City of Spells

by Alexandra Christo

  Shadow demons.

  These were the things Karam had fought alongside Arjun and, even before that, in the rings of the underrealm. She had seen them clawing at men’s necks and faces, drinking their blood like fimpir bats.

  “In the name of spirits,” Karam said, staring in horror.

  And the demons, like they had heard her gasp, turned their shadow heads from the waters that birthed them and growled up at her. It took only seconds for them to leap up onto the bridge.

  Karam swallowed and the demons barked back.

  Spit stretched like string between their teeth and their bones bulged from their half-shadowed bodies. One dug its claws into the bridge and scraped a line through the ground like it was a throat.

  “Cast a light,” Karam called out, to Saxony or Wesley or whoever could manage it first. “It will make them cower.”

  But Saxony was at her sister’s side, tending to Zekia, who was still curled on the ground, sobbing in pain from whatever it was the Kingpin had tried to do to her.

  Tavia was beside them, clutching on to the mirror doll to keep Ashwood at bay.

  And Wesley just stared.

  He blinked, staring at the demons in total horror.

  “Wesley,” Tavia said. “Cast a light!”

  Zekia winced up at her brother. “It’s my fault,” she croaked. “Please don’t be afraid.”

  Saxony’s jaw tensed and it was then that Karam knew Wesley was scared, perhaps for the first time in his life.

  These demons had tortured him under Zekia’s control. They had ripped into him and not only torn the flesh from his bones, but it seemed they had gotten their claws into something else.

  Something deeper.

  Something far inside his mind.

  And the creature could sense it as much as Karam could, because five of the six galloped toward Wesley and the others.

  “Use your shield to keep them away!” Karam yelled to Saxony.

  But she didn’t need to, for her love was already casting a protection over the four of them as all of the demons tried their attack.

  They bit and clawed and scraped at the barrier, trying desperately to get in and feast on their flesh.

  All except for one.

  A single shadow demon kept its focus on Karam, circling her.

  It seemed to smile when it saw she was not planning on running under the protection of the shield.

  Karam had taken these creatures on before, in the fighting rings and on the Kingpin’s isle.

  She could do it again.

  Karam grabbed a blade and ran at the demon, sliding along the ground and slicing across its belly.

  The creature howled, thick blood like ink spraying across her face.

  But the wound wasn’t as big as it should have been, and Karam had only caught half flesh, while the rest was all shadow.

  The demon turned to hiss at her.

  Karam flipped back to her feet and struck out with her knife again, but she was met with only claws. The shadow demon raised its talons in the air and swiped out, scratching across her chest. She jumped back and the creature pounced, knocking her over.

  It was on top of her, its spit and blood coating her face.

  Quickly, Karam brought the hilt of her blade up through its neck and into its skull. The demon’s head trembled uncertainly, as though it was trying to shake the blade.

  And then Karam reached up through its shadow body and took ahold of its spine.

  She grabbed, squeezed, and then snapped it violently in half.

  The demon screeched and fell back in a quiver.

  Karam knew she hadn’t killed it—not even she was capable of such a feat—and sooner or later the pieces of darkness that made up the creature would merge back together.

  But for now it was gone.

  For now, she was alive.

  One down, five to go.

  She turned back to her friends to see the five remaining shadow demons were still clawing against Saxony’s shield and it was barely keeping them at bay.

  Karam ran for her friends and the demons that surrounded them, catching Saxony’s wince as her shield began to dwindle.

  The shadow demons hungered for flesh.

  One of them ripped its hand through Saxony’s magic and grabbed ahold of Wesley’s ankle, pulling half of his body from Saxony’s protection.

  It tore at Wesley’s leg, teeth showing no signs of letting up.

  He yelled out in pain, while the others tried desperately to pull him back inside the barrier.

  Karam felt a burning in her chest.

  No, not in her chest. On her chest.

  She looked down and her father’s pendant was aglow against her heart, burning into her just like it had done that day on the shores of Tisvgen.

  Then, it had warned her of the danger they were in. Now, it felt like something different entirely.

  It felt like faith.

  Like her father’s spirit whispering to her.

  My daughter, it said. Do not lose hope.

  Karam touched a hand to the pendant and felt her father’s light.

  She felt the force of the Rekhi d’Rihsni.

  This was her family’s legacy: to protect the Crafters and bring peace to the realms. Her grandparents had died for it. And Karam would see to it that their dream for the future was fulfilled.

  For the first time, Wesley truly needed her help and she wouldn’t let him down, like she had almost let Tavia down.

  “The light!” Karam yelled out to Saxony. “Cast a light.”

  Saxony held out her other hand and a small yellow orb began to glow in her palm.

  It was dimmer than Karam would have liked, but juggling to keep the shield up alongside this new magic must have been draining her.

  Still, it was bright enough for the demons to recoil. They flinched back as the light burned their bodies, barking and growling like they were screaming at Saxony to stop.

  But the demon with the hold on Wesley’s leg didn’t move away or tear its teeth from its new meal. It persisted, gnawing at the space below Wesley’s knee like Saxony’s light meant nothing to it. Even as her magic burned the bones of its ankle to ash, it refused to let go.

  Ashwood, still kneeling on the floor as Tavia continued to squeeze the mirror doll as hard as she could, was yelling.

  Yelling at the demon.

  “Don’t stop!” he screamed. “Make them pay!”

  He’s controlling them, Karam thought.

  The creature would risk being burned by the light of Saxony’s magic if it meant obeying its master. It was up to Karam to save Wesley. She was supposed to be his bodyguard after all.

  Karam reached for the pouch on her belt. Trick bags weren’t her weapon of choice, but Tavia had taught her how to read charms for a purpose and Karam was not about to waste those lessons.

  The small marble felt like melting glass in her hands.

  Splinter charm, she thought.

  Karam threw the marble and it hit the shadow demon square in the tallest spike of its spine.

  It went still and then it shattered into smoky pieces by Wesley’s feet.

  “Are you okay?” Karam asked.

  Tavia pressed her hands on his wound, keeping the blood in, and Wesley leaned against her shoulder, like he found relief from the pain in her touch.

  “Nice work,” Wesley said to Karam. “We might make a busker of you yet.”

  She grimaced at the insult. She would have punched him for suggesting it if she didn’t think he had been hurt enough.

  “I was doing my job,” she said.

  Wesley clutched at his leg. “Remind me to give you a raise.”

  She checked the others for injuries, but they seemed fine, except for Zekia, who still squeezed her eyes shut in agony.

  Whatever the Kingpin had done to her, it was too painful for her to even move now.

  “I can’t keep this light going by myself forever,” Saxony said.

  Wesley clenched his teeth to
gether and held his hand out, trying to conjure a light of his own to keep the remaining demons at bay, but it was as dim as Saxony’s and Karam could still see the fear in his eyes.

  “It’s okay,” Tavia said, like she could see it too.

  She folded her hand into Wesley’s, like together they might just be unstoppable.

  To Karam’s surprise, his light grew a little brighter.

  Karam smiled.

  They could do this.

  She kept hold of her blade and the four of them faced the four demons just like they had faced every enemy they had: together.

  40

  ZEKIA

  Zekia pulled herself to her feet, blood trickling down to her toes.

  It felt as though Ashwood had pulled her apart from the inside. And maybe he had. Maybe he’d done it a long time ago and she was only now feeling the pain.

  It had been a while since she’d been this weak, but also a while since she’d been this strong: this clear on who she was and what she needed to do.

  The world was a scary place, but she had a family and all they wanted was to protect her from it.

  From herself.

  Zekia had forgotten that once, but not now.

  Karam yelled something and plunged her knife into a demon’s side.

  It barely faltered.

  The second licked its lips, teeth bared, and Tavia gripped tightly to her charm pouches.

  They would be no use.

  Magic rarely was, because these demons were made from magic and the dark matter left behind by the most beastly spells. They crawled up from the space between magic and reality. If Crafters were creatures of the Many Gods, then shadow demons were born from the things that came before the Gods. From pure evil.

  And evil was a hard thing to kill.

  “Here, boys,” she said.

  The demons turned their heads to her, Zekia’s voice like a familiar bell in their minds.

  She let out a low whistle and they jumped up, retracting their claws, backing away from Zekia’s family.

  “Stay!” Ashwood yelled.

  The demons flinched at their master’s voice, but their focus stayed on Zekia. They recognized her—the girl who had been their kin—and in a way they craved her.

  Craved her familiarity.

  Craved her flesh.

  The demons slithered toward Zekia, wary of what power she might still hold over them.

  Not one to miss an opening, Tavia crouched back down to Wesley’s side and sprinkled some kind of trick dust over his injured leg.

  Zekia breathed in a calming sigh and looked back to the shadow demons. They hissed at her wavering focus. They sensed the new weakness in her body and perhaps even her new loyalties.

  They felt Ashwood’s influence.

  Zekia could feel it too—his mind trying to invade theirs and his voice trying to yell over hers.

  Stay calm, she told the creatures.

  Kill her, Ashwood screamed.

  Zekia wanted to be strong. Now more than ever she wanted to be strong, but Ashwood’s voice was louder and Zekia couldn’t hold them.

  The demons growled.

  And then they galloped toward her, arms like ragged nails and spines cracking with the impact of their speed.

  Zekia closed her eyes and reached back into her mind.

  It used to be as easy as breathing to control these creatures, but the new clarity she had, lifting the fog inside of herself, had cast a darkness on her connection with them.

  How could she form a bond with death when she was so disgusted by it?

  She heard their calls.

  Their growling and the low rumble as half of them—the half made from shadow—caught in the air and broke the breeze.

  Stay, she thought.

  Enough.

  And it was enough.

  She had enough of all this darkness inside of her.

  It needed to stop.

  It needed

  to

  just

  stop.

  Zekia opened her eyes and the demons crouched before her feet. She was in their minds again, though unlike before, she was not one with them.

  She was not their kin, but their master.

  “Sit. Down,” Zekia said.

  They cowered reluctantly with the strength of her voice, pressing themselves into the floor.

  She had once thought they couldn’t be killed, because magic could not be killed, but she had seen that there were many ways to destroy something—to butcher it beyond compare—and perhaps magic could not be conquered entirely, but she was starting to believe that evil could.

  This evil, so tainted in misery, could be killed by a strength of good just as pure. Zekia could do one final act of good, not for forgiveness, because that was not hers to ask for. But because it was the right thing to do. The only thing that would save her family from the monsters she had helped to create.

  “This is not what I made you for,” Ashwood said. “This is not what you are supposed to do.”

  But he was wrong.

  This was what Zekia was made for, what she was always destined to do.

  Save her Kin.

  Take Malik’s destiny to be a great Liege and do good with it.

  Inside of Zekia, her powers rose like a heartbeat, pounding on the surface of her skin.

  They wanted to help.

  They wanted redemption.

  They wanted to be free.

  And so, finally, she let them go.

  The magic exploded from her and swept over the shadow demons in a blast of glorious yellow light.

  Zekia was a sun.

  She was the daybreak.

  And darkness had no place here.

  The demons shook and roared, but it only took moments for them to fade, like the night faded from the sky.

  The warmth of her powers stayed with her, just for a moment afterward, and she felt them tinkering with her bones and putting her insides back in place.

  Healing her, as a gift for her sacrifice.

  And then they disappeared.

  Zekia fell to the ground, newly empty.

  Newly healed.

  Just new.

  Her magic was gone and she felt like a weight had been lifted from her. She also felt dizzy and like she might just faint if she closed her eyes, but the lightness in her heart was welcome.

  This was her true destiny.

  This was what she needed: to be free of all the pain her magic had brought.

  To use it for good and to finally free herself.

  Zekia had spent too long being scared and letting that fear take over, until she became all the things she never wanted to be.

  Zekia closed her eyes.

  She was good.

  And she would not be scared again.

  41

  WESLEY

  Tavia, Saxony, and even Karam—who just a few minutes before had considered Wesley’s youngest sister their worst enemy—ran to Zekia’s side like she was a precious thing they had to keep from breaking.

  Thing was, Zekia had broken a long time ago. Wesley had seen to that.

  He felt the moment her magic vanished into the air, like those powers were as connected to him as they were to his little sister.

  He felt the shame of her having to make that sacrifice because of something he had started.

  Tavia squeezed the mirror doll tight enough in her shaking hands that Dante Ashwood couldn’t even make the noise of a scream.

  He just mimed the action: the gasping and the grasping.

  The snarl as his demons disappeared from the world.

  Wesley held out his hand for the doll.

  Tavia gave it to him without question, because of all people, Tavia knew Wesley best, and she knew that this was something he had to do.

  The mirror doll felt light as air in his hands.

  Wesley twisted its arm, hard enough that the corpse-like creature cried out, its deathly mouth twisting in pain.

  Ashwood mirrored the noise
and his arm flung behind his back, bone jutting from the shadows.

  “You do not want to do this,” Ashwood wheezed.

  Wesley’s magic laughed beneath his skin.

  Yes, it said. Yes, we do.

  There were many things Wesley didn’t want, like to watch Tavia bleed out on the side of the bridge. That was still too real, still too much to even think about. And he didn’t want to have shadow demons rip at his flesh again. Or have his sister sacrifice her magic to save him. He didn’t want his city destroyed.

  But if there was one thing Wesley did want, then it was to kill Dante Ashwood.

  Tavia pulled a small syringe from her pocket.

  “I have an idea on how we can finish this,” she said to him.

  “What?” Wesley asked.

  “This is time serum,” she said, holding up the syringe. “Nolan tried to sell it to me once, saying it could undo the years for a while. Like I was some old crone.”

  Of course.

  Magic to undo a person, turning back time on their body. Making them young again, for few hours or even a day, erasing all that they were, for what they used to be.

  They couldn’t kill this version of the Kingpin, with all his magic and darkness, but maybe they could kill another, earlier, version.

  “You’re brilliant,” Wesley said.

  Tavia frowned. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “Let me do it.”

  Wesley had to be the one to end this and they both knew it.

  Tavia handed him the serum.

  Wesley looked down at it.

  At his cuff links, dirt-smeared and crooked. To the scars they sat misshapen atop. The scars he had gotten from his mother, who had sacrificed everything she had to ensure he would not fulfill some ominous future.

  And then Wesley heard it, somewhere in the back of his mind, a memory turning to a song.

  A prophecy cooing in his ear like a lullaby.

  Time will be carried in strange hands,

  across the realms and through stranger lands.

  What is done will be undone,

  a battle lost is a battle won.

  When midnight rings on a child’s betrayal,

  your every success is doomed to fail.