And then we are on the other side, and all the word is suddenly very, very real.
Just like that, we are no longer in the in-between.
25
Octavia
It is the sound that hits me first.
Not quite like a brick wall, but something solid and jarring.
There might be stone and drywall separating us from the street, but it’s been so long since I heard that dull thrum of the city that at first it sounds like there’s a taxi right here in the basement of this massive, fifth-avenue mansion just repeatedly slamming on the horn in some effort to escape.
But from here, there will be no escape. Not with Flynn still trapped on the other side.
Edgar and the others have already disappeared down the hall. I take a few steps inside as Cedric, Kendall, and Draven follow me through the veil. When I look back I can still see it there, inside the door—the entrance back to the in-between.
Anyone who was to enter that door from the outside would be met with a nasty shock should they try to leave the same way.
I wonder if it is a same kind of tear that Bram made for us at the academy, or if it is more permanent. The way that Edgar and the others moved, and the fact that an exit exists in the lounge at all, makes me think that this is an exact path that they have traveled many times before.
I wonder how much time has passed now, but Edgar made us leave our phones behind. I guess they’re too much of an occupational hazard. He certainly doesn’t want a repeat of our last trip.
I should’ve thought ahead and stowed Flynn’s somewhere even Edgar wouldn’t dare to search. My unanswered message to Wednesday still bothers me, like a scratch I can’t reach. I want to know, at least, that she got it.
“D’you plan to linger here all day?”
I’m snapped out of my reverie by Brendan. I’m guessing he stayed back voluntarily so he’d have one more reason to dislike us. His face at least tells me he’s got the fodder he was looking for. Hesitation does not appear to be a trait he values.
Pressure at my lower back propels me forward, though which one of my paired mages is the one to do it I’m not sure.
Now that we are actually here, it’s suddenly Draven who appears to be dragging his feet. Ever since we arrived in The Underground, I’ve been unable to deny the fact that he fit in with the rag-tag bunch of mages. It’s more than the fact he used to brew their Salamander Brandy, it’s that he has this warring set of emotions inside him. He’s not just one thing. He is many things at once. Even he has not yet decided which one of those things he wants to be.
It isn’t until we turn the corner and encounter another set of stairs, these leading up towards the main part of the house, that I discover something more potent and more offensive than the influx of sound; the smell of death.
Or, more accurately, dying.
It isn’t filth or squalor, neither of which I am sure I could find if I tried in a house this fine, but rather that lingering scent of life that’s long past its expiry.
I don’t wait to be directed upstairs. I follow my senses instead.
A maid walks by us without even looking twice, another sign that mages dressed in dark leather is not an uncommon occurrence. She’s carrying a tray of something half covered in a dish towel. When she passes by, the same scent from earlier increases. Whatever is on the tray oozes darkening liquid that anyone other than a practiced nurse would balk at the sight of—much less the task of disposal.
That’s when I stop. I catch a glimpse at her retreating back.
“What’s it now?” Brendan asks.
“I swear,” I say, “I’ve seen her before.”
“You probably have. She was in The Underground for a while,” Brendan says. The way the corner of his mouth turns up in a sneer tells me he wasn’t fond of her.
“What happened?”
He gives me a look. “Just count yourself lucky you have enough power to keep from ending up like her.”
He jerks his thumb in the direction of the others, and we leave the forgotten recruit behind. So, I guess that explains what happens those recruits that don’t turn out to be up to snuff. I imagine they’re trapped. They can’t go back to their families, but neither can they benefit The Underground with their minimal powers…so they’re left to take on the tasks that no one else wants to do.
I’m growing to dislike this world more with each passing hour.
We head in the direction from which she came. Some new sounds, voices from inside this time, have broken out. They are quiet and punctuated by coughs, but I recognize one of them at least.
My heartbeat quickens.
As Edgar promised, we find Bram on the other side of the study door.
What was once a place where great men planned battle—financial other otherwise—has now been transformed into a hospital room. Thick curtains are drawn over the massive windows to keep onlookers from peering inside from the New York streets beyond. A single bed has been placed in the middle of the room. It’s massive, far too large for the frail figure laid in the middle.
It is the single luxury allowed in the middle of a massive set of beeping heart monitors, IV drips, and surgical instruments on trays.
Bram looks up from where he is seated by the side of the sick. From his close proximity to the man in the bed, I can at least safely surmise that, like Flynn, whatever ails him isn’t contagious.
Edgar and the others are unpacking some of their things into one of the cabinets. They’re painstakingly packing little tiny vials away with the soft tinkle of glass. I try not to stare, but I can’t help glancing over at the figure in the bed as I pass.
As soon as I do, I can’t look away.
Not even the goriest of shows could not convince me that whatever ails the man in this bed is entirely from natural causes. No makeup and CGI could make a face so gaunt and skeletal while still being so irrefutably real.
I’m only able to tear my eyes away when I nearly bump into the cabinet itself. Edgar swears and grabs me by my arms to steady me. I mumble an apology and slip my own pack carefully from my shoulders.
As soon as I do, Bram’s soft voice breaks the silence.
“Octavia, would you come here please?”
I make sure that none of the many vials inside my pack are going to tip over and roll under the bed before I do get back to my feet and do as I ask. I feel the eyes of all three of my paired mages here following me as they unpack their own.
It’s too much for just one house, I tell myself, but when my eyes fall on the man in the bed again, I’m not so sure.
“You’re wondering what’s wrong with him?” Bram says.
I stand before him awkwardly. As always, he sits while I stand…and the very last thing I am going to do is perch myself on the edge of the bed. It’s sacrilegious, somehow.
Bram keeps staring at the old man. “You know, something funny happens when you have everything you could ever dream of.”
“And what’s that?”
He glances up at me. It’s only then that I see the syringe in his hand. It’s connected directly to a long tube disappearing into the sheets. Whatever is in it, Bram is slowly, incrementally, injecting it.
“Boredom,” he says, his eyes falling back down to the man in the bed.
I stand another moment before I ask if he’s killing him.
Bram guffaws, and then to my dismay and surprise, he offers the syringe to me.
His outstretched hand repels me.
“If you push it all in at once, you will,” he says. “It’ll be a quick, blissful death, I assure you. Far better than the agony he’s suspended in now.”
As he says it, the man in the bed flails a bit—just enough to turn his head over to the other side. A festering wound has appeared at the side of his neck. Someone has tried to dress and bandage it, but whatever is oozing from inside him is as noxious as it is caustic.
“What…what is it?”
“It’s the cure for boredom,” Bram says, his
hand still outstretched like he’s offering me a tray of chocolates, not the chance to end a man’s life.
I stare at it for a second.
“How long has he been in pain?”
Most of the bottles have been unpacked. Edgar and Brendan and the others are just waiting now. They’re watching the exchange with interest.
“Months, years, a lifetime?” Bram says. “But like this…only one or two.”
“Two?”
“Years.”
“Why are you offering me this?” I ask.
Sure, the same syringe that got him here in the first place might end his misery—but it’s still a life. It’s not mine to take. It’s nothing to do with me.
“Because you can’t always just let things happen to you Octavia. You have to actually make choices, sometimes.”
The hand is still there.
It would be a lie to say I didn’t consider it. But then I shake my head, and finally, Bram lowers his hand. He looks at the man in the bed again.
“It would have been somewhat disappointing to lose such a large source of income,” he says, “But not nearly as disappointing as you are, just now.”
I never thought I would disappoint someone by refusing to take a life. And yet, somehow, I have.
My skin crawls. This really all is a game to him. Bram is the man in the bed—driven bored by absolute power.
Cedric clears his throat from across the room.
It isn’t the place to do it, at a dying man’s bedside, but it has to be done. At least, if it works, this won’t all have been for nothing.
“Flynn is dying,” I say. “He needs to be unbonded from his other pair.”
Bram’s eyes show no sympathy. “And? You didn’t come all the way out here, without my permission mind you,” here I catch Edgar flinching from the corner of my eye, “Just to tell me that.”
“No,” I say. “I came to ask you to give me the man who can save him. I need Allister Davenport.”
At first, I think he’s about to strike me. He leans forward in the chair, his posture impeccable, his eyes bright—and he laughs.
He laughs so hard that his shoulders shake uncontrollably.
But there is no mirth on his face when he sobers.
“Why on earth would I do that?”
Whatever reaction I expected, it was not this. Once again, as I have so many times before, I flounder for words.
“I—If I don’t have him, I may not be able to perform the Time spell.”
“Then unbond him yourself,” Bram says. There is no kindness or confidence in his voice. He leans in closer, his voice growing quieter, and yet somehow more deadly.
I shouldn’t press further, but I do. Maybe it’s the incessant beeping of the surrounding monitors, or the oppressive scent of death that makes me do it. It’s stupid and petulant, but I do it still.
“And if I can’t? If Flynn dies and I can’t perform your stupid spell?”
“Then I’ll have no more use for you,” Bram says. “And unlike you, I’ll not hesitate to do what’s necessary.”
Like that, he plunges in the rest of the syringe.
For a moment, a look of utter bliss appears on the face of the man in the bed. For the first time since we arrive, his eyes open. They stare into something far beyond, something we cannot see. And then, just like that, the light is gone.
While I stare at the face of the first man I’ve seen die, Bram is staring at me.
“Go back. Now. And don’t you dare ever threaten me again.”
26
Octavia
The moment we are back, I storm out of the lounge. I don’t wait around to be told off by Edgar or anyone else. Whatever I expected from Bram, it wasn’t that.
I’m keenly aware of the fact that a man died tonight because of me.
Cedric catches me by the shoulder before I completely disappear down the hall.
“Octavia…”
I shrug him off and avoid looking at any one of them. “We should tell Flynn now,” I say. “We might not have much time to prepare the ritual.”
Draven and Kendall step up too, blocking my path towards the nurse’s office.
“It isn’t your fault,” Kendall says.
I still avoid looking. I avoid it until Draven gets so close to me I can’t look away any more. He presses one hand on either of my shoulders, gently.
“It’s all a game to him.”
“But it isn’t to me,” I snap, breathing heavily. “If Flynn dies too...that really will be my fault.”
“He isn’t going to die,” Draven says, his hands still on my shoulders. “Because you have us.”
Kendall steps up too. “We’re no Allister Davenport, but we’re pretty strong.”
I might not have faith in myself, but at least, I do have a little faith in them.
The nurse had the good sense to knock Flynn out when the pain became too much. He lays still on the bed when we find him, his dark hair still matted across his forehead with sweat.
She took his glasses off and set them on the table beside the bed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him barefaced like this. The vulnerability of it is both sweet and sad at the same time.
Even though I know it cannot spread to me through touch, I can’t bring myself to actually touch him again. I think I’m afraid his skin has already turned as cold and lifeless as he looks.
“We have to do it now, before the last of the potion wears off.”
I can still feel the extra strength running through my veins, but I know it won’t last long. Neither, I am sure, will Flynn. Not with the way that black inky-like substance has spread across even more of his body.
I won’t let him sit in agony like I did the man at the mansion. Despite Bram’s accusation, I do not just sit back and let things happen. This much, at least, I can change.
“Alright,” I say, “Where do we even begin?”
I take his book, but leave Flynn with the nurse during our preparations even though it pulls at my heart to do so. I don’t want to let him out of my sight…but having him there will only slow us down.
It’s been a long time since I performed a proper ritual. Nothing quite gets my blood pumping like a good old fashioned summoning circle.
Something about it is so primitive and powerful that it brings a flush of color to my cheeks. The redness blooming is not lost on Draven. He crouches beside me, drawing out thick lines wide enough apart that we’ll be able to carry Flynn in without disturbing his careful work. His hand on mine only makes the heat rush deeper.
“When’re we going to get a break from it all?” he asks. His exaggerated sigh might fool anyone else but me. I know that though it’s meant as a farce, he actually means it. “It’s been a while since it was just me and you.”
His eyes glance up towards Kendall, but quickly fall back down to the circle. I think for a second that he’s going to make a joke, and for some reason I bristle, but he doesn’t. He just watches my hands work as they pick off the petals of the daisies in my hand and lay them down, one by one, around the inner lines of the circle.
According to Acacia, they’re supposed to bring good luck, daisies. Without Cedric’s father, we’re going to need them. We’re about to do the ritual without any prior experience, or any opportunity to practice.
Well, except for Cedric, and that only extends to the observation of some of the more brutal tribunal meetings his father had him attend.
“A little thicker, here on this side,” Cedric says, pointing out a spot that Draven hasn’t yet gotten to.
Draven meets my eyes a second, but he doesn’t disagree. He moves on to the spot and starts filling in the lines, all the while glaring up at Cedric with a raised eyebrow that dares him to challenge his chalking skills again.
This wouldn’t be such a problem if there was even just a little bit more room. I wanted to do it in the training room, but Draven promised me we’d be glad of the privacy if we worked somewhere else—even if it came with a few un
wanted elbow jabs to the ribs instead of a crowd of onlookers.
And I think I’ve begun to understand.
The ritual is simple in its makeup, but complex in execution. Unbonding is even less common than a full out stripping of powers. The risks involved are so great that most mages would rather deal with their partner than risk the second ritual. The bond between partners is so intertwined with the affinity ritual itself that, if we are not careful, Flynn could lose access to some, if not all, of his powers in the process.
But once Flynn is unbound from his Psychic Magic, there still will be the Earth to deal with.
Neither Draven nor Cedric knows what to expect once the ritual is complete. The book Flynn managed to get his hands on, somehow, doesn’t mention what happens to the remaining powers should a mage be bound to more than one.
Flynn and the others have risked all for me to keep my powers, and look how it’s paid off.
Kendall has been separated from his twin sister. Cedric’s father has been discovered as a murderer. Draven has been dragged back into the organization he so desperately struggled to escape from. Then, of course, Flynn is risks losing all.
All so I didn’t have to choose just one.
These are the thought plaguing me while I pluck each petal off the flowers one by one. I need all the luck I can get, because I certainly don’t have any to give.
All of a sudden, the door behind me flies open, knocking against Cedric where he stands. Fortunately, he’s solid enough that he doesn’t lose his footing and mess up our careful work.
I whirl around, annoyance rising up at me to see who dares interrupt us.
“What are you doing?”
Michael stands in the doorway, his eyes bright with curiosity at the beginnings of the ritual filling the floor.
Now this, this I do not have patience for.
“Not now, Michael,” I snap, not even trying to keep my frustration out of my voice.
Abandon: Book Three of the Forgotten Affinities Series Page 13
