Though right now, he was looking at her like she was a new game. Her naïveté, a rarity. Kallia didn’t want any part of it.
“Fascinating.” As she continued checking the crowds for Jack’s figure, it was only a matter of time before he found her. Movement was her one safety. “Excuse me, but I must be off.”
The dismissal in her tone did not deter him from following. “These streets are not exactly kind to newcomers. Would you like a companion?”
“Nope.”
He rested both hands over his heart, wounded, before delivering a gallant bow. “I’m Herald.”
Kallia offered nothing in return, wary to give anyone anything in this world. “You can stop following me.” She craned her head over those all around her. “I’m meeting with a friend just around the corner who will be very—”
“Worried?” Herald laughed, keeping pace with her. “Ah, you see, that’s where you expose yourself, lovely mortal. Friends don’t exist in this world when there’s so little spotlight to go around. Here, everyone is out for themselves. So if you have a ‘friend,’”—he used his fingers for air quotes—“Then you best be careful.”
Once, Kallia would’ve agreed with him completely. A single beam of spotlight meant there was only enough room for one on stage, and she had been prepared to do whatever it took to get it. All of the applause for her. She’d never had to share it with anybody before Glorian.
One glance around showed her she was not alone.
“Though you mortals value such frivolities, yes? Your loves and your losses, those memories you hold as dear?” Herald’s sigh was drenched in pity. “What sort of friends could you have like that here?”
He was lucky she didn’t punch him in the face. It probably would’ve entertained him more, and she wasn’t giving him a morsel of her temper.
Mortal. He uttered it in the way someone would speak of a poor, defenseless creature.
As though he were something else entirely, beyond the constraints of mortality.
“I’m meeting with the Dealer, actually.” Kallia shrugged back her shoulders. All ice. “And he’ll be expecting me alone.”
It was the first excuse that came to mind, and sometimes lying was just as powerful as magic. Even more so. In a stark blink, fear surfaced in his eyes. “Damn, are you really?” His throat bobbed. “Shit, mortal. If you have to be friends with anyone, that’s the one.”
With a tight smile, Kallia walked more surely as if she knew exactly where she was going. “And he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“That’s for sure. The last person to keep him waiting—I don’t even want to think what’s become of that unfortunate soul now.” Herald shuddered. “Never piss off a magician who’s made deals with the devils…”
Kallia nodded, despite the chill prickling up her spine at the thought of those barren shadows beyond these gates, where half-dead magicians wandered freely into traps. A force like that would accept no compromise, no negotiation.
Unless the magician on the other end of the deal was more powerful, more terrible, than them. With the way the mentioned stilled the air wherever she went, she could believe it.
Kallia had to ask. The question was poised right on her tongue, before everything came to a sudden stop. All thought, gone.
There, in the crowd, waited a figure in dark clothes against the chaos of color. His skin appeared almost golden brown from the lights flashing around him, and the rest was just as familiar: broad shoulders she’d coasted with her hands, disheveled hair she ran his fingers through too many times. Just as he was doing now, before noticing her as well.
Demarco.
7
Love is a way in. Use it.
It didn’t sit right with Daron, but he still found himself pacing back and forth in front of Aunt Cata’s hotel room hours later. All mental rehearsal, as he didn’t trust the words to flow naturally without practice. Even when he was young, his iron-eyed aunt always left him a babbling mess where any argument crumbled like sand between his fingers.
He couldn’t afford that when he needed answers.
A curse erupted from Daron when the door suddenly opened at his back. His aunt’s arched brow met him on the other side. “Were you ever going to knock, or simply pace yourself into the floor?”
Cavalier was not in her nature, and the tight smile pressed against her lips could not look more out of place. “Aunt Cata,” Daron whispered sharply. “What the hell is going on?”
A hint of rage goes a long way, Lottie had said.
His was hardly a hint. Everything boiled back to the surface in his blood: every trace of Kallia gone, every lead a dead end, and the one moment a glimmer of something finally found its way to him—his aunt silenced it.
Rage was an understatement.
Her face fell at the sight of it. “Better come in, then. And close the door behind you.”
With a resigned sigh, she walked back inside toward a desk already piled high with papers and work. So calm, so composed as only Head Patron could be. Whereas he was walking on fire the instant he stepped through. “What you did at the hospital—the way you used your power against him…”
She blinked long and hard before lowering into her seat. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Oh, really?”
His nerves were so set on edge, he couldn’t sit. He paced the long of her desk where an orderly chaos strewn with papers resided. Some flat-pressed in neat piles, others just crumpled bulletins and crinkled newspaper pages.
The map.
The thought struck his pulse, but a quick cursory glance showed nothing.
It had to be there somewhere. The map to Kallia.
“What am I supposed to think?” Daron wrenched his eyes away before it gave her reason to toss everything out altogether. “The mayor has no magic, and yet you broke your code. You used yours against him—”
“To protect you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I watched you, Daron.” Aunt Cata began wrangling her scattered work, any reason to keep busy. To keep any hint of emotion from her face. “If the mayor had told you to walk off the rooftop, you would’ve begged him to pick a building. You hung onto every word he said like it would save your very life. Or someone else’s.”
Kallia. Every pained beat of his heart held her name. Kallia, Kallia, Kallia.
“I can only surmise what truly happened here, for the news is so all over the place.” She leveled him with a pointed look, finally setting the papers aside. “But when I talk to you, it seems as though I’ve walked into a story that’s only half-truth, half-lie. And that whatever the whole truth of it is, broke you.”
His gaze dropped from hers at the warning hot pressure behind it. He couldn’t. Not now, not in front of her. “It would seem we’re all dealing in half-lies and half-truths. I don’t for a second believe you put down the mayor just for my well-being.”
“You don’t think I care for you?”
“I think it’s your job to care for a lot of other things.”
The most imperceptible flinch shook her, twisting him hard in the gut. There was love in his aunt’s heart, he knew. Deep, but there.
It still didn’t change what she’d done. When the mayor began speaking, she could’ve simply removed Daron from the premises and left the man alone to calm down. Silencing him altogether was a choice.
“I am your aunt, Daron. But I am also Head Patron,” she stressed. “I have a job to do here, and not many trustworthy pieces to work with. Only my instincts.”
“Why not ask me about it, then?” Daron ground out. “You’ve had numerous opportunities.”
She exhaled a slow, sad breath as she sat back. Her ungloved hands clasped over her lap. “We haven’t spoken in years. A reunion is no place for an interrogation.” Aunt Cata gestured to the chair across from hers. “But I hoped you would open up to me yourself. With the truth.”
Daron wasn’t sure what the truth was anymore, no more than the rest of Solt
air did. Everything had twisted into such a dream, escalating the longer he was lost to it. No one wanted it to end more than Daron. To know what it all meant without the lies clouding it all.
“Only if you promise the same,” he said.
Aunt Cata crossed her arms. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Hasn’t it always been?”
Deep in thought, a long, hard look of concentration simmered in her stare. “Fine. Deal.”
Daron took the seat across from her, and when the first word broke, the rest fell. Every thread unraveled from the story beneath sensationalized headlines and rumors, about a show that was not what it had promised to be, and a city somehow lost to those living within it. Of chaos lurking within its shadows, and the powerful girl he’d met while trapped behind its gates.
And magic.
Nothing more than illusion in his veins, for the longest time. The largest lie. The truth of it was plastered all over the papers, and the world hated him for it.
The whole time, his aunt listened with a mask hard as stone, carved without judgement. Her Patron face when approaching every case, no matter how far-fetched it may seem.
As he reached the end, the very last words hovered between them. A tightrope pulled taut from one end to the other from his very ribs. The only sensation in him was the thud of his pulse. Once again, he was a little boy before her, fearing disapproval. Hoping she could stay by his side while he fixed the mess he’d made. It had taken him this long to realize that Lottie was absolutely right. He couldn’t face this alone. Not again.
The whole time, he’d dreaded her anger. At the very least, shock.
Not indifference. Nor a silence running on far longer than it should’ve, winding him so tight he felt ready to break into pieces as he watched her closer. “You don’t … seem surprised by any of this.”
Something awful settled in his stomach as she finally lifted her gaze to his, alert and unblinking. “The range of possibilities in the papers prepared me for anything, but it’s not my job to be surprised,” she said. “It’s my job to know, to anticipate.”
“So you knew?” The walls around him pressed in, dizzying him, but his temper jolted him back with scalding clarity. “You knew all this time?”
“About the predatory nature of your power? I had my suspicions, but they really formed when I’d begun reading back issues of the Soltair Source.” When Aunt Cata pressed forward, her stare softened as it locked with his. “You were very close to this girl, yes?”
Kallia’s laughter rang in his ears.
The shape of her smile pressed against his neck like a secret, the arch of her brow when she was right about something.
The way her hands cupped the back of his neck, bringing their faces closer.
Not touching, just close.
Together.
“What does that matter?” His chest ached, his voice low and hoarse.
“You can never see anything clearly when you’re too close,” she said, glancing over her desk. “And you’re not the only one, Daron. With power gone wrong. Compromised.”
Daron swallowed hard. Compromised. Giving it a name made it no less chilling, only more unnatural. All his life, he’d only known magic to be two things: born and acquired. Magic never abandoned the magician, nor compromised them. “What does that mean?”
Her fingers clenched tigher over the table. “Have you bothered reading any of my letters?” Quickly, she held up a hand. “Never mind. It’s bad enough everything went unanswered.”
“Of course I read them.” He couldn’t tell if that made him a worse person for reading them all anyway without any reply.
The surprise that had been missing from her face arrived at that. “Then you know what’s kept me from checking up on you sooner?”
“The eastern border, right?” Every letter he’d read and reread returned to the back of his mind. “You were taking on strange cases out there, but nothing you don’t normally handle.”
From her tone, it hadn’t seemed out of the ordinary.
The shadows crossing her face spoke otherwise.
“We’ve seen strange cases over the most recent years, did what we could to quell them before a summons came from Valmonts,” she started. “Initially we thought it was just some boys wreaking havoc among their classmates, but their hospital wing was overrun with magicians who were bed-ridden and could hardly move. Not even to perform a trick, they burned out so easily. I’d never seen so many all at once. We figured it had to be some disease.” Her brow creased as she stared straight ahead, nowhere in particular. “Until I caught sight of the remaining students on their way to class. All energetic, practically glowing.” Her eyes finally returned to his, troubled and worn. “The math was simple from there. For every magician with the strength of ten men, there was always one with hardly enough energy to rise.”
Kallia.
The dagger in Daron twisted. When he’d last seen her in the Court of Mirrors, she’d struggled. The way she’d fallen to the ground and clutched at her body, as if a poison had taken over. The whole time he’d thought it had been the other magician, Jack.
He’d been the poison, all along. “How many cases of this have you seen?”
“This year alone, there’ve been a handful,” she answer. “Among a family in New Crown, a couple in Deque. And now yourself.” She turned her glance toward the window. “We treated each situation on a case-by-case basis, thinking no connection to it because magic never turned against the magician. We never thought it possible.”
Until it was. A terrifying uncertainty, like not being able to trust the hand that picked up the knife wouldn’t plunge it right into your very own gut.
To hear his affliction was more common than he’d thought was like a quarter-comfort. Part relief, and even more dread. “You’ve kept this from all of Soltair?” He blinked hard at the realization. “All this time, you’ve known something was wrong and said nothing. Just waited for the next magician to steal power and another to lose it.”
For what reason? If he’d known magic had become like this for some, perhaps his fear wouldn’t have isolated him. Perhaps he would’ve known to stay away from magicians altogether. Perhaps Eva and Kallia would’ve still been here.
“These are not decisions we make lightly, Daron. We can’t stir everyone up in a mass of panic without any hard knowledge or solution to back it up.” Her jaw worked to a sharp edge. “Unlike your friends at the papers, we need all the answers first before making declarations.”
“Well, clearly you haven’t found much in silence,” he pressed. “You work for the people, and the people deserve the truth.”
“The truth will turn people into monsters, Daron.” Aunt Cata squared him with narrowed eyes. “Once others believe magic is unstable, fear will grow. Misinformation spreads faster than knowledge, and people will take to it first. Information like this must be certain when shared.”
The longer they waited for certainty, the more harm would come to others left unaware. “Then tell me, how long have you known about this, only to convince yourself that lying to the public is the best option?”
“We’re not lying.”
It was not an answer, and it didn’t sit right with him. If they could comfortably justify this, what else they were hiding?
A dark thought tapped at the back of his skull.
“This is not how I wanted one of our first conversations in so long to go.” Aunt Cata squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I’m—”
“Why did you really silence the mayor?”
She stilled in her longest pause yet, and he wished so badly for a better answer to come. Not more lies, more secrets.
Finally, Aunt Cata stood as if unable to hold herself calm any longer. She paced to the window, as if the chair had been constraining her all this time. “It’s complicated, Daron. But I did not lie. I am protecting you, because I know what you really came here for.” Crossing her arms, she watched him from afar. “Go on. He drew quite a few
that are on the top, just turn it over.”
When she gestured at the pile of papers sitting on her desk, Daron tensed at that crumpled sheet of paper on top like some trick was upon him.
The mayor’s map to show him where to go.
Wasting no time, he carefully lifted it though it could crumble to dust at any moment, his heart pounding when he turned it around.
On the other side lay a nightmare.
A violent mass of black scribbles and scratches.
A darkness, staring him in the face.
Frantic, he grabbed the others in the pile and tossed them over, finding the same image on every one. Nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. “What did you do to them?”
“I only picked them up from the floor,” Aunt Cata said evenly. “But there’s your map. Satisfied?”
No. Blood roared in his ears the longer he stared at the strange drawings that told him nothing. No path, no map.
Another dead end.
“Then why—” Daron’s hand crumpled into a fist over the table. “If it was all just pure nonsense, why silence him from saying more?”
Turning her heel on him, her spine straightened entirely. He thought she’d fight him more on it, but her lips pressed into a hard, resigned line. A deep exhale. “I guess there’s no use hiding it all things considered. You won’t be leaving until you get your answers. Not that they matter at all.”
Of course they did, but her defeat was so easy he felt no relief that she was giving in. Telling him everything. “Why would you say that?”
“Because by the time we’re gone, none of you will remember any of this.”
8
Demarco.
Each time she blinked, Kallia expected him to disappear.
Her heart raced at that familiar rhythm when she caught a glimpse of his face, the hard side of his profile.
Here. He was here.
The shock struck her with such force, she almost missed the way he turned back into the crowd as if intending to vanish completely.
When Night Breaks Page 7
