The Heart of the Circle

by Keren Landsman

  “I was just thinking about you. When did you two speak?” I asked.

  “Late afternoon. She told me to come around midnight.”

  Daphne had probably called her sometime after I left to meet Lee and before she went out on her nightly escapade with Oleander. It was just like her to make me do all the work. “What did she tell you?”

  “Nothing,” Sherry said, shaking her head. “But I made sure she’s credible, and one of the seers I trust told me to do what she says.”

  The noise around us grew louder, and suddenly I realized why Daphne had sent Sherry over to talk to me. There were too many people around for a damus to pick up on our conversation. Large crowds disrupted a damus’s ability to read us, just like they prevented me from tracking Lee.

  “All she said was to come over and talk to you. Does this have anything to do with the recent rally?” she asked, waving the bartender over.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I wasn’t sure how to tell her about Daphne’s vision. ‘We’re all going to die’ sounded a bit overdramatic. The world was relatively quiet for the bomb I was supposed to drop on Sherry. I didn’t even know her rank in the police. Maybe she was just a beat cop, and telling her would be entirely useless. Maybe Daphne was just trying to get me out of the way to do whatever she and Oleander were doing, which could be sitting around laughing at the pathetic moody wasting his Friday night on a cop.

  “Maybe you guys have an idea who…” I stuttered. “In the rallies, I mean. It’s…”

  “You don’t listen to the news?”

  “I try not to,” I replied, shifting uneasily. My mind was still wrapped up in Lee, in the touch of his finger on my nape.

  Sherry’s drink arrived. She swirled the liquid in her glass and stared at me. “Matthew said you always march.”

  I nodded. “With Daphne. It’s… you know.”

  “He said you were really close to the explosion last time.”

  I looked at the ice cubes as they whirled inside the dark liquid in my glass. “Not as close as I was two months ago.”

  “And yet, you went back,” she said. “It’s important to you.”

  “Of course it’s important to me,” I said, glaring at her. “Isn’t it important to you? Why are you even on the police force if you don’t care about our future?”

  “Our future is very important to me.” She tightened her grip around her glass. “That’s why I’m here. To understand what exactly–”

  “Understand what?” I interrupted her.

  Sherry took a step closer to me. “I want to understand why Daphne called me. Why she asked me to come here, and why–”

  “Daphne asked you to come here to stop people from dying in the rallies,” I said. I was getting all riled up. “After Flint, no one did anything, none of you.”

  “We’re all doing the best we can,” she said.

  “And it’s not enough. They keep breaking through our barriers. Each and every one of them. The damuses’ barriers, the moodies’, even those your worthless cops set up. Do they have inside information? Someone who informs them where and how they should strike? Why aren’t you doing anything?!” I was panting. “Daphne sees the square filled with people injured or dead, we’re all going to die in the next rally, and meanwhile the police are twiddling their–”

  “And what are you doing? Apart from worrying your brother and walking around with a giant bullseye on your back?”

  “Do you have any idea how it is to feel someone dying? To feel someone’s pain? Someone’s hatred? You… you…” I searched for the right words. “I have to be there. I have to do something. If I can help, even just a little…”

  “Motherfuckers, burn!” someone yelled in the crowd.

  And just like that, the place caught fire.

  Sherry and I turned. The flames danced all around us, and my thoughts crashed into each other. Smoke inhalation. I had to run outside. Lee was stuck downstairs. I had to get him out. He had no idea what was happening, and he was completely high.

  “You wanted to help? Now would be a good time,” Sherry said firmly. She climbed on top of the bar and yelled, “Fire! That way!” she gestured the pyromaniacs’ sign dramatically. At least three people noticed her.

  “Burn!” someone else yelled out of the crowd, and this time I could feel them. At least five separate consciousnesses, all driven by hatred. I put out my feelers. There were no other moodies in the crowd. Or maybe they were all downstairs. I couldn’t tell.

  “Water!” Sherry yelled. No one was moving.

  People were bursting into flames, and I couldn’t understand where our pyros were to stop it. They could have put out the fire. Unless…

  Unless the pyros here weren’t ours.

  “Reed!” Sherry called out to me.

  The crowd’s panic flooded me. I knew only one way to help Sherry make the crowd follow her instructions. I penetrated the hateful consciousnesses and filled them with pain. People were burning. Without thinking twice, I took away their pain and hurled it at the assailants. I heard agonizing shrieks and the place filled up with thick smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Sherry was yelling out orders next to me. She didn’t sound scared. I could feel the panic bubbling inside her, buried deep under the well-practiced discipline. It was unlikely that I could maneuver every person in the pub, but I could take the fear away from at least some of them. Just to help them stop it. To put out the fire. I withdrew the pain and panic oozing from the burning people and shoved it into the hateful consciousnesses. People were starting to follow Sherry’s orders, putting out the fire and helping the wounded. I continued to extract pain and frustration from the others inside the pub and cast it into the assailants’ consciousnesses. The air started to clear. Probably airheads helping to cleanse the place, maybe even stifling the flames. It was a continuous effort, the kind of pressure I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

  I couldn’t stop. Not now. I took all I could, concentrating only on transferring the pain from the wounded. Too many people. Too much consciousness. I had little sorcery left in me. My grip was slipping. My head was going to hurt like crazy tomorrow.

  “Reed, are you OK?” Sherry asked, looking down at me from the bar.

  “Sure,” I said as the world slipped from my grasp and turned black.

  13

  I woke up in a bed that wasn’t mine, dressed in a cotton nightgown, covered in an itchy wool blanket. I heard repetitive, high-pitched beeps. The room was cold. My head was throbbing. Someone was next to me. I could sense so little of him that I couldn’t figure out who he was. I opened my eyes. Matthew was sitting on a chair by my bed, cradling his head in his hands. He was breathing slowly.

  I looked around me. The letter G was printed inside a circle on the blanket. I was at the hospital, hooked up to three monitors, each showing different lines, only one of them beeping in a steady rhythm. I gasped.

  Matthew woke with a start. “Don’t you dare move,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You hear me? Don’t move.”

  My throat hurt. “Can I have some water?”

  Matthew nodded. “I’ll go get some. One sec.” He didn’t move, just stroked my forehead. His eyes were red.

  Lee knocked on the open door, still in the same clothes he was wearing when I last saw him. His shirt was wrinkled. “Can I come in?”

  “Reed wants water,” Matthew blurted, and turned back to me. Lee turned around and went out.

  I didn’t have time to think about something to say before Lee returned. “Couldn’t find cold water. It’s lukewarm,” he said, walking into the room, holding a plastic cup with a straw.

  Matthew kept his eyes on me. Lee walked around the bed and stood beside me, smelling of smoke. Matthew still wouldn’t look at him. I took a tiny sip. Lee remained standing on the opposite side of the bed.

  “Where’s Daphne?” I asked. My voice came out hoarse.

  “She’s not picking up,” Matthew said. “I texted her that you’re i
n the hospital, but she still hasn’t read it.”

  Of course not. She was probably still out with Oleander. Or asleep. How did she not see what was going to happen? “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Four am,” Lee answered.

  I looked at him. “I can’t feel anything from you,” I said, trying to sit up.

  Matthew reached out and stopped me. “Lie down,” he said, his voice trembling. “You’re depleted.”

  Lee bit his lip. His face was an impenetrable mask, but a tiny spark in his eye hinted that he was angry. At me.

  I shrank into a ball. It was one thing to talk with Sherry about how I was willing to do anything to help, and quite another to stand on a chair and maneuver every person in the pub. No one did that. The thought weighed so heavily on me I could barely breathe. Lee knew. He knew what I had done. What could I possibly say to him? I’m sorry? I didn’t mean it? People would have died if I hadn’t done it?

  The ceiling was a solid, dull yellow. I turned to Lee, searching for words. “I… I know it isn’t right…” But that’s not what I wanted to say.

  Lee closed his eyes and turned his head. I knew what I would have felt had I been able to poke around inside him – giant, impenetrable walls.

  The door opened again. It was Sherry. She entered the room, her expression revealing nothing of the emotional state she must have been in. “How are you feeling?” she asked, shutting the door behind her.

  “Fine,” I replied with the steadiest voice I could produce. For Matthew’s sake as well.

  “It’ll take you at least four days to regenerate. When coming in contact with normals, you’re obligated by law to disclose that the interaction might–”

  “Lead to severe side effects,” I completed her sentence. We were all familiar with the legalese. A depleted sorcerer draws his powers from the normies around him at a pace and intensity that aren’t healthy for them. The result is joint aches, fever, susceptibility to infections and sometimes even heart attacks.

  “I thought empaths couldn’t be hurt,” Matthew remarked in a scathing tone.

  “Reed wasn’t hurt. Only the normals and elementalists were injured,” Sherry replied and pursed her lips. She looked at me and said, “In fact, thanks to Reed’s actions, a lot of people were saved.” She approached my bed, and her gaze softened. “I know you have a… code. About maneuvering without consent.”

  “It’s not just a code,” Lee spoke up for the first time. “It’s a matter of basic morality with regard to others.”

  “I’m happy you broke your code,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “If you hadn’t been there, it would have ended very badly.”

  “Do you know who it was?” Lee asked, clearly trying to redirect the conversation.

  “You’re asking the wrong question,” she said to Lee. “What you should be asking is why anybody would want to hurt you guys. Why five pyros with no criminal records would walk into a pub and set themselves on fire, when they know perfectly well they wouldn’t come out of there alive.”

  “Because they’re psychopaths,” I said. “Because they think that–”

  “That we should all be killed,” Lee completed my sentence, and our eyes met.

  “Calling them psychopaths is just letting them off the hook,” she said, breaking the silence between us. She started pacing the room, Matthew following her with his gaze. “These are people who seem perfectly sane… And then–”

  “Like Ivy,” Matthew said.

  Sherry paused and shot me an inquisitive look. “Ivy?”

  I licked my dry lips. “We used to be really good friends, and… she…”

  “She flipped. Went nuts,” Matthew said. “She told Reed that everything he was, all their friends, they were all just a terrible mistake, and that she intended to do everything within her power to make up for it.” He looked at me. “Right?”

  “Sort of,” I replied. There was more to it. At first the simple explanations made her feel better. Feel meaningful. Her ability was no longer a threat, but a blessing. It was only later that the doubts appeared, and the self-hatred started to seep in, amplified by the sense of helplessness because now she wasn’t simply a mistake in her father’s life, but a mistake of the universe itself. “She joined Sons of Simeon when they were just a fringe movement. A small, messianic cult we still thought couldn’t do any actual harm. We haven’t been in touch for years.”

  Sherry drummed her fingers on her thigh. You could almost hear her thoughts taking form in different patterns. How much of this had she already known? When I thought about our conversation in the pub, I realized she was simply gleaning information, and wasn’t volunteering anything I hadn’t already known. No different from now. “We need more details,” she finally said. “I’m assuming that’s why your roommate, the seer, wanted me to meet you. So you could fill in the blanks. What exactly did she see?”

  Lee was standing in the corner, curling into himself so as to become unnoticeable, avoiding Matthew’s gaze. He was out of place. He didn’t belong here, and yet he was standing by the door when I woke up.

  He deserved to know what was about to happen.

  I felt my stream of emotions turning into a raging torrent. My walls had crumbled, and I couldn’t put them back up. I didn’t have enough sorcery inside to pull it off. I was almost completely depleted. The only thing I could feel was myself. The only good thing about being this enervated was that at least there was no risk of my emotions affecting others.

  I described what Daphne had seen as succinctly as I could, trying to stick to the facts and not my interpretation of them. When I finished, Lee was leaning against the wall, pale. Matthew buried his head in his hands. Sherry was standing with her arms folded across her chest.

  “OK,” she said.

  Matthew looked up at her.

  “I’ll look into it with the seers at the precinct. We have some very good people on the force. So far they haven’t reported anything that sounds like what you’re describing.” She started pacing the room again. “I’ll talk to them, and then to your roommate again. We need to understand the discrepancies between what she saw and what the police seers are seeing.”

  “How is that going to help?” Lee asked in a stifled voice.

  Sherry stood and turned to him. “Details we haven’t seen before. Missing information. Now we know who they’re going to target next time, and we can use it. It’s an opportunity to find out more.”

  “Find out more what?” Lee asked. “You already know there are psychos after us. You already know that–”

  “I don’t know why, and I don’t know who. But now I have a lead, and it’s coming from a reliable source,” she said, pointing at me.

  “You… you…” Lee stuttered, straightening up. “You can’t be serious. It’s madness. It’ll just end with more casualties. Reed might–”

  “I’m stopping the next murder,” Sherry interrupted him, her voice quiet and assured. “You worry about Reed, I’ll worry about the rest of Tel Aviv. Cool?” She turned to me and said, “Tell Daphne I said thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

  She exchanged a silent glance with Matthew and left.

  Lee pulled up a chair and sat beside me. From the other side of the bed, Matthew held my hand again.

  “You might want to keep some distance,” I told him, even though it pained me to say that to Matthew.

  “Nonsense,” he muttered and tightened his grip on my hand. “I’m in contact with depleted sorcerers on a daily basis. You wouldn’t believe what people do to impress their friends. They push their sorcery to the limits. I’ll be fine. It’s just a legal warning. You have to rest.”

  “I am resting.” I couldn’t feel anyone. I was trapped inside my own brain. “We need to talk about–”

  “Nothing,” Lee said, touching my shoulder. “We don’t need to talk about a thing. You need to get better.”

  Matthew leaned in to me and said, “Sorcery regenerates with rest, right? So rest.”


  My emotions were too chaotic. I couldn’t muster up enough sorcery to calm myself down. I felt a well-aimed arrow from Lee. My mind blurred.

  “Now he’ll rest,” Lee said. I was too tired to turn and look at my brother.

  Matthew said something, but I couldn’t make out the words. I fell asleep.

  14

  Daphne came to visit the following day. She came alone, dressed in a pressed black skirt and a cream-colored blouse I liked. Her face was riddled with guilt. I couldn’t be mad at her. I could only imagine how terrible she must have felt when she found out what had happened.

  “I hope your date ended better than mine,” I said, sitting up in the hospital bed while she pulled up a chair and sat down beside me.

  Daphne crossed her legs, her heels tapping against the floor. “It was great. We snuck into the drive-in.”

  “Daphne…” I tried to sound reprimanding but I knew she could see the smile I was hiding.

  “I know, I know. It’s horrible. I’ll be arrested.” She touched my hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m not.” I bit my lip. “It’s so weird. Like when the dentist numbs you. You keep touching your mouth without actually feeling it, you know? It’s like that.”

  “I think I get it.”

  Lee would for sure, and I wouldn’t have to explain it to him. “Did anything change since yesterday?”

  She shook her head. “Exactly the same.”

  I rubbed the edge of the blanket between my fingers. “I told Sherry. I thought it would be enough.”

  Daphne grabbed my wrist to quiet my nervous gesture. “It doesn’t work that way. You know that. We have to wait.”

  I was glad I couldn’t feel her. She must have been dripping loss.

  I leaned back against the pillows. “OK, then tell me something to distract me.”

  “I have a better idea,” she said. She opened her bag and fished out a decorated tarot deck. “Want me to read your cards?”