The Last Sun

by K. D. Edwards

  “We come here because this is the floor where we talk. Blood looks really-really red on it.”

  “Did you just threaten me?” I asked softly.

  His startled gaze snapped toward me. “Why would I do that? I’d never hurt you!”

  “You’d . . . This is nuts. You are Addam’s brother, aren’t you?”

  “I am. Haven’t we met yet? And I’m not sure what’s wrong. Or—well, I mean, many things are wrong. I just don’t know what’s going to go wrong now.” He gave me a helpless look.

  Was he a half-wit? I hadn’t heard that Justice had a half-wit son, which was strange, because scion gossip was parasitic and pervasive and loved to find weakness in Arcana courts. I said, “Quinn, does your family know you’re here?”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Loud and slow, like I don’t speak English. I don’t think they know I’m here. They don’t much care where I am, unless Addam makes them care. I thought I came to see Christian, but it wasn’t about Christian at all, it was about you. You’re why I’m here. Aren’t you?”

  All of a sudden, I realized I’d heard Quinn’s voice before. “You called me yesterday. You asked me if it was time for us to meet. Then you told me the motor was running.”

  “I did?” he asked me. His face split into a grin. “I did! I remember now. Did you find the duct tape? It was very clever of me, wasn’t it?”

  Brand had found duct tape on the dashboard of the car he stole. The car that was outside the gas pump, across the street from where I was attacked. Had Brand told me the engine was running? The skin on the back of my neck began to itch.

  “Did you know a gargoyle was going to attack us?” I asked. “Did you leave the car there?”

  “Clever,” he stressed.

  “Quinn, how did you know that?”

  “Well, I didn’t know for sure, not always, just most of the time. You almost always need my help, so that Brand can find a way in and save you. It takes too long for you to do what you need to do, otherwise.”

  I said, “You’re a fucking seer.”

  I have always, always mistrusted seers. I have always had reason to.

  It started when a female seer made a prophecy. She was friends with my father; there was a party with lots of alcohol; and over my crib she pronounced: “He will be the most beautiful man of his generation.”

  Other people were in the room. Word got out. I’ve tripped over that godsdamn prophecy time after time after time. It made it so easy for people to mock me.

  I had other reasons to dislike seers, too. They almost never saw the future clearly enough to do more than cause it. The ones with limited ability prostituted their talent or outright lied; and the ones with a true gift were smart enough to hide from you when you came looking for them.

  It wasn’t obvious where Quinn Saint Nicholas fit in the spectrum, but I had a feeling the universe was going to make me find out.

  My cell phone vibrated. Brand had texted, in all-caps, “THE FUCK.”

  I held up a finger to Quinn while speed-dialing Brand, who answered by saying, “I’ll put a fucking bell around your neck. See if I don’t.”

  I told him where Quinn and I were. He got quiet and professional, and snapped his phone shut without a response.

  “That was Brand!” Quinn said excitedly. “I miss Brand. He’ll make me laugh. Why did you never try to kiss him a second time? Is it because he pushed you into the water?”

  “Oh,” I said, more of an exhale than a word. I’d once gotten drunk and kissed Brand, the day after my thirteenth birthday. He’d kissed me back, shoved me into the swimming pool, and never spoke of it again.

  “Are you mad? You look mad,” Quinn said, nervously.

  “You really don’t want to read my thoughts, Quinn Saint Nicholas.”

  His face fell. “Oh. I forgot. You don’t like seers.” Then he burst into another delighted smile. “But you like me anyway. You kissed me on the eyebrow once. And you’ll hit the bully with a barstool after he calls me a freak. Or at least you do most of the time. Sometimes Addam grabs the stool first. Once I was very brave and kicked him in the shin myself.”

  He’s seeing probabilities, I told myself.

  And because it was such an unlikely thing, I repeated, He is seeing probabilities.

  A moment ago, I was wondering if Quinn was sane. Now I was thinking he wasn’t insane enough.

  “Quinn,” I said. He’d known about the time I’d kissed Brand. He’d left the car outside the scene of the gargoyle attack. “If you’re a seer then . . . Do you know where Addam is? Do you know if he’s hurt?”

  “No. I don’t. I can’t—” His eyes went glassy, and he rubbed his nose onto the shoulder of his t-shirt. “I can’t see him. But that’s what I think I’m supposed to tell you. That’s what I remember telling you. I remember that you’re standing right here, on this floor, and I tell you that you’re asking all the wrong questions. You’re too caught up on the What and Who. The reason my mother can’t find Addam is a Where.”

  Where?

  There were places on the island that interfered with everyday magic; places crazy with wild magic and null zones. The Westlands. The prisoner cells in the Convocation building. Anything to do with the Anchorite’s court. Now there was a mad fuck.

  Quinn’s face twisted in concentration. “I can only see a little. I think there are . . . ghosts. And a dried river. And a desert. I definitely see a desert filled with sand and broken glass. Ciaran will tell you more. He’s waiting for you at the bar with the ice cubes. Make sure you bring Max.”

  “Wait, what? Ciaran? I have to talk to Ciaran? Godsdamnit. And who’s Max?”

  “But,” Quinn said, and looked upset. “I could have sworn you’d meet Max by now. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise.”

  “Do you mean Matthias?”

  “Oh. No. He’d rather be called Max. He’ll tell you.” Quinn smiled, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to clear up.

  My head started to hurt. A bar with ice cubes? What kind of bar didn’t have ice cubes? And there were no deserts on the island. And Ciaran? I didn’t want to share a city block with the principality known as Ciaran, let alone a conversation.

  I reached out and touched Quinn’s shoulder to make him focus. The collar of his t-shirt was frayed, and the tip of my finger brushed his bare skin.

  A rush of power arose, so potent that it manifested as a spiraling breeze. I jerked away from Quinn, furious at myself, because nothing ever good came from touching a seer. Damn my eyes if I’d triggered a prophecy. I already had enough of those in my life.

  A look of horror spread across Quinn’s face. While his hair blew into his eyes, he hid his mouth behind a hand and said, “Oh gods oh gods oh gods, what is it? It’s like a hole in reality. It will want to touch your face, because you are food to it, and then everything will start in the middle again, and oh oh oh oh there are storms, and they’re alive, and there are waves as big as buildings, and we’re all a school of fish trapped in a bottle, but none of this happens at once. And . . . and . . . and . . .”

  He went still. A bright bead of red appeared under one of his nostrils. It grew like a soap bubble, then burst and ran down his lip. I said, a little dazed, “You have a nosebleed. Quinn. You need to—” I mimed tilting my head back.

  There was a handkerchief poking out of his jeans pocket, scored with drops of dried blood. I tugged it out and waved it in front of his eyes. When he didn’t respond, I covered my fingers with my shirt sleeve, and stuffed the handkerchief in Quinn’s hands.

  After a few seconds, Quinn started to blink and shake his head. He touched his bleeding nose with the tissue. He whispered, “I’ve made a mess again, haven’t I?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Are you very mad at me?”

  “Why would I be mad?” I asked.

  “When I have nosebleeds, sometimes, it means I told people things they don’t always want to hear. If Ad
dam were here, he’d take me to another room. He’d stay with me until I was okay. He gets upset when people are angry with me.”

  “Addam sounds . . . like a good brother.”

  Quinn’s eyes filled with tears. He balled up the handkerchief and cleaned the rest of his face with efficient, practiced swipes.

  He said, in a harder voice, “Animals kill their runts. I saw it on a TV show about birds. The baby runt bird gets shoved out of the nest. The runt’s brothers and sisters won’t waste food on the runt, because most of the time a runt won’t survive. I’m a runt. I take food from my brothers. I make them weaker by being alive. But they’ve never blamed me. Never. Especially Addam. I’m so scared.” Quinn took a step toward me so that his face was close to mine. His breath smelled like grape chewing gum. “If Addam dies, I won’t make it.”

  “It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine, Quinn.”

  “You don’t understand. It’ll either be with rope, or in a bathtub. I don’t know why I don’t just steal Ella’s sleeping pills. I’m much less scared of swallowing pills than I am of cutting myself. But all those times that Addam dies and leaves me, all I see are ropes and bathtubs. But . . . of all the ways that Addam can be saved, it’s you on the path.”

  He blinked. “Oh. Brand is coming now. We won’t be able to talk alone anymore. Don’t tell him I almost cried.”

  I turned just in time to see Brand stalk into the rotunda. Ashton Saint Gabriel dogged his footsteps, and Brand didn’t look so happy about that.

  “We’re okay?” Brand asked me.

  “We’re fine,” I said. “Ashton Saint Gabriel. What a coincidence.”

  The scion had on a tight, shimmery gray shirt that complimented his reflective corneas, and cologne that was presumably trendy given how awful it smelled.

  He said, “It’s not a coincidence at all. Your visit was unsettling. I thought I’d talk with Addam’s brother Christian to see if he knew where Addam was.”

  Quinn was frowning. When it came to real seers, even I had to admit that it paid to study their nonverbals. I said, “Why don’t we see what Addam’s brother Quinn has to say about it.”

  “Of course,” Ashton said, and turned an uncomfortable look on the teenager. “Good day, Quinn. It’s a surprise to see you without an escort. Does your family know you’re alone?”

  “Why don’t I know why you’re here?” Quinn asked bluntly.

  Brand blinked and gave me a look. It made me blink, too, but for different reasons. “Quinn, what does that mean?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s hard to figure that part out right now. The attack is too loud. Oh. We’re about to be attacked. They have grenades.”

  “He’s a seer!” I said, but Brand had already drawn a knife.

  While Ashton stared at us dumbly, I ran a thumb across my white-gold ring. The Fire spell I’d stored flushed through me like a fever. I siphoned the magic into my sabre hilt to bolster the firebolts. “Are you armed?” I said. “Ashton! Are you armed?”

  “But there’s no one there,” he said, gaping at the rotunda exits.

  I touched my mother’s cameo. A Shield formed a crystalline light-construct over my free hand. I kept it there, rather than draw it across my body. You can’t stab grenades; we needed another strategy. “Quinn, are you armed?”

  “I have a Shield spell, too,” he said. “And I can make a Door.”

  “Open one,” I ordered, just as a grenade skittered into the rotunda.

  It slid glassily along the marble floor. I sent my Shield outward, and slammed a small dome over the grenade. It jerked, and the dome lit up like a small white sun.

  Two more grenades slid toward us. I threw a Shield over the first. Brand ran forward, grabbed the second, and fast-balled it back into the hallway. It vanished into an unnatural curtain of shadow that had billowed up to hide our attackers.

  “We’re in a bloody hospital!” I shouted at him. “Bystanders!”

  “Don’t even!” he snapped back, because he was my Companion, and he’d let the entire building fall around our ears as long as he could keep me safe.

  A fourth grenade was lobbed. I shot it with a firebolt. It made a crackling sound and caved in on itself like melting plastic.

  There was still no sign of our attackers behind the black mist. Ashton was standing there like a trauma victim. We were in a godsdamn hospital with patients in the crossfire.

  And then bullets began firing from a second corridor. The first barrage clipped Ashton in the arm and coughed powdered marble at my feet.

  “Quinn, the Door!” I shouted, using Fire to superheat the air in front of us. Molten sparks blossomed as the bullets incinerated.

  Ashton had fallen when he’d been shot. He staggered to his feet, blood droplets splattering against the ground. They were obscenely red against the snowy white.

  The bullets were quickly devouring my Fire’s duration. To buy time, I divided my Shield and sent it whistling across the rotunda in two separate directions. Semi-visible blockades rippled into life at the mouths of both corridors, pinged with pinpoint flares as they absorbed gunshots and grenades or whatever the hell else they were throwing at us. The shields would not hold long.

  Quinn still hadn’t released his Door. I yelled, “Do it!”

  “But I can’t go!” he cried. “I can’t! I’ll die! Every time, I die, because I’m not good enough to fight them, and they’re always there. And you can’t stay here, because if you do you may die, which means Addam dies, and I need you to save him. So take this! I give it freely. Your Will is now its Will.”

  He’d pulled a small disc from a slot on his decorative belt and dropped it into my hands.

  One of my Shields vanished with a static popping sound. A grenade came at us. I took it out with a firebolt, and then filmed the hallway opening with the last dregs of my Fire. The crackling edges of a flaming barrier blackened the white walls.

  Looking down, I saw the disc was a sigil. Quinn had given me a sigil.

  I thrust it back at him, but he danced sideways and said, “A lot of times, you give it back. Go! Hurry!”

  “I can’t just leave you here!”

  Brand wrapped his fingers in the collar of my shirt and said, “Activate it. You,” he said, glaring at Ashton. “Get your fucking act together!”

  Ashton stared at his torn shirt and bleeding arm. Numbly, he raised a hand and touched his copper-colored necklace. As the barricade on the south wall unraveled for good. Ashton held up an arm and unleashed a roar of Wind. Bullets met the gale and ricocheted, scoring the wall.

  I closed my fingers around Quinn’s sigil and released its stored spell.

  The Door manifested as a black circle in mid-air, rimmed by a narrow band of yellowing light. A twisting funnel trailed behind the circle.

  I’d need to give it a direction, and fast, or risk corrupting the spell— which was a good way to translocate your ass into the middle of a wall. “Quinn, there’s got to be a direction that’s safe. Think.”

  Behind me I heard the wail of Ashton’s Wind. A stun grenade was deflected the way it came, filling the unnatural black veil with a flash of lightning so powerful that, for a moment, it revealed men in black clothing. The men went down like bowling pins.

  Quinn said, “Outside? Through that wall?” He turned, and just as quickly shook his head no. “The roof? No, not the roof, most of the time it collapses on the babies. I can’t—it’s hard to—” Fresh blood began to trickle over the crusted streaks under his nose. He dropped his gaze. “Steam tunnels! They’ll come for you, even down there, but you can run. You need to find Ciaran and let the ghosts eat first and run toward the people on the corner and leave the bug alone. And tell Addam I love him!”

  I didn’t catch him quick enough.

  He dropped to the ground while projecting his Shield into a dark semi-sphere that covered him. Just like that, he was as good as lost to us.

  “Finish it!” Brand demanded, pointing at the unanchored Door.


  I gave the magic a direction. The funnel end whipped around and sliced into the ground. Brand kicked Ashton in the ass, shoving him through. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me with him.

  The light went crazy.

  Gravity went insane.

  A slope became a vertical fall.

  I smashed into concrete. Dust swirled into my nostrils, heavy with mold and age. Brand was already on his feet. I had time to see that we were in a narrow brick corridor before the portal closed. It took the last shred of light with it, leaving us in unrelieved blackness.

  Ashton, who’d landed under my legs, croaked a light cantrip. It manifested as a scotch-colored flame above our heads. Like Quinn had said, we were in steam tunnels, built to house the massive iron pipes that heated the hospital. The pipes had long since rusted with disuse.

  “Who,” Ashton tried to ask, but his voice shook so bad that he couldn’t finish. He cleared his throat and said, louder, “This is outrageous. Who in their wretched mind would attack sons of the Arcanum? It’s an act of war.”

  “Hey!” Brand said, poking Ashton’s chest. “Dial it the fuck down. We’re not safe yet.”

  Ashton knocked Brand’s hand away. “Touch me again and I’ll have you whipped.”

  My vision went red. I grabbed Ashton’s jaw before he could say anything else, and slammed him against the wall.

  I said, “You’re a scion who took over a minute to release his spells in an ambush. He’s a Companion who grabbed a grenade with his bare hands and threw it at our enemies. Who do you think needs to be whipped? Shut up and follow orders. There will be plenty of time later to bleat about your hurt feelings. Brand?”

  Brand had pulled a black skull cap from his back pocket and was tugging it over his bangs. “Let’s go that way. Ashton, keep the cantrip going. If we get in trouble, stay the fuck out of Rune’s line of fire.”

  We headed in the direction Brand had chosen.

  Ashton’s face kept working like he had something to say. Finally, in a grudging tone, he said, “Addam has really been kidnapped, hasn’t he? Someone tried to kill us because of it.”

  “Not kill,” Brand said. “Not right away, at least. They were using stun grenades and darts.”