Daron stared down at the black glass mug warmed between his hands, a pleasant, flowery herbal scent he couldn’t quite place rising from the steam. The stranger had a point. As much as Daron wanted to race out the door and take to the streets with his eyes wide open, these were not streets that he knew. And they were certainly not the streets of the Glorian he left behind.
All Daron knew was that a new world meant new rules. The practicality and common sense he lived by, frustrating as they were, told him he needed to think. He needed to get his bearings before walking out any door into the unknown.
Because he didn’t get this far just to fuck it all up.
“Thank you.” Daron raised his mug to Herald, feeling instantly like shit for how rude he’d been. To a stranger who clearly didn’t have to show him any kindness at all. “I’ve just … been on my feet for so long, driving myself mad … I’ve forgotten how to sit still with myself.”
The shop owner’s brow arched, softer this time. “You don’t need to be so harsh on yourself for taking a breath. Something tells me you’re surprised to have even gotten this far. So if you want to keep running, you need to breathe.” He shrugged before placing his empty cup beside him. “And you’re welcome.”
Daron inhaled deeply, the clench of his chest loosening slightly more since he woke up. He pressed the mug to his lips, and the first sip brought the sweetest relief. The most peculiar, delicious flavor of a minty flower burst on his tongue, tasting somehow, inexplicably, of the color white. “Sorry for breaking your mirrors. And your coach. If you need any help fixing things up around here, I’m handy with the proper tools.” Daron gave a sheepish shrug. He looked around the quiet shop while the curtains rustled slightly to the beat of whatever music pounded from outside. “Maybe you could use the company.”
It was a genuine offer, dovetailed by an ulterior motive that couldn’t be helped. Daron was a stranger to this world, and in order for him to learn what he needed to know, it had to come from a stranger who wasn’t.
A snort became a long, rueful sigh from Herald. “Shit, you really had to be a decent fellow.”
Daron’s brows drew together, before the warmth coating his throat turned into a numbness. It traveled gently down his body, before spiraling behind his eyes. Into his mind.
So relaxed, the cup fell from his hands.
“Who are—” The words slurred past his lips, warm and loose over the cold thrum of panic. “What the hell did you…”
“Don’t worry.” The other voice echoed like a song, a ring of sounds circling around him. “I did say it wasn’t going to hurt you.”
If Daron had a hard time standing before, his balance was nonexistent now. He tripped every step of the way to the curtain, and when he eventually met the ground, he crawled. Desperate.
Help.
If he could just break the window, yell for help.
With every bit of strength left, he reached for a fold of the curtain and yanked as hard as he could. He panted, unsure if the curtain’s fabric was unnaturally strong or if he was simply weaker. He managed to open it just a crack, a slice of raging light pouring in.
Before fingers marked in black triangles grabbed it back, closing it completely.
“Careful, Demarco,” the voice of the hand warned. “No one’s supposed to see you just yet.”
The first reel of ice stabbed clarity through the warmth.
How did he know his name?
“Everyone here knows your name.”
That didn’t make any sense. Did he hear his thoughts? Were those his thoughts? Everything swirled so violently, Daron wasn’t sure what words were leaving his lips anymore. Just babbled nonsense, before a phantom weight drifted over him. All he could remember were the mirrors staring down at him from above.
In the frame of one, he could’ve sworn he saw Kallia dancing.
26
Roth refused to see her. Or at least, he didn’t care to.
He’d sent no note, hadn’t knocked on her door to check in after the duel. At first, Kallia wondered if this was his silent way of kicking her out of the Alastor Place. Becoming like a ghost, so he’d never have to dirty his hands with confrontation.
“You’re not special, mortal. He’ll vanish from time to time,” Vain muttered alongside her. “When the Dealer has business, he takes care of it. That’s all.”
Annoyance spiked in her sly drawl, as if that’s all she knew of it, too. The business he attended must’ve been serious if not even his headliners were involved.
“Regardless, he hates me.” Kallia’s eyes stayed hard on the ground. “They all do.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” With the barest shake of her head, Vain added, “To be loved by all is overrated, anyway. Especially in this town.”
The mantra repeated in her head. None of this had ever mattered to Kallia before. She’d faced contempt throughout Spectaculore, even in Hellfire House from the most deplorable patrons. But scorn like that, born from the littleness of others, never hit her as hard as it rattled the others delivering it.
The judgement that met her that very morning was not amusing, as it was born from the littleness of her.
Sly whispers from headliners to the hungry stares of passing waitstaff followed her up and down the hall, some more discreet than others. To them, Kallia was the bleeding magician who’d lost. No amount of smiles or charm could convince anyone otherwise. Not with so many witnesses and spectators to keep the night alive.
Still, hiding out in her room was out of the question. It would’ve only given them more pleasure to push her further into the corner.
“You better look every single one of them in the eye, like you can see their secrets.” Vain elbowed her sharply. “A good walk of shame will make everyone else squirm instead.”
Kallia’s brow jutted up. “Didn’t peg you as the type to feel shame at all.”
“I walk solely to shame them.”
A small snort later, Kallia forced her gaze ahead, catching all the sneers. The sting of them lessened, after seeing just how much distance they needed to bite. Even more laughable among them were the looks of utter confusion upon recognizing her companion of choice.
No one was more surprised than Kallia to find Vain at her door when she awoke. After an impatient drumline of knocking, the headliner stood waiting on the other side with her usual cool-eyed expression.
Kallia barely got a word out before a bundle of fabric hit her in the face.
“A gift from Ruthless,” Vain said. “Now change, so we can go out.”
Just like that, Kallia was walking down the stairs in a skin-tight lilac gown that stretched with ease, flaring out in a skirt that hung easy as feathers. It was similar to Vain’s lightweight dress, in a shade and style slightly different. She more than enjoyed the puzzled reactions they received as they sauntered out of the Alastor Place to hail a carriage together. All that was missing to complete the odd picture was Jack following closely at their backs.
Every few steps, Kallia looked in every direction. A glance around, behind, then out the window of their moving carriage as if Jack might show himself in the crowd. She always found herself checking and always found nothing. Not after he vanished with those last words, that last look, at the Ranza Estate.
Only Kallia noticed the absence. Hard not to, when Jack had always left a trail of fear in her periphery.
Walking next to the Queen of the Diamond Rings, though, inspired fear of a different kind from onlookers.
The headliner now watched the city out the window, the lights washing over the sheer mask she donned today—a scrap of black mesh, studded with gold. If only Kallia could stop looking at the pieces of her face left exposed. A softer cut to her jaw, same eyes. Lips set in a perpetual curl with the tendency to frown when she thought no one else was looking. That frown.
Kallia knew it all too well, and it had been sitting in front of her all this time.
Eva.
Like a myth herself, she
hardly seemed real. Not at all who she pictured as the lost sister from Demarco’s stories; the girl across from her was another creature entirely.
You two would get along famously.
It felt almost cruel that they had found each other first when they were nothing but strangers. Two magicians now linked by each other’s greatest secrets.
“Look…” Kallia cleared her throat. “Eva—”
“It’s Vain.”
The cut of her tone was like a dagger throw, yet her gaze never strayed from the window. “And you can stop looking like you know me, mortal. Anything you’ve heard before is irrelevant here. Names come with pasts, and pasts come with secrets. So if you tell a soul who I really am—who any of us are—I’ll destroy you. No matter who you are to my brother.”
Twisted as it was, the threat almost brought a smile to Kallia’s lips. Locking him away in the back of her mind for so long turned him into such a cruel illusion for her that just the mention of him now was an indulgence. It wasn’t all just in her head anymore. What a luxury that was in a world like this.
“Fair enough, Vain.” Kallia leaned back, still treading carefully. One wrong word, and the headliner would likely kick her right out of the carriage and into the traffic. “Though I’m not sure there’s much damage you could inflict upon me that hasn’t already been done.”
“Don’t underestimate me. There are so many ways to destroy a person if you’re creative enough.” She sized Kallia up as if plotting such ways now. “Stop your wallowing. You may not be in the best of places, but thank Zarose you’re not in the worst.”
“Which is?”
“Out beyond the gates, lost to nightmares until you and your magic waste away.” Dread entered Vain’s eyes. “Or back in the shadows, no hope of ever getting out of them any time soon.”
They could agree on that. The past held shadows, and most weren’t lucky enough to leave them unscathed, if at all. Those who never had to live in the dark, hidden and unseen, could never know. The light had always found them, so they’d never gone without.
No matter how Kallia and Vain bickered, they still shared shadows.
“Why offer up such information freely, then?” said Kallia, head tilted. “You really trust me that much?”
“If I’m not mistaken, you were the one refusing to trust me.” Vain looked down at her nails, fluttering them out before her. “However, it had to be done. Now I know the secret to your downfall, and you know mine. I doubt either of us would be willing to double-cross the other the first chance we got, agreed?”
It was a strange logic both cutthroat and fair, though Kallia could really do with a better upper hand. This city knew too much about her, and she knew nothing really of the girl sitting across from her. Or where she was even taking her.
“Good. Now that that’s out of the way…” Vain straightened the chain around her neck, unmoved as the carriage halted to a stop as if on cue. “Ready to fly, mortal?”
* * *
The headliner’s gymnasium had no right being such a marvel.
Light overwhelmed the cavernous atrium, assembled like a grandly tiered wedding cake with more windows than walls at every ascending level. According to Vain, one floor functioned as a wraparound trail that could shift from a stroll in the forest to a walk on the beach. Another was dedicated to strength training with various exercise instruments and devices, sitting just beneath the level constructed as a sinuous pool that snaked around in a loop.
Rubbing at her eyes, Kallia waited for her vision to even out. Never-ending nights had not prepared her for this an unnaturally bright trick of the mind.
“You get used to it.” Inhaling, Vain straightened her mask. “We take our daylight where we can, even if it is all just an illusion.”
Everything was an illusion, though that in no way deterred anyone else’s enjoyment. Some magicians strolled between pillars with steam rolling off their bodies or lounging in lush robes. All relaxation in one area, clashing with the harsh shouts and orders from the main floor ahead. Performers executed series of stunts across the springy mats or jumping over the wide stretches of colorful trampolines.
Kallia couldn’t help but watch. No matter how catty these headliners could be, there was no denying the talent on every floor of this gymnasium.
“We all used to get our own levels, believe it or not.” Vain spared a bitter sideways glance. “Until Roth figured that dampened the competitive spirit. The man really loves shrinking his cages as much as he can.”
“With all this space?”
“Tight quarters, more drama.” At the wave of echoing hoots that rose from the Red Death Dukes, Vain’s lips pinched tighter. “And practically no boundaries.”
“Why crave boundaries when you get the best view in the city?”
At the low, posh voice, Vain turned and immediately gagged. Kallia blinked at the sight of the fit, purple-haired magician wearing nothing but a small towel at his waist.
“I should’ve brought a blindfold.” Vain groaned.
“Please. I’m Jonny Triumph—you know you want this.” The magician gave a saucy wink before noticing Kallia. “Oh … you.”
It was remarkable, the poison of one syllable. She would’ve preferred it over the interest simmering in his eyes. “Another pretty bird to add to your little girl group, V? It’s not like you to kiss ass while the Dealer’s away.”
Vain pursed her lips. “She’s just training, Jonny. Maybe you should try it.”
Chuckling, he raked his fingers through his long, dampened hair. “Geniuses don’t need training. My music is art you can’t train. Not like those adorable hoop tricks you all do.”
He’d said a whole list of wrong things from the Diamond Ring’s forced smile as she ripped off her necklace. “How about you take her for a ride, then?”
One would’ve thought Vain had brandished a knife when Jonny balked at the glittering charm dangling between them. “Sorry. I’ll be late for my massage.” He grinned, edging back a step. “Another time.”
“Pity.” Vain whipped forth the chained necklace—and the air burst in a loud fiery crack like the release of some fearsome creature.
Amidst the thin tendrils of smoke stood a large jewel-studded hoop, hooked to a seemingly endless snakelike chain.
Pale as a sheet, Jonny scampered off. The Diamond Ring snorted and hefted the chain’s end skyward. The impossible length of it ran and ran and ran up to the ceiling, somehow finding purchase when the connecting links snapped into a taut, straight line above.
Kallia’s jaw dropped as Vain stepped within the metal curve, one moment there.
Gone, the next.
A few headliners on the main floor paused their drills to watch Vain soar high up with the grace of a pendulum, paired with the lethal precision of a bow taking aim.
Jonny had only just reached the end of the mat before a quick blur swooped in and snatched the towel right off his waist. Whistles and catcalls surged across the gymnasium. Vain’s laughter rang loudest of all as the pale and unabashedly naked magician flipped both middle fingers at her.
“Oy mortal, catch!”
Heart pounding, Kallia looked all around. A warning whistle of wind was all the signal she got when she pivoted just in time to catch Vain’s outstretched arm.
Before the ground vanished from under Kallia’s feet.
“Hope you’re not afraid of heights,” the headliner shouted within her hoop, one hand overhead. “Just don’t let go.”
Kallia was only proud she didn’t scream, though she wanted to. Not in fear. That strange flutter in her stomach at the weightlessness heightened like the warmth in her chest as they surged higher, farther and farther away from the small headliners below.
The edges of her lips curled, almost bursting out in a laugh. The rush of it all was joyous and breathless and terrifying. So overwhelming, she wanted to bottle the bliss for later.
For the first time in a long time, she’d never felt more alive, more awake.
The jarring stop nearly forced Kallia to let go, but she held tight. Her breath caught up to her, everything dizzy from the flow of constant motion to none while harsh voices piled around her.
“Come on, get her one!”
“Hold on—”
“Yes, before we both sink.”
“Hold on.” The sweet voice returned with a fury. “Oh, look at the poor darling. You just grabbed her without any warning.”
When Kallia opened her bleary eyes, the Diamond Rings surrounded her. Malice, hanging upside down nearby by her knees, arms outstretched for catching. And Ruthless, sitting on her hoop across, tinkering with a shiny object in her lap. “Don’t worry, almost done. Just hold on and don’t look down.”
“Or do,” Malice suggested. “I personally love this view, everyone small and beneath me. It’s how I usually see things, anyway.”
“Any week now, Ruth.” Vain huffed from above. “She can only hold us both for so much longer.”
“Calm down. It’ll take more than a few measly breaths before you drop.”
“What!?” Legs still dangling, the fluttering in Kallia’s stomach took a turn. She had descended on chandeliers plenty of times, but never from so high up. The kind of height that promised broken bones and more.
“Why are we up here?” The hoop lowered another stuttering inch, and her fingers tensed.
“To train you. What does it look like?” A yawn. “We usually start off at the ceiling so that anything lower will feel like groundwork—”
“Wait, train me for what?” Kallia hissed, arms trembling. “The duel is over.”
“Not in this world.” She cocked her hip from above. “And since you’re working with the best, training you to become a Diamond Ring.”
Kallia almost lost her hold entirely at Ruthless’s loud squeal of delight close behind—before a thin, thread-light chain slid around her neck with the click of a clasp, the icy weight at her collarbone.
A diamond ring.
The small charm felt strangely heavier than it appeared when she’d first seen the performers wearing them. Though none of them wore theirs as jewelry, now. Hooked up by the large chains, the ladies wielded their hoops like armor. The wings they used to fly.
When Night Breaks Page 28
