City of Spells

by Alexandra Christo

  He wasn’t sure he had the strength to pull himself up.

  “Give me your hand,” Tavia said, appearing in front of him.

  She flung her arm over the railing.

  The sight of her was like a miracle in itself.

  Wesley called on every ounce of strength he had to reach up for her. He called on his magic to quell the spinning in his head and halt the blood he could feel trickling down his neck.

  Come on, he said. We can do this.

  He stretched up.

  “Just a little closer,” Tavia urged.

  There was a tingling in Wesley’s hands, like a newfound power surging straight to his fingertips as hers dangled so close to his, and with a mighty yell Wesley lurched up and grabbed on to Tavia.

  She clasped both hands around his arm and pulled him desperately until he was back over the railing.

  Wesley collapsed over the top and onto the bridge, beside Tavia, both of them gasping for air.

  “Idiots,” Ashwood said.

  He sneered down at the bullet that had pierced him and kicked it across the ground.

  It was soaked with his gray blood. The blood of tainted magic, acquired through years of stolen power. Wesley could see it.

  See it, but not get to it.

  Son of a bitch, Wesley thought, pushing himself back up once more.

  They needed that bullet, that blood, if the final part of their plan was going to work.

  “You will pay for that,” Ashwood said.

  He strode toward them and Wesley pushed himself in front of Tavia.

  Ashwood laughed. “You’re powerful, my boy. But I am ancient.”

  He raised his arm, as if he was going to wipe them from the world.

  “Wait.”

  It was Zekia who spoke.

  She was no longer battling Karam and Saxony. In fact, the three of them were watching onward with startled expressions, as though the sound of Tavia’s gunshot and the sight of Wesley dangling over a bridge had pulled them away from each other and back to the real enemy.

  Wesley narrowed his eyes and looked to Zekia.

  His head still pounded.

  You can help, he thought.

  All they needed was a minute. Just a minute to grab that bullet and then—

  “Kid,” Wesley said out loud. “This is your chance.”

  The bullet, he whispered in her mind. We need the bullet Tavia shot Ashwood with.

  “You can help your family,” Wesley said.

  “She is helping her family,” Ashwood said. “I’m her family.”

  When he stared at Zekia, it was almost as a challenge.

  “I’ll do it,” Zekia said.

  Wesley’s sigh was like a gust of wind as he watched his little sister step to Ashwood’s side.

  “Tavia is Wesley’s favorite,” she said.

  Ashwood’s impatience was palpable. “And?”

  Zekia stared at Tavia, and Wesley wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.

  “He’s always leaving me for her. So I should be the one to take care of her.”

  “No!” Karam yelled, lurching forward.

  But Ashwood held out his hand and both Karam and Saxony came to a sudden stop. Wesley could see them struggling, but it was like their feet were rooted to the bridge.

  Ashwood spread his arms toward Tavia, like she was a prize. “By all means, little warrior. Show me where your loyalty lies.”

  “Kid—”

  “Stop talking!” Zekia yelled. “I have to concentrate and I can’t do it if you won’t stop talking.”

  Her lips trembled, eyes unblinking and unfocused as she stared at Wesley with so much fear that he almost trembled alongside her.

  He looked at the bullet across the way, by the barriers of the bridge.

  So damn far.

  Please, kid, Wesley called out to his sister. Get Tavia the bullet.

  But Zekia wasn’t listening.

  She held out her hand and Wesley’s bone gun was suddenly clasped in her tiny fingers. In the very corner of his eye, he saw Tavia pat her belt loop, to see if she could still feel the cold bone against her back.

  Nothing.

  Wesley knew it before she did.

  Zekia was holding the gun he had used to kill his old underboss and take his place.

  The gun that Tavia had held on to while the Kingpin kept him as prisoner.

  The gun made from bone and blood, on which Wesley had built an entire empire.

  The gun he wanted to use in a perfect display of irony to bring Ashwood to his knees.

  “Make me proud,” Ashwood said, placing a hand on Zekia’s shoulder.

  She nodded.

  The bullet, Wesley tried again. Kid—

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner,” Zekia said.

  She squeezed the trigger and in an instant, Wesley’s world broke into a million pieces.

  The gunshot was like an explosion and in the time it took for Wesley to blink, for his heart to pound furiously in his chest—just once, like a dying scream—Tavia stumbled back.

  Her hand went to her chest.

  There was blood. So much blood. On her hands and dripping from her mouth.

  In the distance, he thought he heard Saxony cry out.

  Karam screamed in grief.

  “Wesley,” Tavia said in a gasp.

  This isn’t happening, he thought. This can’t be happening.

  Wesley blinked and for the first time he saw the world truly ending.

  If she died, then there was no going back. If he lost Tavia, then nothing mattered. Not magic and not time and not winning this war.

  Tavia hit the ground, hard enough that it sounded like another gunshot.

  She reached out a shaking hand toward him. One last attempt at a lifeline.

  Wesley didn’t move.

  Couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t breathe or think straight.

  It’s not real. It’s not real. Please don’t let it be real.

  And then her arm fell and her eyes closed and Tavia’s breath stuttered to a final stop.

  37

  SAXONY

  Saxony saw her fall.

  The bullet hit Tavia and the time it took for her to tumble to the ground stretched between the seconds.

  The Kingpin’s glee broke her concentration, releasing Saxony from the spell that pinned her in place. Yet she still couldn’t move.

  In a moment, in a single gunshot, the truest friend she had was gone.

  And her sister had been the one to do it.

  Tavia was sprawled across the ground behind Ashwood and Zekia, covered in too much blood for Saxony to bear looking at.

  She was still and pale and Saxony’s gut wrenched.

  It was like being kicked in the stomach over and over, until she could barely pant out a breath.

  Tavia was gone.

  Wesley knelt beside her, unblinking, almost frozen.

  There was no fury in him, just despair.

  “No,” Saxony said in a whisper. “She’s not…”

  She swallowed, like she was swallowing words too terrible to speak, and buried her head in Karam’s shoulder.

  “I am so sorry,” Karam said. “I thought I could stop it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Karam pulled away and steadied Saxony’s shoulders with her hands.

  “I am sorry,” she said again. “But we still have to finish this. We have to fight for her and all of the others.”

  Saxony didn’t know how much fight she had left in her. That bullet hadn’t just taken her best friend, but it had taken her sister from her too, because there was no redemption for Zekia now, and there was no way Saxony could ever look at her sister the same way again.

  Saxony couldn’t save her.

  “Forgive me,” Karam said.

  And then she ran for Ashwood.

  She swung her fists wildly, but it was of little use. All the training Karam had clawed from the world wasn’t enough.r />
  Karam kicked out.

  Ashwood caught her leg and pushed her to the ground.

  She flipped herself back up in an instant and swung again, but Ashwood snatched her arm, like her speed was no match for him.

  Karam’s knees buckled under his strength.

  “You have no power here,” he growled, low and impatient.

  Saxony’s teeth ground together.

  First he took her sister, then he killed Asees, and then Tavia.

  She wouldn’t let him take Karam.

  She wouldn’t let him take anyone else.

  “I’ll show you power,” Saxony snarled. “Karam, move!”

  Karam swiped out her legs, catching Ashwood at the ankle.

  He seethed and dropped her arm, giving the warrior a moment to dive out of the way.

  As soon as Karam was clear, Saxony thrust her hands toward the Kingpin.

  The arrows of fire darted from each of her fingertips, the force of expelling them nearly throwing Saxony off balance. She was summoning all the magic she had inside of her and it engulfed the air so much that the heat from the ground started to burn even her.

  A wave of fire, almost tidal, flew toward Ashwood.

  But the Kingpin threw up his hand and the fire collided against a new invisible wall, sizzling.

  “I’ll show you what real magic can do,” he said.

  Ashwood pushed forward and Saxony’s fire turned to ice, melting into a body of water that spilled over the sides of the bridge.

  He clicked his fingers, and whether it was necessary or for dramatic effect Saxony didn’t know, but she felt the air grow uneasy and then disappear completely.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  Many Gods, she couldn’t breathe.

  Saxony clutched at her throat as Ashwood pulled the very air from her lungs.

  Zekia took a step toward her, but with one deadly, daring look from Ashwood, she stopped in place.

  “Stay where you are,” he said. “I’ll kill her myself.”

  Saxony wondered if after he’d finished with her, Ashwood would leave anyone behind to mourn her, or if he would decimate the world. There was a moment where all the hope she had gathered over the weeks disappeared and all she could do was focus on her breath and ponder which one would be the last.

  And then she noticed it.

  A flicker moving in the air in front of her, like it was just in the corner of Saxony’s eye where she couldn’t quite focus. Nobody else seemed to catch it and the harder Saxony looked, the harder it was to see.

  But it was there.

  Some kind of a ripple.

  Something impossible, where Tavia’s body was supposed to be.

  Hope.

  38

  TAVIA

  Being dead sucked. Thankfully, those kinds of things weren’t always permanent.

  Tavia patted herself down, touching her chest where the blood had been moments ago.

  She wasn’t dead.

  Why wasn’t she dead?

  I had to make it look real, a voice in her head whispered. I’m really sorry if I scared you.

  Zekia.

  Tavia searched the bridge until her eyes settled on the young girl, who was trying her best to look anywhere else but at Tavia.

  Get to the bullet, Zekia said. Wesley told me you needed it. You have the time now. He thinks you’re dead.

  By he, she meant Ashwood, but all that came to Tavia’s mind was Wesley.

  He was knelt beside the false image of her that Zekia had conjured. There were tears staining his eyes, trembling at the corners like they were too afraid to drop.

  She’d never seen his face like that before.

  She never, ever wanted to again.

  She made to move toward him.

  The bullet, Zekia urged. Go now!

  Tavia bit her lip and looked back to Zekia.

  She was risking her life to help them and it occurred to Tavia then that the future Karam had seen wasn’t of Tavia dying; it was of the world thinking she had.

  Zekia was as good a planner as her brother.

  Thank you, Tavia whispered inside of her mind, hoping Zekia could hear.

  She took a tentative step forward.

  Ashwood’s back was to her, which was just what Tavia needed.

  Karam was on the floor by Ashwood’s feet, his hand clutched around her wrist. Her arm shook as she tried to push him off, but Ashwood persisted.

  Saxony’s face was one of pure rage.

  “I’ll show you power,” she said.

  And then her hands set ablaze and the ground around her lit up with pools of fire.

  Tavia could feel the heat from where she was and when Saxony threw her hands out, Tavia ducked and placed her hands over her head on instinct.

  The fire shot toward the Kingpin.

  Only Wesley didn’t move.

  He stayed kneeling by Tavia’s body, staring at the illusion of her like there wasn’t a war just a few feet from where he was.

  Tavia wanted to scream that she was alive, and that everything was okay, but this was the moment she needed.

  The distraction of Saxony’s fire would give her time.

  She walked slowly away from Wesley, toward the bullet that had pierced through Ashwood and was lying on the bridge. Her movements were careful, in case the illusion shattered. Magic was a fragile thing and Tavia couldn’t risk being seen.

  Especially when Zekia had killed her so convincingly.

  A little too convincingly, Tavia thought.

  Because though she didn’t feel the pain of the bullet, there was a small glitch, maybe ten seconds or so, when she’d seen the blood on herself and the look on Wesley’s face as he’d seen it too. The few fractures of time when the illusion propelled into the world and Zekia forgot to omit Tavia from it.

  For a moment, Tavia thought she was going to die.

  The bullet was squashed and wrinkled and when Tavia picked it up, it was still a little warm. The blood that coated the gold metal was an almost black shade of red.

  Tavia clasped it with a busker’s smile.

  Ashwood still had his back to her, his magic clutched tightly around Saxony’s neck.

  Her friend was gasping for breath.

  Tavia narrowed her eyes and set Dante Ashwood in her sights.

  With hands quick enough to earn her reputation as Creije’s best busker, she reached into the back of her trouser pocket for the mirror doll and wiped the bullet, riddled with Ashwood’s blood, onto its body.

  The change was instant.

  The doll’s head snapped back and its body shook as it shed its makeshift form and mutated into something other, growing flesh in place of fabric, hair stringing from its ghostly scalp.

  Its face was muddled and incomplete, just as Ashwood’s was. Eyes that were a faded black and lips that were smudged across its deathly face. The only thing human about it was the heartbeat, the breath that escaped its tiny mouth, and the way it shuddered under Tavia’s touch.

  Ashwood whipped around to face her and Tavia caught the moment his shadows jolted and his thin frame stiffened.

  Saxony gasped, Zekia smiled, and Tavia swore that Karam looked close to rolling her eyes.

  And Wesley, who blinked as the pretend Tavia’s image faded and he looked up to see the real thing standing over him, swallowed loud enough for it to sound like a crack of thunder.

  He said her name, just once, in utter disbelief, voice splintering on the sound. And then he was by her side and she thought maybe he was going to kiss her in the middle of this battle until she heard Ashwood hiss, and they both turned to see his graying teeth bared.

  “Impossible,” he said at the sight of Tavia alive. “You—”

  Tavia snapped the doll’s leg backward.

  Ashwood fell to a knee, clutching on to his cane to keep himself upright.

  Up ahead, the skies growled with his anger.

  “Foolish child,” he said from the ground. He was staring at Zekia. “How da
re you betray me like this?”

  His hand cut into the air and suddenly Zekia was on the ground, screaming.

  Her body twisted, like he was snapping her bones apart.

  “I will make you pay. I will make you regret the day you were—”

  He paused and let out a choked sound.

  Tavia squeezed the neck of the doll tightly.

  See how you like it, she thought.

  Ashwood pulled his hand from the air and brought it to his own throat and Zekia let out a gasp of relief as the Kingpin’s magic ripped from her.

  They watched, all of them, as Ashwood gasped for breath, choking on nothing at all.

  He looked up as Tavia pinched the neck of the doll and Wesley, standing by her side where he belonged, watched on.

  “My boy,” Ashwood said in a breathless stammer. “Help me.”

  Wesley’s face remained plain.

  “He’s not your boy,” Tavia said. “And nobody’s going to help you now.”

  39

  KARAM

  Karam could not see the Kingpin’s face, but she could sense his growing fear as he looked from the mirror doll to Tavia to Wesley. To the two crooks that his legacy had created, who were now ready to undo him.

  Tavia had managed to blood the doll after all.

  And they had Zekia to thank.

  Karam had been so sure the vision was real and she had been so sure Tavia’s death was final, and all of it had been an illusion.

  If they lived through this, Karam planned to have strong words with the Indescribable God on how to be a bit clearer with its plans for the future.

  “Your mirror doll won’t destroy me,” Ashwood said. “I cannot be killed.”

  “Then I guess that I’ll have fun trying,” Tavia said. “I’ve always loved a good fight.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Ashwood sneered.

  His smile basically hissed.

  “Wekne ohg vjs.”

  The words howled like a storm as they slid out of his mouth.

  Karam recognized the words. It was a summoning, all too familiar.

  Awaken and feast.

  On cue, a bang as loud as the Star Eggs sounded from underneath the bridge.

  “Here is the fight you wished for,” Ashwood said. “If I can’t kill you, then they will.”

  The water below rippled and then parted ever so slightly, giving breath to the cruel life that hid beneath. There was a screech, like the sound the night made before the sun tore it down, and then from the depths of the Creijen waters, six ungodly creatures scurried out.