by Laynie Bynum
“To the Guild, no. They threw me in this place to rot because I dared to challenge the corruption in their ranks. Because they want to kill all who oppose them instead of trying to work with them. But I also have common sense. Things were like this way before the Guild took power.”
“But how do we know that?” I countered as I absentmindedly reached forward and grabbed his hand. “Think about it. All of our books were Guild regulated, including the history books. All of our news. Everything that happens within our world. You don’t think they could just completely rewrite everything at their will?”
He looked down at our hands and I made note of how soft his were. Not the hands of a killer, I told myself. Not covered in the blood Kai claimed they were.
“You’re talking about centuries of conspiracy and corruption.”
“And you’d put that past them?”
His head turned away as he huffed out another laugh. “No, actually I wouldn’t.”
The buzzer sounded the end of the recreation time slot and people began to file in.
“Think about it,” I said as we stood and brushed the grass off of our uniforms. “Give it a shot to mill around in your brain. And we can talk more later.”
“Alright, Quinn,” he said as he started to walk away. “Momma always told me a pretty girl would be my downfall. I guess she was right,” he said to no one in particular.
I stood smiling in the grass, soaking up every ray of sunshine I could, until I noticed that I was almost the last person left and then scuttled inside.
Day after day it was the same routine. Breakfast, clean, lunch, outside, dinner, sleep. Over and over.
I lived for the moments I was allowed out of my cell. It was as if the prison itself wasn’t the punishment, but the constant time spent in a downward spiral in my own mind. The time alone was almost unbearable. If it wasn’t for Kai and Xander, I’d have lost my marbles in the first few days.
Kai continued to be skeptical of Xander, and—until I could know for sure that he was on our side—I didn’t push the issue.
There was no word from home or the outside, but Kai was working hard to secure us another food source so we could stop taking in the dampening potions infused in the stuff from the cafeteria.
She did have a way with the guards, I’d give her that. From the way she could seduce almost anyone with very little effort, there was definitely a little siren in her sprite blood.
According to Kai, we’d come close to securing an outside vendor to supply a mole guard with food so he could pass it to us. But, since all I had was her word, I couldn’t be sure how close or which guard.
Kai also made the decision on her own to start using magical hair messages to barter for goods and owed favors we might need during the escape. They were growing popular with the rest of the inmates and I feared that she would soon be discovered, but when Kai reassured you, you felt as if everything in the world was okay.
The prisoners who were able to contact their friends and family on the outside all said the same thing. There was unrest growing among the mages outside of these walls. Something big was coming, but they couldn’t say what. No one seemed to know. No one but Kai and me, that was. And our lips were sealed.
“It’s strange that this was all going on right under my nose,” I said one rainy day when we were kept inside from the yard.
Kai and I had taken a card table in the rec room and she was attempting to teach me how to hold a poker face.
“I still don’t know how you missed it,” Kai said, laughing as she reached over me to grab her cup of water. She had to constantly drink to cancel out the effects of being on dry land for so long.
“I just thought that she had a secret boyfriend or something.”
Water spewed out of Kai’s mouth as she lowered her cup and started choking. I stared at her with wide eyes until she recovered. “Winter did not have a boyfriend. I can tell you that much.”
“Okay,” I said, drawing out the word into two parts. “Care to elaborate?”
“Winter and I—” she stopped. “Me and Winter—” she stopped again.
“However the grammatical format of that sentence goes, you want to tell me the end?”
“We had a thing?” She said it so fast and quiet that it was almost as if she didn’t want me to hear it. And she probably didn’t.
“Like a friendship?”
“Like, an ‘if we weren’t in the middle of a rebellion we’d probably be together but it’s got to be put aside right now for the greater good’ kind of thing.”
I nodded slowly. “Not what I saw coming.”
“Winter didn’t either,” she huffed.
So, I wasn’t too far off from the truth. I’d just missed the entire part about becoming a leader of a rebellion and keeping the key to the Guild’s downfall living in our house for the past several years.
“Speaking of home, any word from Ice Cream?”
“You mean Frost,” she snapped. “And I’m supposed to get information tonight. They’re smuggling in a map of the prison so we know where the weak points are.”
Kai laid her cards on the table—a full house. I gently followed suit, showing my crappy hand. Her smile broadened as she pulled in the rocks we were using as currency. “You suck at this.”
“I know. I’m still surprised at how willingly the guards are working with us. This place is notorious for having cruel and sinister employees.”
She counted the rocks in her pile carefully. “Guild propaganda. If you’re scared of this place, you’ll obey. And either way, I’ve kept enough magic in me to be able to charm them when needed.”
It wasn’t just that she was that beautiful or cunning. There was magic involved. Which made a hell of a lot more sense.
“So what do we do until we get the map?”
“We play poker and wait.”
At dinner, Kai was nowhere to be found. I assumed she either already had the map and was pouring over it in her cell or she was doing things I didn’t want to think about to get it from the guard.
Xander, however, was in his typical spot alone in a corner of the cafeteria.
He looked up as I approached and smiled. My knees went weak underneath me, but I told myself it was from the lack of exercise and diminished nutrition.
“You look cheerful this evening,” I said as I placed my tray down and sat in front of him.
“Just glad to be out of that hole for a bit.” He poked something resembling mashed potatoes and groaned. “Even if it is for this.”
I leaned forward over my tray. “I’ve heard rumors that the food has potions in it.”
“The Grey’s resident conspiracy theorist strikes again,” he said with a snort.
My face contorted as I sat back. “It makes sense though.”
“Does it?” he asked, looking up from his slop. “Why would we need potions if our magic was stripped?”
It was either tell him everything I knew or tell him nothing. And Kai would rather me do the latter. But, maybe, if I passed it off as gossip, it wouldn’t be too damning.
“According to my conspiracy theory club—we meet on Tuesdays in the AV room by the way—we weren’t stripped of our magic. It isn’t possible to strip a mage of their power. You’d kill them.”
“So you’re telling me if I—” he held up his fingers and moved them around. A black spark—like the strike of a flint—burst from his fingertips and then quickly died.
His eyes widened and he stuck his hands below the table and looked around to make sure no one saw. “What the hell—”
My breathing was ragged, my pulse like war drums in my ears. It was one thing for Kai to theorize based on information from the outside, but another to see it in person.
“What are you not telling me, Autumn?” His voice was stony, serious—almost terrifying, like that cold-hearted murderer Kai warned me about.
“The Guild is lying to everyone.”
“I knew that. You forget, I was raised in the Gu
ild. I’ve seen the inside of the beast. I was trained by the most powerful assassin in its ranks. Do you think all of that meant nothing? You think I didn’t see through their lies?”
“Then why did you stay as long as you did? Why not get out the second you saw how corrupt they were?”
“Because it’s not that easy,” he said so loud that other people looked our way.
I shrunk back and crossed my arms over my stomach, taking deep breaths to stave away the fear of Xander that he’d given me no reason to justify.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “There are major consequences for leaving the Guild once you’re initiated into the higher ranks. Consequences like death or the Grey. It took—” He swallowed hard. “They made me do something that I will regret until my last breath. Hurt someone that didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t do it anymore, no matter the consequences.”
I started to speak but he cut me off the moment sound left my lips.
“I belong here, Autumn. What I did, I needed to be locked away for.”
His hands were back on the table now, folded in front of him, and I reached out to lay my hand on top of his. “You aren’t your past. You aren’t what they made you do. You could be part of something big. Help take them down for what they did to you and everyone else.”
His eyes barely met mine, a darkness swirling behind them. “There are some things you can’t come back from.”
The buzzer sounded and he jumped up, discarding his tray and leaving the room without saying another word or even glancing in my direction.
Chapter Nine
The inside of the cell had become my living nightmare. Its stark white walls and blinding florescent light were almost a sickening familiarity. I knew every crack and cranny in the cement brick walls, had studied the ceiling until I could tell you the number of holes in the drop tile.
More and more, walking through that door and hearing it slide into place behind me sent a sharp spike of anxiety racing through my body.
I was alone with my thoughts. Alone with the worries about what was coming. Alone with the regrets of what had already happened.
Grief consumed me in those quiet moments. Coming over me in waves like a flood destroying all in its path.
I could almost see her. Almost hear her.
But, just like in the months prior to her death, she was always just out of reach.
There was no guarantee that Kai’s plan was going to work. No promise that our sources on the outside weren’t setting us up for a trap.
Even if it was true that Hudson was helping us, that he was with Lucy, that he held the power he claimed—he was there and watched as I was taken away and did nothing to stop it.
And Lucy. She was the one who sent me away. I loved her like a sister, though we had the same problems as normal siblings—like jealousy and petty fighting over stupid things like clothes. But I would have never betrayed her.
I wasn’t sure that she didn’t just want me out of the way. That she worried I’d take over after Winter died instead of her and that her years of training under Winter would be for nothing.
Alone in my bed, I shook out my head and arms and let out a huge breath. It was just the isolation making me paranoid.
The cell was too small to properly pace but I tried anyway. Anything to help clear my head. And as I paced, I sang, an old song that our mother used to sing us to sleep. Something to break up the deafening silence.
Sunbeams and starlight.
Morning light and dead of night.
Through woods and sea you’ll find your love.
Fly fast with the wings of a dove.
Gone for now but not for good.
The key you seek is in your blood.
Both the light and dark guide your way.
Until you arrive, they must stay.
The toilet in the corner of the room lit up with a golden aura. It would have been a strange sight anywhere, not just against the bleak color palette of my cell.
“You sing like her,” Kai’s wistful voice said as the glow intensified and dimmed with the pitch of her voice.
“How long have you been listening?” Part of me was thankful to have some sort of human connection to interrupt the loneliness. Part of me was genuinely annoyed at the intrusion of privacy. And part of me was irrationally angry that Kai knew how well my sister sang. Just another reminder that they were close and had hidden their relationship. Just another memory I thought was all mine and now had to share.
“Long enough. Look, I’ve got the map. Don’t eat breakfast tomorrow. Even if I’m not there. Just don’t.”
I sat down on the bed and stared at the toilet bowl. “So are we doing this tomorrow?”
“We might not have a choice.”
“What does that mean?”
No response.
“Kai?”
I looked down into the toilet bowl, not sure what I was expecting to find. But nothing was there, not even the golden glow from moments before.
As I laid back on the bed and tried to sleep, the weight of my own thoughts crushed my ribcage, making my lungs constrict upon themselves.
I missed my sister. I missed my bed. I was more homesick than I’d ever been before.
If and when we got out of here, I’d never take my twin mattress and hand me down comforter for granted again.
Kai wasn’t at breakfast the following morning but after her abrupt cut-off the night before I didn’t expect her to be.
From the sound of it, I was running out of time to decide if I was going to let Xander in not. I wanted to. There was no doubt of that. But if I got him involved and somehow risked Kai’s life or our chance at escape, I wasn’t sure if I could live with myself after everything that had already happened.
“I need you to be honest with me,” I said as I sat down next to him instead of across from him like usual.
He turned on one of the circular stools that made up our seats. “About?”
I crossed my arms and held my expression as serious as possible. “Are you honestly done with the Guild, or was all of that just talk to fit in here?”
He laughed, which wasn’t the response I was hoping for. “Does it look like I fit in here, Autumn?”
I looked around at the empty table around us, everyone still keeping their distance from him. “This is serious. Just answer the question. Are you still loyal to the Guild in any way?”
“Let me tell you a story and you decide.” He paused and looked at me, trying to see if I was going to press for a quicker answer or patiently listen as told. I wanted a quick answer, we’d run out of time so often in this place of rigid schedules. But I also wanted to hear his story. “There was a boy without a father. His mother got really sick. She couldn’t work so she couldn’t even afford their one-bedroom trailer. When she was so sick she couldn’t leave the hospital, her son was alone on the streets. One night, after all of the sane people would have been in their houses asleep, he was attacked. His assailants took his few meager possessions—a sleeping bag and a backpack filled with his clothes. The boy felt so helpless and angry that his blood boiled in his veins. His vision went blurry. A ringing in his ears blocked out all other sounds. When it stopped, he found his attackers motionless on the street in front of him. Scared for his life, he grabbed his belongings back and fled.”
He went to pick up his biscuit and I placed my hand on his arm, slowly shaking my head no. His eyebrows knitted together but he sat it down and continued his story.
“The next day some strange people in black robes found him. Told him he had magic. Told him he was some sort of mage. They took him away from the city his mom was in and he never saw her again. They fed him, clothed him, and gave him a place to sleep. But that was about it. Never once did they show him any affection. Never once did they notice how hard he tried to please them. Not once, until the day he took his first exam.”
“Did she die?”
He rolled his eyes. “The mother isn’t the point of this story,
Autumn. Listen.”
“Fine, but you’ll tell me later, right?”
“Autumn,” he growled.
“Okay, okay,” I said as I held my hands up in defeat.
“His powers were strong. Way stronger than anyone else’s in his class. And they knew they could use him for their own benefit. They sent him away—ripped once more from everything he knew—to train with the most skilled assassin in the Guild. A man named Draven Arthur. Draven beat, tortured and worked the boy to death. And when he was ready to give up and give in, to let death take him, Draven showed him a vision. His mother, healthy and searching for him.”
“Oh no,” I gasped loudly as if this wasn’t the story of his life but a movie I was watching in a theater.
“Draven promised the boy that once his training was complete, they would reunite. Somehow the boy found strength to go on for her. He rose up and became the only person alive to ever win against Draven in a match of powers. He became the Guild’s golden child. Their prodigy. He was certain he’d see his mother again soon. And the guild assured him he would... as long as he did whatever they told him to do. His hesitations about his assignments were met with threats to her life. Her very existence was used against him. One day, he’d had enough, and he went to Draven and told him he’d leave the Guild if he didn’t get to see his mother. One more, Draven said. One more assignment and he would make sure of it. So the boy did as they asked, even though he knew the assignment was wrong. Even though every part of his being hated it with a passion.”
“And did he get to see her?” I was on the edge of my seat, leaning so far toward him that I could see the creases of his skin and the miniscule sparkles of gold inside his irises.
“No. The weight of what he did was too heavy to bear. The son she would have found would be a shell of what she knew before. He left the Guild before he ever got a chance and found himself in the Grey before he’d even walked out of the Guild Hall.”
