the dealer’s crisp shuffling of the black cards with teeth-white numbers before she doled out hands to players at the table.
“No, no more,” one moaned. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can, chap.” A young man in a white thorn-edged mask cheerfully pressed him back in his seat. “We can’t leave. Haven’t even finished your drink yet.”
His drunken friend’s mouth puckered under another gulp. “Think it’s true, the drink? Magician’s Blood, the menu said.”
“Think you have power, now?” Thorn Mask laughed, leaning back to appraise the club. “Here, you take your magic where you can get it. You wear a mask. You flip a card, smoke a memory. Or you look up … at her.”
The master’s fingers tightened around his glass, just as the lights dimmed. Dancers cleared the floor under the hush of music, shifting from smooth, steady beats to a racing rhythm loud as thunderous applause.
Right on cue.
The band’s worth of instruments he’d charmed for the night started up a wild entry tune of drums, the thick trill of trumpets. Chatter ceased and backs straightened as a beam of light speared toward the ceiling. A panel slid open over the dance floor.
And the chandelier descended.
Strings of crystals dangled along tiered rims of rose gold, cutting sharply into a jewel-set swing where a masked showgirl sat. A throne of glittering jewels, casting luminous lace across the walls and the ground and the audience taking her in. Her brown skin glowed against her corset, red as her gem-studded mask. Arms stretched out, she crossed and extended her legs in smooth lines all the way down, until her heels touched the lacquered black dance floor. With the hint of a smile, she rose from her throne and stalked forward, thrusting a hand up with a snap.
Darkness engulfed the room.
Hoots and hollers rang at the drop of the beat, before a glimmer of her form reappeared in the shadows. The room pulsed at her command, matching the spike of heartbeats the master sensed throughout the club.
The smirk on his lips mirrored the girl’s as she arched her back to the raw stretch of the melody. She thrived under the attention, like a wildflower under the sun. A star finding the night.
His star.
“I’ll be damned.” The drunk at the card table breathed in awe, as the girl’s palms began brightening with a molten glow. “Nothing like an academy girl.”
“Worth the trip, right?” His friend clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“I didn’t know they could be magicians like … this.”
The master smothered a dark scoff under a sip of whiskey. The girl showed off good tricks—improvised and bettered from his basic crowd-pleasers. Treating the ceiling like a sky and showering comets from it, casting an elaborate shadow show of dancing shades over the floor, shifting every candlelight in the room to different colors to the beat of the music.
But always the performer, she preferred to be front and center. Teasing her power just enough to make the audience want more of her magic, more of her.
He wet his lips as flames shot from her hands, arcing over her head and around her body. The fire’s melody bent to her every movement, and she gave everything to it. If she wasn’t careful, she’d overexert herself like she did most nights, never knowing when to stop. How to pull back.
Careful never was her strongest suit.
Sparks fell before her, sizzling on the ground. Unafraid, she sauntered down her stage of flames with slow swaying hips and a firelit smile.
“Magicians like this are best kept a secret,” Thorn Mask went on. “And b
esides, the work is far too scandalous for a lady. Only clubs will take them.”
“What a shame. Imagine going up against the likes of her at the competition.”
The master paused, drawing his gaze back to his glass.
“Not this again. That flyer was a joke.” Thorn Mask slapped the table with a groaning laugh. “A prank.”
The drunk sloppily patted around his coat, pulling from his breast pocket a dirty, scrunched ball of paper. “It’s real. They’re all over the academies, in Deque and New Crown and—”
“A prank,” repeated Thorn Mask, unfolding the flyer anyway. “It has to be. No one’s been to that city in ages, it would never open itself to such games.”
“That makes it all the more interesting, don’t you think?” As another roar of cheers erupted around them, the friend sipped his drink smugly. “Imagine if she entered, the city might implode.”
“Right. As if that would ever happen.” Thorn Mask leered. “Competition would eat a creature like her alive.”
“Because she’s…?”
With an impish lift of his brow, the man in the thorny mask flicked the flyer off the table and returned to his forgotten spread of cards. “Let’s get on with the game, shall we?”
Before he could gesture at the dealer, the master suddenly appeared behind their chairs, snatching the young man’s wrist in a biting grip. The man yelped as the force knocked over his drink and sent a stream of hidden cards spilling out from his sleeves.
“What’s this?” The master bent toward the ground and picked up a couple, entirely too calm. “Cheating in my house?”
The man froze, recognition dawning at the brass knuckles alone. “Where did you— I-I mean,” he sputtered, patting frantically at his sleeve. “That’s impossible. Those aren’t mine, I swear.”
“Then where did they come from?”
Sweat dripped from his temple, his face paler than the white of his mask. “I emptied my pockets at the door. Honest.”
Honest. That was the best he could do? The master almost laughed.
“You want to know the price cheaters pay in my joint?” His question offered no mercy. Only deliverance, served on ice. “Memories.”
“No, please!” The man’s lip trembled. “I didn’t, I-I’ll do whatever you want!”
“This is what I want.” The master rose from the table with the jerk of his wrist. The cheat flew to the ground in a gasp as he gripped at the invisible chain-like weight around his neck. Sharp, staccato breaths followed the master as he dragged his prisoner toward the smoke dens.
The man screamed, but no one heard him. No one saw, no one cared. All eyes fell on the star of the show as she searched for a dance partner to join her. The drunken friend, noticing nothing amiss, raised his half-full glass of Magician’s Blood to his lips before waving his hand high like the others. The man thrashed harder, only to feel his cries smothered deeper in his throat. His form, invisible at the sweep of the master’s hand.
With a disdainful glance, the master chuckled. “You’re only making this more difficult for yourself. One memory won’t kill you.”
At once, the lights blinked around them and he paused. The air had grown still. Dim and hazy, as though locked in a dream.
He thought nothing of it until he caught the movements of the patrons—their arms raised and waving slowly, increment by increment. Their cheers dulled and stretched into low, gravelly roars, as if the sound were wading through heavier air. Against time itself.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The sound of her voice slithered around him, stopping the master in his tracks. The man quieted. Sweat soaked his pale face, his chest heaving. The showgirl stood in their path, every stare in the room still locked on the spotlit floor where she’d been. As though she’d never left.
Impressive.
Her red corset glinted as she cocked her hip and pointed at the man on the floor. “I choose him.”
She could never let things be easy.
“Kallia,” he growled, warning.
She smiled. “Jack.”
“Pick another. He’s a cheater.”
Her lips pursed into a dubious line. “Then let me teach him a lesson. He’ll no doubt prefer it more.” She swung a leg over the man’s prone form so she stood directly above him. Invitation dripped from the crook of her fingers. “The music calls, darling. Let’s have ourselves a grand time.”
The man’s terror turned swiftly into awe, and he looked at her as if ready to kiss the ground she walked on. As soon as he took her beckoning hand, the room resumed its lively rhythm—a song snapped back in full swing. The cheers and hollers returned to their normal speed, exploding in delight as patrons found their lovely entertainer in their midst, her chosen dance partner in tow.
She bypassed the master, pressing a casual hand on his chest to move him. It lingered, he noticed. Unafraid, unlike most. Their gazes locked for a moment, their masked faces inches apart.
No one ever dared to get this close. To him, to her.
Only each other.
At the next round of cheers and whistles, she pushed him away, smug as a cat. Tugging the man close behind her, she sent fires onto the ground that illuminated her path and warned others from trying to follow them to the stage. Never once looking back at the master, even as he watched on after her.
His fist tightened, full of the cards from his earlier trick. They disappeared into mist, having served their purpose. Along with the flyer he managed to grab.
He didn’t even bother giving it a read. It died in the fire caged by his palm. Tendrils of smoke rose between his brass knuckles, and when he opened his fingers, nothing but ash fell to the ground.
ACT I
ENTER THE MAGICIAN:
A PRINCESS WITH CLAWS WHO WISHES FOR WINGS
1
The nightmare had returned, in flashes thick as flesh.
It began with gray-white skies above. Fell to fingers digging into rocky damp soil. Kallia’s fingers. Her shallow breaths cut like glass as she crawled desperately back on her hands, away from something rising above her.
A monster.
Its looming shadow cast over her, coming for her.
No.
It rushed from her lips without sound, useless. Powerless. She reached within herself to summon fire and lightning and whatever unholy element she could to ward off the beast. But like always, she couldn’t. Her powers abandoned her.
The shadow easily pursued, until the dark consumed her.
Kallia jolted awake, clawing at her blankets. The fabric singed beneath her fingertips, still smoking. Blackened by the drag of nails.
Her maids never said anything when they discovered the scorched bed. She had long stopped trying to hide it, simply left for her greenhouse as they did away with the evidence. No questions asked. The one good thing about being left alone in the House.
Her nerves relaxed as she pushed past the creaky glass door into a room bursting with color. Sweet, humid air clung to her. The morning light gleamed overhead, through the murky teal glass carved into translucent scales casing the walls and ceiling. She winced at the brightness, wishing she could crawl back to sleep. On mornings after a club night, the ache in her bones and muscles was fierce, an exhaustion she welcomed like a badge of honor. Some days were worse than others, demanding rest and recovery, but she couldn’t go back to bed. Not when the creature in the dark waited.
In the brightness of the greenhouse, nightmares could not touch her.
Water trickled from her palm as she passed the plump orange roses with purple edges, speckled orchids standing tall as trees, deep blue moonflowers that glowed at night. Every time Kallia mastered a trick, Jack would present her with a small pouch of seeds. Potential, he’d called them. No hint of what each would grow to be, but they all earned a place in her proud collection once they bloomed.
The bushes of red roses big as heads for the first time she summoned fire.
A spread of peach tulip
buds small as fingertips for pulling melodies from instruments.
Golden sirenias with jade hearts for manipulating metal and wood like clay.
It calmed Kallia to walk down the crowded path of her greenhouse, the one place in the House that belonged to her alone. The sight of every vibrant, living flower proved she wasn’t powerless. That even dreams lied.
Sometimes it was enough.
The sun was still climbing the sky’s dusky walls when Kallia finished watering. She scaled the vine-wrapped side of the greenhouse, muscles shaking even harder when she perched on the black rusted edge. The wind washed the rest of the dream off her. It whispered through her hair and her nightgown, around her bare legs that dangled more than twenty feet in the air.
It felt good to be as far from the ground as possible. It gave her a perfect view of the thick spread of treetops, dark spires under the sun’s slow rise and the morning mist between. The Dire Woods went on for mile after mile in every direction, wrapping around a wall enclosure just beyond. Even from this distance, the imposing black gates of rectangular shapes jutted up clearly from the rimmed enclosure. A few vast silhouettes peeked from behind. Buildings like mountains that could’ve been manors. Proud, jutting towers like the tops of palaces. Every hint, merely puzzle pieces in the distance.
The city, Kallia knew, as Glorian.
She could’ve spent hours staring. The Dire Woods extended like a vast ocean between them, yet it was the closest city on Soltair to Hellfire House. The only one, it sometimes seemed, in their lonely half of the island. Jack had spoken of other cities in the far east, and a sea surrounding them. Kallia wished one day to see it for herself. But every time she’d mentioned Glorian, Jack’s easy smile faded. “Glorian is not the sort of place for people like you and me,” he’d said.
“And why not?” Kallia bristled at his lie. He thought he carried a good poker face, but the playful glint in his eyes had iced over.
Where Dreams Descend Page 1
