When Night Breaks

by Janella Angeles

  She could breathe now, seamless and easy.

  “I didn’t know what else I could give you.”

  Kallia went still.

  Every thought, silent.

  “… until I stumbled upon this broken greenhouse one day.”

  His voice.

  She waited to hear it again, searched for it in the dark. Soon enough, the room sharpened into focus, movement teasing at the corners of her eyes—belonging to the figure now stepping in from the dark. Shadowed and soft-eyed, just as she remembered.

  Her heart ached to the start of the song, faint at first. Familiar as it thrummed through the old glass that formed the walls and ceiling.

  What came next?

  It felt like a dance itself, recalling the steps that kept it moving. That kept her in it.

  Content, Kallia watched the tawny-skinned hand that hung at his side. So warm and close, real and alive.

  The moment she reached for it was her first mistake.

  Like ink thrown over the walls, the dream bled. It took the moon and the greenhouse, the music falling away on a cold wind.

  The hand she reached for, gone.

  Wake up, Kallia.

  Another voice called as the glass walls crumbled and the warm air became ice.

  Kallia flinched awake at the cold slicing her skin. Wind howling at her ears, blending into screams and laughter ever-present in the night. This wasn’t the greenhouse, nor the Court of Mirrors where her opponent’s taunts echoed at her from across. It had all been like a nightmare, like peering into a dirty, cracked reflection of one of the mirrors above her.

  One that framed a Glorian, burning from within.

  The image forced her up, her heart thrashing as she braced herself for that drowning wave of pain.

  When it never arrived, Kallia blinked rapidly and pressed down all over her clothes. She found rips and tears from every hit the duel had left, but there was no pain. No scars, not even blood.

  That couldn’t be.

  She’d felt everything in a way that made nightmares look like dreams.

  The moment movement caught her eye, Kallia jerked. Over a short expanse of crumbled wall a few paces over, jagged as mountain edges, Jack paced furiously on the other side.

  Something in her snapped at his presence. “Were you just in my head?”

  At her voice, Jack’s head whipped in her direction. Awash with relief, his face fell almost instantly at whatever he saw in hers. “What? No, I’ve been trying to help you.”

  Help. Whatever that entailed, whatever he had to do, Kallia didn’t want to know. Not now. She shoved it all away with the hard shake of her head. “Never mind. I need to go back.”

  “Back?”

  “To the Court of Mirrors. I saw something that looked like…” Her breath shook. She’d never felt this way, like every nerve in her could burst at once if she didn’t go now. Whether it was panic or intuition, something wasn’t right.

  Alarm blazed in Jack’s eyes as he studied her. “You fell under fast, Kallia.” He stopped her gently, unsurely, by both shoulders. “Anything that seemed out of the ordinary, probably wasn’t—”

  “I know what I saw.” Her teeth pressed hard into each other. “Just because you didn’t doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.”

  Her imagination was nowhere near twisted enough to provide a glimpse such as that.

  Until she remembered all the faces.

  Those she’d seen at the match, ever since she’d arrived in this city. Faces of people in the same Glorian that burned, who couldn’t possibly be anywhere near her at that moment.

  But if mirrors reflected what was real, could they lie?

  “Something’s wrong.” Some alarm had triggered, pulsing in the back of her head. She had to make sure; it wouldn’t quiet until she did. “I don’t know what, but they’re in trouble. I have to go.”

  Kallia made it one step, when a hand suddenly latched onto her elbow.

  “Who’s in—wait, what?” A cord strained and beat against Jack’s neck. “You can’t be serious. You can’t go back there after that duel. It’s too dangerous.”

  Glaring down at his hand, Kallia threw it off and shouldered past him. “You’re giving me orders now?”

  “No, a warning.” Jack kept steadily at her side. “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tried dragging you back into another match for the fun of it.”

  “Probably to make up for the one you pulled me out of,” she fumed and twisted away from him, her skin burning. Blood, boiling. “I told you, Jack. Many times. You were not to interfere under any circumstances.”

  “Are you suggesting I should’ve just left you there?”

  Irrational. That’s how Kallia felt when it was phrased like that. There was no use arguing about it now. It was done, the duel was over, and she was alive. If anything, she should’ve been more grateful he’d decided to step in.

  “You were hardly conscious, Kallia.” His voice hardened behind her. “I couldn’t just stand there and watch—”

  “Yes, you could’ve, because I asked you to.” Kallia whirled around in a rage that wouldn’t let her go. “I told you, over and over again. The rules were clear.”

  “The rules?” Jack choked on the word. “The duel was already over and the idiot kept tearing you apart like a rag doll. You think the crowd was going to stop him? As your guard, I did what I was supposed to do.”

  “And as my guard, you’re supposed to follow my orders.” Every tense breath razed up her throat. “Not make me look even weaker and more powerless to this world.”

  “Why does it matter so much what strangers think?”

  Her face burned at the quiet following his question, the way his gaze narrowed and lingered on her without any shame until she turned away. Whatever he was searching for, she didn’t want him to see.

  “The more you keep giving power to weakness, the faster it’ll consume you,” he said. “What others believe will never change that.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but he would never understand. How could he, when he’d never know powerlessness or anything of the like? A magician molded purely from beings such as the devils, who cleared paths whenever he walked through crowds, couldn’t comprehend such weakness as this. And all the ways it kept breaking a person, long after the fall.

  “What others believe is how we look to the world.” Kallia gestured sharply between them with shaking hands. “What others believe is the only reason we can even be like this. The moment you start acting rogue, how is that going to look to Roth? To everyone else?”

  Theirs was a fragile balancing act that relied on remaining the picture of punishment and obedience. Concern was irrelevant. Emotions, too risky. One look at the wrong second was damning enough. If anyone realized Jack could break free from the leash she claimed to have around him, it was over. Her defeat against Filip was only made more humiliating with Jack swooping in to carry her to safety. But it would’ve been absolutely for nothing if someone began to question.

  “I wasn’t exactly thinking of them when you hit the ground,” he said through gritted teeth. “You could hardly move, that’s how bad the pain was.”

  The rage trickled back into her blood. Slow, and simmering.

  “You don’t get to decide how bad anything is for me, Jack. You don’t know what I can handle,” she said. “I’m not fragile. I can take pain. And as you’ve shown, even that can easily go away.” She gestured down at her jacket, battered without any scars to prove it. “But suspicion stays. And in worst cases, it grows.”

  Not even he could deny it, and a tense muscle ticked along his jaw in realization. “Fine. But there’s no reason for things to ever go that far again,” he muttered. “You can’t defend yourself in the sort of state you’re in, and they know it. How weak you still—”

  The drop to abrupt silence turned Kallia hard as ice.

  Not once had he ever called her weak to her face. Nor made her feel lowlier than him in any regard, despite the power he possessed. Unt
il now.

  “Go on,” she muttered. “You’re not wrong.”

  “I didn’t…” Jack dragged a hand down his face. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Another lie, just like his others, though this one was harder to stomach.

  Still, Kallia didn’t cover her face, didn’t hide. Didn’t break. That, at least, she could control, and there was no time for it now. Not with Glorian burning in the back of her mind like an omen. “I have to go.”

  She needed to be alone, away from this.

  And yet every time she moved forward, Jack moved, too. As she sidestepped him, he simply blocked her path. Boxing her in, as one would herd sheep.

  “Jack, if you don’t let me go,” Kallia said hoarsely after a hard shove at his chest. “I swear, I’ll—”

  The threat died. There was nothing she could do, and he knew it. He used it, just like he always would.

  Heat scalded the backs of her eyes at the knowledge, and she closed them. Dropped her hands to wrap them around herself. “If you won’t let me leave … then please, just go.”

  “Go? And leave you out here alone like this?”

  The subtle break in his voice tugged a cord in her. He knew very well what she meant. Without him in her sight, she heard what his face so often hid—an uncertainty tucked away in the corners of the most rare and powerful being to walk beside her. A piece of the magician, reigning over the illusion.

  A piece wasn’t enough to trust someone entirely.

  “This isn’t working.” Kallia finally released a hard, steady breath. “I want you to—”

  A thunderous blast cracked in the air.

  She jerked back at the impact. The wind flared through her hair. A shower of splinters rained over her, and her alone.

  Jack was gone. Nowhere around her.

  “He’ll materialize again just fine, don’t worry.”

  Kallia snapped around at the drawl. Movement stirred from behind, within the tattered curtain hanging over an enormous torn canvas painting a few paces away. Large as a door, the drab portrait had long lost its face as it leaned against the remnants of wall like it hadn’t moved in ages.

  Not until the thornlike tips of green nails emerged from behind, before the whole frame fell over like the grand reveal in a stage show.

  “Did you…” Kallia’s wide eyes darted from where Jack once was to where Vain now stood, looking every bit like an illusion herself. “Did you just—”

  “Catch your guard off guard?” The girl could not be more smug. “Didn’t think that would work, but I do believe so.”

  “W-Why?” Kallia still couldn’t fathom it. Since his fight with the devils, no one had raised a hand against Jack. For a while, Kallia wondered if anyone even could. That was, if anyone would ever dare try. “What are you even doing here?”

  “This was my dump first,” Vain deadpanned as she kicked away at whatever debris lay on her path. “And who are you to point fingers, mortal? When I just heard the most interesting conversation take place that’s illuminated quite a bit.”

  Kallia tensed as the girl walked around her now the way crows circled the dead. From where Vain had hidden, it was the perfect vantage point. Well within earshot.

  And her smile only grew more smug with the secrets it now knew. “You really should be more careful, mortal. I doubt Roth would find it as amusing to know his bright little star is running behind his back with her obliterated monster toy.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Vain’s sleek brow arched so high, the sheer mask she wore shifted. “Your lies could really use some work, mortal.” She chuckled. “Don’t waste your breath. I know everything.”

  Unwavering, Kallia tracked the Diamond Ring’s slow, deliberate gait, her heart sinking with every step. Even at its furious pace, Kallia felt it drop like a rock, deeper in her chest, falling and falling and falling.

  It was over.

  Her one chance at the true side, gone in a moment. She didn’t fool herself. One person knowing was all it took. The fact that that someone had to be Vain was an especially cruel form of torture.

  At the explosive crack above, a trill of delight erupted from the girl, echoing the faraway shrieks from the streets. The sky went bright over their heads, streaming sparks that lit up the deviled night. An immense shape began taking form as more joined, though it was too early to tell. Not that Kallia could take in any of the revelry.

  Vain had no such problem enjoying herself. “Lucky for you, everyone’s a bit too busy at the moment for me to call the cavalry on you.” Her voice raised over the ghostly echoes of cheers, the lights still bursting overhead. “Nothing salvages a show cut short better than another party in the works.”

  The Show of Hands.

  She’d known it was coming, and somehow, it was all still happening so fast. “And yet you chose to follow us instead?”

  “Again, this is my spot.” Vain bristled. “Technically, you intruded first.”

  Kallia couldn’t understand what the girl was playing at. She should’ve been gleefully sounding the alarm, setting every magician on Kallia like the fresh meat she was to them. Perhaps it was overconfidence, or more time to gloat. Yet she didn’t even indulge in that.

  “The streets are so chaotic right now.” Vain yawned despite the madness raging on around them. None of the usual aimless rhythm of celebration—this excitement was palpable. Alive and rare.

  “One could practically go unnoticed in the crowds, if they weren’t sloppy about it.”

  Kallia blinked hard.

  Waited a breath. A beat.

  “It won’t take your devil long to return,” Vain added, her face still tipped up to the sky to the lights swirling above. “So if you want to go find what you’re looking for, now’s your chance.”

  Now she had to be hallucinating. Or it was some kind of trap. Both flipped in her mind like a coin that wouldn’t settle on one or the other. “What are you—”

  By the time Kallia twisted around, Vain was gone.

  Her figure retreated farther away to the burnt edges of the Ranza Estate, without so much as a threat or glare back to ensure Kallia followed.

  She was letting her go. Just like that.

  Whatever force drove Kallia next had to be stupidity, because she sprinted. Over wreckage and burnt wood, she staggered as quickly as she could to catch up.

  “You’re … helping me.” Closing in, her frantic breaths made the question sound even more ludicrous. “Why are you helping me?”

  “Why are you following me?” Grumbling, Vain charged on. “The streets won’t be this insufferable forever, and I really don’t want to be here when your clubkeeper regenerates. So just go to the Court of Mirrors and leave me be.”

  “Not until you tell me why.” The more she tried to shake her off, the more Kallia refused to be shaken. A headliner who had shown her nothing but malice ever since she arrived had no reason to let anyone go unless she got something out of it.

  “Zarose, do you ever stop?” When all else failed, Vain resorted to forcibly shoving her away until Kallia lost balance over a piece of wreckage. The ground shook before she even hit the ground. A violent, ominous rumble—met with Vain’s harsh curse.

  And Jack, standing right behind her.

  “Answer.” His hands wrapped around her neck. His eyes, positively murderous. “Because I’m curious to hear it, too.”

  “Great.” Vain stiffened slightly. More in discomfort than paralyzed by fear as she threw a pointed glare Kallia’s way as if to say, I told you so. “Would you mind calling off your brute?”

  “So you can lead her to the wolves?” The warning was already poised on Kallia’s tongue, but her mind had blanked entirely.

  Jack.

  Like his fight with the devils, seeing him again whole and alive as before, slammed the strangest relief against the sharpest dread. Especially when he and Vain looked about as placid as serpents battling for dominion in the pit.

  “If you didn
’t notice, I wasn’t bothering her,” Vain sniped back at him. “I was actually trying to go my own way.”

  “Right.” Jack scowled. “Because headliners are so well-known for their mercy.”

  “As if you’re any different.” Her scoff was a harsh sound. “At least I gave her a chance to go see her burning city or whatever delusion she’s so worked up about. Something which you clearly couldn’t—”

  “I never mentioned seeing a burning city.” Kallia’s ears roared as every thought went slow. “How did you know when I never mentioned it at all?”

  She was certain of it. Even more so in the silence that roared between them after, louder than the fireworks above. Lights ribboned over all of their faces. Except for the one whose bored gaze was fixed ahead as her shoulders dropped. “Just a guess.”

  “A very specific one.” Kallia shivered as she rose back to her feet. Not even Jack had known, which was more than clear from the tightness of his expression.

  “You’re not the only one who can see, mortal.” Vain shrugged. “We can all see whatever the mirrors show.”

  “And yet of all of them, you remembered that one?”

  As she said it, there was something familiar about Vain’s eyes, just then. The way they closed off and turned to stone, at will. Like someone she knew.

  There was no talking her way out this time.

  “Maybe I’ll remember a little more without him around or his hands on me.” Nodding her head back, Vain released a long, exasperated sigh. “I’m probably better company, anyway.”

  “Is this a joke to you?” Jack’s sneer deepened. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to try negotiating right now?”

  “Even I have my lines and limits, guard,” Vain shot back. “Your strings may be cut, but maybe that’s an illusion, too. I’m not risking anything in case your devil brethren decide to call you back to the fold.”

  His brow hardened, his hold still around the girl’s neck. “I can feel her pulse, racing at a liar’s pace.” He glanced at Kallia. “Don’t listen to her.”

  “As if your lies weren’t what brought her here in the—”