City of Spells

by Alexandra Christo

  Tavia.

  Many Gods, she was right in front of him.

  Finally.

  Her hair was a little longer now and still a fierce black that swung by her chin. She was dressed in gray, of course, with her sleeves rolled up to perfectly showcase the daggers of her new tattoo. A stave, of sorts. The tattoo of an ally.

  Tavia looked older, in the way wisdom and death often shaped a person to be, but at the same time she looked so brand-new. The fierceness in her eyes had grown stronger since he’d last seen her, molding her into someone who felt unfamiliar.

  She looked over to Saxony with a sigh and then turned to stare into the clearing.

  Her eyes fixed onto Wesley’s.

  Her face paled.

  She stood, quick as a cat, lips parted ever so slightly.

  She had never looked at him this way, like he had made the day grow brighter, instead of raising the shadows.

  Tavia squinted at him, trying to make sense of him being there. Wesley was trying to make sense of her, too. Tavia’s eyes were the color of rain clouds and her lips were a thin line that held a perfect cupid’s bow when she said his name.

  “Wesley.”

  Her voice carried over to him like a memory.

  Tavia was so pretty and Wesley was a little mad at himself for forgetting just how much.

  What a mess every hallucination seemed now.

  Zekia hadn’t even gotten her glare half-right.

  “Wesley,” she said again, this time louder.

  Saxony and the other two people whipped their heads around to face him.

  Wesley swallowed. Scrunched his eyes closed in a quick blink.

  Things were so bright here and the sun seemed foreign to him after so long in a series of dark rooms.

  “Many Gods,” Saxony said.

  And then Tavia was running toward him, faster than he knew she could be, and her arms were swinging around his neck and clutching on to him as if for life.

  Then Wesley was somehow hugging her back, even though he wasn’t sure he had told his arms to move. He didn’t know they could, he was so tired even blinking hurt, but still his body folded into Tavia’s like it was instinct and when he breathed in, he inhaled the scent of her.

  By the Many Gods, he had missed that scent.

  “Tell me you’re not actually here,” Tavia said. “Because if this is real, then hugging you is actually quite embarrassing.”

  “I’m here,” Wesley said.

  They felt like the first words he had spoken since he’d jumped from that window. Tavia pulled away from him and ducked her head sheepishly.

  “I was worried about you,” she said.

  “Why? It’s not like I was kidnapped by a mass murderer.”

  Tavia’s eyes met his. She glared and then she punched him in the shoulder. “You bastard,” she said.

  Wesley wasn’t sure it was possible to miss someone as much as he had missed her.

  “Did you win the war without me?” he asked. “Am I too late for the victory dance?”

  Tavia looked like she was going to punch him again, but instead she laughed, which Wesley found equally as intimidating.

  “Who are your new friends?” he asked, gesturing toward the man and woman who were standing on guard beside Saxony.

  The wary way Saxony stared at him, scanning his hands for knives and his eyes for secrets, made Wesley want to smile.

  Just like old times.

  “Does that glare mean you missed me?” he asked her.

  Saxony looked inclined to relax, but she kept her body rigid as if she had a reputation to uphold and being kind to Wesley might interfere with it.

  “This is my father, Bastian,” Saxony said.

  The man by her side stood like a fierce protector, with thick black hair pulled back into braids. He had a beard, which Wesley had never managed to grow himself, and a stern line in the center of his forehead that looked like it could be from frowning or laughing.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Wesley said.

  He held out his hand and Bastian stepped forward to take it.

  Wesley would have gone to him, but he was finding it hard enough to stand straight and keep himself from falling over. His body felt depleted and it required all the ego he had to keep anyone from noticing.

  The trek from Tisvgen to the Uncharted Forest had not been an easy one, and Wesley had forgotten how average a swimmer he was until he had propelled himself into the Onnela Sea.

  He’d also forgotten until now that he still wasn’t wearing any shoes, and the moment he remembered his feet began to throb.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Bastian said.

  Wesley tried to make his voice sound breezy. “I bet none of it was good.”

  “But all of it was true,” Saxony said.

  Wesley only shrugged and turned to the old lady. “And you are?”

  “This is my amja,” Saxony said.

  “I’m not expected to call her that, am I?”

  Wesley didn’t think referring to a lady he barely knew as his grandmother was the right way to go.

  “Most people do,” the lady said.

  “I’m not most people.”

  “He says that a lot,” Tavia said. “You’ll get used to the pride. Wesley likes to think he’s special.”

  Saxony’s amja looked at him strangely, her eyes soft and white enough that he could almost see his own reflection back in them. Wesley looked away, but then she took his hand in hers.

  There was something to the way she looked at him that made Wesley feel unsettled, and when she clasped his hand, the trees hummed softly in the background.

  “He is special,” Saxony’s amja said. “He escaped Dante Ashwood and made his way here in one piece.”

  Wesley wasn’t sure he was in one piece.

  “Speaking of the escape,” Saxony said. “How did Karam and the others manage to get you out so quickly? Are they getting healed somewhere else in camp?”

  Wesley paused. “Karam didn’t get me out of anywhere.”

  “She went to get you,” Saxony said slowly, as though perhaps Wesley had misunderstood. “A busker we questioned mentioned you were in Tisvgen and she took Arjun and Asees and a few other Crafters there to save you.”

  “You mean my old bouncer tried a rescue mission?” Wesley said. “I’m flattered. That would have saved me a trip out of a window.”

  And that was when any color faded from Saxony’s face.

  “Are you serious?” she asked. “They left three days ago. If you’re here, then where in the fire-gates are they?”

  Wesley only shrugged. “I jumped out of a building all by myself and then I just followed the sound of you sighing in my direction. I never saw anyone.”

  “Maybe they just missed each other,” Tavia said to Saxony, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  For some reason, that gesture seemed to make them both stiffen.

  “If anyone can take care of herself, then it’s Karam,” Tavia said. “Besides, she’s got a whole gang of Crafters at her back. She’ll probably realize Wesley is nowhere to be found, come back here looking all glum at having failed her mission, then see his smirking face and threaten to punch someone.”

  “You don’t know that,” Saxony said.

  “You don’t know anything either,” Tavia told her. “So let’s give it a few more days before we go panicking. Okay?”

  Saxony nodded, but even Wesley could tell that all she wanted to do was run from the forest and to wherever Karam had ventured off to.

  To save him.

  She’d left this place to go look for him, which shouldn’t have surprised Wesley so much, but it did. Arjun, too, who Wesley had made a point of irritating at every moment he could. And Asees? A Liege who once didn’t want to give him a speck of power, now agreed that he was an ally worth saving?

  Just what kind of topsy-turvy world had Wesley walked into?

  “You saved my life on Ashwood’s isle,” Saxony sa
id. “I never thanked you for that.”

  A moment of silence passed before Wesley realized that she still wouldn’t.

  “You’re welcome,” he said anyway.

  “How was Zekia?” Saxony asked. “What happened?”

  “You mean aside from the torture?”

  Tavia winced and Wesley inwardly cursed himself for revealing that little tidbit in front of her. He didn’t want her to think of him as powerless, but he didn’t quite know how to hide it.

  “She’s fine,” Wesley said. “I tried to get through to her, but Ashwood has his claws in deep. I don’t know if she can see reason. I wanted—”

  He broke off.

  I wanted to take her with me, he thought. I wanted to save her.

  “She’s a little lost right now,” he said.

  “I’m not giving up on my sister,” Saxony said.

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  Tavia let out an audible sigh, stepping in front of Wesley like some kind of a shield. “Many Gods,” she said. “He’s been back five minutes.”

  Saxony’s jaw tensed and Wesley looked between them curiously. Something had fractured their bond, and that only made this forest seem more peculiar.

  “How about we stop the interview and try asking if he’s okay?” Tavia said. “Or if he wants a healer? Or a damn nap? I mean, look at him!”

  Wesley wished that they wouldn’t.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Apparently, I’m a badass Crafter, so I can heal myself. And a nap sounds boring.”

  The lie was so easy that he hadn’t even considered telling the truth.

  “How about a new suit and some food though?” Wesley asked. “And what I wouldn’t give for a pint of Cloverye.”

  Tavia laughed. “Sure. I happen to know a great cook.”

  “If you’re talking about yourself, then I’d rather not get food poisoning.”

  She smacked him on the shoulder and the lights in her eyes danced.

  “It’s good to have you back,” she said.

  Wesley smiled at her, best he could.

  He’d wanted to get here so badly and resume business as usual, fall back into the routine and feel as at home with these people as he did in Creije. He thought that once he got here it would be like putting on an old suit.

  It had seemed so simple when he stood at the edge of the window with the Onnela Sea and all the dead of Tisvgen calling out to him from below. Surely the torture was the hard part. Surely being back with people he trusted was easy.

  Except that wasn’t true.

  Wesley couldn’t let his guard down here any more than he could with Zekia, because these people needed him to be okay and if they knew how weak he felt, then they wouldn’t rely on him.

  If he wasn’t strong, then he was no use to anyone.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Tavia asked, searching Wesley’s eyes for all the things he hid.

  Wesley swallowed and kept the smile strong on his face.

  “I’m always okay,” he said.

  15

  TAVIA

  It was raining in Rishiya and Tavia sat with her legs hanging from the tree house edge. The Uncharted Forest was beautiful and when the water hit the leaves just right, the entire city looked like it was made of stars, deep green leaves glistening and tree roots stretching across the muddy sky to stow their thirst.

  Wesley had just finished up in his shower and was currently trying on the new suit Tavia had gotten him from one of the buskers in camp. She’d been prepared to trade her knife for it, but it turned out that being a leader meant free gifts as a perk. Besides, when the guy had heard it was for Wesley, he’d all but stripped off in the middle of the clearing.

  Tavia unscrewed the cap from the bottle of Cloverye and placed it on the floor beside her, next to a single glass.

  “This is a little tight around the shoulders,” Wesley called from the spot in the corner where he was changing behind a makeshift curtain.

  “Must be from all those bulging muscles you have,” Tavia said sarcastically.

  “Must be,” Wesley said back. “I did see you noticing earlier.”

  Tavia took a drink to keep from killing him, but she was surprised when she brought the bottle to her lips and realized that she was somehow smiling. She’d missed this. She’d missed him, from the warm husk of his voice to his irritating sense of humor.

  “I was going to come for you,” Tavia said. “As soon as I found out where you might be. But then Karam left and the buskers were so uneasy.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” Wesley said. “It was too dangerous and you—”

  “Excuse me,” Tavia interrupted. She slammed the bottle down hard enough that a puddle spilled out onto the floor. “I’ve been leading a horde of buskers while you were gone. I can handle myself.”

  “I just meant that it wouldn’t have been worth the risk,” Wesley said.

  She heard the sound of the curtain drawing back.

  What he’d meant to imply was that putting herself in unnecessary danger would have been stupid. What he’d actually said—what Tavia had heard coating his words—was that he didn’t think he mattered enough for her to try.

  He didn’t think he was worth saving.

  She thought back to when she’d seen him in the clearing, shirt torn and his feet bloodied with dirt.

  She’d had to try so hard to keep from crying.

  “You’re worth the risk, Wesley,” Tavia said.

  She turned to him, finally, dressed in the best suit she could find. It fit him snugly and though, yes, it was a little too tight around the shoulders, if he hadn’t said it, she wouldn’t have noticed. He looked like he belonged in that suit. He looked like himself in it.

  Except for the bruises.

  Except for the bags under his eyes.

  Except for the way he smiled, like he didn’t mean it at all.

  Tavia hated Ashwood and Zekia more than anything in that moment.

  “You should let Saxony heal you,” she said.

  “I can heal myself.”

  “You shouldn’t need to.”

  Wesley didn’t answer. He just sighed and adjusted his cuff links, as he always did when he was trying to distract his mind.

  “I have something for you,” Tavia said.

  She slid the bone gun onto the floor beside the bottle of Cloverye.

  It had been the only thing of Wesley’s she’d had to keep her mind calm and her heart alive, but now that he was back, she could feel the old gun calling to its owner, begging to go home.

  When Wesley saw it, his smile turned, far more genuine than the one he’d given her just seconds before. It was the smile he’d had when they were kids running from the amityguards with possibility in their pockets, and the smile he’d given her when they got rooms opposite each other in the busker dorms, and the smile she’d savored when they created their first crystal ball together.

  It was her favorite thing in the world.

  “Damn, I missed this thing,” he said.

  Wesley took the gun from the ground and sat beside her. His feet dangled next to hers, close enough that they could touch if they were ever so careless.

  “I hope you took good care of it,” he said.

  He examined the bones that made up the weapon, checking for scuffs and scratches.

  “If there’s a mark on here anywhere, then you’re cleaning it off.”

  “Your precious little murder weapon is fine,” Tavia said. “I’m glad to see your priorities are still in check.”

  Wesley shrugged and placed the gun into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, right where his heart was.

  “Do you think Karam is okay?” Tavia asked. “Saxony looked really worried earlier.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “She’s good at fighting her way out of trouble,” Tavia said.

  Only, she was still just as worried as Saxony was. Karam could fight, sure, but that didn’t mean that she could fight anything Ashwood threw at
her. It didn’t mean she was invincible, and Tavia cursed herself for thinking otherwise. She’d always seen Karam as unstoppable, unkillable, but that was a lie and now that she wasn’t here, Tavia couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d let that lie comfort her too often.

  She hoped desperately that Karam would come storming back into camp, angry that Wesley had escaped before she’d had a chance to rescue him.

  “There are a lot more people here than I thought there would be,” Wesley said.

  He peered over the edge to look down at the camp below, brimming with buskers and Crafters.

  “Yeah.” Tavia took the bottle from Wesley and downed another swig. “Saxony contacted all the Lieges in the four realms and a bunch of them agreed to send us more Crafters. It’s not much, but including Saxony’s and Asees’s Kins, we have eighty Crafters already. When the others come, it should bump that up to a hundred and fifty or so.”

  “And the buskers?” Wesley asked.

  “A little deal I made with Casim,” she said. “We’ve got fifty of his buskers and he’s negotiating with the other underbosses of Uskhanya to send us their forces too. So that gives us ninety altogether so far, with more possibly on the way.”

  Wesley looked vaguely impressed.

  “I used your name to threaten him, by the way,” Tavia said. She passed the bottle back over to Wesley, neither of them bothering to use the glass. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Go for it,” Wesley said. “I’m glad my name still strikes fear in the hearts of my cowardly colleagues.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Underbosses really are all chickenshits.”

  Wesley laughed and the sound jittered amid the rain, like it was a storm in itself.

  “What was it like?” Tavia asked him.

  He looked at her in questioning.

  “Where you were,” she said, and then, softer, “What happened to you?”

  Wesley stiffened, and she knew that she shouldn’t have asked. If he’d wanted her to know, then he would have told her. But the thing was, Wesley had a habit of never telling people things that would make him look weak. He had a habit of being too stubborn for his own good. It was why Tavia had wanted to get him a suit, to make him not just look more like himself, but to feel comfortable enough to relax a little. If he was relaxed, maybe she could get through to him.