by Shaun Barger
A tiny fist pounded against the stall, hard enough to make him jump.
“What?” he said, yanking open the door to curse the intruder.
Angry words died on his lips as he froze, stunned.
Standing before him was a girl with short, straw-colored hair sticking out in all directions and a smattering of freckles across an upturned nose.
Her lips were pursed in a tight little frown—her chin jutted out defiantly as if she’d eaten something sour and was furious at the injustice that had been committed against her palate.
“W—what are you doing?” he asked her, hurriedly trying to wipe away evidence of his tears with a sleeve. “This is the boys’ room.”
“I used to cry like that,” she said, with a sort of twangy Southern Veil accent he’d never heard before.
“I wasn’t crying!” Nikolai said unconvincingly. “Crying is for babies.”
And Nikolai was no baby. Not after a year of his mother’s lessons, which she’d begun in secret when he was seven.
The girl gave Nikolai a knowing look with eyes too old for her little face. “My daddy used to call me stupid. And ugly. And he hit me. Then his mom always healed me so no one would know and told me to shut up when I cried.”
“His mom . . . your grandmom?” Nikolai said with wonder. His mother always did the same, using her golden medi-glove Focal to heal his wounds and bruises with little clouds of sparkling light. Hiding what she’d done.
The girl crinkled her nose. “I guess. I hate her.”
Who was this strange, angry little girl? He didn’t have any friends—didn’t need any friends—but there weren’t that many magi in his school and he knew everyone.
“I’m Astor,” she said, as if reading his mind. “I moved here last week from Blue Ridge. You’re the only one in our class who hasn’t talked to me yet. You don’t talk to anyone. And today you looked so sad. So I followed you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling ashamed. “I’m Nikolai. And I’m not sad, I just—”
“You should tell on them.”
Nikolai froze. “What?”
“I know you don’t want to tell, ’cause you love them. But they don’t love you. Not really. Or they’d be nice.”
“You’re wrong,” Nikolai said, and looked away, unable to meet her eyes.
“I told on my dad,” she said. “He used to only hit me, but one time he started hitting my sister and she’s practically a baby.”
She stuck her chin out again with that defiant intensity only exaggerated by her wild crown of hair. “So I started calling him stupid and ugly and told him that I hated him so he would hit me instead. Mommy was always too scared to stop him so I ran away before his mom could heal me. It took all day but I found a Watchman and showed him and asked him to protect my sister.”
She beamed, proud, but Nikolai could tell it was for show. At least a little bit.
“So they took him to jail and he can’t talk to us anymore. We left his mom’s farm and came here to stay with my cousin.”
“I’m . . . glad,” Nikolai finally said. But he knew that he could never tell on his mom. His mom was an Edge Guard married to a Watchman. Even if they could arrest her, none of the Watchmen would be strong enough to fight her anyway.
She stared at him for a bit, pinching her chin thoughtfully with her thumb and her index finger. Then she nodded, having come to some sort of decision. “We’re friends now,” she said. “Everyone is nice here but they don’t get it.”
And that was that. Nikolai had made his first friend, and Astor wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She never took no for an answer.
Astor was very close to her cousin, a loudmouth class clown named George Stokes. And the moment she told Stokes, very seriously, that Nikolai was her friend now and Stokes had to be friends with him too, he just shrugged, said okay, and started treating Nikolai as if they’d been best friends their whole lives. Even though really, they’d been in the same class for two years and had never actually spoken.
Having friends changed everything for Nikolai. Stokes was funny—he was always joking around and laughing but never said anything mean about anyone. And when they watched the old human movies Stokes’s dad got for them from the university and something sad happened, Stokes would always think of something happy to say, or at least try to make the others laugh.
Nikolai wasn’t sure Stokes had ever been sad. Not really—not like he and Astor. Because whenever they seemed down he would always start cracking jokes or fart and blame it on Astor, which never failed to make them all laugh—but it was in this sort of panic, like being sad was some sort of sickness he didn’t understand but couldn’t stand to see his friends suffer.
Astor and her little sister lived with Stokes until Astor’s mom saved up enough money as a waitress to get their own little apartment. Her clothing was all secondhand—frayed and stained and almost always too big for her. She pretended not to care but sometimes he would catch Astor looking at herself in the mirror and Nik could tell that no matter what she said, and no matter what he told her, a part of her still believed what her dad had said. About her being stupid. And ugly.
For the first time in his life, Nikolai knew what happiness was. In flashes and moments, at least. And when Nikolai was with Astor, there was this weird feeling in his stomach—this kind of warmth that made him want to smile and run around.
One day, not long after he and Astor had truly become inseparable, Nikolai got into his very first fight.
Astor tripped and fell during a game of tag—totally ate it, face-first in a puddle. She sat up and started laughing—grinning at Nikolai with a mask of mud, pretending that she’d transformed into some sort of monster as she began chucking handfuls of muck at him.
But then another mage said something that made her stop smiling. Nikolai couldn’t even remember his name now, or what he said exactly—all he could remember was that the mage had been one of the rich kids, and how ugly he looked when he and his friends started laughing, how ugly they all were when they pushed up their noses and started making pig noises at her.
It wasn’t the first time they’d teased her, though she’d been too proud to tell Stokes or Nikolai. Teased her for her clothing. Teased her for her tangled hair, which was rarely brushed because her mom was too busy with two jobs and taking care of Astor’s little sister. Teased her for being poor.
Watching Astor retreat inside herself as they mocked her was the first time that Nikolai had experienced a very specific kind of anger. He broke one mage’s nose, gave the other a black eye, and pinned the ringleader to the ground, forcing him to eat mud while telling the boy that he’d kill him if he ever made fun of Astor like that again.
It was only then that the horrified headmaster finally pulled Nikolai away, who, even as the much larger mage carried him off, continued thrashing and screaming threats back at the weeping boys.
It was the second time Nikolai had ever seen his Watchman father lose his temper.
“You could have killed them!” his father rumbled—barely raising his voice, but still terribly intimidating as he towered over him. Nikolai stared sullenly up at his father, his briefly broken but now-healed hand wrapped in ice, his still-bloody lip trembling.
Calming himself, Nikolai’s father explained that there was almost no fight you can’t talk your way out of—no mage you can’t reason with. That fighting should always be a last resort. That the most heroic thing a mage could do was to use reason instead of violence. To use kindness and love instead of anger, instead of hate. That there was always a choice, difficult as it might seem.
His mother, on the other hand, showed him how to coat his knuckles with a layer of hardened air, so he wouldn’t break his fingers next time he had to throw a punch.
She always was the practical one.
Nikolai never forgot how Astor slipped her muddy little hand into his as they waited outside the headmaster’s office for their parents to come get them after the fight. Never
forgot how his mother’s lessons finally began to make sense.
* * *
Nikolai began to run. Slowly at first, gaining in speed, sneakers slapping against the gleaming cobblestone.
“Elefry,” Nikolai hissed, launching himself from the ground as the featherweight spell seeped from the channels of magic through his body, through his flesh, settling on bone. He became a fraction of his normal weight—light enough to soar, light enough that he could twist around and fire off a continuous jet of jellied air with an inversion on the akro weave from his baton to propel him into an arc high up over the buildings.
It wasn’t quite flying, but Nikolai couldn’t help but feel the tension in his chest melt away as he was buffeted by the freezing wind.
The city spread out before him, the Noir a wet darkness below, the Gloaming a soft red light receding in the distance. The Mage King’s tower pierced the sky at the center of New Damascus—windowless, three-sided, and white, glowing with a soft inner light. Nikolai could practically feel the magic bleeding off it from here.
The airspace above the pedestrian level was technically restricted from this sort of featherweight flight, and was reserved for skyhorns or civilian crafts. But traffic was sparse above the Noir, and if any Watchmen decided to give Nikolai shit, he’d just flash his rank insignia and tell them to fuck off.
Even as a lowly sergeant, Nikolai outranked most Watchmen. Still, whenever he saw one zip by overhead—a blur of white and blue and sparkling golden light—he couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy.
He was glad to be an Edge Guard, but he’d spent most of his life dreaming that he might one day follow in his father’s footsteps. Even now, two years after that door had closed, he’d sometimes catch himself fantasizing about his life as a Watchman that would never be.
Nikolai slowly adjusted his trajectory, touching down on a rooftop and allowing the featherweight weaves to disappear momentarily so he could run for a bit to build momentum, casting the spell once again just as he pushed off.
It began to drizzle, miniscule droplets stinging as he pierced the air in long arcs. The blistering cold seemed to peel away the stomach-twisting thoughts of Ilyana and Astor. Of Hazeal, Marblewood, and Jubal. Of the revolver’s secret spell burning away at the back of his mind and the door in the sky it could—
Nikolai was falling.
His eyes fluttered open to the odd sight of blood trailing from his shoulder as he plummeted to the filthy streets below. His baton spun away—felt more than seen as an irresistible tug as it twirled into the gloom. His blade remained sheathed at his side, but as he turned he saw the ground looming, saw sharp-edged roofing and gutters full of filth drawing close, and he couldn’t move his arm, blood still trailing from where he’d been pierced by some silent projectile.
With an agonized grunt he realized that his featherweight enchantments had faded. In moments he’d be a smear on the pavement, unless—
“Elefry!” he screamed against the wind. As the spell settled on his bones, his surface to mass ratio became such that his fall was slowed by the wind alone into an odd twirl. Barely skimming the edge of a roof, he desperately pulled into a roll, feeling his already wounded arm crunch as it caught on the tile edge.
Nikolai couldn’t even scream as he landed in the pile of refuse in an alley, could only gasp, wheezing, as he just barely missed impalement on a broken bottle, its jagged glass slicing up his cheek.
Frantic footfalls slapped against wet pavement, hideous hyena laughter echoing as it drew near.
“Get his Focal! Get his Focal!”
Adrenaline pounding through his veins, Nikolai forced himself to stand. He staggered from the trash heap and fell heavily against the wall as a skinny mage with a crooked nose rushed him, a morbidly obese mage with hideous acne scarring following close behind with a pistol in hand.
Nik’s shot and broken arm hanging uselessly against the wall, he reached over clumsily to draw his blade from the sheath.
“No ya don’t,” the skinny mage said, covering the hilt with his own hands to block Nik’s weaker grip. Teeth pulled back in a snarl, Nikolai slammed his forehead against the thin mage’s face.
“Styx and fucking stones!” he howled as blood plumed from his already crooked nose. Spitting and swearing, he yanked the blade from Nikolai’s sheath and stumbled back, falling to the ground.
Nikolai realized distantly that these magi didn’t have any Focals and weren’t magi at all. They were half-magi, like Hazeal—though these two had probably been burned out as punishment for a crime, or for being deemed dangerously unfit to wield magic. The Noir was home to many such half-magi who struggled to eke out an existence in the shadows, invisible to the cheerfully indifferent magi populace.
Wishing desperately that he wasn’t so drunk, Nikolai sprinted serpentine toward the fat one as the half-mage drew a bead on Nik and opened fire.
The pistol was a lowly street artifact—enchanted with a muting field to block the noise of gunfire, but mundane in every other regard. Bullets zipped around Nikolai as the half-mage kept missing, the shots somehow more terrifying for their dulled silence.
A glassy coating of hardened air formed across Nikolai’s knuckles as he twisted into a swing, but the punch was sloppy—a glancing blow that turned the half-mage’s greasy face hard enough to loosen his grip on the pistol, which skittered off into a gutter, but not hard enough to take him down.
The other came at him swearing from behind and Nikolai spun to meet the thin one’s assault with an outstretched hand and a snarled, “Pyrkagias!”
Too drunk, wounded, and weak without the aid of his Focals, Nikolai was only able to make the smallest puff of fire. The skinny half-mage’s momentary expression of horror slipped into a hideous grin as he passed through the wisps of flame and slammed his shoulder into Nik, sending him sprawling.
Nikolai writhed on the filthy street, biting back sobs as he felt himself weakening from his bleeding shoulder. Soon adrenaline wouldn’t be enough, and he’d slip into unconsciousness.
The panting half-magi peered down at him with delight, the thin one planting a boot on Nikolai’s chest to keep him still.
“You see that, Chaz?” he said, whistling through yellow teeth. “See him try to burn me? We got ourselves a Battle Mage.”
“An Edge Guard, eh?” the fat one giggled. “I’d rather have a go at some sweet little sorceress who’s lost her way, but carving up one of the king’s baby butchers?” He grabbed Nikolai roughly by the throat, sausage fingers squeezing so hard that he could barely breathe. “It’ll do.”
“A mean one too, I bet. You see his knife Focal? Bet you anything he’s used it plenty on our sort. Bullet through the shoulder and he still broke my fucking nose.”
He kicked Nikolai in the side, hard, and Nik felt himself vomiting, tried to turn as he gasped and gurgled, screaming as the thin one shifted his boot to the bullet wound in his shoulder and pressed against it.
Nikolai was going to die. Oh fucking Disc, he was going to die. They were going to cut him up, torture him, and leave him to bleed out in this alley.
He wished he had worn his Edge Guard uniform instead of civvies. If he’d been in uniform, the enchantments would have protected him from the bullet. Their kicks and punches would have been turned aside, and by now he’d have reduced them to piles of ash and bone. But no. He’d worn civvies—clothing Ilyana had helped picked out for him in the fashion district. All torn up now. All soaked in blood and filth.
All those years of combat training with his mother, then the Edge Guard—all the blood, blisters, and broken bones; all the training, tactics, drills, and theory—yet there Nikolai was, beaten and brutalized by lowly half-magi for the second time in as many days. What had been the point of it all?
He wouldn’t beg. No matter what they did to him, no matter how they tortured him before finishing him off. He was no stranger to pain. At least in this, his training would be of use. At least in this, he’d triumph.
They kicked him, punched and slapped him, picked him up and threw him around, laughing as Nikolai made weak attempts to fight back and swing at them with his one good arm. But it was no use—they were too strong, too quick. This wasn’t the way.
“Fuck you!” he snarled, forcing himself to stand and stumbling back away from them. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you both. I’ll fucking kill you!”
But they just laughed.
“You think you know how to use that knife?” Nikolai hissed, looking at his stolen Focal tucked into the thin mage’s belt. “You don’t know shit. You couldn’t cut me if you tried. Come on, you milk-sop wretch. You Fox-crack son of a flesh mage.”
Fat Man’s face twisted into a snarl, but Thin Man chuckled, putting a hand out to stop him.
“Now now, Sergei. Piggy’s trying to make us mad. Trying to make us kill him quick. But we ain’t gonna do something like that, is we? No way, Piggy. I’m going to stab you—I’m going to cut you good—where it’ll hurt, not where it’ll kill you. Then I’m gonna cut off your lips. I’m gonna feed them to ya. For what you said. Understand?”
“Fuck. You.”
“Jeeves. Listen to this pit-pile.” Thin Man sighed, and rushed Nikolai, stabbing the blade into his gut.
Nikolai gasped as it slid through his skin. He could barely control his body as he felt it twist inside of him, as he felt his innards tear—but he clenched his fingers around Thin Man’s hand, around the pommel of the blade, and leaned into it. Closing his eyes, he channeled a flood of magical energy through the blade buried in his flesh.
“Pyrkagias,” Nikolai said, then grinned, and Thin Man began to scream as flames coursed up his arm from the dagger, engulfing him. He tried to pull away but Nikolai held on tight, feeling his own flesh blister as he barely kept the flames away from his own skin, clothing turning to ash as the other’s flesh peeled away, as the half-mage’s face melted like crimson-streaked wax, filling the air with the stink of burned meat.
Nikolai pushed the dying half-mage away and clumsily rushed the other, who stood there dumbstruck. Clenching his teeth, Nik yanked the blade out of his side and swung it at the other’s face, just missing as the other stumbled back. He turned to run, but Nik shot a jet of flame at his back, knocking him down.
