When Night Breaks

by Janella Angeles

  They all tensed. Despite himself, relief coursed through Daron. Having no other option was sometimes easier when every step he made failed. Searching for Kallia had become the goal for so long, there was no seeing past it. Part of him hoped the rest could fall into place after, that he’d finally be able to breathe.

  At least now, he could lick his wounds in the solitude of the mirror shop.

  A disturbance sounded a short distance away. More hollering, growing rowdier. Herald shot a glance over his shoulder, taking stock with a groan of the sliver of the streets he could see. “Things will only grow messier out here to make up for a disappointing night.” He nodded back at Daron, sparing a short bow to Kallia. “Counting on the next to fare much better. Though the bar is quite burned to the ground at this point.”

  As the magician advanced closer to the bright end of the alleyway, Daron turned to follow suit before the cool grasp of fingers stopped him.

  “Come to the show,” Kallia whispered, breath rushed.

  “That depends.” His pulse leapt at his wrist. “Do you actually want me there?”

  His stomach coiled tighter. He was being an ass, which meant he needed to leave. Before he fucked this up even more. Every muscle in his body was charged to go, but he was unable to move. To stop himself from glancing down at the hand still holding his. Her palm felt different than he remembered, firmer with callouses that hadn’t been there before in what felt like so little time since she disappeared. Eva always said the ways hands changed spoke volumes about a person. Daron wondered if she noticed his the way he felt hers.

  “I don’t hate you.” His throat bobbed hard. Kallia, on the other hand, had made her feelings more than clear earlier, and he wished not to repeat it again. Especially to the backdrop of another night of empty revelry. “All things considered, with us … not sure that’s the best idea.”

  But he didn’t want to leave her. Didn’t want her to go.

  “No, I—I didn’t…” Eyes closed, Kallia paused for a breath, and a soft shadow crossed over her face. “You need to come to the next show. There’s someone you need to see.”

  What more? Every bone in him tensed as if ready to twist his body in half and break the rest. Daron recognized the pattern by now, the anxiety pulsing loud as a drum in his chest, in warning of the worst to come. He expected it. “Who?”

  Until the glimmer of a first hopeful smile broke across her face.

  “Your sister … is here.”

  34

  He was here.

  Actually, truly here.

  It didn’t hit Kallia fully, not until she slipped off her heels and began wandering down the lit streets of Glorian. After everything, she needed to walk. A city loud enough to drown out all thought would be the only thing to clear her head.

  Music blazed in the air without end or rest in between, trumpeting from every corner she walked. Some answered the call—those who swayed in place while standing in line into one of the packed dining manors, others running in pure delirium to form a dance floor where they could for themselves along the cobblestone.

  The night raged on, as usual. Any trace of disaster that stemmed from the Court of Mirrors earlier vanished, forgotten by the majority who chose to lose themselves in other ways. It was a rule each side adhered to, true and other. The show must go on, and so must the party. An endless cycle that stopped at nothing, until it finally did.

  The entrance into the Alastor Place was quieter than usual, the only sign tonight had any effect was the Court of Mirrors had been decreed off-limits. The fact that no one swarmed and interrogated her instantly meant no one suspected the Diamond Rings. If a scandal like that broke, she would’ve heard whispers on the streets, otherwise.

  Status truly was the best sort of mask. Chin raised, Kallia forced herself up the first flight of the stairs without looking back. It was too soon, and Herald’s mirror shop was too close.

  All this time, Demarco had been so near. A mere building away, under Herald’s watch. As much as Kallia wished to set Jack on the shifty bastard, Demarco didn’t seem all too desperate to avoid the mirror shop or its owner. Not that she blamed him.

  When panic took over, she snapped. Demarco was here, which meant he was trapped. No clear way out, unless she was able to do what Roth demanded.

  Her jaw worked until it went numb as she ascended the stairs, barefoot and exhausted to the bone, avoiding the eyes that always followed. No headliners around to scoff at the sight of her, as they were no doubt partying outside when the Court of Mirrors fell. And no Roth, either.

  Kallia wished she’d seen his rage, breaking all that polish he carefully laid over himself. Roth puppeteered this city like his own little doll house: nothing ever went awry without his knowing. No one would dare. Tonight, most likely, was the first time nothing went according to plan, or his favor.

  And still, he had the last laugh. Behind every false smile, every claim of family and “dear” to sweeten the image, Roth had been working on a plan of his own long before the Diamond Rings had pulled them into theirs. As if he could already see right through Kallia like glass, before she’d ever stepped foot in his city.

  “Oh, thank Zarose, she’s here.”

  Kallia entered her bedroom alone and found three figures already lounging across her bed. Faces bare of makeup and jewels, out of the slick glittering gowns in favor of comfier silks. Ruthless and Malice sipped from dainty flutes of champagne, whereas Vain cradled an entire bottle in her arms like a newborn. All eyes lit up in relief at her arrival.

  “Finally. We can now properly celebrate.…” Vain drawled with the cock of her head. “Unlike some people who were too thirsty for patience.” She smoothly dodged a kick from Malice’s satin-slippered foot. “Don’t deny it.”

  “I took down the first night, so I’m allowed to indulge. Kallia understands.” Ruthless wiggled her fingers over a decadent platter of glistening cherries, picking her share before offering to the others. “We were worried, darling. Even Jack wasn’t sure where you went off to.”

  Another weight hit Kallia in the stomach. “He was looking for me?”

  “Yes, well, he is your bodyguard.” Using her teeth, Vain tore off the foil wrapped around the bottle’s neck. “Not exactly a good look for the guard to lose the body. Especially when chaos is afoot.”

  The knots in her gut only tangled harder. The last she’d seen of Jack, he was drowning in a crowd that he’d been pulling to safety, those who regarded him as a monster. Devil-born. Asking for his help earlier had seemed silly at first, but when the moment arose, he sprang into action. As if he’d been waiting, ready, for a chance to do more. “Where is he?”

  “Hell, if I know.” Vain snorted, coaxing the cork free. “We were too busy trying to catch a peek at Roth before his shadow dogs dragged him away. He was practically soiling himself in rage over tonight. It was glorious.”

  “And far too brief.” Malice tsked. “Such a shame.”

  At the thunderous pop, hoots erupted as sparkly fizz trickled down the bottle, which Vain proudly raised like a glass torch. “To a successful night.” Taking a hearty sip before offering the rest to Kallia. “And your victory—the first of many!”

  The Diamond Rings repeated the words while sipping heavily at their glasses and passing decadent trays of desserts among each other. Part of Kallia wanted to join in the celebration, to escape her thoughts for a second. She’d won a duel, humiliated the great Dealer at his own party, and they were walking free and feasting on treats too pretty to eat. Rewards of a battle won, a true victory.

  Until Kallia’s nausea reached its peak at the thought of indulging in any of it. “Demarco is here.”

  Someone spit out their drink as the room froze. A platter fell, dropping pastries and creams onto the carpet. Kallia didn’t care, not even as cold champagne from the bottle she’d dropped fizzed by her feet, biting at her toes.

  Vain jolted upright as if she’d been stabbed through the spine. “It’s just a memory,” she
muttered. “You’ve been seeing ghosts and—”

  “It’s him.” Something burst in her chest. Ghosts could not do the things Demarco had done to her. The kiss rushed back in flashes of heat and touch. Lips pressed against hers, trailing over her neck and her pulse point. Those familiar eyes devoured her from behind the mask, darkening even more as she took it off.

  Is this real?

  “Shit,” Malice hissed, setting her emptied glass on the table. “Well, what does this mean now?”

  All of their plans, all the training that went into this balancing act, had found the edge sooner than they’d anticipated. This was no mere complication or a hurdle to work around. This brought far too many unpredictable variables. Too many possibilities of everything going wrong.

  “How did he even get here?” Vain snarled out the question. Her jaw clenched so painfully tight, it appeared broken.

  I walked through the Dire Woods.

  There had been something so sorrowful and changed in his voice, it made Kallia shiver. She hadn’t had the sense to ask for the rest. To understand exactly what he’d been through, just to reach this point.

  She wasn’t ready to know it all, to hear who else was involved. She couldn’t bear giving more life to the ghosts already haunting her.

  Not when one had followed her here.

  “Never mind. I know.” A seething curse flew from Vain. She snatched another bottle from the foot of the bed. “It’s Roth, isn’t it?”

  It was obvious even without Kallia’s nod, and no one was more furious than she was at herself for not seeing it coming. True to form, this world would always be a show. Any player could be moved; any coincidence, orchestrated. Especially with a puppeteer like Roth watching all from above.

  Vain kicked a tray out of her path with a harsh clang. “This doesn’t change anything.” Without looking back, she stormed off with the bottle still in hand. “Don’t follow me. I’ll be back.”

  “Please, Vain.” Quiet panic radiated off her, the kind Kallia understood well. That need to lie through it. To run. “You have to see him. You have no idea how long he’s—”

  The door slammed shut with a force that shook the room. Like the shock of a gunshot, no one moved for a beat too long.

  “Don’t take it personally, darling.” Ruthless gingerly propped herself up on her elbows over the messy bed. “She doesn’t talk about him with anyone.”

  “She doesn’t talk about the past in general, really.” After a long sigh, Malice danced her fingers atop the empty bottles beside her. “We certainly popped these too early.”

  “And not nearly enough.” The rosy glow in the other Diamond Ring’s cheeks from before paled now. “Best to stock up on more. I think we’ll need it.”

  Their voices drifted to a hush as Kallia went to the window, feeling no better with the weight of their eyes on her. She saw them in the reflection, brimming with sympathy from behind.

  That was the last thing Kallia wanted to indulge in tonight. No doubt Vain fled for the same reason, but she wasn’t the only one who could read silence. In the reflection, Ruthless and Malice both backed away, making a gentler exit through the door with every intent on returning in a bit.

  But they gave her this moment. Sometimes closeness was a gift, but when needed, so was space. Silence.

  Kallia couldn’t have been more grateful to be able to breathe on her own for awhile. She needed to get out, to keep moving. Anything to get out of her head.

  Hiking up the skirt of her dress, she pushed and climbed through the window, the warm candlelight shifting into cool night air. It was like shedding a second skin, venturing out where absolutely no eyes would follow. She made her way up to the flat of the roof that awaited, dark and undisturbed.

  It was clear why Jack loved it so much. The one place one could think in a world filled with so much light, so much noise. So much everything.

  The blank, black sky above allowed her eyes some rest from the wildness, a comfort in the nothingness. Until she remembered that Demarco was somewhere beneath that same darkness. The same devils, watching him from above.

  Panic bolted through her. She couldn’t believe how she’d let him go off, just like that. Her heart clamored against her chest to fucking move, find him. After all this time apart, why the hell was she still sitting here alone?

  The question plagued her for moments, hours, however many it took—enough to no longer be alone, when another wordlessly sat beside her. Jack. She knew it was him before he even spoke. “Are you all right?”

  Kallia stopped herself from outright guffawing. No, she wasn’t. But if she closed her eyes, she could pretend. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Earlier. At the party, you—” She paused, with a small smile. “You helped. A lot.”

  “The most I did was save a few drunken idiots from tripping into the fire.” Jack lifted a slightly insulted brow. “Are you truly that surprised?”

  “Only that you changed your mind. You’ve made it very clear you wanted no part in this.” That dance felt like years ago, when it was just hours earlier that the floor brought them together. The mere recollection raised bumps across her skin.

  “I still don’t.” Blowing out a breath, Jack rested his elbows on his knees. “Though I guess being half-magician means being stupidly impulsive when the occasion calls.”

  He looked off toward the buildings in such a sheepish manner, Kallia had to quell a laugh. Before, she wished for loneliness—but this, she didn’t mind. Not at all. After his absence, a time spent wondering if he had simply gone for good, his presence brought the strangest relief. As if a missing diamond from her ring necklace had been found, finally set back in place where it belonged.

  It was selfish to expect him to stay, just for her sake.

  “What’s wrong? You won tonight.” His lips fell into a slight frown. “From your room alone, I couldn’t tell if you all had only just started or finished the victory party.”

  Dread dropped back into her chest. The longer she avoided it, the deeper it dug. And this was no secret she wished to keep from him, not some tool to get her way.

  This changed everything. “Demarco is here.”

  The air shifted, tensed.

  As she stared down at her palms, she could still picture his face. The crease in his brow, like the crack of a mirror. “Are you sure? Not an illusion?”

  Genuine curiosity. Kallia hadn’t expected that. Neither he nor Demarco had even met each other, hardly spoken a handful of words, yet they knew too much. Too much to ever clasp hands as friends, or occupy the same room without setting fire to everything in it.

  Her silence was as good an answer as any, but she couldn’t leave it there. “Not an illusion.”

  The confirmation brewed in uncomfortable silence as the music blaring below faded to a dull murmur. Kallia worried where his thoughts might stray—whether that mask of ice would return on his face, or rage would shatter it. With Jack, it was hard to predict anything.

  “Yet you don’t sound too happy.”

  The tension ached in her chest. “I would never want anyone else to fall into a place like this with no way out. Least of all Demarco,” she bit out. “He was never supposed to come here.”

  Regardless of what she wanted, she didn’t want this. The only good to come out of losing her entire world the moment she arrived on this side was that she had nothing to lose. Nothing to dangle over her head.

  Him. Of course it had to be him.

  Kallia clutched at her necklace, rolling the small diamond ring between her fingers. “There has to be some way.…” To get him out, find a way back for him.

  If his sole purpose in coming here was to be a pawn for Roth to move at his leisure, he would never be safe. He’d always be leverage.

  Which meant she would never be free.

  When her eyes watered, she didn’t bother hiding, didn’t care who saw. Pain demanded it. She thought she’d grown used to each lash like a muscle bearing more wei
ght day by day. But pain like this felt new every time, because it always found new ways to hurt.

  “Why aren’t you with him now?”

  Her stomach dropped. An unfair question, but a good one. One she asked herself every time she looked out into the city and felt her pulse thud back to life and her skin warm at the possibility. Demarco was near, waiting for her with so much to say. She’d cut him off in the alleyway, when there was so much she yearned to tell him, too.

  Yet she remained perched on the roof, high above the city streets, where the hurt couldn’t touch her.

  He should’ve known to wake up as soon as the dream hit because he never dreamed.

  No dream ever looked like this.

  They were in his room, and he was holding her hand—a broken bloody mess from a fight in the club that melted away into smooth, soft skin at his touch.

  Her smile lit up, always marveling at magic no matter what shape or form it came in. How big or small.

  And then, she smiled at him, in a way that always made him feel like he’d done something right. Something good, for once.

  That hand started trailing up the buttons of his shirt, and every muscle in his chest tightened. An ache unfurled along the line she drew. Once her fingers began playing with one button, about to slide free, he grasped her wrist.

  If only she knew.

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  Yes.

  The word echoed around them, begging, as it did every time he saw her.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  But he was certain about what to do, the lines they never crossed. Separate. That answer sat on his lips, the one that played in his head when so many moments like this passed them by. It irritated her, every time they left.

  “I want more.”

  With him.

  The thought undid him so completely, it left an ache behind. A pain as she leaned into him and tipped her head up, waiting. Wanting.

  Separate.