When Night Breaks

by Janella Angeles

  No.

  Get to him.

  Kallia forced her way across the busy street, no apologies or niceties in between elbowing through magicians and illusions who grumbled after her. Twisting around daring performances and elaborate costumes. Avoiding collision with fast glittering carriages as much as folks carrying towers of frilly ribboned boxes as tall as tiered cakes.

  Had she been at full power, she would’ve cut through this crowd like an axe splitting wood. Without, she just concentrated on the back of his head, narrowed in predatory focus.

  He shouldn’t have come. That was the first thing she’d say to him. He should’ve stayed exactly where he was, with everyone else.

  Typical Demarco. Chivalrous idiot to the end.

  Kallia stamped down the stupid flutter in her stomach, the heat rising behind her eyes.

  Get to him.

  Her thoughts drummed, again and again.

  Just get to him.

  “Slow down there, mortal.”

  The harsh yank at her elbow stopped her, and her stomach plummeted. Kallia never stopped watching Demarco, growing farther and farther from her as she thrashed in Herald’s grip. “Don’t touch me! Get your hands off—”

  “What exactly are you chasing?”

  “None of your damn business,” she snarled, released a moment later. But that was all it took.

  Demarco was gone.

  A pressure built deep in her throat, tight as a fist.

  Gone.

  “It wasn’t real, whatever you saw.”

  “You don’t know what I saw.” Kallia’s vision wavered violently at the words. The way clarity doused her like ice water.

  Gone.

  As swiftly as he’d appeared.

  “I saw you, taking off like a starving lion that’s just spotted its meal. Please feel free to thank me for the two carriages I had to stop from crushing you into the cobblestones.” The pity as Herald observed her was somehow even worse than his amusement. She couldn’t bear it from a stranger.

  Kallia’s lips pressed into a hard line. “I thought such tricks of the mind were only reserved for those wandering beyond the gate.” Another lie from Jack no doubt.

  “Just the dangerous kind,” Herald clarified. “It’s a brief price to pay when coming to a new side. Breathing in a new air, adjusting to a new rhythm. Sometimes you’ll feel things, see things—those ghosts of your mortal life, just illusion playing with memory. Eventually they’ll stop bothering you, but ultimately, they’re harmless.”

  She wished that were true. Illusions were far from harmless. She knew firsthand the pain they caused without drawing a drop of blood. They were knives, piercing the most vulnerable places. Waiting to stab you when you least expected it.

  The pain had not dulled in the slightest. It was even sharper, rawer.

  “Whatever fragment you were chasing couldn’t have been that awful.” Herald’s tone lightened, more than eager to switch the subject. “It led you right to the Dealer’s doorstep.”

  Kallia snapped back, finally registering the familiar rise of buildings sharpening overhead, the music returning to her ears. Lights flashed like stars, scattered over the streets against lines of lamps glowing a vivid green-blue that guided drunken partiers to the source of the ground-shaking beat. A moving line snaked down the sidewalk, right through the ornate doors of the dark beast of a building ahead.

  The Alastor Place.

  Kallia had visited often enough to regard it as an old friend. The ruined, quiet corner of Glorian. So familiar, she half-expected to see Erasmus Rayne strutting out with judges at his heel, or labor magicians filing in and out with their tools and supplies to raise the broken stage from the dead.

  This Alastor Place was alive. A glory. No longer wrapped in shadows and cobwebs, the outsides were awash in illumination. Posters encased within gilded frames at the entrance showcased captivating illustrations: a group of red-suited men sword fighting across tightropes, a musical genius whose melodies spun memories and inspired madness, a host of the most peculiar animals led by a leather-clad tamer on a throne of snakes. So many more, but of them all, one poster’s frame glinted brightly with lights, caging the image of sleek and powerful silhouettes hanging off glittering hoops in the air.

  “Diamond Rings.” Herald gave a small snort over Kallia’s shoulder. “Their nights are always chaos.”

  Breathless, Kallia studied them all. “Who are they? Entertainers?”

  “Headliners. Best gig in town, to live in this joint with a guaranteed notoriety and stage time. You don’t have to scavenge the streets for a morsel of applause or relevance.” He tilted his head up to take in the grandness of the Alastor Place, before his brow quirked. “Though you should already know that, being friends and all with the boss man. Right?”

  Kallia’s face burned under the lights. Any more lies would make her look pathetic, so she didn’t even answer. It had gotten her this far.

  Right on the doorstep of the king of this court.

  The Dealer.

  Not exactly her option of choice, but the most promising lead to finding a way out of here. And from how Jack described him, an enemy of her enemy could only be an ally.

  She braved the steps of the Alastor Place as though she were wrapped in her finest wear, not the tatters and tears from disaster. The sound of footsteps followed behind to no surprise, but Kallia turned sharply anyway. “I must’ve missed the part where I invited you to escort me in.”

  “Invited?” Herald appeared far too amused as he held the door open for her. “Why, I’m here to enjoy the show.”

  A small pang went through her. Not by any haunting illusion this time—only the sight of him standing gallantly by the door, a noble gesture made wicked by the glint in his eye, conjured no illusion. Though it was all too familiar.

  Small moments came back to her—that sharp elbow looping with hers whenever they strutted out together. How he would always be the first to open a door, out of politeness but also for the opportunity to dip a hand in an unguarded pocket.

  Perhaps that was why she couldn’t shake him even when she’d wanted to. There was something about him. Something undeniable that reminded her of Aaros.

  Without him by her side in a new world—a new game—was like taking the stage all on her own. The act, incomplete.

  No. Kallia’s throat tightened as she passed Herald without a word, hardening her features into a mask. She’d taken the stage alone before. She could damn well do so again.

  * * *

  Grand as the outside of the Alastor Place was, the inside existed on a different realm. The last time Kallia had walked down these carpeted floors was the last night of Spectaculore. She’d never been more swept away by the party winding through the halls, every inch glittering from ceiling to floor like an old polished diamond.

  Now, she was utterly drowning.

  Every part of the Alastor Place dripped with decadence. Velvet filtered her vision, satin soaked in the air. Lush black curtains that shone teal in the small flames flickering off silver-rusted candle vines that twisted across the walls, styled more like tentacles frozen in time. The icy chandeliers fixed to the ceilings remained grand as ever, sparkling coldly despite the heat of the party and its guests streaming from all directions.

  It was all an illusion, she kept reminding herself. The whole city was.

  Yet whoever conjured it into this dream crafted each space with such detail and intricacy, a labor of love for a city she’d thought had been forgotten by all.

  The Dealer, whoever he was, grew into even more of a curiosity, the deeper she fell into this world.

  As the familiar doors of the Court of Mirrors loomed ahead, lights shining through with every partier passing in and out, Kallia tensed.

  The last time she’d entered, she had never left.

  “See, I’m not the only one who can spot a mortal a mile away.”

  Kallia tore her focus from the doors and onto the departing guests who slowed by he
r and Herald in passing, whispering among each other. Kallia’s insides tightened when one even perched some ocular accessary on the bridge of her nose, though they were no more than a few feet apart.

  Herald snorted. “Your costume is a bit of a giveaway.”

  Kallia didn’t bother looking down, unable to shake the unease of the word he kept throwing around like confetti. “If I’m so mortal, what does that make you all, then?”

  “Something we all become in time, the longer we remain. More than just magicians.” He pushed the doors wide open with a triumphant grin. “Here, we’re like gods.”

  If the pounding music and shaking walls had been the warning hints of smoke, the blaze was the Court of Mirrors.

  The dark ballroom stretched out like a glittering circus wrapped in mirrors, rows upon rows running across the walls. Within the frames, the surfaces appeared slightly aglow with faintly moving images. Kallia couldn’t make them out from where she stood, but the rest of the room was enough of a show for the eyes. Bright lights shined upon round red-glassed tables, occupied by patrons enjoying their drinks and those with heads bent over card games and rolled dice. Shouts of outrage layered over raucous victory, the music of winning and losing playing as one.

  The scene was so reminiscent of Hellfire House, Kallia half-expected to see Jack waiting at the bar that snaked around the tables. Just the thought made her tense, alert—

  Until fluid movements snagged her attention.

  The shadowed silhouettes of ladies, descending from the ceiling.

  One after the other, they fell. Not to their deaths, but above the heads of their audience, limbs braced along the curves of large glittering hoops hanging suspended by chains that lifted them from high above. Like birds gliding on a wind, the performers rose and fell at varying heights, striking their poses with fearless grace to the sultry music pulsing in the air.

  The poster from outside lit up in the back of Kallia’s mind.

  The Diamond Rings.

  At their entry, the crowd roared their approval. Games were abandoned, drinks left untouched. All to watch the performers lowering like a troupe of black widows coming in for the kill—

  Before a dagger speared through the air, deep into the chest of one girl.

  Kallia’s blood went cold as the body fell. A few screams erupted. Nothing made her sicker than the resounding laughter from the boorish group of drunken magicians a few tables away. Among them, one had his foot stepped on the seat of his chair, chest puffed out with a knife in hand as if ready to take aim again.

  Vision searing red, Kallia pressed forward.

  Only to be tugged by the back of her dress.

  “Not much you can do, mortal. It’s just a bunch of idiots getting their kicks,” Herald said, shaking his head. “They hit an illusion. It’ll be fine.”

  “Fine?” Snarling in a breath, Kallia searched the floors for where the stabbed performer had fallen. She should’ve known when there was no thud of a body, or even the hoop that held her.

  Still, illusion or not, it wasn’t fine by her. It was easy for cowards to feel brave with the cover of the audience, and the fact that no one lifted a damn finger to stop a thing had Kallia grinding her teeth.

  She threw a sharp elbow back, but Herald artfully dodged it. “Trust me, you do not throw yourself in their line of fire.”

  “If you don’t let go,” Kallia warned, wriggling like a cat caught by its scruff, “I’ll throw you into their pathetic line of fire.”

  “I wasn’t talking about—”

  A desperate scream ripped through the air.

  The room went dark.

  Kallia stilled as shrieks burst around them, before the light finally returned in a gradual rise over the tables. The silhouetted forms of the Diamond Rings sat within their hoops, all lined up in a row over the party of magicians who had been laughing earlier. Among them, one was missing. The bold gentleman who’d taken aim.

  The stark beam of the spotlight exposed how he trembled, dangling one-handed from a large glittering hoop like bait on a hook.

  His whitening knuckles strained between the pair of heeled boots of the new masked performer above him.

  “Look what got on my hoop,” she drawled in disgust, as if noticing a stain against her costume: an ink green confection of lace and feathers pluming down the back like a dark bird of prey ready to take flight. From her apparatus high in the air, she certainly looked the part. No mercy, as she inched her heels ever so closely to the hanging magician’s hand.

  Laughter built among the crowd, drawing the air tight in anticipation.

  “You want to play with weaponry?” The dark bird crooked a finger to the rest of the Diamond Rings dangling around her. “Then let’s play.”

  The ladies howled in approval, the crowd echoing it.

  “Let me down!” the magician cried out. From the tight fit of his suit, it was painful watching him hold himself up by one hand. “Please, Vain, let me down—”

  “Begging.” She tilted her head, cocked her hip. “And you even said please.”

  More chuckles from the tables. Not even the slightest alarm as seated figures leaned back farther into their chairs, watching the show go on.

  “You’re free to fall. Though at this height, it won’t be pretty. And my ring knows better than to save vermin,” the dark bird went on, inspecting her fingers fashioned more like claws from their glowing tips. “Or, as you’ve shown quite a taste for target practice tonight, you can stay put where you are and we’ll fulfill your every wish. Lucky you.”

  Sweating, the man heaved out a sharp gasp as he did his very best to avoid looking down. “Bitch,” he spat.

  The dark bird smiled wider. “We aim to please.”

  With the snap of her fingers, the chandeliers overhead glittered and spun, sending colors all across the room from the walls to the floors. A lively beat started up again from the corners of the room, building and building like a thunderstorm overhead as the air vibrated. The ground rumbled.

  And knives lifted off place settings across multiple tables.

  At the high-pitched whistle, the Diamond Rings soared down to retrieve them. By some miracles, the chains hooked to their hoops did not tangle as they flew in slow, vulture-like circles around the magician holding on for dear life.

  Armed with weapons and vengeful smiles, they themselves looked like knives in flight. Every head in the room was tipped skyward, and a few even shot up to their feet at the hoarse shriek of the first knife thrown. The magician thrashed out of harm’s way, jolting the hoop into a wild spin.

  The dark bird miraculously kept her balance, both hands effortlessly maintaining their hold at the curve by her head. Unbothered, unruffled. Like the kind of performer who could take a twenty-foot drop with a landing graceful as a swan’s. As the lights struck her, she shrugged innocently before grazing the heel of her boot over the magician’s straining knuckles.

  The crowd went wild, one word on their lips.

  Vain

  Vain

  Vain

  It was a melody that kept going, a song the girl was used to hearing from her triumphant grin as she stretched a leg high to dodge the path of one knife.

  Kallia followed the lethal harmony of the hoops, entranced.

  “Close your jaw, mortal.” Herald raised an amused brow at her. “Though if you like what you see, I could introduce you.”

  “You know them?” All too soon, the group finished torturing their victim once they ran out of knives. When they deposited the now deathly pale gentleman back to his table, he slid right beneath the table before he even hit his seat.

  Incredible.

  “Oh, everyone knows all the Dealer’s headliners,” he said with a slight eye roll. “You won’t be mooning over them for long. Bunch of divas on a power trip, all of them.”

  “You don’t sound bitter at all,” Kallia murmured, observing as the performers assumed different positions for a new set. “And they’re all magicians, working for
the Dealer?”

  Kallia didn’t know why she asked. In a world of magicians, of course they were. But from just one performance alone, she wanted to know all she could about who they were, how they got there. What it took to get a stage just like theirs.

  “Yes. I mean, they do use some illusions for show, which most folk find tasteless. Like an act that’s all props, no talent,” Herald commented. “But it’s a choice. And regardless, they put on a good show.”

  “Oh, be still my heart.”

  At the sly voice, Kallia whirled around.

  The dark bird waited behind them, arms crossed as though ready to fight. The sheen of sweat across her brow was all she carried back from her performance. No exhaustion or fatigue. It was unfair how a knife fight in the air left her black hair in perfect form, sheared smooth and short to her ears, with an elegant swoop framing a delicate bejeweled face. Dark green gems studded across her eyes, over the golden skin of her brow. A mask, hiding absolutely nothing.

  “Look what the dinky old mirror shop finally dragged in,” Vain said, breathless with adrenaline. “Enjoy the show, Herald?”

  He took an exaggeratedly long pause. “Say that I didn’t … how badly will you ladies hurt me?”

  The corners of her lips curled up. “Just enough to change your answer.” Her stare slipped over Kallia and narrowed. “Well, isn’t this quite a find.”

  Kallia wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but she straightened back her shoulders, chin tipped up. “Good work up there,” she said, hiding her laugh behind a grin. “If only the target practice could go on longer.”

  “If only.”

  A tense silence followed forcing Kallia to swallow back her laugh. Vain just stood back and observed her like everyone did—as if her newness were a stench. But Vain’s assessment was a touch more searing over Kallia. “The least he could’ve done was get you cleaned up a little.”

  Kallia’s nostrils flared a bit. She could practically feel the shards of glass still tangled in her hair, especially as she stood by Vain, who looked every part the polished black diamond.

  “Ladies.” Herald stepped between them, gently pressing at their arms. “It’s too early for claws.”