by Kaylin Lee
I cut my protest short and grimaced. I had been thinking only of myself.
“I just … I'm still so mad.” The stream of words let loose, and I couldn’t have stopped the torrent if I had tried. “I'm so angry, Zel. I was so close to a real future, and it all got taken away for no reason. And I just … I’m furious, all the time, and I can’t stop it. And I hate being reminded of everything that I lost. I mean, I already know what I’ve lost. Trust me, I know. I don’t need the reminders,” I finished under my breath.
And then another thought occurred to me. “Besides, won’t Weslan get in trouble for using his powers in public? There’s a reason they don’t let mages roam free, right?”
I looked at Zel when she didn’t speak. Of course, no one knew what I was feeling better than Zel herself. She had lost everything too. From the day her Touch had been discovered, she'd never known a moment of true peace or safety. And she never would.
She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze before sitting on the side of her bed nearby. “First, don’t worry about Weslan. If the government thought his powers were a threat to the city order, they never would have let him go. He told you everything, didn’t he? He caused a lot of trouble, but he didn’t break any laws. They couldn’t keep him, but they couldn’t imprison him either. I doubt the Asylian government will care if he shows off a bit for a few commoners in a tiny market in the Common Quarter.
“And second, I want you to try something. Find one thing that you can enjoy in this. You may not like being the center of attention, and you may not like being reminded of what you've lost. But if you can find one thing to enjoy and focus on that one thing, you'll survive this.”
What could I find to enjoy about being a spectacle?
“Sweetheart, thanks to your courage, we have a chance to pay the taxes and get out of this impossible situation. Do you see what an incredible miracle that is? I used to think I was all alone in the world. That I couldn’t trust anyone to look out for me. And then I met you and your father. You've worked tirelessly to help me and the twins and sacrificed so much for us. You’ve inspired me. You’ll never know how much.”
I bit my lip. I had never expected that.
Zel continued her speech. “And seeing you use your intelligence and try your hand at something new, something I’m not sure has ever been done before, even when you feel like you've lost your future … It's a beautiful thing. An inspiring thing. And it's nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. So can you do that? Can you find one thing to enjoy in this?”
“Besides the money?” I asked, but I could feel the corner of my mouth creeping up in a half smile.
Zel laughed. “Besides the money.”
“I'll try.”
~
Moments later, I found Weslan seated at the kitchen table. I opened my mouth to speak, but I held back my words when I got a close look at him. His head rested on his hands, and his eyelids drooped so much they were nearly shut. I'd never seen him so exhausted. I approached him hesitantly, remembering his terse demeanor on the way home. “Weslan, what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” he said, not bothering to lift his head from his hands. “I'm just hungry.”
“Do you want me to cook you something?” We hadn’t eaten yet.
He shook his head. “I'm just going to eat some of that victus in a minute.” The canister of victus was sitting out with the lid off beside a pitcher of water.
“But we have enough money now—”
“I’m fine. That money is for the tax. I don't want to waste it on fresh food when I have victus to eat.”
“I suppose …” I trailed off. It wasn’t as though he were asking my permission. It hurt when he brushed me off so harshly, but he didn't seem to notice. I puttered around in the kitchen, eyeing him for any clue as to what was going on.
Eventually, he got up and mixed up a bowl of victus and water. He shoveled it down, and then we dragged ourselves through the motions of cleaning the kitchen and preparing the next day’s work.
I tried several times to tell him to go rest, but every time I broached the subject, he shook his head and ignored me. Finally, I gave up. I did as much of his part of the work as he would let me. Spending the morning at the market had put us far behind in the rest of our work.
I finished drying the last dish and put it away. I was about to ask Weslan about the plan for tomorrow, but there he was, asleep on his pallet in front of the hearth. Somehow, he had slept through the noise of me putting the dishes away. He looked practically dead, but I leaned close enough to see his chest rising and falling in tiny motions. He slept through dinner too.
At last, I shut off the luminous dial in the kitchen and went to bed early as well. I supposed we were both tired. That had to be it, right?
~
“So was it more like this one or this one?”
Alba and I sprawled on her narrow bed, poring over the fashion pages of the Herald. I pointed to the feathery one. “This one. But with a better shape. Light pink and not so fluffy.”
“Wow.” Alba stroked the dress on the page and fell silent. Each day, after we came home from the market and had a chance to clean up, she dragged me upstairs to pepper me with questions about the dress. My chest ached each time because she never said what I knew she was thinking—she would give anything to be at the market with me. If there had been a chance that she could go and not get caught, I would have happily traded places with her.
As the days passed, Weslan shortened the story and added less embellishment. But I still had to remind myself not to clench my fists and scowl at him.
Each morning, the crowd devoured the story and the cakes, admiring my magical transformation with gaping mouths and shouts of delight. A few brave children, particularly the girls, crept close enough to stroke my dresses.
Such glorious dresses! In the week since our stall had opened, Weslan had conjured a stunning array of designs—a sparkling, golden gown that flowed around me like a bell, a yellow dress so light and airy it could have been made from butterflower petals, and today’s dress—my favorite so far—a pink, feathery creation that should have been utterly frivolous. Instead, it was perfect, swirling about my hips as though I’d been born to wear it.
Weslan’s creations were extravagant and luxurious, but they were also soft and beautiful. I didn’t find them obnoxious or silly the way I usually viewed Procus fashions. His work was different, somehow. Better. More beautiful and more comfortable all at once. The gowns were like nothing I’d ever seen before. None of the Procus ladies who paraded around in their fomecoaches ever wore anything as gorgeous as my dresses. Weslan had real talent. No doubt, Mage Division wouldn’t have let him go so easily if they’d known he was so good. Yet another thing to worry about.
I’d promised Zel I’d try to find one thing in this whole mess that I could enjoy. It turned out that I loved Cinderella’s magical dresses.
Our stand was a runaway success all week. New people came to Theros Street Market for the first time because they'd heard about our cakes, and we had to buy new ingredients from Gregor each day. By the time our first week at the market was over, we had nearly enough marks to pay off our merchant tax.
But Weslan was grouchy and irritable, and it seemed to me that the only time he was happy and animated was when he was giving his morning performance.
Every afternoon, he struggled through his chores, exhausted and silent, but he wouldn't accept help. Downright pitiful. He was also ravenously hungry, but he wouldn't let me cook anything for him using our profits. He insisted on eating cold victus, bowls and bowls of it. It was free and didn’t use up our rations cards, so it didn’t matter how much he ate. But I knew the victus tasted horrible.
Alba and I flipped through several more pages of the Herald and I answered her questions as best I could, forcing myself to be patient. Her hunger for the outside world made my head hurt. If only she knew what an ugly city we lived in. But the Herald itself was one of the few bright spots.
/>
The Herald’s ancient printing press was built from imported parts after we discovered the Western cities across the desert plains, before our mages learned how to replicate Western inventions. The old press was all noise and grease, while the mage-crafts were clean and silent, powered by invisible magic. Since the Herald didn’t need any mages or Procus money to operate, it had been the only newspaper to keep printing even during the plague. Some days, they’d printed nothing but long lists of names—the names of the dead, the names of the families that survived them.
Five years ago, they’d printed that ill-advised story on me, “Ariella Stone: First Commoner to Win Royal Academy Scholarship.” I grimaced at the memory. If I’d known it would make me the most despised thirteen-year-old in the city, I never would have gone along with the interview. The old woman who had interviewed me had kindly, wrinkled eyes and callused, ink-marked fingers. She probably hadn’t expected that her beloved Asylia would hate an ambitious common girl quite so much.
Finally, I patted Alba on the back and dragged myself off the bed. “I’ve got to go prep for tomorrow,” I said, stretching. “Have a good night.”
I marched downstairs with one mission in mind—I had to confront Weslan, surliness or not. I took my chance while we washed the dishes. He kept fumbling with the pans and utensils, but when he nearly dropped one of our plates, I’d had it. “Enough.” I grabbed the plate from his hands and plunked it on the counter. “Sit down before you fall down.”
He plopped down at the kitchen table without a word of protest. Maybe he really had been about to fall. His eyes were bleary and bloodshot even though he had been sleeping at least ten hours a night the past week.
“What is going on? Have you been drinking? Is it … aurae? You can tell me anything, Weslan. I won’t get mad. I just need to know what's happening. I want to help.” I plopped down in the seat across from him and watched his face for any sort of reaction.
He shook his head and attempted a smile. “It's not like that. It's nothing so terrible or dramatic.”
I smiled back in what I hoped was an encouraging manner. “What's going on?”
“Really, it's not a big deal at all. It's just …” He seemed reluctant to continue.
“It's what? Just tell me already!”
“I've never used my magic so much in my life. Every morning, I do the oven and the frosting, and later, I do that whole trick to draw crowds and …” He didn’t finish the thought.
“You make me pretty?” I grinned, hoping to get a real smile out of him.
He shook his head, his eyes glinting with humor for a moment. “Oh, you're already pretty.”
I ducked my head. Must be the exhaustion speaking.
“Here's the thing,” he said. “In my school days, I did everything I could to avoid working. I used my magic for pranks and did the bare minimum to pass my classes. That means I was only using my magic once a day or even every couple of days. When I started working for my patron, my only job was to dress the patron’s granddaughter. I only did one thing at a time—the bodice, the skirt, the shoes, the hair. Simple. Easy. She just wanted to look good, and she didn't care how long it took or whether I did it with any flair or drama.”
He shrugged. “But I wanted to attract a crowd for you, and I wanted to give the crowds a chance to experience the magic for themselves.”
So Zel had been right. How had he known to try something like that? I never would have thought of something like that, not in a million years.
“So I tried to do it all at once. I’d never done that before. I didn't even know if I could that first day.”
My eyes widened. “You didn't know? What if something had gone wrong?”
He grinned. “Don't worry. It would've worked out. The important thing is, I did it. I've been doing things all week that I never thought I had the power to do. And I think I'm so tired and hungry all the time because my power is growing.”
I’d never suspected a mage’s power could grow. At school, we were taught that all mages had a fixed absorbent or expellant capacity that determined their classification, like a bucket of a certain size that could empty or fill but never more than its inherent volume.
“I think it’s like a muscle,” Weslan said. “The more I use it—well, the heavier I lift with it, so to speak—the stronger it gets. But my body needs to refuel. I need lots of sleep and food, apparently. I’m sure it will get better once I reach my actual, innate expellant capacity. It turns out that I don’t know what that capacity is.” He rubbed his knee. “It's pretty embarrassing.”
“No! Don’t be embarrassed. I think you’re amazing, Weslan.”
He raised an eyebrow.
I forged ahead, hoping he wouldn’t dwell on my slip-up. “I mean, I think what you’re able to do is amazing. I didn't even know you could increase your magic ability.”
“I can't,” he said. “At least, I’ve never heard of this happening before. They certainly didn't teach us to strengthen our magic ability this way at school.” He frowned at the table, running his hands along the wood grain for a moment. “In fact, I wonder what the Mage Division would do if they knew I was getting stronger. The only reason they blacklisted me was because they thought I was more trouble than my talent was worth. But if I can do more …”
It made sense. It also made me nervous. If they found out that Weslan was stronger than they’d thought, they probably wouldn’t hesitate to press him back into service again. And what would they do if they ever discovered he’d shared his True Name with me?
“Don’t look like that. I’m sure it will be fine.”
I was pretty sure it would not be fine.
“Really, this is a good thing. I’ve always wanted to be a stronger mage. I’m finally getting what I wanted, and I’m paying the price now. But I doubt anyone will ever find out.”
Chapter 12
But Weslan’s magic kept growing. My dresses grew increasingly extravagant, and the cakes grew more dazzling. The daily work of baking and frosting accelerated. Weslan’s confidence returned, and he wore a smile most of the day, flirting and laughing with girls at the market, shining with light and confidence. He was too bright to stay in our dark, ugly corner of Asylia for long.
Yet here we were, broiling in the hot morning sun, selling cakes to Asylia’s lowliest, most despised citizens.
I wanted to be happy for him. I did. He was very talented, and it wasn’t fair that he’d been blacklisted for doing something that no doubt many mages had done. But every time he smiled or squared his wide shoulders, I was reminded that he didn’t belong with us. He shouldn’t be here, laboring all day with a scarred, angry commoner like me. From the way he occasionally watched me, a strange look on his face, I had to wonder if he felt the same way.
He was so powerful and skilled. Did it chafe him to waste his powers serving lowly commoners? Did he long to be recognized by his own kind, to be welcomed home by his friends and family the way he should be?
I finished selling a cake to a young man in a school uniform. Someone screamed, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I craned my neck to see what was happening. Why was everyone running in different directions?
Men in black clothing and red masks poured into the market. My nightmare held my legs in an invisible grip. My blood pounded in my ears like a drum. The Blight was here. At the market. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t scream.
Then I was on my belly, my face pressed into the rough ground, and Weslan’s weight pressed into my back as he covered my head with his arms. “Don't move,” he whispered.
His weight crushed the air from my lungs, but I didn't move. I was too scared to move.
He held me close forever, the longest moments of my life. I tried to focus on his warm breath by my ear, the safe feeling of his heavy weight on my back, and the feel of his heartbeat as his chest pressed against me. We were both alive … for now. I held on to that feeling.
“Don’t move,” he whispered again.
I
hadn’t planned on it. What had happened to everyone? Why couldn’t I hear anyone screaming?
A pair of boots entered my line of sight and crunched closer. “Do you see them?” A man’s voice. The Blight. They would see us any second now.
“No,” said another man. “They must've split. There's a second exit back here.”
Crash! Glass shattered above our heads. Something sharp hit my cheek, and I held back a yelp of pain. If they hadn’t see us yet, I wasn’t going to be the one to give our position away. It sounded like one of our display stands had been destroyed.
More glass shattered. The polished black boots stopped three inches from my nose. They were right next to us. How did they not see us? Then the boots crunched away from us.
The market was eerily quiet for a moment, as though holding its breath. Weslan didn’t move and neither did I. Had they truly left?
And then the Quarter Guards’ loud whistles split the air, and then screams and sobs filled my ears. The people around us were begging for help and healing. Weslan released me, and we stood up together.
“What just happened?”
Weslan didn’t answer, so I looked his way. Oh, no. He was covered in blood and looked gray in the face, more exhausted than I had ever seen him. His eyes were shut, and he swayed on his feet. “Weslan.” I searched his body for wounds. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
He opened his eyes a crack. His words slurred together. “I think they were after us. Me. They don't … they don’t like what we're doing.”
Had this disaster been our fault? Had the Crimson Blight attacked Theros Street Market for the second time, all because of us? My stomach turned sour. I pressed my eyes closed for a moment and waited for the wave of nausea to lessen. “What happened to you?”
“Just glass. I'm fine.” He held his arm and showed me where shards of glass from our table displays had hit his arm. The bleeding had already stopped.
“Then why do you look so awful?”
He put a hand on my shoulder to brace himself. “Used too much magic. I made it … hide us … so they couldn’t see us.” His voice was a whisper.
