FoM02 Trammel

by Anah Crow

  Shame.

  Under the scars, Noah’s bones were that of a handsome man, and his eyes were deep blue. The skin that remained unmarked was bronze and smooth; he wasn’t much older than Lindsay. If he smiled at all, he might still have been attractive. Lindsay felt like a carrion bird, circling and watching and waiting for a chance to pick over what was left of him.

  As near as Lindsay could tell, Noah didn’t sleep more than a few hours at a time, and those times were few and far between. His bed—the one time Lindsay had checked in before Noah had cleared away the evidence—was a nightmare-snarled knot of sheets stained by Noah’s healing burns. Lindsay could understand why he wouldn’t want to spend any more time there than necessary. What Noah did spend his time doing was drinking and smoking and staring off at the marsh like it held the answers to all his questions.

  Every now and then, a cigarette would go up in flames in Noah’s fingers, and Noah would throw it aside, his movements jerky in a way that said he was barely in control of himself—if he had any control at all. Lindsay waited for something more, something that he could use as an excuse to step in, but no opening came.

  Noah looked sick by the fifth day, and not in any human way. His skin was flushed, his eyes were bright like he was lit from within and, more and more, his body was wracked with tiny shivers he didn’t seem to notice. Lindsay noticed, though, and he’d had enough.

  Stepping out onto the porch, he watched Noah for another minute before saying, “It’s time to go.”

  Surprisingly, there was no argument. Noah tucked his flask away in a pocket of the leather jacket he always wore, and pushed himself to his feet. There weren’t any questions, either. Noah put his hands in his jeans pockets, barely masking a wince, and nodded toward the door as if to say Lindsay should lead on.

  Lindsay knew where he wanted to go. It was a long walk, but he didn’t want to risk the bus system with Noah. Walking had hazards all its own; Atlantic Avenue was crowded with people looking to spend the money they’d won. Lindsay had worried he’d lose Noah in the thick of it, but Noah stayed one step behind him.

  “You don’t seem surprised by any of this,” Lindsay said finally.

  “Should I be?” Noah’s voice was thick and strained, scarred like the rest of him. Nothing around them seemed to catch his interest, not the lights, not the people, not the traffic.

  “I was.” The magical world he now lived in had seemed completely unfamiliar at first. “This isn’t new to you, then? Cyrus isn’t exactly forthcoming with his information.”

  Noah laughed at that, which made him cough. He took a drink from the flask to quiet the hacking, then shook his head.

  “Not new, no. I never expected to be here, but none of this is surprising. It is what it is. Or it’s a shadow of what it should be. It’ll do. The days are late and things are falling apart.”

  Cyrus probably thought it amusing to give Lindsay someone who spoke in the same sort of cryptic, poetic riddles that drove him mad coming from Cyrus and Ezqel. Perfect. It wasn’t as though Lindsay had expected to be rewarded for the events that had led to them fleeing New York and landing in Atlantic City—and it had felt like landing, despite Cyrus’s claim that he had come to this place to wait for someone, a young woman who would soon come into her magic—but this was starting to feel suspiciously like punishment.

  “Throw me a bone, would you?” Lindsay muttered. “I’m trying not to completely fuck you up. Your magic is new. Is there anything else I need to know to keep from screwing up here?”

  “You don’t need to worry about anything except making sure I don’t kill anyone. Not that it’s likely to happen.” He pulled his left hand from his pocket and held it out. The wound where his ring finger was missing was raw and ugly and new, barely held closed with half a dozen stitches. Stitches. Not magical healing.

  When he shook his hand, a bracelet slid out from under his sleeve to rest at the base of it. The bracelet wasn’t ornamental, it was heavy and ancient, the dull metal hacked with deep runes like black gashes and set with raw gems that probably would have been priceless if they’d been cut. There was no opening to it, and it looked too small to have fit over his hand.

  “My father wouldn’t offend Cyrus by sending me here the way I am,” Noah said mildly. “I don’t know what Cyrus expects of you. I know what’s expected of me.”

  It took a moment for Lindsay to realize what Noah was saying, and what, exactly, Noah had on his wrist. He could feel the blood draining from his face and he had to cut Noah off, shoving him and two strangers out of his way as he ran for the nearest alley. His stomach heaved and he barely managed to keep his shoes clear of the mess.

  The velvet on his chest was warmer than anything he’d felt in this awful place, but the collar on his throat was like ice. It closed with a click and a tiny, silvery noise. A collar for his throat, a cuff for each wrist.

  “Only very special mages got to wear this, you know.” The warmth of the velvet left him and clear, glassy eyes like marbles filled his vision. “Celare.”

  “Start the experiment.”

  Hands braced on the brick wall in front of him, Lindsay struggled to catch his breath and fight down the next wave of nausea. Why the fuck would Cyrus do that to him? Cyrus knew, Dane knew, and neither of them had warned him. Instinct had him touching his wrists, but he made himself turn to check on Noah.

  “We’re going back to Cyrus. You’re getting that off.”

  “Are you all right?”

  The alley had been nearly pitch black, but now Noah held a soft yellow flame cupped in his right hand. He was rigid with tension and his hand shook, yet he managed to keep the flame steady.

  Noah could still use his magic. That meant the bracelet wasn’t the same as what Moore had used on Lindsay. That was something.

  “I’ll live. Cyrus and Dane might be a little worse for wear, but I’ll be all right.”

  Lindsay was going to have a long talk with both of them. Binding him to a mage he knew nothing about was one thing, but not telling him about the artifact controlling Noah’s magic was something Lindsay couldn’t let go.

  He pushed away from the wall and swallowed down the rush of nausea that spiked again. He took a deep breath and shook his hair back out of his face.

  “Let me see it?”

  “Do you want it off?” The light from Noah’s fire cast his features into sharp relief; he looked gaunt and aged, like a carving of a tribal mask.

  “Yes.” The risk that Noah might kill them all the way he’d destroyed so many cigarettes in the last few days wasn’t enough to change Lindsay’s answer. “We’ll find another way. I don’t know what the hell it is, but I don’t want it on you.”

  “You’ll have to take it off.” Noah held out his hand. “We call this magic barre salvetet. It’s a very old one, old enough that it doesn’t quite fit my magic. That’s why I could make fire, still, a little. The word to end it is finiri. To put it back on, oriri. My will won’t make it work, now that things are decided. It is not so old that it forgets the way of things.”

  Lindsay didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to have anything to do with something like that, but he wanted it off Noah more. That he could simply speak a word and the bracelet would come off but that Noah couldn’t do the same... Noah really was his in a way that the magic understood.

  When Lindsay touched his fingertips to the metal, it was hot like he’d imagined Noah’s skin would be.

  “Finiri,” he whispered. The bracelet had been far too small to move past Noah’s hand, but somehow it landed in Lindsay’s palm with a faint ringing tone. He nearly dropped it in surprise and disgust, but managed to slip it into his pocket first. He’d decide what to do with it later.

  The alley went dark as Noah let the fire go. “I’m sorry to have offended you,” he said, with a formality to his words that reminded Lindsay of when he’d spoken to Cyrus.

  “It’s not you.” Lindsay didn’t want Noah to think it was anything he’d done. Th
ere was enough reason for tension and distance and confusion between them without that. “I can’t...” He took another slow breath and explained, “I wore something very much like it, under other circumstances, and Cyrus knew it when he gave you to me.”

  “Cyrus couldn’t have accepted me without it.” Noah stepped back. “Nor could my father have given me over. It would have been wrong to do to all of us.” His tone was dull, like he was tired. “And it’s better than the alternative. For some things, even some terrible things, the necessity of them overrides all else.

  Whether we like it or not.”

  “If Cyrus believed in the necessity of it, he shouldn’t have given you to me.”

  Now Lindsay realized the barre had been—like Noah himself—a wordless challenge from Cyrus and he had no intention of telling Cyrus, or Dane for that matter, that he’d panicked at the sight of it. Whether he succeeded or failed at the challenge set before him depended on Noah, but it also depended on Lindsay stepping up and doing what needed to be done.

  He’d taken care of the barre. Now, he had to take care of Noah.

  Lindsay stalked out of the alley and turned the corner. It was time to take Noah to the abandoned school. There was a huge gymnasium that had been stripped down after the school had been closed, and it would be perfect to work in.

  “Besides, you have to learn to control it on your own. No artifact is going to hold your magic back if it wants out badly enough.” Lindsay knew that first-hand, and he knew how much damage the resulting fracture could cause.

  “Don’t assume I didn’t want to wear it. Nor that my magic wants ‘out’.” Noah took out his flask and opened it, then offered it to Lindsay.

  The sour taste of vomit was enough to push Lindsay into swishing something that tasted like fire through his mouth. Maybe he’d have been better off with the vomit. He forced himself to swallow and passed the flask back to Noah with a muffled cough.

  “I don’t want to know what that is. Christ. But your magic must be new if you can’t tell it’s itching to get out. Look at you. You’re burning up, and I don’t know how many cigarettes I’ve seen burst into flames in the past few days.”

  “It doesn’t want out,” Noah said flatly. “It wants me.”

  Lindsay looked at Noah, charting the scars and burns that marked his face and hands. His eyebrows and eyelashes were intact, but the hair on his head was gone, as though it had refused to return after being burnt away. The way Noah radiated heat, the way his eyes burned, the way his fire seemed to slip out unprovoked, Lindsay...Lindsay believed him.

  “Well, I suppose it’s my job to make sure it doesn’t get you.” Lindsay’s job was very different from what Dane’s had been with him. Lindsay wasn’t at all suited to teaching Noah how to use magic—he’d only mastered his own in the last few months, after all—but teaching Noah how to survive his magic was something Lindsay was, when he stopped to think about it, probably very well equipped to handle.

  He pointed at a low, sprawling building across the street. “We’re going in there and then we’ll find out if Cyrus really screwed up or not.”

  “As you will.” Noah took a drink and put the flask away to light a cigarette. His hands shook, but he lit the cigarette without catastrophe.

  Lindsay made sure Noah stayed with him as they crossed the street. He’d been just as reluctant to use his own magic, maybe more so, and he was beginning to understand Dane’s frustration at the time. It hadn’t been safe for him, and it wasn’t safe for Noah, either.

  Past the blue double doors, Lindsay stopped to orient himself. The corridors of the school were an inefficient maze of dust and forgotten posters that said things like Reading ROCKS! and Don’t make excuses, make improvements. Lindsay’s grammar school hadn’t looked anything like this—it had more in common with Princeton than with Sesame Street.

  “The gym is that way.” He pointed down the corridor to the left. “They took the wood floor out after the school closed, so you should be safe.”

  Lindsay knew by now that Noah expected him to lead, and he started walking. Noah would follow. It was strange, being the one to go first.

  They found the gymnasium past chained double doors where Noah broke the chains with an overzealous flame that left puddles of steel. Inside, the floor was gone. The wall at the far end was out and the abandoned pool could be seen beyond. The level below the gym floor was exposed, but support beams and flexible subfloor strapping crisscrossed the open space. Plenty of places to walk. The bleachers were still there, held up by braces from below. Plenty of seating.

  “What now? You want a show?” Noah went to hang his jacket on a broken bracket away from the door, then slipped off the shirt he wore underneath—probably so he wouldn’t set fire to either. The shirt clung to some healing burns, but he peeled it away without hesitation and hung it up as well. When he brought up a handful of fire, Lindsay could see that he was all muscle and bone, lean but solid, brassy with copper-red gleams. He stepped out onto one of the beams, walking like it was a sidewalk. Like there wasn’t empty space between him and pipes and vents and a distant concrete floor.

  “No.” Lindsay was careful, weaving the illusion in layers. This way, he wouldn’t have to bring it down all at once. He built a fire in the center of what was left of the room, large enough and hot enough that Noah would feel the sunshine warmth on his skin like a burn. “I want you to put out the fire.”

  Noah needed to learn to get along with his magic, and working backward seemed the safest way to start doing that.

  Noah hesitated, wavering as though he knew the fire wasn’t real but was fighting the illusion for the knowledge, and he looked over his shoulder at Lindsay. He didn’t speak, though. He turned back to the fire and, just as a boy might spit on his fingers and pinch out a candle, his will cut off the flame—not smothered or extinguished as by water—the act of burning simply ceased to be.

  “Like that?” Noah didn’t look back again.

  That wasn’t at all what Lindsay had expected. Maybe he was coming at this from the wrong direction.

  Maybe Noah had to push the fire out, rather than pulling it in. But he didn’t like the idea of letting Noah’s magic out without some kind of barrier to keep it from getting out of hand. “Come here.”

  Noah stepped across a wide gap to walk a steel I-beam over to where he’d left Lindsay. He stopped only inches away, seeming patient while the twitch of muscles in his chest and belly put a lie to that. No words, but the way that he stood, arms loose at his side with his palms facing forward, was clear enough for Lindsay to read: As you will.

  That kind of subservience made Lindsay’s skin crawl. He hoped there was something beneath it beyond more of the same.

  Lindsay closed the distance between them with a hand on Noah’s bare chest, careful of where his flesh was still raw. Noah’s skin felt like the fire of his magic, and his heart was pounding under Lindsay’s palm. Fear? Anticipation? Lindsay couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t think Noah would tell him if he asked.

  He knew what Noah’s magic was and, after watching him these last few days, had a good idea how it was triggered inside him. Even so, casting the net of his illusion wasn’t an easy task. He had to be certain Noah’s magic would go untouched as Noah drew on it—that the magic answering Noah’s call would be merely an illusion responding exactly as Noah’s own magic would.

  Noah’s magic would kill them both if Lindsay wasn’t careful.

  Somehow, and Lindsay didn’t know how, Noah let him in. It was as though he opened all the doors and let Lindsay walk in and out of his magic and his mind. This didn’t feel like submission. More like... practice. As though Noah knew someone else who could do mind magic. And Lindsay thought that, maybe, if Noah wanted, he could have tried to keep Lindsay out.

  As Lindsay worked, Noah’s heart slowed and grew steady. It was still quick, but not so desperate and roaring and faltering all at once. Lindsay could focus on the magic without distraction.

  Finally
, his magic was as solid as Lindsay could make it, and he hoped it would be enough. He let his hand fall to his side and stepped back to give Noah some space.

  “You can let it out,” Lindsay said. If he had done his magic well, Noah would grasp the illusory magic Lindsay had woven over the real thing. Noah’s mind and body would believe that the magic it wielded was real, not Lindsay’s carefully conjured virtual reality. Better still, Lindsay would be able to watch the process from within.

  Noah backed away, walking the narrow beam without looking behind him. Then he stopped and stood there, eyes closed. A glow crept over his skin, a thin shimmering veil of white heat. Fire. Thinner than paper, softer than silk.

  Lindsay could feel what Noah felt—pure, destructive power draped over him like a cloak. Tendrils dripped down to splash on the steel beam, sinking into the metal like a hot needle drawing shapes in butter.

  Under the cloak lay anger, like the fire trapped it against Noah’s skin. A rage so great it made the fire seem as plain as old cotton sheets.

  “Let it go, Noah.”

  The force of it knocked Lindsay back a step—the anger, not the illusion of the fire. The anger was real. The fire ripped outward and upward, through the roof of the school. Talons and tentacles of it plunged down into the earth, through concrete and steel.

  There was no end to it. The fire grew higher and wide, fifty feet and a hundred and more. A maelstrom grew as the fire fed on the air. It was ravenous. Noah spread his arms and let his head fall back—the fire unfurled red wings, opened up a ragged beak that screamed and snapped at the clouds, and it wasn’t done.

  Noah wasn’t tired. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t beginning to try. A lash of fire flailed through the gym and smashed down across the empty pool, filling the air there with the shrapnel of broken tile.