Chapter XXXV. Domenic
XXXV
DOMENIC
WINTER
Domenic hung up the phone with a shaking hand. Always, always he and Ellery were of one mind. But if she was that close to giving up …
Phantom red tinted the edges of his vision, and he braced a hand against his nightstand. He was unraveling at the same seams he’d sworn he’d sealed.
He crept out of his room. He meant to go to Iseul’s, but to his surprise, a light still shined from downstairs. He descended the steps to find Iseul curled on a sofa in the parlor, her pajamas and reading glasses on, the Gazette in her hands, a tea tray upon the coffee table.
“You’re still up,” she said.
“So are you. Calling family?” Sometimes Iseul woke or retired at strange hours to place calls to the other side of the world.
“No, not tonight. I’ve been waiting for Hanna. I don’t like that she went right to the Citadel after dropping you off. The Council is debriefing your mission to Nordmere first thing in the morning. Does she never plan to come home? She needs to rest. And so I can only assume, probably to bathe…”
“I tried to tell her, but, well, she insisted.”
Why? There’s no one at the Citadel. At least let it wait until morning.
Until Syarthis and I find Summer’s traitor, this never ends, Dom.
He hadn’t been brave enough to tell her not to bother.
Domenic glanced at the grandfather clock—it was a quarter past three. He was exhausted. Iseul was exhausted, yawning and sinking into the throw pillows. But he still needed to be brave tonight.
“I need to talk to you,” he said seriously. “Not as—as you and me. As Councilor and Chosen One.”
Iseul’s brow creased as she scrutinized him. “All right.”
She patted the spot beside her on the sofa. Calynia’s enchantment draped a blanket over the cushions, welcoming him.
He stayed standing.
“It’s me,” he choked. “I’m Summer’s traitor.”
She jolted. “What? Why would you ever think such a thing?”
“Because I’m in love with Ellery.”
Iseul hitched her breath, and when she responded, she spoke slowly, carefully. Like a politician. “I need you to help me understand. A few weeks ago, you were adamant that we trust Ellery. Now—”
“I know what I said. And Ellery would never endanger Alderland, not on purpose. But lately, I can’t get the question out of my head: What if Summer’s champion and Winter’s champion have been enemies from the start?
The evidence seems split both ways. Ellery doesn’t want to believe it, but she can’t dismiss it, either.
And I … I don’t know what to believe. I don’t trust myself to be objective. ”
Iseul set the Gazette on the coffee table. “But how does that make you the traitor?”
“Because if she’s my enemy, if I have to kill her to save Alderland, I-I can’t.
I won’t.” He paced across the carpet. “When I’m with her, everything else in the world dims. My body angles toward her.
My magic reaches for her. Even now, she’s a mile across the city, but a mile—a mile is meaningless!
When we both hold our wands, she might as well be in my bed for the way I feel her breathing down my neck.
And I don’t care. Her hands could be in mine or around my throat, and all I would be thinking about is that I’m touching her.
So, if I’m destined to save everyone, then of course I’m the traitor.
I’d die and let the whole world die with me so long as the only person I saved was her. ”
While Iseul fell silent, Calynia attempted to tend to them both. The poker stoked the fireplace. The kettle poured Domenic his own cup of tea.
“You’re not the only one who fears your feelings get in the way of your duty,” Iseul said at last. “Because I don’t know how to speak to you as a Councilor right now—I really don’t. I can only consider this as someone who loves you, and hearing how much pain you’re in, it breaks my heart.”
“Right, hence why it was easier not to tell me about the whole sacrificial lamb thing.”
She paled. “Hanna told you?”
“Yeah, but don’t sweat it. I’m over it. Already found myself a fate worse than death to worry about.”
“Oh, Dom,” she said hoarsely. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I wanted to, but—”
“No, it’s fine! I get it! You need me to protect you, but I’ve had lifelong performance issues. So don’t apologize. But don’t give me pity either.”
“Then what do you want? Fury? Disgust? How could that possibly be preferable to you?”
“Because I’m not a child anymore! You don’t need to be gentle with me. You should—you should yell at me! Tell me to stop acting like this! Tell me what I’m supposed to do!”
Iseul barked out a laugh. “Goodness, is that all?” Then she heaved out a sigh and folded her hands neatly on her lap. “Sit, Domenic.”
“I’m better standing.”
“You are exhausted. Sit.”
And so he did.
She faced him solemnly. “I cannot tell you what to do next, because, as you said, you’re not a child anymore. But if you’d like my opinion, I’d tell you that you’re only human. No one can expect you to be more than that.”
“But I am more than that.” He swatted aside the blanket trying to wrestle him into comfort.
“I know it’s hard for you to understand.
You’ve seen me at my worst. But if you saw what I really am, what I’m capable of, you wouldn’t recognize me.
I’m more than just a magician. Or at least, I’m supposed to be. I have to be.”
Domenic waited, yearning for her to finally see.
Instead, Iseul clenched her jaw. “Did Tenney ever tell you why the two of us went our separate ways?”
“No,” he answered, surprised. Iseul never brought up their divorce.
“He’d just hurt his knee, and he was lucky that was all he hurt. You’ve seen how he fights, the way he rushes into battle without pausing to think.”
“Because he has to. The other NDC officers all look up to—”
“No. Trust me, Domenic, I’ve known Tenney since the academy.
He can call it duty, or destiny, or survivor’s guilt, but the only reason he fights recklessly is because he wants to.
” She shook her head as she reached for her teacup.
“After he got hurt, I told him it was time he retire. It was past time, really. But he refused. Even if that meant he was going to die on the battlefield.” She grimaced.
“In his version of events, I made him leave, and he had no choice. But he’s the one who made the choice. Because he likes being a hero.”
Domenic frowned, unsure how such a word could be flung as an insult.
“What does any of that have to do with me?” he demanded. “I don’t have a choice.”
“But if you did, you’d really choose her over the whole country?”
Domenic’s hands trembled, and finally, he tugged the blanket over his shoulders.
“I don’t know. She’s one person. But everyone else I’d be saving—they don’t know me.
They sure like your version of me, with my talking points and suits.
They literally line candles up on our sidewalk.
They buy stamps with my face on it. And I don’t give one shit about them! ”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I? And the Order, it’s not like we’re some perfect institution! There’s so much we don’t know. Up North, there’s no scurges anymore. The land grows food, tons of food, without having to rely on magic. And all this time, there might’ve been two types of magicians!”
Though Domenic and Hanna had agreed not to expose Ellery’s meeting with the Winter magicians, what they’d learned still mattered, could change everything.
Iseul blinked. “Those conditions do sound better than in our reports. And as for types of magicians, it’s something to investigate, certainly. After tomorrow’s debriefing—”
“But will you even listen, then? You shut Ellery down before.”
“Do you realize how much you’ve asked us to reconsider? Until a few weeks ago, we’d never thought it possible to have one Winter magician, let alone … let alone many.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t bother paying attention. You didn’t…” He didn’t know if that was fair. He didn’t know what he was saying.
Iseul returned her empty teacup to the tray.
“Dom, I’m not going to claim the Order is perfect.
But I didn’t join the Council to perpetuate its problems—I joined to help fix them.
My parents were proud when we learned I was a magician.
Even if magicians elsewhere don’t use wands, being one is still celebrated, and there are many methods for casting spells.
But I had to convince my parents to let me enroll in Alderland’s national academy.
When my father moved us here for his work when I was a toddler, my family didn’t intend to stay here, to put down roots.
And at the time, the country saw the national academy as prestigious, but also ruthless.
And they were right to. Students went to extreme lengths to bond with Living Wands.
We worked ourselves sick. And our classmates were rarely our friends—just our competition.
After Smith and Hoover were found dead the week before Calynia’s vigil, and I was attacked …
No one understood why I stayed, least of all my protective family.
But Alderland was my home, and I dedicated my whole career to helping change the Order’s culture and the country’s perception of it.
I won’t pretend that solving that problem solves our every problem, but that change once felt impossible.
And whatever feels impossible next, we can change that, too. ”
Domenic couldn’t bring himself to argue. Even if the Order had virtues worth defending, even if its flaws could improve, that wasn’t enough to justify choosing it. Not for such a price.
The red bled out from the edges of his vision.
“Even if I’m destined to kill her,” he whispered, “it still doesn’t feel right.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “Tell me—after all this agonizing you’ve done over being the traitor, have you heard the next words of the prophecy? Has Ellery?”
He swallowed. “No.”
“Then what good is it taking yourself down such a dark path?”
He jerked out of her grasp. “Because isn’t this what I have to do? Follow every piece of the prophecy? Consider everything destiny has been trying to tell me?”
“Dom, I know to be a Chosen One is to heed the words of destiny. But even if this is what destiny wants from you, please, don’t depend on it to rationalize your choices. Because if you do this believing destiny made the choice for you, then I’m scared you won’t be able to live with it afterward.”
“Would that be so bad?”
Iseul stared at him despairingly, but Domenic didn’t retract a single word. Ellery could tear out his heart just as he stabbed a knife into hers. Let destiny play semantics about who won or lost. What did it matter if they killed each other so long as they died together?
“You’re … You’re not in a good headspace to be making any decision right now, Dom,” Iseul told him cautiously.
“Oh, so you’re saying it’s not healthy to keep imagining what Floyd Wilder will say if my girlfriend kills me in a great, earth-shaking duel?
‘Book your one-way passages now, folks. Because the forecast today is fucking freezing with a chance of gigantic monsters, just like tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Courtesy of Domenic Barrow, Chosen One, who we now know did actually spend his whole life thinking with his—’”
Iseul uttered an exasperated sound. “Can we not joke about this? Because I-I’m really trying to give you what you need, but I don’t know how to give you that.”
Her voice cracked, and a second blanket drifted over to wrap around her shoulders. Domenic cursed under his breath—now he’d lost all ability to laugh too. What a tragedy it was to love him.
He groaned and lowered his forehead against his kneecaps. “Sorry.”
She hugged him. “It’s all right. This isn’t a choice to rush into, nor is it one you need to. There’s no reason to think the cataclysm is imminent, and Summer is only one week away. Maybe once we’re all breathing easier, we’ll have the perspective to find the true answer to the prophecy.”
“Fine.”
“And you do need to sleep. You need to take care of yourself.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And … if you can’t find something worth fighting for, then you should at least consider the cost of what it is you’re dying for.”
Domenic let those words haunt him for several more hours.
He stalked his most hated streets of Gallamere under a cloaking enchantment, watching the city slowly awaken from its slumber.
He scowled invisibly at an elderly couple strolling arm-in-arm.
He silently cursed at a wailing toddler in a stroller.
He considered shouting at the dog yapping in his owner’s arms, outrageously small, wearing a handknit sweater.
He almost did. He sort of grumbled a bit.
He hated all of them.
He did.
He did.
He stormed his way to Gallamere Gardens.
He lay in the snow as the pale Winter sun kissed his cheek, and he thought about how much he hated the city, how much he hated the cold, hated the way the Gardens looked in the cold, hated that he still missed the woods at home, that he somehow missed things he’d never gotten just as much as he missed things he’d never have.
Until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he cast the Gardens into bloom.
He cast an entire menagerie of enchantments on the Gold Line.
He made mailboxes belch and mirrors play dress-up and cobblestones squirm.
He (quite artfully) landscaped around the academy’s student center.
He made Professor Clark’s textbook swear so crudely that entire lecture halls of second years would faint.
He immortalized himself in a Council-wing restroom.
He restored the Hook Up Halls to all their original glory.
He waited two hours, lurking, all to watch triumphantly as a single weary traveler emerged from the subway and marveled at the bespelled lampposts brightening their route home.
There. Even if Domenic had made the hero’s choice, the awful choice, it was truly their City of Magic now.