Through the twisted metal archway.
Over the cement pathway that ended in grass.
Past the groundskeeper’s shed on the left, the horse stables to the right.
Inside the House, she’d been restless. Stirred by the storm beating inside her skin, looking for a way out. Now that she’d found one, the storm took hold. Guiding her.
“Kallia, wait!”
Mari. Kallia paused long enough for her friend to catch up, out of breath and red-faced. “I’ve called your name dozens of times, what happened?”
There were no words, nothing but fragments. A hand closed over hers, slowing her but not enough to stop her. Kallia didn’t have the luxury of stopping.
“You look like you ran through hell.” Mari shook. “Wh-where are you going?”
The chilling sound of a chuckle finally burst from Kallia. “I’m going into the woods no one dares enter, to the city nobody speaks of.”
“What?” The girl stumbled with a shriek. “That’s not funny, Kallia.”
“I’m not joking, Mari. I can’t go back.”
Kallia had thought about the people who’d left the House over the years. Who had formed such holes in her heart. She could’ve gone with them. Should’ve. If she had known, if they had said good-bye, she would’ve begged them to take her along.
“Well, you can’t go out there,” Mari pleaded. “It’s dangerous.”
“I’ll manage. I know people on the other side.”
Her intuition teased at the possibility that her old tutor and dance teacher had made their way to Glorian. Unless they had the fortunes to pay their way to the eastern cities, which Kallia doubted, it was a natural next step after Hellfire House.
Kallia clung to that hope fiercer than anything, imagining their faces when she strolled into town. Sanja would berate her for forgoing a horse in these Woods to journey on foot. Mistress Verónn would be even more horrified, for the sake of her feet.
Mari hurried after her. “I meant the Dire Woods. You know it’s cursed.”
Kallia inhaled roughly. She’d heard the stories. People would enter the forest clearheaded and leave losing their minds. Guests of Hellfire House, especially. There were numerous accounts of those who wandered through the trees drunkenly, only to come running back sober as death. If they found their way out.
Maybe those were more lies Jack had planted. But even he rarely ventured into the Dire Woods, despite owning horses. Animals were far more attuned to the ever-changing rhythms of the Woods. Only customers who could afford travel by carriage would venture to the club because of it.
And yet, Kallia marched onward. “I don’t care.”
“You may be a magician, but not even you’re immune to the Woods or the travel.” Mari’s panting grew more labored. “Seriously, let’s go back. Please? I’ve never gone this close to the edge before.”
Fear clung tight in her voice, and Kallia nearly faltered over how well she knew it. Had bottled it, all these years. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come. With. Me.” In a sudden rush, Kallia grabbed both of her wrists. “Mari. There’s nothing more for us here. We could leave this place.” The idea instantly warmed her, to find her way through a world unknown with a friend. To not have to say good-bye.
Mari couldn’t have looked more slapped in the face. “Kallia, we have no supplies, no money. And we’d never survive that journey without a horse.”
Kallia gave a frustrated huff. Trying to gather supplies would give Jack every opportunity to stop her. She couldn’t risk it. “There’s no time.”
“Then I … I’m sorry, Kallia. I can’t leave. None of us can.”
In the stilted silence, Kallia felt her heart crack, and only she could hear it.
She dropped Mari’s wrists and stepped away, simmering. “People leave all the time, why can’t we?” she countered, blinking hard. “You know what? Fine. You can stay, but I won’t. I can’t. I—”
“Stop, Kallia.”
Just before the forest edge, Kallia whipped around, breath locked in her throat. Jack.
Except Jack wasn’t there.
And neither was Mari.
The wind howled in her ears. No way the girl could’ve run so fast back to the House. “Mari?” Her lips trembled. “Mari!”
“She’s gone.”
A hand brushed over her shoulder. Kallia’s heart became a cold, shivering thing. She shuddered away, and instantly buckled to the ground.
Jack stepped into being and stood in her path to the Dire Woods. Rising over her, as if he’d always been there.
“What did you do to her?” she whispered. “Jack, what did you do?”
“You always bring them too close to the forest,” he spoke, sadly. “Its power drowns out any magician’s. Kills even my most well-crafted illusions, so it can raise its own.”
Illusions. Her blood turned to ice. “Wh-what are you talking about?”
Where was Mari, she wished to ask, but feared the answer.
“You learn so fast.” Jack raked a hand through his hair. With the blinding gray sky behind him, he was only a shadow. An omen, looming. His step forward sent Kallia crawling back on her hands, her pulse crashing with a panic both foreign and familiar—
Her nightmare.
The realization seized in her chest. How many times had she dreamed of this, of backing away from some beast while clawing through the dirt? Unable to do anything more than scream?
No. Biting back a sob, Kallia forced herself up from the ground to run. So often her own mind had given warnings she couldn’t understand. For the reality was just as terrifying as the nightmare. The truth as poisonous as the lie.
“I’m sorry, firecrown.” Calm iced in his voice at her back. “This part of the game is not my favorite, either.”
The last thing Kallia heard was the snap of fingers as she fell back to the ground.
And the thrashing trees above her blurred everything to black.
4
“Miss Kallia?” A deep voice sounded as she came to, scattered and cloudy. “Miss Kallia, wake up…”
Kallia’s head rang, a bit sore. Little by little, her senses returned. The cold press of the dance floor at her back, the brightness of the day reflecting off the high walls of mirrors.
Warmth radiated from the three concerned faces above her, clearing in her vision. A redheaded girl in a loud blue dress to her right, Jack standing center, bearing a troubled expression, and an older, paunchy man to her left lightly pressing beneath her jaw.
Scowling, Kallia jolted back from his touch. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Checking your pulse,” he replied jovially, drawing back. “Seems there’s no need for that anymore, though.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” the girl exclaimed on a fluttering breath and kneeled closer. “Don’t do that again, Kalls. You had us worried sick. Even the doctor.”
“No, I kept telling you she’d be fine,” the older man rejoined with an eye roll. “Seamstresses. Have to add flair to everything.”
It took effort summoning the girl’s name. A seamstress. Somehow it escaped her. “Wh-what happened?”
“Oh, nothing too serious.” The doctor patted her arm. “You took a small spill, is all. Something about headstands, according to Miss Lucina.”
Lucina.
Kallia searched for the name in her mind, finding it familiar. Like the feel of a new pair of shoes she’d only begun to break in. Yes, Lucina. Her closest friend. It all clicked into place—the faint taste of floral tea on her tongue from the post-show breakfast they’d shared that morning, as they did every day. Cinnamon cakes drizzled with cherry honey, and laughter over the mess. Warmth filled Kallia, and she relaxed as Lucina began combing back strands of hair from her face.
“While you were rehearsing, I was in the corner sewing up the last touches to your costume for tonight, like usual,” Lucina went on, her voice as dramatic as her dress. “And all of a sudden, you had this gran
d idea to go vertical the wrong way, before it all came tumbling down. Literally.”
Jack rubbed a hand over his face. “Thank you for the fifth recounting of that story.”
“Well, somebody had to tell her.” The girl sat back on her heels, haughtily inspecting her nails over her lap. “Not as though she’d remember on her own.”
Remember.
Kallia’s eyes squinted as though she were still waking up. The throbbing at the back of her head lightened, but something was missing. A lot, from the gaps in her mind. The strange void in her heart.
A palm rested on her kneecap.
“How are you doing, firecrown?” Jack’s voice warmed her, an anchor reeling her back into place. “Can you remember anything?”
Remember.
“Why would you ask that?” Kallia snapped. Her brow crinkled at how the words had flown out like fire, a question that didn’t quite feel like hers.
“I mean—” Heat burned her cheeks at the tense quiet that fell. Get ahold of yourself. “You know what happened already.”
“Ah. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” The doctor rose with a wan smile. “Just be careful next time. You’re lucky you weren’t hurt worse.”
Kallia nodded, staring off into the room as their voices played a casual melody above her. The doctor’s clearance of health, Jack’s gruff worry regardless. Lucina’s endless interjections, more emphatic than necessary.
A peace swept over Kallia, the first calm she’d felt since waking, until she caught her eyes in the mirrored wall.
A web of jagged cracks flashed across her mind.
Just as suddenly, when she blinked, the surface remained flawlessly smooth. Unbroken.
Always think first before trusting your reflection.
Jack had taught her that.
When had he first said it?
The lesson floated to the surface of her thoughts like a small piece of the day freed from the blackness of the fall. It felt more true than what she saw, the group of people gathered around her in the scene playing against her reflection.
Some mirrors are like windows designed to be more convincing than others.
The lesson unfurled faster with a ringing pain, a fracture splitting wider, allowing more words in. Her memory, returning in little fragments. She grasped at them, names and faces blurred before, now clearing at the forefront.
Sanja. Mistress Verónn.
Mari.
A monstrous face, waiting in the dark.
“Kallia?”
She jerked her gaze back to the group, heart pounding. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Are you well enough to perform tonight?” Jack asked, walking over to her. He offered her his hands. “You don’t have to if you don’t want. You seem—”
“No, I’m fine. I…” She didn’t want to take his hand. Didn’t want to believe it, but in his face she knew so well, she saw a tenderness that didn’t belong. That waiting carefulness, as though he were placing the last cards on top of a house of them, willing them to stay in place.
He was a dealer of memories, after all.
Her vision wavered in violent thrums until the room pulsed around her, shrinking. The rage so familiar, like a memory itself. And betrayal, swallowing her from the inside.
Kallia looked down at her feet, the backs of her eyes smarting. She couldn’t let him see. Couldn’t let anything fall. For if she was the house of cards, she couldn’t let him knock everything down just to rebuild. All those delicate pieces around her needed to stay. She needed to stay.
The hot knot pulling in her throat cooled, her heart steeled over. Until she whittled that scream of pain inside into a harsh whisper. Do not let it out, do not let it out.
She composed her features, swallowing hard before taking his hands. The grooves of his brass knuckles pressed into her skin as she rose. “Of course I want to perform.”
“I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard.”
Kallia cocked her head, her teeth clenched beneath a pout. “Sweet of you to underestimate me.” Her nails bit slightly into his skin as she laced her fingers within his. She lifted their hands and gave an experimental spin. “See? I can dance just fine.”
Silently, Jack twisted her back to him. He slid his right hand through her hair, to the back of her head to gauge the pain. Kallia smothered her hiss at the slight soreness, and leaned into his touch. More ice than the fire she knew. She suppressed a shiver by moving her fingers up and down his right forearm.
Head tilted, he stared at them. “You’re sure?”
The earnestness in his voice almost fooled her. She would’ve preferred not to notice it at all. But still, it caught at her and latched. Tugged on the part of her looking for reasons to explain why, why he would ever do this to her.
Do not let it out, do not let it out.
Her smile was a mask; her voice, a spell. “I’m sure.”
* * *
She was back on the greenhouse roof, to Lucina’s dismay.
It had taken Jack a while to finally leave them, and Lucina was far too ready to start primping and preparing for the club tonight as if they’d done so hundreds of times together.
“Get down from there, Kalls, or you’ll fall. Again.” Lucina huffed from below, strutting and pacing like an overworked peacock. “A bath and makeup can only hide so much. Broken bones, they cannot.”
Kallia observed the girl, lingering on her sure movements. Waiting for the first hint of wrongness. She fit in too well with the House, perfect as a doll built to live within it. But bone deep, Kallia knew Lucina was a stranger—even if there was something familiar about her, vivid flashes and images, tastes and smells from a past so convincing. So real, as if she had been trapped in the House alongside Kallia for ages.
It hadn’t taken long for Kallia to play her part. She’d linked arms with the girl, nodded eagerly at every tease she gave about tonight’s attire. An act, well-played. Enough that when Lucina steered them toward the club, she found nothing amiss when Kallia took them outside.
“It’s a surprise,” Kallia promised. “For Jack. Don’t tell.”
Lucina grinned at being in on a secret. She acted as the lookout while Kallia had a quick word with the groundskeeper to saddle up a horse so Jack could take her riding late in the night.
“Oh, how sweet,” the seamstress gushed. “You two haven’t ridden together in ages.”
It unnerved Kallia how she knew. She must have a store of information about her and Jack, this newly crafted illusion with the same purpose as all the rest.
Her enthusiasm wavered, as she next guided them to the greenhouse for some fresh air.
Only when Kallia began to climb did the illusion hesitate.
She had to be quick. When she reached the top, her first moment alone since her supposed fall, she forced herself to keep going. Every emotion beating wildly inside her, she caged them all. She couldn’t lose herself, couldn’t cry, couldn’t stop even for a second.
Not if she wanted to get out of here.
Calling out cheerful reassurances, Kallia slid the roof tile out of place, fingers shaking. Everything of hers in the House could burn, but not this. The cloth, still dark-smudged and wrinkled and stitched with the flower. The only thing that felt real. Swiftly she pocketed it, before pausing at the crumpled flyer. But there was no need to keep it. Glorian rose in the distance like a beckoning hand, posing a question. Promising more.
Her name was called once more, with exasperation now.
Kallia left her collection laid across the roof, hoping the wind would take back the gifts it had given.
Hellfire House was filled to the brim.
Delirious laughter and smoke poured from the dens in sprawls of mist and spent memories. The lusty beat of the music drowned the whole club, ushering in hordes of masked guests, while dancers slinked around them in sparkling corsets and suits. Drinks poured from the slender necks of green glass bottles. Cards were shuffled and folded.
The maste
r of the House prowled his domain. He had not seen his star since the incident earlier. An easy enough cover-up for the mess he’d made. What had gone wrong with the illusion this time? She’d always been resistant to them, even more so now. And it troubled him, the direction she was always looking toward. The city she’d always been drawn to, in the way one looks for the shore after being at sea for too long.
From his usual table, glass in hand, he watched the spot where the chandelier would drop. Others around him kept shooting waiting glances skyward as well. She was a magnificent performer, and the evidence filled him with pride. But there was still so much to show her. To tell her.
Soon, he’d always say to himself, knowing what a lie that was.
If she found out, one thing after the other would unfold.
And ruin everything.
The master sipped at his short glass of emerald whiskey, ignoring the fluttering of cards and the gaggle of girls sauntering nearby. His stare lingered on the black sea of the ceiling, expecting the panels to open any second.
When he realized he’d started his second drink, his brow deepened.
The room’s energy was off. Usually, her performance revived the air, fallen stagnant at his instruments’ continuous melody.
Unease prickled through him. He clawed his armrests and rose to investigate, before the sudden start of drums halted him. The welcoming blare of trumpets followed, and finally, he relaxed.
Only a small delay.
Lowering back into his seat, he savored a slow sip of his drink. At the darkening of the lights, the entire crowd took a collective breath. The first hints of the chandelier tips gleamed, and as it descended, the cheers began to rise like a song before petering out into silence.
The master of the House stilled, fingers tight over his glass.
Nothing.
Just an empty, glittering chandelier.
The applause scattered and thinned to confused murmurs. Was this some other trick? Had the girl gone invisible? What sort of show loses its star?
Hidden among his guests, the master was grateful nobody approached him. Whatever expression hardened in his eyes could only be as icy as the sharp coiling in his gut.
Where Dreams Descend Page 4
