by Tracy Deonn
The creature is outlined in thin green light. Its body flickers, gaining density, then thinning, then gaining it again. It could be a wolf except that it stands twice as tall and instead of fur it has a semitranslucent layer of stretched and blackened skin that flakes off at the joints of its four legs. It bares two rows of teeth, curved backward like scythes. Thin rivers of steaming black saliva stream between its lower canines and pool on the grass.
I don’t know what sound I make—a gasp, a near-silent yelp of fear—but its head whips in my direction, glowing red eyes and red-tipped ears pointing my way. It howls, and the piercing sound bounces between the buildings until it assaults me from all sides, freezing me to the spot.
The creature drops low, a growl gurgling in its throat, and launches itself at me.
I brace for the bite of teeth, but suddenly a figure barrels into the creature, knocking it off course mid-flight.
The heaving wolf-thing hits a brick wall with a heavy, squelching sound, a smear of black splattering the wall from the impact.
“Run!” It’s Nick who stands between me and the creature.
The creature hauls itself to its feet. It shakes its body like a dog, flinging dark liquid in every direction. Where the spray lands, grass sizzles like bacon in a pan.
“Bree!” Nick bends down on one knee. “Run!”
Heart pounding in my ears, I stumble—and fall. An arrow of pain shoots up my palms into my elbows.
Nick yanks a thin silver baton from a sheath strapped to his shin. He shifts into a high crouch, then whips the baton down in a slicing motion. The rod extends into a thin, sharp blade.
A hidden weapon. Just like Tor’s.
Nick spins the sword in his grip. At the top of the arc, a small silver cross guard pops out over his hand.
The creature leaps off powerful hind legs and Nick dodges, slicing its ribs as he goes. It lands and swings its tail. Nick ducks, narrowly missing the barbed tip.
The two dance faster than I can follow: Nick slashes. The creature swipes black-tipped claws at his chest. Nick opens it up and sickly light pours from its skin.
They circle each other, both panting hard. Then, the pattern breaks.
Nick steps backward; the creature follows. Nick drops his chin and takes another measured step back—into a closed alley between buildings.
There’s nowhere to run.
He’s trapped, and he doesn’t even realize it.
The creature rears back—
Instinctively, I scramble to my feet and yell, “Hey! This way!”
Nick’s eyes fly to mine at the same time that the creature’s ears flick back toward my voice.
“No!” Nick shouts, but it’s too late. I’m running and the creature is sprinting in my direction. I shift, running perpendicular to its path. Out of the side of my eye, I see it change direction to follow me.
It’s fast. Its teeth snap behind me, less than a foot away. I tuck my chin and push. Faster. Faster. A howl of pain—not mine. A heavy thud.
I can’t help but look.
Nick’s sword is buried a foot deep into the downed creature’s spine. The body shudders and spasms, the blade shaking with it. The creature’s front paws are splayed toward me. So close.
Nick had speared it mid-pounce.
A millisecond later—
“Get back!”
In one motion, the creature I thought was dead pulls its limbs in and under and springs. I raise my arms. It yelps; the embedded sword cuts its attack short. Its jaws snap, black spittle sprays through the air—I hit the ground.
My hands and arms are on fire.
Someone’s screaming.
Me, I think.
The world bleeds black, flowing like ink to the center of my vision.
The last thing I see is Nick, yanking his sword free, then driving it deep into the creature’s skull.
7
VOICES FADE IN and out.
What happened?!
Hellhound saliva.
Feels like my head is dunked underwater. Drawn up. Under again.
On campus? Corporeal? That’s impossible—
Help me get her on the table!
Falling. Falling down to the cold and the dark. The voices grow faint.
Who is she? Aether isn’t meant for Onceborns. If she—
It’s eating through her bones. Do it. Now.
* * *
The high-pitched, rhythmic trill of crickets pulses against my skull.
My eyes open to find a white ceiling with wide exposed wooden beams and a ceiling fan spinning lazy circles. I try sitting—and fail spectacularly. My arms aren’t working.
“You’re all right.” A gentle palm presses my shoulder down. Nick withdraws his hand. He’s standing beside the bed, one sleeve of his hoodie torn to shreds.
A white sheet covers the rest of my body, but underneath it, an intense itch crawls up, around, and over my arms. An awkward roll dislodges one limb; then panic rises. Thick layers of gauze wrap my right arm from knuckle to elbow. I yank my left shoulder back to confirm what the itching is already telling me, but the bedding catches.
“Careful,” Nick cautions. He folds the sheet back to expose my left arm, bandaged identically to the first. “You were injured.”
“Where am I?” I croak. My throat feels like sandpaper someone set on fire.
“I brought you to our healer.” Nick reaches for a glass of water on a bedside table behind him. There’s a straw crooked out of the top, and he brings the glass closer. It’s awkward, and it makes me feel like a child, but I’m too thirsty to turn him down.
He didn’t really answer my question, and I’m sure he knows that, but there are other ways to figure out where I am.
The room is comfortable in an expensive ski lodge sort of way, but the building feels old: furniture and wallpaper done in heavy fabrics and textures no one uses in updated homes. Tall ceilings, mahogany hardwood floors in wide planks. To my right, an upholstered seat below a tall window cracked open to the night—and the chirping of crickets. No lights beyond the glass pane. In the distance, the Bell Tower erupts in Westminster Quarters—the opening notes of the melody clear, but not close. Near campus, then.
I finish drinking. Nick puts the glass down and moves to the window seat to sit, his expression solemn. Nothing like the Nick I met outside Lenoir. “What do you remember?”
I frown, images coming in quick flashes: light in the sky. Running. Nick, wielding a sword. A monster. My eyes key to his in an instant. “You killed it.”
He nods. “I killed it.”
The Bell Tower chimes the hour. One. Two.
“You saved me.” Three.
He holds my gaze—four—nods again. Five.
A realization, clear and true before I even speak it aloud. “You’re Legendborn.” Six.
He inclines his head. “Yep. You must be a new Page? William said he didn’t recognize you.”
I shake my head. Seven.
He frowns, studying my face. “But you saw the hellhound—” When the tower strikes eight, Nick goes still as a statue.
I honestly don’t know who’s more stunned, him or me. We search each other’s faces, as if the next step in this conversation might be written on our skin. Nine. Ten. All I see are the hard lines of his jaw and his eyes, wide and wary. The strands of his straw-colored hair are still darkened from perspiration. Eleven. Silence.
Eleven o’clock—not quite three hours since we met. Close to campus. In an old building. Historic home, maybe. All clues, folded together.
He narrows his eyes in speculation. “If you know I’m Legendborn, then you must know you’re speaking within the Code. You can answer me freely. How do you know that word?”
I chew on my bottom lip to buy myself time. The way he says “Code” sounds as if there should be formal trust between us. Sure, Tor and Sel possess an easy ruthlessness that I can’t, at the moment, find in Nick’s face, but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. If he’s Legendborn, he could b
e dangerous. “What will you do to me if I answer that question?”
Surprise ripples across his features. “Do to you?”
I nod, my heart thumping in my chest. “Threaten me? Break something I’d rather keep in one piece? Turn me over to the cops?”
His blue eyes dim, a storm cloud crossing the sky. “I’m not going to do any of those things.” He gestures toward my arms. “Why would I bring you here to our healer if I wanted to injure you? If I wanted you to end up with the police, why didn’t I drop you off in front of a hospital?”
“Maybe you still plan to dump me at a hospital,” I shoot back. “Maybe the police are on the way.”
A wide smile spreads across his face, and just like that, he’s Nick from the dining hall again: amused and wry. “Bree, short for Briana. Pushy and stubborn. She doesn’t accept what she sees with her own eyes, won’t accept what she hears with her own ears.” He appears to turn an idea over in his head before pinning it to me with his eyes to see if it fits. “Or at least, that’s what she’d like me to believe. Is ‘Bree’ even your real name?”
Bristling, I ask, “What about my memory? You could still erase that.”
His grin falls away. “No. I couldn’t.”
Fear makes me bold. “Not a Merlin?”
“You know I’m not.” His eyes narrow, and the corners of his mouth turn down in a mixture of resignation and disappointment. His low chuckle is laced with fatigue and the tiniest thread of anger. “All right, I get it. You know about Merlins and their mesmers, so you’re Oathed, but you’re not a Page from our chapter. Who sent you, then? Was it Western? You here to evaluate me?”
My mouth opens, then closes, because I have no idea how to answer. Who does he think I am? Who do I want him to think I am?
I decide we’re playing a strange sort of game, he and I. Each searching for the knowledge that the other has before we reveal any more of our own. I know why I want his answers, but I don’t know yet why he wants mine.
I lift my chin, a spark of my earlier determination coming back alongside a tiny bit of After-Bree under the surface, just enough to fuel a wild card challenge that won’t make me look ignorant and might be just sharp enough to make him reveal himself. “I know Legendborn love to hunt isels like the one that I helped you find tonight.”
The wild card backfires.
“Oh, you want to test me, is that it? Fine.” Nick pushes up from the window seat, eyes flashing in a way that startles me. “First, that wasn’t just any isel. That was a ci uffern, a hellhound. Lowest intelligence of the Lesser demons, no speech capabilities, but the most ferocious next to the foxes. Partial-corp, so it was still invisible to Onceborns, but able to injure living flesh. Another few aether infusions and it would’ve been as solid as you and me. And second…” He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture that’s part disbelief, part frustration.
It’s a welcome pause, because even though I’m lying down, the word “demon” has shifted the world beneath me. Nick’s unfinished sentence has me perched in terrifying hesitation at the top of a roller coaster. His next one tips me over.
“Second, you didn’t help me find it, Bree. You ran straight toward it. You baited a hellhound, unarmed and untrained, and almost lost both arms for your trouble. Whoever ordered this little recon mission sent you here with more ignorance than I’ve witnessed in a Page in years. I’ve changed my mind. If this is a game, I’m not playing anymore. Answers. Now.”
A demon.
Both arms.
Aether.
I swallow around the fresh fear swirling in my throat. “I… I didn’t know they were… demons. I—”
“Christ, you’re either incredibly stubborn and committed to this ruse or you’re so brand-new they rushed you out here right after your damn Oath.” Nick runs a hand over his face and sighs heavily. “Yeah, they’re demons. This is basic information. Kiddie stuff.”
Demons. The word raises a childhood memory: my mother, taking us to church for worship in hot, humid summers, all packed pews and paper fans on tongue depressors. I’d sit beside her, miserable, with sweat dripping down the back of my polyester dress, white tights sticking to my thighs, and flip through the pew Bible to take my mind off the heat. The colorful, whisper-thin pages of art tucked in the middle realized what the text could not: St. Peter at gates made of gold, ribbons of sun shining through white clouds that stretch on forever; holy light blazing around Jesus’s head; invisible impure spirits—demons—tormenting gaping believers with lies and deception.
“Like in the Bible?”
Nick takes in my expression. When he sighs, the severity falls from his frame one fraction at a time, like a dropped cloak. He steps forward and reaches for me, then stops when I flinch. “Not gonna go through the trouble to heal you and then turn around and hurt you again,” he says, and waits for my response. After a moment of hesitation, I nod, and he gingerly takes my right hand in his to unravel the gauze in slow loops. He shakes his head. “Half-educated Page it is… I can’t believe the jerk who put you up to this without even teaching you the fundamentals. Honestly, you should tell me who they are—they need to be reported for this kind of negligence.” When I just stare at him, he scratches the back of his head. “I can’t let you leave here without knowing the basics, or else you’ll end up in a bwbach pit or strangled by a sarff uffern, or worse.
“The Shadowborn—what we call demonkind—come to our plane through Gates they open between our world and theirs.”
Shadowborn. The strange word lingers and loops through my mind, but I’m too frightened to stop him for an explanation.
“No one knows where a Gate will appear, but they cluster in some places more than others, almost always at night. Most of the Shadowborn that cross are invisible and incorporeal. They come to our side to feed on and amplify negative human energy—chaos, fear, anger. Those emotions sustain them. If they get strong enough to use aether, they’ll use it to go corp—corporeal—and they can attack us physically then, too. We don’t hunt the demons just to hunt them. We don’t do it because we like it, no matter what other chapters say. We do it to protect humanity.” His fingertips leave warm trails behind on my skin. As the material falls away in his hands, it releases the bright, tangy smell of citrus trees and damp soil.
When I glance down, my skin looks like it was splashed with acid—not tonight, but maybe weeks or months ago. Streams of shiny, pink tissue run in a drizzle from palm to elbow. The new skin is sensitive; when he wraps his palm around one arm, carefully turning it so he can examine me, I feel the callouses from where he’s spent long hours practicing with a weapon.
“Hellhound saliva is corrosive enough to melt steel,” he explains. “I’ve seen a few drops burn a hole through a foot of concrete. You’re lucky William was home.” He places the last bit of gauze and the other loose roll on the nightstand. “The rest will be healed by morning.”
“How is that possible?”
“We’re really doing this?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”
He scoffs. “This type of ignorance is how Pages get hurt or killed. What you saw in the sky was mage flame. A byproduct of aether, an element in the air that only some people can see and fewer still can manipulate. Different Legendborn use aether to do different things. Some create constructs like weapons, armor, shields. William uses it to accelerate healing.”
That name again. Their healer. Someone who helped me even though he doesn’t know me. Sudden shame washes over me in a wave. Nick rescued me, made sure my injuries were treated, and I’d just antagonized him. “Thanks,” I finally murmur, “for helping me. And thank William.”
He looks me over again and notes the tremor in my fingers. His face turns patient and open. “I’ll let him know. But if you’re looking for a thank-you gift, I’m a fan of honesty.”
I struggle for words. “I just wanted to know what I saw. What I’m seeing,” I say softly. The memory of the other Merlin from the hospital rises—and immediate
ly turns sour. The flashback threatens to take me in front of this boy that I don’t know. I need that memory. And I will use it. But I can’t let it have me. Not now. Instead, I strengthen my wall and wrap myself around the easier facts. “Last night at the Eno Quarry, I saw something. Flickering light in the shape of a flying… thing. Sel and Tor were there. Sel did something to me and these guys to make us forget and walk away. His mesmer, I guess? But after a minute, it didn’t work anymore. I hid. Then Sel and Tor—”
“Wait.” Nick’s hand shoots up. “Say that again.”
“Sel and Tor—”
He waves his hand impatiently. “No, no, before that.”
“Sel did something to make me leave and forget, but after a minute it didn’t work on me?”
“Yeah, that part. Not possible, Pageling. Mesmered memories don’t come back.” His eyes fill with an emotion I can’t read. “Believe me, I’d know.”
I shrug, picking at the edge of the sheet. “Well, sorry,” I say, copying his condescending tone, “but that’s what happened, Legendborn.”
Nick examines my face. He looks at me for so long and the room is so silent that I’m certain he can hear my heartbeat quicken. His eyes drop to my mouth, my chin, my hands still shaking on my lap. He sucks in a sharp breath. “You’re—you’re serious, aren’t you? About everything. You aren’t a Northern or Western spy.”
“No.”
“But if you can break Sel’s mesmer, then he’d…” Nick stops, his eyes wide as dinner plates, the color draining from his face with some understanding about me that I don’t follow.
I shove myself upright as my adrenaline spikes. “Then he’d what?”
“WHERE IS HE?”
We both jump when a voice booms, the shout echoing outside the room and down what sounds like a long hallway.
Nick’s attention flies to the door, tension singing through his frame. “Shit.”
Another door slams. Hurried footsteps, and another, calmer voice intercepts the first. “Sel, wait—”
Nick glances rapidly between me and the door. “Listen to me. I assumed you were one of us at first, but if you’re telling me the truth right now and you’re not, then no matter what happens when he comes in here, do not let Sel know his mesmer failed. He’s going to try again, and you need to let him. You understand me?”
