A greenhouse. Abandoned, but well-loved once. Daron had one like it back home, in his library. So different, but just the sight reminded him of all the colors and life rampant in his greenhouse. Unlike here. Brown-dry pots littered the floor, with flowers and leaves shriveled and shrunken within their containers. The trees connected by vines around the room had whitened like bone. With each step, his shoes crunched upon dried petals scattered in his path.
His mind was already whirring when he heard the muffled crash of a door beyond.
“Judge, I’ve got a delivery!” Aaros shouted. “She’s loud, complex, a bit curvy—” A slap rang out, followed by a string of pained curses. “Obviously I mean the violin.”
Violin? Daron immediately retreated, securing the greenhouse doors behind him. Down the hall, Aaros occupied the entryway, dragging in oddly shaped cases. Kallia traipsed in with a few more, nodding to Daron.
Aaros blew out a whistle while taking in his surroundings. “So this is your new love nest?”
Kallia delivered another slap to the back of his head before Daron could even scowl. “Pretty, strong boys should be seen, not heard,” she hissed. “And be careful. Canary will murder me if these do not return to her safely.”
“Would she breathe fire in your face or go a more discreet route?”
“I’m not as fascinated as you are to find out.” Deadpan, she gestured firmly toward the common area.
“Bossy, boss.” Aaros was quick to understand, gathering up the cases. Not before shooting a look of pity at Daron. “I don’t envy you today. Or your poor feet.”
Grimacing, Daron turned to Kallia. “What’s this?”
“Aren’t you proud?” She called over her shoulder, lugging cases in the direction her assistant had gone. “Didn’t even have to use magic. Pick up the last, will you?”
The dread piled higher in Daron as he took the case by its handle. It could’ve been any old container, but its weight gave up the secret: a solid, wooden instrument.
“I said no dancing.”
“You never said I couldn’t.” She laughed from the other room. “Relax, Demarco. I just like having a bit of music playing in the background while I work. It’ll make this place feel a little less grim, don’t you think?”
Aaros unlatched the last of the cases. “Don’t be fooled.” He capped Daron on the shoulder, leaning in on a whisper. “At first, it’s a little mood music. Before you know it, she’ll have you flying across the floor with her.”
The idea could not have sounded more unappealing. “Don’t count on it.”
“Stop scaring him with your exaggerations.” Kallia continued gently positioning each instrument on the floor. “And leave while I’m still too blissfully distracted to wring your neck.”
“Love you, too, boss.” He winked at them on his way out. “Behave, children.”
The soft click of the doors closing set Daron on edge. Kallia had not budged, fixated on the array of instruments laid out before her. “You’ll be using them right now?”
“Don’t worry about magic. They’re charmed,” she answered readily. “Any beholder can play them, any magician can manipulate them. Cheaper that way, but they still hold a tune. Apparently these beauties can absorb each song that’s been played and play it back at the snap of—”
Daron snapped his fingers and jerked back as the instruments erupted in harsh, discordant howling.
“How dare you snap first!” Kallia shouted over the clamor bleeding into the air.
“Seriously?” He cringed sheepishly. “I wouldn’t exactly call this music.”
With an exasperated curse, she snapped her fingers twice.
The hellish chorus ceased.
“That’s because these instruments were born to different masters, passed down to all kinds of musicians. They sing their own songs first until slowly coming together,” she said, a little too defensively. “You know, it would be easier if I infused them with my memories.”
“Easier?” Memory magic was no simple feat, but she spoke of it as easily as brushing hair. And she thought he was a harsh mentor. Her teacher before must’ve been stricter than a war general in the field. “Memories take a lot of mind power. You sure you want to squander it for a few songs?”
He might as well have told her to never eat food again from how she balked. “I swear, it’ll be fine. In fact, I haven’t used it in days! Not to the extent I used to, anyway.”
That, Daron could believe. She moved differently, lighter on her feet. Sometimes she’d even twirl from one room to the next when she thought he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t deny he’d enjoyed the same lightness after he retired. Without magic, his mind had grown less clouded, the life in him less restless. His sleep deeper without the endless worry of what impossible things he could achieve next.
In all honesty, it hadn’t been too terrible of a life to ease into, having the world at your fingertips one second, and all too soon, nothing. The opposite proved far more difficult: the world shoved back in your hands without warning, the fear that it could happen at any moment. Power driving into him like a knife he couldn’t control.
Daron shoved the thought away. “Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands up in defense. “I trust you.”
Something strange flickered in Kallia’s grin. “Good,” she said, bending to the last heavy case, left unopened.
“The whole band you brought wasn’t enough?” Daron stared on in dread. “What’s that, costumes?”
Out of spite, Kallia snapped her fingers and let the awful music roll over his words. But when he snapped back, the instruments changed their sound. Snap after snap between the two, the harsh music flooding the Ranza Estate changed from discordant scratches to sounds slowly folding into one stream. Like a pack of wild wolves who’d been separated, finally realizing they’d walked together before. The melody mellowed, the instruments remembered.
As Daron prepared to snap again, Kallia effectively silenced them.
“But they were finally getting along!”
“They’ll survive.” Her lips bunched, holding in a laugh, as she popped open a trunk. “Don’t forget why we’re here, Demarco.”
Not costumes, to Daron’s chagrin. Nothing colorful or with any flair. He had to reach in for the slim handle of the feather-topped object to believe his eyes. “A duster?”
“You wanted this place cleaned up.” With the proud lift of her chin, she removed the rest of the supplies. “Struck a deal with the hotel maids to look the other way while I raided their closet.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Front-row seats to the next show. We have more admirers than we realized.” She snatched the duster right out of his hands. “Now, pick up a broom and a dustpan, and get to work.”
* * *
They cleaned without speaking in their respective corners of the room. The instruments had regained their collective rhythm, weaving songs softly in the background while they worked.
Kallia used the end of her duster to scrape out a thick gathering of cobwebs, while Demarco began lifting large pieces of overturned furniture, righting them. Sometime in between, he’d shed his coat, revealing a casual white shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms. His shirt had begun to plaster to his back with sweat when, perceptive as a hawk, he glanced behind with a scrunched brow. “What is it?”
Her pulse jumped. “You missed a spot.”
She returned back to dusting with a fury. It was the music pushing at her nerves. Not that it wasn’t beautiful and lively. But her soul preferred edgier rhythms, the kind of songs made of night that soaked into her body and escaped in the drumming of her fingers, the need to move.
To her surprise, Demarco was not as averse to it as he’d implied. She’d amused herself the whole way to the Ranza Estate thinking about how he’d react, but he treated it as a welcome addition. As long as it stayed background music. Nothing else.
Darting a glance at Demarco, she sent a whisper of a song that had been weighin
g in her mind, and speared the memory of it into the hearts of the instruments. The change was abrupt—the upbeat jumps of the violin slid into its new notes like a knife spearing smoothly, deeply, into flesh. Another violin harmonized, just as the guitar went from strumming to plucking a crisp, melodic undercurrent. The cutting edges to all the smooth lines.
Kallia didn’t even wait before she let her hair fall loose, unbuttoning her light jacket while kicking off her boots to her socks.
“Wh—” The shift in Demarco’s shoulders was instant. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” She tossed her belongings to a newly cleaned corner before spinning back around, letting the movement ripple from her leg to her hip. “You don’t have to turn away, Demarco. It’s not like I’m naked, I’m only going to—”
“I know what you’re doing.” Stubbornly, he kept his back to her. “And if you think I’m joining you, you’re out of your mind.”
“I’ll keep to myself,” she promised sweetly, arching her hands in the air, lifting her leg high. Warming up. It had been too long since she last felt she could move so freely.
She swayed over to the trunk of cleaning supplies for a broom. Its bristles slid into corners as she hummed the song behind her lips, lost in it. She imagined herself at the House, dancing until her body was on fire, leaving trails of sweat from her dripping hair behind her. She’d wipe the floors with the instruments still playing, preferring the show to go on even if it was all in her head.
It didn’t feel like that anymore, with Demarco’s eyes on her.
“You’re staring,” she said before kicking a bucket of water across the floor.
“You’re distracting,” he shot back, watching the soapy liquid spread. “You’ll slip if you’re not careful.”
“I’ve danced over worse.”
Barefooted over fiery sparks, heeled over sheens of ice. Dangling from the rim of a chandelier. No audience was ever content with seeing the same act for too long. They wanted constant excitement. A thrill wrapped in marvel and disaster.
“So you were a showgirl?”
Kallia hesitated. He should’ve known better than to ask such questions, but the charade of it seemed so trivial, all of a sudden. Their secrets, their rules. She didn’t want to play that game anymore. She hadn’t for a while.
“What, think it’s beneath you?” She slapped the mop over the water. “Everyone else does.”
It was a relief Demarco was not from these parts; there was no chance he would’ve frequented Hellfire House. Not that anyone from Glorian would’ve recognized her. Any patron who would’ve graced the club saw her as much a bird as Jack did. A small creature with no other tricks but to stay in her cage, and never fly away.
“When I was on the circuit, I crossed paths with many showgirls and stage performers and assistants,” Demarco said, after a long, solemn pause. “They’re some of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met. Even when so much of their work goes thankless and unrecognized.”
The way he watched her made Kallia want to turn away now. He could pin her in place with a word, a look. A laugh, a smile, even the raise of a brow. She didn’t like the way it came out of nowhere, the impact of even the littlest movements.
“I wish I could’ve seen you perform,” she confessed under her breath, rolling out the tension from her wrist. “I wish you’d never stopped.”
His shoulders tensed. “Why?”
She didn’t care if he turned her down, if it sounded silly. Perhaps by putting it out into the world, it could happen. “So we could really perform together one day.”
More and more, she’d begun to imagine it. Performing with him, seeing how their powers played together—if they clashed discordantly, or found harmony. Magic was so intimate, in that way. Kallia never felt more alive, more in tune with herself, than on stage performing. Or learning tricks with Jack. There was a closeness to it she hadn’t expected, an understanding. She would never forget that familiarity they shared, no matter how hard she tried.
All at once, the air turned cold. The music had fallen silent without Kallia’s influence, her focus on Demarco as he turned away. “That won’t happen.”
She bit the inside of her lip. “But why—”
“No questions. Please.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and tossed his rag to the ground. His posture rigid. Unyielding as rock, as if they’d landed back to her first audition. Strangers.
“You asked first, and I answered.” Unable to help herself, she reached out for his elbow. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you.”
Demarco moved out from under her hand, shaking his head. “This … this was a mistake.”
Her hand still hovered, outstretched at his retreating footsteps. “What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t be your mentor.”
He didn’t mean that. Every muscle in her drew tight as she stalked off after him. “What?”
He just kept walking away. Ignoring her. Without her heels, he didn’t hear her coming up behind him, or see her before she planted her back against the door, stopping him in his tracks. Their faces close, chests nearly touching. His eyes fell to her mouth, blinking with awareness before he shuffled back abruptly.
Kallia’s heart fluttered, her thoughts awry. “Forget what I said. I’m sorry.” She’d vow never to pry, to never ask him about performance life, if it wiped the resigned look off his face.
“I’m sorry, too, Kallia.”
She didn’t like the way he said her name. Like something close to an end. “Tell me, what did I do?” she demanded. “What can I do?”
“Move from the door, please.”
He was really going to leave. No explanation, nothing.
“Make me.” Her skin hummed, her muscles vibrating in a pull of strength that would keep the door shut. “Let’s settle this the old-fashioned way.”
“I’m not dueling you.” A grimness set within his jaw. He turned on his heel, marching back the other way for an exit. With the disrepair of the estate, he could probably crawl through a hole in the wall or the rickety windows if he was desperate enough to escape.
Kallia couldn’t tell if the sight enraged or annoyed her more. “You think it wouldn’t be a fair fight?”
“No,” he muttered, haunted. “Let’s not bring magic into this.”
“I think it’s about damn time we did.” She crooked a finger that sent a chair from the other room sailing at his feet.
Demarco went rigid. “Really?”
“You started it.”
“And you’re making it worse.” He sidestepped the chair, but it followed. Effectively keeping him in place. “I’m not going to play this game.”
“Seems like you’re the one playing games.” Kallia circled him, keeping her finger raised like a maestro orchestrating the screeches and scratches of the chair’s legs. “Tell me, what exactly did I do to make you so frantic to leave?”
Tell me, so I can fix it.
So I can get you to stay.
The thoughts clawed against her throat, but she shoved them away. She already looked desperate enough chasing after him. The last thing he needed was to see more of her frayed edges.
“You didn’t do anything.” Demarco exhaled. “It’s me. I thought I could do this, but it’s … I should’ve ended this long ago. It’s not right.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded, and still, he refused to look at her. Except for quick glances to see she was still there. Shocked to find she was.
That enflamed her. What reason did he have to doubt her? Every walk, she’d accompanied him. Every talk, she’d brought questions. Even this cleaning of the Ranza Estate was one she’d readily brought supplies to.
Kallia had been nothing if not committed to making it work so she could win.
So they could win.
“If you thought this was such a bad idea, why entertain it?” She wanted so badly to punch him in the back. Get him to turn around. “Why work with me, make me be
lieve I can win, only to run off for no bloody reason?”
“You can win. And you will,” he said. “But not with me.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to win this as much as I do. You’d be lying.”
“Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think, Kallia.”
Something snapped inside her. Whether it was his assumption, or his dismissal, everything in his tone, Kallia finally pushed back.
It was like hitting at a boulder, but his muscles practically jumped under his skin. “Did you just … push me?”
“I’d slap you if I could, but you won’t even look at me.” Her hand vibrated at the contact. Shaking, yet the trembling would not reach her voice. “I know you better than you think, and it’s all your fault.”
With the next push, her fingertips sparked with a small shock. Harmless, yet helpfully annoying as they met his back, exhibiting a grunt from him.
“Stop that!”
“Make me,” she seethed. “Tell me, what’s wrong?”
Like prey under the predator’s gaze, he didn’t move, stayed frustratingly quiet. Rather than push him like before, she raked her fingers down his back, sending a light current that jolted his spine straight.
“Kallia,” he growled through his teeth, not at all in pain. She was playing with him, and he was letting her.
“Ah. I know why you’re worried,” she mused, dancing her fingers by his neck. “And I don’t think it has anything to do with being an unfit teacher at all. Don’t be shy. It’s me, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Liar.” She traced a finger from one of his tense shoulders to the other. “Afraid I’ll overshadow you and your great reputation? Wouldn’t be the first magician who’d think so.”
He swallowed hard.
“Or do you fear me in a different way?” Her whisper went low. “An improper way? Afraid they all might see, or that I might even—”
Where Dreams Descend Page 29
