When Night Breaks

by Janella Angeles

  All it took was one look to drown.

  And there were so many others drowning around them. Without Jack, she’d no doubt be among them, wading blissfully through the dark as though it were light.

  Kallia hated it. This was a different kind of dark, and walking with him in it made her a fool. But at least she was still walking. A fool, but a surviving one.

  “When will this end?” She seethed. They must’ve walked the length of a city five times over, and yet Jack continued looking out into the darkness ahead of them. As though waiting for something to rise from it. “You said this would end eventually.”

  “And it will. Eventually.”

  Kallia glared daggers into the back of his head before down at her feet.

  It didn’t escape her, the way he walked too calmly. With every step came a potential trap, and she couldn’t begin to comprehend how his gait remained so unbothered. “They’re not following you,” she observed. “Why?”

  “Who?”

  “The horde of flying snakes behind us.” He was just being insufferable now. “The illusions, or magician traps—whatever you called them. If they’re all around us, why aren’t they pulling at you?”

  “Who says they’re not?” Jack countered. “I know this world better than you, and it loves to prey on new souls.”

  This world. That phrase still bit at her like an unhealed scar. “What is this world, exactly?”

  Predictably, he laughed. “You mean you actually want to talk to me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said in a droll tone. “Everything is a lie with you, but I’m curious to hear what stories you’re going to spin for me now.”

  “What’s the point if you won’t believe me?”

  “Why should that bother you?”

  The chill returned in the air between them. A tense second of silence.

  “It wasn’t all lies, Kallia.”

  Her muscles went rigid as she looked down at her feet, focusing on her steps. “It certainly wasn’t all truth, either. But you knew that.”

  There was so much Kallia wanted to know, so many questions. And with Jack, she’d have to choose them carefully. Like her, he would never answer anything that revealed too much of himself or give another too much of an upper hand. The rest did not matter if she could confirm one thing for certain.

  It’s not gone forever.

  It was not the first time he’d said so, and the possibility of it being a lie terrified her. If she ever hoped to somehow get out of here, she’d need her power. All of it, if she ever hoped to make it past Jack.

  “I did tell you before, mirrors are like windows. Like coins and cards, there are two sides. The world we see—where life is true and fleeting and mortal,” Jack said before raising a hand around them. “And the one we don’t. The other side, beneath the surface. A world below.”

  “A world below.” Every piece of his answer chilled her. “And what’s the difference?”

  A hesitant pause carried into his next breath. “Power.”

  It’s not gone forever.

  Kallia squeezed her fist tight, no magic behind the warmth clenched under her fingers at all. Just anger. And the slightest, most foolish bit of hope.

  “And how does one go about hiding an entire world?” Kallia mused. “Strange to have never heard about any of this until now. First devils, now this? I’m surprised Patrons haven’t fallen from the sky from the lunacy of it all.”

  “Your magicians in white gloves have only just touched the surface of magic.” An amused smile tilted his lips. “Though it’s really not hard to figure out what’s always been in front of you.” He sent her a sideways glance. “When Zarose closed that gate, what do you think was on the other side?”

  Kallia’s brow crinkled in earnest. Zarose Gate. It had its place on the map, yet always felt like a legend at the core. Every time she’d stare at the map of Soltair in her past studies, that point of reference was all she’d known of Zarose Gate, aside from stories. “That’s all the way on the eastern part of Soltair.”

  At that, Jack drawled out a laugh. “Some Patrons claiming a pile of rocks on a map as the legend is only believable if the people buy it. Doesn’t make it the truth.”

  “And why would they lie about it?” Kallia had never crossed paths with the Patrons herself, but she’d always understood them to be the peace and order of magicians. Demarco had hardly ever spoken of his aunt, but there was a distinct respect in his voice whenever he did. Those who wore the white gloves could not afford to get their hands dirty.

  As if hearing her every thought, Jack paused just to throw her an incredulous look. “Apologies if this may come as a shock to you, but I’m not the only liar in this world. Everyone lies. Sometimes they have to, sometimes they want to. But good or bad, we all lie—especially when it comes to power.”

  Jack walked on before she could pick at his words, but even she was not so naive as to deny them. She’d told her own share of lies, never one so large as this. Another side worth hiding. A world below.

  Once upon a time, a magician fell into a world below …

  It all snapped into place, Erasmus’s voice spinning the start of the story. A tale that began long ago, one that built the world she knew and the magicians that inhabited it. A world brimming with so much power, it would’ve consumed everything, had Zarose not shut its jaws.

  It’s not gone forever.

  “You said my magic would come back.” There was no sneaking around it anymore. She needed to know once and for all.

  Jack paused, waiting for her. “It’s not gone.”

  “Well it’s not entirely there, either.” No matter how much steel she forged into her voice, it always bent. “How?”

  It couldn’t be a question of if. In a world like this, she needed everything if she stood even the slightest chance of leaving it.

  “I can’t say for sure, it’s never happened to me. I’ve always been powerful.”

  “Lucky for you.” She growled.

  “No, what I mean is…” Jack trailed off, looking off into the distance as if his eye had just caught something. “Magic is not the same on every side. It might take a magician time to acclimate, or it could take just one step in and it’s there.”

  “One step where?” Kallia set her gaze out, following his line of vision. Expecting darkness.

  Instead, she found the moon, a murky distant light in the ceiling above. The soft glow of the trees and plants of all shapes and sizes around her was brighter, filling out the vast room cased in old glass.

  Warm night air washed over her, sweet and familiar with wild, sprawling growth all around.

  Should I have gotten you something bigger than a greenhouse?

  Kallia blinked, surprised at how her eyes stung with warmth. How a place could make her want to stop, just to remember. To wait for Demarco to arrive and complete the picture.

  Her pulse quickened at the sound of footsteps.

  “This isn’t your greenhouse.” Curiously, Jack walked through, every plant and pot dissolving in his path. The deeper he stepped into the scene, the more it disappeared.

  Kallia swallowed hard as she wrenched her gaze away. The desperation to stay gripped her hard, but she fought that false promise. It wasn’t real, none of this was.

  Not real.

  She was only convinced when Jack shook her out of it. The greenhouse, gone. The illusion, vanished. Once more, they were standing in the dark. The loss, as overwhelming as a death that she had to shut her eyes for a moment before firmly fixing her stare back to the ground, hoping for the end as she walked past him.

  Only Jack didn’t move to follow her. Hadn’t moved at all.

  Perhaps he wasn’t so impervious to the traps after all. Panic spiked in Kallia as she uttered his name, especially when his shoulders hiked up. “It’s here.”

  Lights played across his face, forcing Kallia to spin around.

  Her breath caught hard in her throat at the sparkling lights that nearly
blinded her.

  A mirage. It had to be. Like some grand trick, where there was only barren wasteland ahead was suddenly blocked by glowing gates, wrought-iron and bent into all manner of rectangular shapes.

  Cards.

  She drew back at the familiar sight. Her pulse quickened once more. It couldn’t be.

  Those gates. Her vision narrowed on them. They glinted and glowed, but it was less like a dream. More a nightmare.

  And Jack didn’t even try waking her from it.

  “These…” Kallia took in all that she could of the wall, of the entrance. “These are the gates to Glorian.”

  Jack’s reaction to the arrival was stoic, as if staring into the face of an old friend. Or an enemy. “Not the Glorian you know.”

  5

  Daron had been escorted out before in the past. From parties or clubs where brawls broke out when the drink poured too freely and guests grew too rowdy. The ever-sober corner of his brain knew never to fight the hands of guards dragging him out if he partly deserved it.

  From the hospital to his hotel room, Daron struggled against the Patrons every step of the way.

  The fog of rage had blackened out most of it. He only knew from the harsh bruising grips on his arms still steadying him, his heart racing from thrashing in their hold. One moment he was being pulled away from his aunt in the hospital, and the next, he was shoved toward the door to his hotel room.

  “You need to calm down, Demarco,” muttered a stern-faced Patron. “Get some rest.”

  That only enraged Daron more. “I don’t follow your orders,” he seethed. “What the hell is going on here? I need to talk to my—”

  “There’s a lot of ground to cover, so you’ll most likely be able to reach her by the day’s end,” the other Patron supplied, setting back her shoulders. “Until then, it might be in your best interest to stay put.”

  Stay put.

  He’d done nothing wrong, other than let a lead slip right through his fingers.

  Look for the gate, and you’ll find her.

  How could Aunt Cata have silenced the mayor like that? The way she’d done so, without any hesitation at all, sat so uneasily inside him. It was never the way of the Patrons to enforce magic upon another without magic. Especially one who posed no threat.

  He’d been so close. To something, anything.

  The Patrons weren’t leaving until he marched right into his room, so he slammed the door in their faces, immediately pressing his ear to the surface for a few beats but the doorknob was already stiff when he tried twisting it.

  They’d locked him in.

  Daron gave one last kick to the door before thinking through all his options. The last thing he wanted to use was magic, if there was any left in him. He could scream until other hotel guests were disturbed enough to get him out, climb out the window and scale the ledge because surely—

  “Zarose, are we bloody stuck here now, too?”

  Daron whirled around, slamming back-first into the door at the sight of two intruders casually in his common room area—Aaros splayed across the couch, Lottie perched comfortably on the arm of it as she read through her notebook. Both settled as though they’d been waiting for a while.

  “Why…” Daron could hardly string a coherent thought. “How did you get in here?”

  Aaros raised a hand. “Thief.”

  Lottie closed her notebook and arched her brow at Daron. “You look like hell,” she said. “We got a quick tip that something happened at the hospital. Though it looks more like you came back from a wrestling pen.”

  “You got a tip?” Daron deadpanned. “You have informants slinking around the city now?”

  “Even I’m not that nefarious.” She shook her head as if offended by the idea. “Let’s just say the circus is always watching. And they seemed worried.”

  Canary. She’d been at the hospital, but surely couldn’t have relayed the information so quickly. The mere idea of her worrying over anything concerning Daron, enough to inform Lottie and Aaros, was laughable. “And what did these ears hear, exactly?”

  “You tell us.” She glimpsed past his shoulder, down to the door, which was most likely still as locked as when he’d kicked it. “Given that we’re all stuck with you.”

  Reluctant at first, he paced about the room to unclench every muscle in him before the words all came back to him. And the line that haunted him, still.

  Look for the gate, and you’ll finally find her.

  He’d been so close. If it were anyone else, they might’ve thought it pure nonsense. But to Daron, those words were light, even if the whole picture was not yet complete. The man had even claimed to have drawn him a map, for Zarose sake, and Daron hadn’t even been able to secure solid evidence of that. By now, everything surrounding the mayor’s hospital bed was no doubt in the possession of the Patrons. Just like all of Glorian.

  “Mayor Eilin … who would’ve thought?” Aaros blew out a low whistle, a confused laugh rolling out after. “I knew the man was traditionally backward, but this sounds like he’s going a whole other direction entirely.”

  “Don’t knock it just yet. We’re either dealing with madness or truth.” Lottie tapped her pen against her mouth,. “There’s a fine line between both.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re actually entertaining this?” Aaros tipped his head toward the window with a groan. “There are so many other pressing issues. We’ve got Patrons running around everywhere now, and if we don’t get them out of the way, they’ll stomp all over the Alastor Place.”

  “As if you haven’t already swept through that building four times over,” Lottie said. “And since nothing else has popped up, I don’t want to waste time on another dead end.”

  Aaros’s lips screwed tightly, a rare expression from the usual grin. Just as Daron had taken to the Dire Woods, Aaros had taken charge of the Alastor Place. The ballroom, in particular, had been left in shambles after the last night of Spectaculore. Rather than let the ruins rot as they had before, Aaros was among the group sorting the building back to rights. He’d thrown himself into the work, hoping something might surface from the destruction.

  “Well at least I found something,” Aaros fumed, digging into his pocket. “That’s more than either of you can say.”

  His hand emerged with a crinkled cloth, a battered rose with ever-falling petals stitched across the other side. It was a strange bit of fabric, but undeniably Kallia’s. She’d never gone anywhere without it. The cloth never left Aaros’s pocket, since its discovery beneath shards of mirror. Every time it was in sight, Daron remembered when Kallia had last held it, for luck or comfort, just before they took the floor together and performed their last act.

  Looking at it was as painful as it was hopeful.

  “You found that scrap ages ago. It’s hers, but tells us nothing about where she is.” Lottie tilted her head in challenge, waiting for a rebuttal. “Logic over sentiment, boys. Consider yourself lucky you found it before the Patrons did.”

  “You wish to play the logic game, when you’re suggesting we listen to a man who just woke up from a coma?” Aaros folded the cloth within his fist. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Any more ridiculous than your boss disappearing through a bloody mirror?” Lottie fire back. “Because if that’s the baseline, then nothing’s off the table.”

  “So you believe all the rest, then?” Daron leaned against the wall. “All that talk about memory?”

  Aaros barked out a laugh, “No!” just as Lottie shrugged with, “Well, why not?”

  Doubt trickled in freely, Daron couldn’t help it. The idea was so outlandish, it sounded like something out of a dark, strange nightmare. Surely if something like that were even possible, he would’ve heard about it. But he’d never known any magician with the power to mess with memories. A magician with such skills was impossible, dangerous. And if that were the case, that meant everything else the mayor had said was just as false.

  Look for the gate, and you’ll find h
er.

  It’s much closer than you think.

  The words all rang in Daron’s head, louder and louder.

  “… really, Aaros, you are the local among us. Have you never questioned anything?” Lottie snapped. At the silence, she sent a withering glare to Daron next. “Wait, am I the only one who’s asked about this so far? You came here to learn more about this place, after all.”

  Daron’s face went hot. “It was not exactly research I was trying to advertise at the time.”

  Back when he’d been trying to investigate Eva’s disappearance in connection to the strangeness in Glorian. Back when his purpose in the city had been to play a role.

  He’d enjoyed playing the role a little too much, dropping his search day by day. His focus, elsewhere. On someone else entirely.

  Daron was not proud of it, and the judgement spearing through Lottie’s tone was more than a little deserved.

  “The incompetence, I swear.” She huffed, tilting her head up at the ceiling as if in prayer. “Tell me everything you know, assistant. About your life here, the city, some morsel of truth to prove the mayor wrong since you insist it.”

  “How is any of this relevant, for Zarose sake?” Aaros bit out.

  “It could lead to nothing, or to something. Never hurts to explore a question sitting right in front of you,” Lottie said, her eyes narrowing. “Or do you simply have no answer for it?”

  “No, I…” Aaros’s brows raised, defensive at first. Faltering, the next. “Those … those were vague questions—”

  “Who’s your family, would they know?”

  “Didn’t have much family growing up,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Ira looked out for me, though she doesn’t like to admit it.”

  “Ira?” Daron and Lottie repeated in unison.

  “Older than old seamstress over in the Ranza Fold. A bit of a nightmare to everyone, loves me to pieces though.” The faint smile on his face fell as fast as it had appeared. “And Kallia. She took to Kallia real well, too.”

  A stillness filled the room whenever her name emerged.

  How she would laugh, if she could see them all right now.