Chapter XXI. Domenic #2
“Oh, definitely the hair thing.” Then her voice went soft and unsure, so different from how confident she’d sounded on the radio. A voice Domenic only ever heard her use when it was just her and him. “Do you think that caller had a point? Would Winter’s Chosen be meant to destroy it?”
“That caller had no idea what they were talking about.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Look at the prophecy. Look at our track record. This time last Winter, there’d been five scurges. But we haven’t had a single one since Oldermere. If that isn’t peace, I don’t know what is.”
“You’re right. Of course you’re right.” She let out a sigh, and it was one thing to hear it. It was quite another to feel it shudder across his room.
“To be honest, I’ve been dwelling on the interview, too,” Domenic admitted. “Specifically, the question Basil from Enmere asked about destiny.”
“I thought we had a standing agreement not to bring up the d word.”
He laughed. But he was only stalling. Not because he didn’t trust Ellery, but because this was what got him through day after day of asinine, cartoonish bravado.
Knowing that when the curtain closed, they’d shirk off their costumes, one of them would call the other, and for hours, they’d joke about work, about everything, about nothing.
But so far, this conversation didn’t feel like joking at all.
“It’s just you and me right now,” she said gently.
A knot loosened in Domenic’s chest. “Say, theoretically, there’s this Chosen One. He’s talented, handsome, valiant—the whole package.”
“Mhm, theoretically,” Ellery drawled.
“Sure, he’s heard the supposed words of destiny with all these prophecy pieces.
But everyone claims destiny is more than that.
That it’s been watching him or prodding him along his whole life.
And when he looks back, he can almost see it.
He can almost…” He groaned and pressed his left palm into his eye socket. “Would you believe I called my mom?”
Her muffled laugh made chills prickle up his arm. “Oh, so it really is dire, then.”
“Yeah. Some of my memories—I was so young. I thought maybe she could help. But even though most magicians brag about being the pride of their families, you’d think my mom usually forgets she has a third son.
And she’s always been like that—they all have.
There was this one time. I-I was seven.” Domenic didn’t mean for his voice to catch, but in truth, the memory was no footnote.
“I wandered into the woods. It’s a bit hazy what happened, but for a long time I was convinced I’d found an alban tree.
I claimed that it bloomed when I touched it, and I was so excited to tell my parents.
I was sure this meant that I had magic.”
Ellery let out a startled sound. “That’s how I figured it out, too. Exactly how. There was an alban tree, and I hadn’t been tested for magic yet, but … it was like it recognized me.”
The memory had been no dream, then. And despite how many times Domenic had proven himself, for a moment, there was relief. He squeezed his wand tight.
And yet, ever higher, the evidence mounted—like the walls of a prison, or perhaps a castle.
“Then, when I returned from the woods, do you know how long I was gone? Three days. I’d had no idea.
But my family didn’t seem to either. It’s like there’s a…
” He struggled to find a suitable word. “A fog. Like they’ve barely ever been able to see me.
Like I never belonged to them, and on some level, they always knew it.
And yeah, I guess it’d be relieving, if destiny was always the reason and not that I—I don’t know—was never worth anything to them.
But then I think about what happened to me, to me and Hanna and our whole class, and I can’t buy it.
It’d be nice to stop hating myself for it being Hanna who had to bond with Syarthis.
But to think that destiny would’ve just sat back and done nothing—or worse, to have played a hand in it …
I can’t believe in something like that. Even if I get to be special. ”
“I understand why you don’t believe in it,” Ellery said.
“But you do, right? You told me you do.”
She fell silent for a long time, long enough that Domenic feared he’d dampened their night enough to ruin it, to ruin all of their future ones, forever.
“S-sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean to go so dark. I’m just tired. I—”
“I understand about your family and Syarthis,” she blurted. “Whether it’s all destiny’s fault or not, I can’t be sure. But I promise I-I understand.”
Domenic swallowed. Ellery never brought up her childhood.
But rather than elaborate, she asked, “What about Hanna and Councilor Seong? They’re your family, too.”
“Yeah. Definitely. If anything, they’re my actual family. But…”
He glanced at the door that adjoined his room to Hanna’s. Light still spilled from beneath it, and so he cast a hasty soundproofing enchantment.
Yet he whispered his betrayal all the same.
“I don’t think Hanna and Iseul see me either. Not—not like how my family can’t. But they don’t see all of me. Like I’m just me to them, not a Chosen One. When really, I think I’ve always been both.”
He twisted Valmordion, examining its many illustrious fingerprints until he found his own, set just above the handle. Its whorl blurred as he blinked away tears.
“I’m sorry,” Ellery said. “For me, it’s always been the opposite. There’s always been this wall between me and the people I care about—Glynn, Julian … Maybe that’s why I believe in destiny. Because they could always see that I was meant for something, but they couldn’t see me.”
Even when they were different, always, always they were the same.
As per usual, Domenic’s emotions stoked his magic, and he worried she could sense it flaring. Embarrassed, he leapt up, desperate to move. He rummaged through his dresser.
“Now, going back to more important matters—what of our retirements?” Domenic asked. “The cataclysm won’t last forever, not with the short work we’re making of it. We ought to start planning soon. What did other Chosen Ones do in the after?”
“You mean aside from Rhodes?”
“Yes, obviously. I won’t be bursting into flames if I’ve got you next to me.” He yanked out the bundle of striped red flannel bunched in the corner.
“Huh. I don’t think the academy taught us that, actually,” Ellery said. “The lessons usually stopped right after the Chosen One saved the … What’s that noise?”
“I’m changing. You’re not the only one up past their bedtime. Though you should know, your magic feels quite a bit colder when I’m half-clothed.”
Domenic hated every word as soon as they left his mouth.
He and Ellery had admittedly toed the edge of propriety before, but only because the collars of Mr. Alderland and Miss Perfect were tight enough to choke.
No matter how many lines they’d crossed tonight, Ellery knew better than to cross this one. And so did he. Theoretically.
“Ah, what an image,” Ellery joked. “You, naked and shivering.”
“Hey, if you printed postcards of it, I could sign those, too.” He staggered, yanking up a pant leg. “Anyway, unlike the past Chosen Ones, I don’t plan on peaking as a teenager. I better do something notable after the cataclysm. A few impressive feats. Maybe a scandal or two.”
“A scandal? You? Never.”
“Oh, fuck, you’re right. I keep forgetting I’m a changed man.”
Ellery laughed. “You know, once we’re through with this, I’m sure you could get a date with anyone you want.”
Domenic fumbled with his shirt buttons. “Could I, now?”
“What, have your eyes on Phillipa Chastian?”
“Should I know who that is?”
“She was in that movie we saw in Mercester Square! The femme fatale?”
“Oh. Right.”
Ellery snorted. “You’re ridiculous.”
Domenic flopped back onto his bed, suddenly not the least bit tired. “What about you? I seem to remember a lot of posters of some dreamy, excessively muscular heartthrob on your walls.”
Ellery paused, and Domenic wondered if she could sense he was holding his breath, if she was knowingly torturing him. Because he’d let Ellery Caldwell torture him all she wanted, so long as he survived to know what awaited at the end of it.
“First of all,” Ellery said finally, “he’s Kent Sinclair. He played the teen runaway in that spy flick. Secondly, he’s thirty-five. And married.”
“What a shame,” Domenic said.
“Besides, I don’t know if I’d retire from the Order entirely. I used to think I wanted Glynn’s job, but now I’m not sure I could deal with Sharpe as my boss.”
Domenic’s hope withered. No doubt Ellery had changed the subject because, unlike him, she was too sensible to risk distraction.
“Fair. Sharpe will outlive us all,” he joked.
Then he sobered. “You know, I might hate all the costume stuff. And the destiny stuff … I guess I’m still making up my mind.
But saving the country, it’s terrifying, yeah—but we’re really doing it.
And if I got to go back and tell that to my kid self, that he was gonna be a hero?
He’d be thrilled. He’d probably love the costume, even. ”
“I know what you mean,” Ellery said. “Yeah, the costume is still bullshit, but the good we’re doing feels real. And the fashion stuff … I suppose it’s silly, but is it bad that I’m flattered?”
“You say ‘silly’ like it’s a bad thing.”
She laughed softly, then murmured, “Wielding Izzy and Val, it really is an honor, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It is.”
Domenic twisted onto his side, facing the wall. And though the way he felt Ellery through their magic was not touch, he could feel her, next to him.
Then the cold of Ellery’s magic dissipated. He didn’t know why, but now she was the one holding her breath.
But oh, he could think of reasons.
He should get up. He should splash some water on his face. At this point, he was only torturing himself.
“So tomorrow, that meet and greet,” he said. “I’ve been trying to decide what to say to the Prime Minister. And I figured, hey, you can never go wrong with a pun.”
“No, no—that’s what I was planning to do!”
“Shit. How do you think she’d react if we both—”
The line clicked as a third voice came over the phone. “Dom?” Hanna sounded deeply tired. “You do realize you’re not the only one who needs to make calls, right?”
Domenic was so startled and mortified that he chucked the phone across his bed, making its coiled cord tumble to the floor. By the time he’d scrambled to grab it, Ellery had hung up.
But he could still feel her. She hadn’t released Iskarius.
I’ll let go when she does, he thought as he slid himself beneath his sheets and tried vainly to settle himself, even as his stomach fizzed like a shaken bottle of soda pop.
She never did.
He didn’t either.
Until hopefully, shamefully, blissfully, Domenic fell asleep across the City of Magic beside her.