Rise of the Magi

by Jocelyn Adams

  I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “I don’t think Parthalan had a civilized bone in his body. You must have been seeing things.”

  “Yeah.” Liam chuckled without humor. “I thought so at first, too, but surprisingly it wasn’t the only time I felt like he had a conscience buried in his twisted mind somewhere. The day he told me we were going out to find you, I could have sworn he wanted me to stop him. Nothing he said, per se, just that same pleading look in his eyes when he told me I had to play on your loneliness to keep you at the farm, and that he’d give my sisters to Rourke if I failed. Outside of the Black City, his soul was as black as pitch, but while inside the walls … I just don’t know what to think. I guess it doesn’t matter since he doesn’t exist anymore, at least not as he was.” Liam shrugged.

  Could the Glass Man really have had anything other than greed and lust in his soul? I supposed anything was possible. What had his childhood been like? Had something happened to change him along the way? If said something hadn’t happened, would he have been a good man? It stretched my mind too far to think he was anything but bat shit crazy. “You told me your sisters’ dreams when they were little but you didn’t tell me yours. What did you want to be when you grew up?” I couldn’t even guess what he’d say.

  A long pause preceded, “I never felt safe enough to consider I’d live long enough to become anything. The three of us went day by day, not knowing what horror would come the next.” His lost-in-nightmare look disappeared, and a smile took its place. “Now, I dream about seeing the world anew through Garret’s eyes. I want to show him everything and see him have the childhood we all should have had.” Liam stared at me with shiny eyes, making me shift with discomfort. “And I would have still been brow-deep in alligators if it hadn’t been for you. That day you came down out of the woods and slammed Rourke into the ground”—his voice went bedroom dark—“that was totally hot, by the way. I could feel your potential. I just knew you were the one I’d been pleading to the Goddess for, the one who would turn our world on its ear and set us right again. I made a silent vow that very moment to help you do it.” Grinning, he squeezed me and nuzzled my throat. Hiding, I thought. “If it hadn’t been for my sisters, I’d have taken you right that second to Dun Bray and sworn myself to your service in whatever way you’d have me.”

  He’d been pleading to the Goddess for help? Liam? I didn’t know what to do with the reverence in his voice, so I tucked it away for later when I could find a less mind-melting day with which to process it. Trying to lighten the mood, I nibbled his ear and whispered, “And I’d have had you every which way I wanted and then some.” At his gruff snickers against my throat, I hugged him tighter. “I’m not sure how much was me and what was dumb luck and the inevitable steamroller of change bowling us all over, but thank you for telling me all of that. I want to know everything about you, the good and bad.”

  “Someday. Right now I just want to kiss you.”

  Tilting my face up to him, I smiled. “Deal.”

  “Lila—” Gallagher’s voice shouted in my head before it cut off, sending a twinge of pain along my spine. Along with it came fear imbedded in a crippling explosion of light.

  I flinched back, and Liam and I stared at one another for seconds, waiting for Gallagher to say more. Nothing came.

  “Nix!” We said in unison.

  After lifting me off of his lap, Liam raced out the door, and I sped after him, my heart damn near exploding out of my chest. Had Nix woken up? What had he done? Had Andrew been right about it being a mistake to bring him to Iress? I should have listened to him! Goddess, please let Gallagher be all right!

  Neve and Brígh met us in the main hall, both panting. Before Liam and I made it to the infirmary door, Neve blocked it, her arms stretched from one side of the moulding to the other. “I can’t let you in,” she said through tears, her gaze switching between Liam and me. “I won’t let you do anything rash until we figure this out.”

  Brígh sobbed into her hands.

  Willa burst through the castle doors, mouth agape, pupils dilated enough her eyes appeared black. “Quinn,” she said. “They took Quinn.”

  “Took him? Who? How?” I said, my heart plummeting through the floor as I turned back to Brígh. “You’ve seen it. What happened?” It was all I could do not to grab and shake the girl, to Will her to tell me, but I maintained enough sense to know why I shouldn’t.

  Fingers fisted in his hair, Liam strode toward Willa, cursing to himself.

  Leaving it to him to comfort my selkie friend, I held Brígh, but her hysterics didn’t relent. “Neve, what did she see?”

  “She just said they’re all gone. She only saw it a second before it happened.” Neve’s chin quivered. “All of the men but Liam and Nix have disappeared from the city.”

  “What?” All of the air seemed to leave the hall as I processed that, leaving me lightheaded and straining to breathe. I made a slow turn to find Liam’s eyes bright and horrified.

  When my instincts connected the danger to him, and that he was standing so far away from me, I broke into a run. At the same moment, I screamed, “Liam!” a flash of light set the room ablaze, slamming Willa face first into the tile.

  Liam’s spirit disappeared from my world. From my mind and body. As far as I could tell, from existence.

  16

  “Liam, God dammit!” I dashed, still half blind, to where he’d disappeared a moment before, blinking against the fading glow. My voice cracked along with my heart. “You answer me this instant!”

  Nothing came back to me. No whispered assurances. No echoed thoughts. No tickling in my mind where our bond lived. No ha-ha, gotcha!

  The hall stood empty, save for the four of us, Neve, Willa, me and Brígh. My mental halls stood empty of all but me, alone. Again.

  “No.” The first came as a whisper as I stood like a lead statue save for the heaving of my chest. The subsequent utterances rose in volume until I screamed it. Fire and ice took turns inhabiting my center. Truths I couldn’t face ripped me open.

  He was gone. Liam was gone from my world, leaving me staggering. Garret’s stirring within me and his turbulent emotions seemed to be saying “where’s Daddy”? I soothed him as best as I could, willing him to sleep so I could think well enough to function and find our man.

  Not again. Not again!

  Liam had tried to tell me the Magi would use him against me, but I’d blocked it out of my mind because I couldn’t accept it as a possibility. My heart shattered as I accepted the truth. Fury drowned me in fire. My hair whipped up, drawn into a hurricane of power flowing from me in all directions.

  I whirled to face the girls, knowing I’d gone to that cold place I’d been a few times before, my eyes conveying imminent wreckage. The Magi had taken Liam. If my guess was correct, Nix had helped them. They’d taken all of our men right out from under me, and I couldn’t do a damned thing to stop it. He was mine. Mine! I’d fought tooth and nail to be with him, and I would get him back or die trying.

  Thoughts about what they might be doing to him replaced my veins with barbed wire. Bile rose, but I swallowed it back down. I didn’t care what it made me, but someone needed to die, and that someone waited in the infirmary.

  Fists drawn in tight, I went for the door to get my hands on Nix and make him bleed some more.

  Neve stood her ground, hands stretched across the door. “No!”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said with enough steel to build a skyscraper. My voice echoed, as if several versions of me spoke at once from down in my depths. “How can you defend him after he took Andrew? He took Liam! Get out of my way so I can shred that fucking bastard until he begs me to kill him!”

  “He didn’t even wake up!” Brígh scrubbed at her eyes as she helped Willa to her feet and ripped a piece of her T-shirt away to wipe the blood from the selkie’s
nose. “I was standing in my kitchen with Cas when I Saw Gallagher just staring at Nix forehead-to-forehead, like they were going to kiss or something, then a burst of light, and they were all gone, along with everyone else in the room. A few seconds later, Cas flashed out of our kitchen.” She clutched her throat, gagging. “Tell me they’re not dead. Please!”

  I shook my head, unable to speak the possible lie that would take the anguish out of her eyes. My heart—though it had frozen over harder and colder than a January puddle—didn’t seem to think they were gone forever, just for the time being, but that could have been denial or wishful thinking on my part. To believe otherwise might rip my soul from my body and render me useless to do anything about it, so I held the shreds of myself together. Barely. “I wish I knew for sure, but I don’t. I can’t believe they’re dead. The fae beyond that door could take me to them. For now, that’s going to have to be enough for you. For me. For all of us.”

  “Give me your oath you won’t kill him unless you’re sure he had something to do with this.” Neve’s hands shook where they gripped the white moulding. “You would hate yourself—and me—forever if I let you do something terrible out of fear and anger.”

  “She’s right,” Willa said, voice muffled by the crumpled cloth she held to her nose. Tears ran in torrents from her big brown eyes.

  The logical part of me, the part that had gone into hiding, understood what Neve was doing, what Nix used to do for me once upon a time. He’d kept me from doing many a thing, some minor, some major, like almost killing Gallagher in a fit of rage. A small amount of control returned as I surfed the hurricane of anger and nodded my agreement.

  Neve hesitated for only a moment before blowing out a breath and moving out of my path.

  Feeling time slipping away from me, I shattered the door into toothpicks with my Force of Will and barged through. Nix lay exactly how I’d left him, swaddled in blood-stained blankets and still out cold.

  Although I didn’t know how Gallagher had intended to reach Nix wherever he’d gone to hide in his mind, I had to try. When I jumped on him, straddling his waist, Brígh said, “What are you doing? If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, then you’re an idiot! It’s too dangerous. Did Gallagher not tell you how dangerous that is even for him? The one who knew what he was doing.”

  “There’s no other way,” I said, fighting a growl, grabbing Nix’s face in my hands and putting my forehead to his sweaty one.

  “You don’t even know how. You could get lost in there, and then we’d all be fucked. Fucked, Lila, are you hearing me?”

  “Pretty much there in case you hadn’t noticed. Now, shut it so I can figure this out.”

  Garret shifted in my belly. Hush, little one, it’s all right. I shut my shields down tight around him and willed him back to sleep, thankful he didn’t have to go with me into Nix.

  While the pink sisters muttered to one another, I did my best to block them out and concentrated, instead, on Nix’s breathing. In. Out. Long and deep. Light flared across my skin like golden lightning, engulfing me completely. It took effort, but I slowed my heartbeat to match Nix’s steady one, letting it sooth me like a gentle clock, counting down toward calm. When my body and mind reached that ultimate stillness only deep meditation or extreme grief could bring, I began pushing out tendrils of my energy into him.

  I found nothing but quiet and shadowy emptiness. No mind. No soul. No consciousness. Dammit, is he dead? Gallagher had said Nix remained inside his thick skull somewhere, so I had to dig deeper. Blind in the darkness, I pushed onward. The farther I went, the more my senses dulled and the less aware of my body I became.

  “Nix?” The hollow sound of my voice died the instant it left my mental lips. Not willing to give up, I moved downward again toward a glimmer of something in the distance. A few more bellows of his name returned no answer. When I came to the point where another inch farther would wrench me completely free of my body, I stopped. Listened. A tiny sound came back to me. Could it be him? Brígh freaking out in the real world? A figment of my imagination? My conscience telling me I was insane to go farther?

  With everyone at stake, I couldn’t afford to play it safe. If Nix was home, I intended to knock his damn doors in, no matter what it cost me. I left my body behind, travelling as pure energy toward the twinkle below. The sound grew in volume as I neared my goal. Nix cried out in a voice so hoarse he must have been screaming for hours.

  When I hit the small bit of light, it exploded around me.

  Silence.

  I blinked and squinted.

  “I can’t believe you came for me.” Relief radiated loud and clear from Nix’s scratchy voice.

  What? No curses or racial slurs? No snark? Limbs rigid and ready for a potential fight, I gazed around, barely focusing on the dim form in front of me. “Yeah, well, believe it, dick face. When you find out why I’m here you might not be so glad to see me. You’re going to tell me what you did to Liam and the others. Now. And if I don’t like your answer, you won’t be breathing for a moment longer than I choose.”

  His gasp almost sounded genuine. “So their trick worked. I tried to stop it, but … fuck.”

  “Don’t play with me, Nix, because I’m so not in the mood. Did the Magi suck you into helping them all those years ago when you disappeared? Are you working for them now?” I tried to creep into his mind to find out what I wanted to know, but I’d have had better luck pushing against stone with a cooked noodle.

  A few moments of panted breaths filled the silence. “I don’t remember what happened to me in that week I went missing when I was sixteen. I’d almost forgotten about that.” His sigh held exhaustion and a small hint of fear. “And there’s something wrong with me right now, Li, so don’t waste your energy. I’m locked up so tight I can’t even penetrate the ward. Do you think they did something like this to me when I was young, and made it so I couldn’t remember?”

  “I was hoping you knew the answer to that.”

  He came nearer, his form solidifying only slightly so that his shoulder-length white hair and striking blue eyes came into focus. “When I felt Gallagher trying for me, I started screaming for him to stop, but I’m guessing he couldn’t hear me. The Magi booby-trapped me and laid me out on a platter, knowing you’d bring me here to Iress. At least, that’s where I assume we are. It was Gallagher who released whatever they spelled me with the instant he entered my mind.”

  Well, shit. “Are you saying that even if the witches hadn’t done whatever they did to reveal the Magi’s realm to us, I still would have found you in the woods?” I’d considered that a small victory in the greater war. Silly me.

  “One of their psycho kids brought me through the portal to the human realm, concealed us with magic and waited, knowing you’d come eventually. God, they are … my mind feels scarred after being with them for … I don’t even know how long it’s been. You can’t win this one, Li. I’m sorry about everything, what I said, how I acted. I know what you can do, how powerful you’ve become since changing us all, but you’re still no match for them.”

  I edged closer in an attempt to study Nix’s face. Gaze lowered, he stood there, but I found no hint of deception no matter how much I squinted.

  “You’re wrong, and I don’t think I believe you’re sorry in the slightest,” I said. “Saying the words isn’t going to cut it, not this time.” After putting enough distance between us to ease my survival instinct’s proverbial hand away from its sword, I sat down on the white ground, keeping an eye on Nix so I could react if he moved. “What do they want? Why take the men and not the women? Where have they taken them all?” I held onto my darkness by a thread, that sickeningly sweet lure beckoning my hands to choke the life out of Nix. Anything to ease the pain biting every inch of me. Only the sight of Liam safe and sound would take that away.

  Nix’s form wavered, and his fuzzy hands dis
appeared into imagined pockets. “They never told me what they want, exactly, only that you were the key to their vision of the future coming into reality. As for where they are, I can try to take you there once we get out of here, but my memories are foggy since they took me. I can’t make any promises.”

  “Do you remember anything about a pond?”

  He straightened and paused. “Maybe. Why? Have you found something?”

  “Again, I was hoping you could tell me.” I studied him for a moment longer, struggling to see through my own doubt to figure out whether or not it was founded. He seemed defeated somehow, lost. “How did they get you? Please tell me you didn’t go to them to spite me.”

  A burst of his tired laughter slapped me in the face. “After we fought, I was so angry I couldn’t make myself go back to Dun Bray. I went north and found an abandoned cabin up there, where I worked off some frustration and just sat and thought about everything. When you … changed me and put out the call, I came—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” My tone could have cleaved a rock in two, and I shifted forward, my fists itching for his pain. “I know bloody well you never came.”

  Nix lowered into a crouch, his glowing, opaque form pulsing between dim and bright. “I swear to you, I tried to come. I was on my way. I even made it into Talawen’s wood, but a girl stepped out of the trees and caught my attention. I thought maybe she was hurt or needed help. She wore wolf skins and had long, shining black hair. Something about her made me stop and go to her.”