The Midnight Before Me

by Elizabeth Lo

  “Who are y—” the girl says, but Glorieux cuts her off, pressing a hand to the girl’s forehead and closing her eyes. She feels the girl fight back.

  Useless.

  Deeper and deeper into the girl until she gains control and the girl becomes something like a second body of Glorieux.

  When Glorieux takes her hand down, the bright eyes of the girl are dulled to match her lifeless red hair, the light taken out of them both.

  “There, there,” Glorieux whispers softly. “Will you be so kind as to let me stay here?”

  Ah, she remembers where she is now.

  Hanbury, the city of riches, politics, and governors. One of the cities at the top of her hit-list.

  Fire is rather a beautiful thing. Full of energy and a never-ending want to expand. And she has something quite beautiful in mind for Hanbury too.

  Chapter Eleven

  Midnight

  With Sucre

  I’ve regained consciousness on solid, unmoving ground. It’s no longer cold or ferociously windy. A bit of warm sunlight kisses the top of my hand, and Sucre is sleeping peacefully next to me, his large pink body curled around me. His fur tickles my cheek, and his pelt only flinches slightly when I sit up, barely acknowledging my presence.

  I really do have two bodies. The other me is just settling down in the sleeping bag about now, just as the me here is waking up. It feels weird. I can see and hear and feel and smell and sense two things at once simultaneously. I am two people. And two people are me. And I am the same person.

  I guess the simplest description is it’s similar to having two hands. They’re both attached to you and they’re both you, but they’re just separated by distance and consciousness.

  Focus on this body, for now, Mid…

  Like… How my clothes here also have whole parts cut clean off as if a sharp blade had just carved holes in them. I at least have more fabric on this side, as somehow, I had attempted to bring my clothes with me, but, seeing how I’m not an Assembler, they came out quite pitiful.

  After I gave Sucre that huge gust of wind to push him away from the cliffside, he flew a little further, then sank to the ground, collapsing again. It’s still the same day, it seems, but I feel like I’ve woken up in a completely different era. Even here, I’m exhausted. Each breath feels like a chore, and I keep clenching and unclenching my hands to try to get them to stop shaking. Everything feels so calm compared to the harsh, stabbing cold of the northern Galvitonian territory. It’s amazing how much the temperature changes just in the tiny little territory of Galviton. But no matter the temperature, I have no idea where we are now.

  We’re still in a forest, but the trees here are not as tall or foreboding and are made up of spring greens, yellow ochre, and diluted chartreuse instead of moody phthalo-greens. I don’t think there’s anyone around us, though that’s just an educated guess; my senses are still pretty nullified.

  At least I’m a wind magitype. I regain magic energy just by breathing regardless of temperature, unlike Queen Glorieux. From what I saw, she was a fire magitype. She regains magic when it’s warm. A fire magitype up in Northern Galviton should be disadvantageous… She shouldn’t be able to get magic as easily… And yet…

  Any magician who used spells like that should be as good as dead. Just because a person has the magic energy to perform a spell doesn’t mean they can immediately cast it. When an unprepared magician casts spells outside of their abilities, it’s the equivalent of losing a few liters of blood all at once. Usually, it takes years of training to get used to utilizing that much magic. Yet she wielded it like it was nothing. It’s scary seeing something so… inhuman.

  But then again, I’m also a scary inhuman as well.

  What Sucre said made sense… It would explain a lot… Like why I come back to life after I die in a brand new body. Why I’ve never gotten sick in the last two years. And any and all scars on my body disappear after I’ve duplicated. That’s how I know this is the second body: the wound from this morning is already gone.

  My hand draws near my chest again. I take in a deep breath, remembering.

  “Sucre?”

  Speak.

  “How… am I here?”

  What do you mean?

  “I mean… There are… two me, right now. One back at Hadrien’s Cliff, and one here. How did I end up like this? Isn’t one of me supposed to be dead?”

  Yes… And no. Curses… always have an activation condition. However, for death-activated curses, the trigger isn’t the death itself—because death in itself is the drainage of magic. Instead, they are activated by the fear of death. When the mind reaches such a state when it genuinely believes—and I mean believes—it has zero chance of survival, then the curse can be activated to steal the magic of its victim to set forth its action. However, it doesn’t have to be longer than a split second of panic to set a death-activated curse since a curse is triggered by the subconscious, unlike spells that are triggered by the conscious.

  So my prediction was right.

  “All right… So then… What am I? Am I dead? Or was I never alive in the first place?”

  A part of me starts to regret I had asked, out of fear of what I might hear. But the other part forces me to sit silently and listen out of dangerous curiosity.

  You… You were supposed to die two years ago when Felicius first used you to demonstrate to the Magic Council his amazing “discovery.” The function of your curse—I hear you call it “Demon Eyes,” is that correct? Anyway, the function is essential to maintain your body even after death. To keep it in the last known pristine condition it was in for an indefinite amount of time. A broken version of a Regeneration enchantment. So yes, you are dead, but, given how your mind is still intact and your soul is still as strong as ever, it’s as if you never died.

  “A Regeneration spell… enchantment? Are those even possible?”

  Regeneration—an urban legend amongst magicians. That only the greatest of Assembler magicians can perform this spell on themselves, and when they do, it takes a tremendous toll on them because of the massive expenditure of magic energy it uses. The creation of new, whole tissues and cells is a task that can easily go wrong—the creation of something is infinitely harder than the destruction of things for a magician.

  Sucre seems to chuckle to himself.

  For normal humans, no, it’s not possible. But if a particularly skilled person is able to set it, then it is possible. And that’s also why your specific enchantment doesn’t work on Assembler magicians—their magic would interfere with the enchantments.

  Like what happened with Black…

  Make no mistake… Sucre continues, you are still a person in every aspect outside of your eyes.

  At the moment, you have two bodies, so right now, neither body is ready to break the curse due to their partial ethereal states. But I suppose it really shouldn’t be a problem for now since we first have to go to Berningdale so you can learn the spell.

  He continues to mumble to himself a little more until I can barely hear him.

  He says “outside of your eyes” like it’s a casual thing. Like the only thing wrong with me is just the off-color of my eyes. And true, the color has most certainly led to much taunting and jeering, but they represent so much more. Eyes are a great place for storing “add-on” magic or magic used to enhance a person’s abilities, due to their direct connection to a person’s soul and mind. Whatever that spell was, it was fused with me and shows up directly in my eyes. My eyes are the very evidence of what I am.

  And that’s why I hate them so much.

  Right now… Sucre continues. You seem to be half and half. Half magic, half physical body… No wonder you’re so weak right now. You have half a body, and your other body has half a body. I suggest… you somehow get rid of that other body so it can return to you.

  My teeth dig into the soft flesh of my lip. What he means is that my other body has to die. Has to finish the job it didn’t complete.

 
I take a moment to absorb it all. For a second, all I can do is stare at the grass as I pick at it aimlessly.

  It seems I’m now mixed in with two death-related curses. My own curse, the Demon Eye’s curse or whatever its official name is, and the Memento Mori curse. The curse I’ll have to “break” later because of my Demon Eyes. I suppose Death’s hobby is connecting people.

  “How… do you know all this stuff, anyway?” I ask.

  Oh, enough questions already, he growls suddenly, turning away.

  Maybe he’s tired. But I’m far from satisfied.

  “Hey, Sucre.”

  No answer.

  “Sucre?”

  The cat sniffs and squints at me.

  What?

  “Can I ask just one last question?”

  His tail swishes in deliberation.

  Persistent, he grumbles. But he gets up anyway and reassumes a more attentive position. Fine. I will answer one question. Name it now then forever… or at least for today, hold your tongue.

  Black used to say something similar to me. Let’s see if the trick I used to use on him will work on Sucre too.

  “Well then…” I begin. “How about… Is the Queen still even alive? Or rather… what happened to her? No, no… Actually, I’ll ask why we need to go to this mysterious magician in the south to learn the spell… Nope, hold on… what about ‘How does the curse work?’”

  Okay then…

  “No, wait. On second thought, I’ll change the question.”

  He ruffles his fur, shaking the forest floor.

  Make up your mind already, he mutters.

  “All right then… Final question, okay?” I take a deep breath. “Why is breaking the curse so important?”

  The question trap is set.

  As if he’s seen through my plan, he kneads his paws into the ground, debates his answer, and then begins.

  So as you know, he says, the throne is in ruins. Dead king plus mad queen plus no ready successor equals anarchy, essentially.

  I nod.

  Well, first, I guess I should start off with Glorieux. Glorieux Frost’s father was Aristide Frost, previous General of War who had earned himself the nickname of “the Executioner,” for reasons with which I’m sure you’re very familiar.

  Yup. The founder of public hangings. The King of the Gallows. His second-in-command was Black’s killer.

  Aristide hung… someone very precious to Glorieux. Someone so important to her that the moment that person started hanging, she got so upset she tried to initiate an enchantment on her father for revenge. You’ve heard of the old magic method of enchanting?

  “Yeah?”

  Good. The young ones these days keep giving me headaches with their ‘new magic developments…’ Well, anyway, Glorieux attempted an enchantment on her father. Not just any enchantment, but one of those big enchantments that are meant to last forever and self-sustain. Oh, but of course, since enchantments are illegal now, she never learned how to use them properly. She overestimated her magic ability when she cast it for the first time… and quite clearly failed by setting a dangerous combination of chants that, when put together, have become the infamous Memento Mori curse.

  The curse… essentially transfers the soul of a killer’s victim into a person the killer cares for the most in the moment of the curse’s activation. A witness of the killing has to activate the curse—not the victim. The curse just presents itself to you for you to activate during a time of desperation. So really, this curse is just a twisted way for witnesses to keep the people they love alive longer while getting revenge. You know, that human feeling you all seem to be filled with. Wishing dead ones can still be alive. None of you have really figured out the curse’s pattern quite yet… but I can due to the fact that I can watch everything happen right before my eyes.

  He looks ready to say more, but he moves on.

  But anyway, back to what I was saying about Glorieux. When she activated the curse for the first time… she actually cursed herself first. You see, Aristide, was the killer and the… hanging person… was the victim. Since the person that the killer actually cared for the most was Glorieux, she ended up with the prisoner’s spirit inside of her.

  If you think this is just a small-scale curse—after all, the requirements for activation sound very specific, I can assure you that it is anything but, he says. The curse has already severely compromised the military… In fact, the one in Falconry just snapped.

  “What do you mean?”

  I mean, they all went crazy. Spirits who have died start deteriorating just like corpses, and the deterioration is directly related to the drainage of their magic energy. With added memories of death serving as a basis of trauma, the deterioration causes insanity to ensue through the spirit, and… it never ends well. Not to mention a good chunk of affected souls have been cooking for a good two or three years or so by now due to the war… They’ll all start breaking down and killing each other soon.

  Sucre said the last sentence with a strangely factual tone. But I suppose, he is a centuries-old cat. Humans dying probably doesn’t affect him that much anymore. Maybe to him, it’s just like pets dying.

  Without realizing it, my fingers have picked out a good bit of the grass at my feet as I’ve listened. I guess I’m really the nervous one.

  By now, he continues, Glorieux has racked up a total of eight foreign spirits within her body due to her father’s actions of publicly hanging people. She’s… beyond human at this point. In a way, she still is herself… just with the darker sides of her amplified to an extreme degree… along with the darker sides of eight others.

  Which leads to the answer to your question. Glorieux Frost is the reason why breaking the curse is such a necessity now. At this point, Glorieux has combined her magic energy with the other eight souls, giving her an immense amount of magic, but sending her further and further down a road to losing her sense of self and any remaining bit of humanity she has left. I daresay that by now, she can’t die from any mortal wound at all. And I suppose that’s the answer to the other question—if she’s still alive.

  Oh, my question barrage worked.

  The answer is yes, he says. Why? Regeneration. You see, before, I said that a particularly skilled person could potentially make a Regeneration enchantment and perhaps warp it if they wanted to, but there is another way for a person to be able to Regenerate.

  “If they have a lot of magic…”

  Correct. And by defying the rules whilst blinded by anger, Glorieux is, dare I say, one of the most dangerous beings in the world right now.

  “And you didn’t do anything to stop this beforehand?”

  His ear twitches.

  I… I just thought she wouldn’t get to this point…Glorieux, you see, had amazing willpower, so…

  I look straight into his giant yellow eyes. Unlike a human’s, they betray no emotion. But somehow, I can see it.

  “You were scared of her,” I say. “So you avoided her in the blind hope that everything would be all right.”

  I can barely see it from where I’m at, but the hair on the back of Sucre’s neck starts to rise.

  That’s…

  “But what about for those with only one other soul in them?” I ask to avoid his outburst. “Are they as dangerous…?”

  Well… I wouldn’t say they’re as much of a threat as Glorieux right now… But they’ll soon have their impact too. You see… though they are still much weaker than she in magic, their abundance in magic makes their souls heavy, and therefore unable to leave their body. Meaning, even after suffering fatal wounds, they can still manage to live on. They are… nearly immortal in the worst way.

  He looks off to the side, his tail still swishing from side to side.

  Well… I suppose you don’t need to decide right now if you want to break the curse. But like I said, I will be taking you to a magician friend of mine to instruct you on how to break the curse as well as give you some much-needed information on your eyes. Then, it
’s up to you to decide what you want to do. Satisfied?

  It’s up to me, huh?

  Really, what a strange way to put it. We both know that’s not true.

  Sucre and I both ignore each other for the rest of the day, so I can digest the information he gave me, and he can sleep in peace. When the night rolls around, I know for sure that I won’t be able to sleep well.

  Chapter Twelve

  Midnight

  With Sucre

  I’m awake.

  I don’t want to be awake.

  It looks like having two bodies is going to be harder than I thought. I can already feel the energy draining from me. Sleep is barely helping. I ended up dozing off for a few hours at most in Sucre’s fluffy fur all night, and my patchy clothes are covered in a thin layer of pink hair. And before I’m ready, it’s already the next morning.

  I try to lay still, not move at all, and hopefully go to sleep again. But I have no such luck. The sun is already peeking through the trees, mottling the ground with specks of golden light. The sky’s the color of periwinkles, and the clouds are as white as the creamy milk they used to deliver to my front door every day.

  Sucre’s definitely still withholding information from me. Even though he finally told me about the mechanics of the curses—both mine and Memento Mori—and gave me information on Queen Glorieux, he ignored my question about the magician in the south.

  Sucre seems to be confident in this person. It’s just… How they know about a curse-breaking spell that only I can do is something to be wary of in and of itself.

  Perhaps I can squeeze some more information out of him today?

  As if summoned by my thoughts, the cat starts to arouse from his slumber.

  “Sucre, do you know where we are? I think we should find a nearby town or something to get our bearings.”

  I’m sure if you mastered flight already, you can answer your own question.