7. Who’s Keeping Score Now?
DESDEMONA
Lucents have many peculiar mental powers. One being that they can track any species of orphia through their subconscious.
– LUCENT MAGIC AND THE NATURE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND BY CLEMENTINE PROTNUS
Ifall to my back, and my throat burns when the half-digested food from my stomach falls to the floor. The fire licks the bodies, the already burnt one and the familiar Folk, both dead. I have to turn away. Push the image from my brain to be dealt with at a different date.
The room becomes a blur as I push my body to the mirror, and my sweat pours into my eyes. By the time I manage to stand, I am puking acid, the flame has closed around me, and my hair is on fire. I’m pretty sure I’m screaming.
My only way out of this dwelling has dwindled.
But it’s not as if I can stay here now. I’ve killed someone. I’m a murderer. Everyone is bound to know that it was me when they find the dead Folk in my burnt-down dwelling. I went to Visnatus and came back to kill the septic scum. Could I ever be accepted here again?
This is how the Fire Folk meet their deaths. At the hands of our own power. But not me, not today, not now. I get to my feet and pull myself to the mirror, for my mom. Maybe for Damien and his family, if they’ll still care for me once they see what I’ve done.
Again, I visualize the river, Kai and Aralia, with my hand on the mirror, but I don’t open my eyes until I can hear the running water from the other side. It actually worked. I’m hit by the shocking thought that maybe the gods can do some good because this is nothing short of a miracle. Something that could’ve only happened by the hand of some kind of divine intervention.
Then I see the reflection glistening off the orange stone of my mother’s necklace. I dive for it, knowing I have no other option. I can’t let go of the last piece of my mom. I shove it in my sock, biting my tongue but still screaming from the pain as the fire licks my body. With every ounce of strength I have left, I make it through the portal.
I fall to the grass, coughing maniacally until I can no longer breathe. I can’t breathe. I’m going to die. I can’t breathe. I’m trying to take in air, but I can’t. I can’t. I’m going to die from choking. Whatever the gods did to save me was just to punish me in the end. How cruel, how sick, how funny it must be for them to watch me squirm.
A hand lays on my back. I spit black soot onto the grass with my coughs. Air fills my lungs.
Aralia.
I fall entirely on my stomach. The only thing I can focus my vision on is the grass tangled in my eyelashes. And I breathe—sweet, sweet air. Sweet survival. Thank Zola.
When my breathing settles, Aralia says, “We’ll have to cut your hair.”
I grab my hair and it crumbles in my fingers, breaking off. I pull out the small knife I stole from the headmistress, and as I prepare to cut it I remind myself that I am alive. A little hair is a price worth paying.
Before I cut, Aralia says, “I could salvage more than that.”
I make what may be the dumbest decision today. I hand Aralia the knife. Closing my eyes and holding my breath, I half expect the knife to submerge itself into my side when I hear the slicing of dead, crisp hair. I feel for the ends. Shoulder length and even, certainly better than what I would have done.
Then she laughs and asks, “Why do you carry a letter opener?”
I shrug, cough again, and shove the letter opener back into my waistband. “You never know when you’ll find unexpected correspondences.”
This time when I look at Aralia, I see her—for the first time—for what she could be to me. Someone useful. She’s smart and clearly observant. She knew I wasn’t sleeping that first morning, maybe knew I left that night, even had proper enough suspicion to ask what I was really doing tonight. She’s my roommate, for better or worse, and clearly wants to be my friend. This all could lead to a seriously convenient situation.
For me.
“What’s on your shirt?” Aralia asks.
I look down and see what could only be my puke. I cup a handful of water and splash the shirt, then my face for good measure.
“Puke,” I say because there really is no good lie. “Bad fight.”
“Same goes for your hair?” Her voice has that sarcastic, pompous edge I’m getting used to.
I smile at her like she said something funny, just to ease the moment, and repeat to her, “Same goes for my hair.”
“Here.” She hands me her silver flask. “Last sip.” Her eyes drag over what must be my less-than-pleasant composition. “You need it.”
“Yeah,” I say, “I do.” A wind sounds in my ear, but I don’t feel a breeze. “Do you hear that?” I ask. It almost sounds like someone’s whispering.
“Hear what?”
I look around, and a second later it ceases. “Nothing.” Then I take the last sip and realize someone is missing. “Where’d Kai go?”
“Calista and Lucian carried him back to his suite.”
I conceal the fear that shakes my bones. “You didn’t mention me, right?”
Aralia runs her fingers across her lips, like a zipper, twists them at the end, like a key, and smiles.
I smile back.
We walk back to the party, and when the opportunity to dance arises, I pull Aralia with me. Show her a friend in case the time comes when I need one. Plus, this is the perfect place to hide, behind the mask of a well-adjusted, happy-go-lucky, I’ve-had-everything-handed-to-me teenage Folk. Now, to use that to my advantage as best as I can manage, because I fear I am going to have to hide here for a bit.
Just until I find my mom.
I find more vesi to supply Aralia, and when she’s droozed enough, I slip away from her and behind Lucian.
“Meet me by the lake in one hour, or I’ll tell everyone what I saw in your memory,” I whisper so only he can hear, and then I slip away again. Plan B is a go.
When I get back to the suite, I change and shower, but I avoid the mirrors just like I avoid all of my fears—like what will happen if I get caught, if he doesn’t agree… what I would have to do if that were the case. I couldn’t very well allow him to leave with the possibility of him repeating my plans. What I’m asking him to do isn’t admissible, and if I were caught, just being septic would be enough grounds for an execution. And what will I say when he inevitably asks me to prove that I know anything from his memories? All I am basing this on is one reaction he had that I couldn’t read very well in the dark.
Maybe I won’t show up. But if I don’t I’m farther away from square one, having already killed someone. Making it more difficult for me to return home.
I put a hand on the wall for balance. That can’t be right, can’t be real. It was one thing to dream of it and another entirely to do it. I killed someone.
I can’t think about it. I need a plan.
Lucian is engaged, so Kai says. They both are. It must not be their decision. So, what do I do with that information?
Fifteen minutes.
This is a bad, bad idea. But it’s the only one I have. The sooner I find my mom, the sooner I can make it back home, back to Damien and Janice like I promised. The sooner I can get my life back. That’s that. There isn’t a choice, I realize, while I pull Aralia’s clean clothes from her closet and over my head.
Then I tug a lace from one of her fancy corset dresses and pull it through my mom’s pendant, tying it around my neck.
When I make it to the lake, he’s sitting on the edge just like the first night. I sigh in relief at the fact that he even showed up. That’s proof enough that whatever memory he thinks I saw is important.
Again, he doesn’t stand, doesn’t even turn toward me when he says, “What am I doing here, Marquees?”
Well, here goes nothing. “I need you to track someone’s subconscious.”
He laughs before he turns. “Why would I break the law for you?”
“Because I know something you want to keep a secret.” A bold lie.
“See, I don’t have any reason to believe that. Not unless Lusia’s sent you, and if that’s the case, I’ll do anything you wish, so long as you tell me her motive.”
Lusia, as in Queen Lusia of Soma. What a bad, bad idea. How did I not put this together? If Kai is a prince and the two of them are both entangled in a marriage arrangement, it would only stand to reason that he too is a prince. So, who are they to marry then? I think back to what a very droozed Kai said. He used to be my sister.
“I’m here to watch you until the marriages are settled,” I tell him and hope it’s not too vague an answer.
“I have a Eunoia at my disposal, not too far from us right now,” he says with a smile, even though it’s a threat. And a Eunoia forcing the truth out of me will end very, very badly. For me. He goes on, “If you do not tell me the truth, I’ll be sure that Lusia hears of our… encounter.”
“I swear I’m telling the truth,” I tell him. “My family was killed and Lusia promised me safety, and a place at your fine school if I could only make sure you were married smoothly.”
“Who?” he says.
“Who?” I echo, hoping for a bit more information, something of a clue.
“Who is to be married smoothly?”
What a headache, and how much more difficult a headache makes this encounter. I share a room with a Royal, I know that, the blonde Folk. It would only make sense that he was to marry her, but I can’t remember her name when I need it most. Cassidy? Carissa?
“You to Calista,” I finally say, too late.
Lucian cracks a smile, and I fear I got the name wrong. Then I lose all feeling in my neck, unable to breathe for the second time tonight. The feeling of imminent death looms over me, again, and I begin to wonder if my neck is even attached to my body anymore.
I slip my hand to my waistband, reaching for the blade. Lucian says, “I will let go of your neck in three seconds, and if you do not tell me the entire truth, I won’t be so merciful.”
I watch his hand open from a closed fist and the feeling in my neck comes back. I have the blade at my side and I’m closing in on him, ready to slice his neck if it comes to my survival over his.
He probably deserves death anyway. Never worked for anything in his life, never experienced hardship, simply born into power and money and the top of this entire universe that shits on me. He’s the reason my life has been what it is. Or at least part of it. A perpetuation of it.
“Is it death you’ve chosen? I must say I haven’t seen a loyalty to the Queen of Soma so strong in a Folk before.” Then he raises his hand, a threat.
“Don’t.” I slip the dagger back in its place and hold up my hand. I hate him. I hate that he has power over me. I hate that he could have my life in his hands at any moment whenever he wants it.
And I’ve backed myself into a corner. Another lie, if not convincing enough, could very well lead to my death, which I’ve already so narrowly escaped tonight. I choose the hardest way out; the truth, which pours out of me while I grow angry with myself for sharing it. “Two Folk took my mom. I need to track her. I’m not working with Lusia, I’ve never even met her, and I didn’t put together that you were the prince until you said her name tonight.”
Lucian doesn’t seem impressed when he asks, “As for my memories?”
“Nothing,” I say with the not-so-sweet feeling of defeat. Nothing to hold over him, the prince of Soma. He would’ve fit so well in my pocket.
“Get in the water,” he demands.
“What?” Has he chosen to kill me?
“In return for the truth, I’ve decided to show mercy.” He smiles, bearing his perfect teeth. “Submerge yourself completely in the water and wait for the light of the moon to move over you. When it does, visualize your target.”
Your target. Of course the prince would use that word. I don’t know much about this form of mental magic, but I have heard it called a war crime.
I drop my head under the water and look up. Lucian opens his arms as if he is inviting an invisible audience to watch, and the light of the moon moves over me. It’s truly a magnificent sight, but I’m not here to watch in awe.
I close my eyes and fill my mind with images of my mom. She had the lightest hair everywhere we went through the septic, honey with streaks of darker brown. Her eyes are the kindest I’ve ever known, even though she wasn’t known for being kind. She’s strong, brave in the face of everything, and certainly brave wherever she is now. Only, when the calm and collected face begins to transform, it is into one whose eyes are stricken with fear.
I can barely make out her face in the dimly lit room—a cage or prison of some kind, I’m sure of it.
I step toward her, her features coming further into the light. “Mom?” I call. “I’m here!” I say as I begin to lose feeling in my legs. My feet are falling asleep, my nose and throat are burning, but I take a step forward. Her eyes are shutting now and my worry grows. What if she’s hurt? I push through the numbness lingering in my legs and tingling up my torso, into my chest.
“Mom!” I scream at the top of my lungs when a hand grips around me. I turn, ready to fight, ready to save my mom, but I’m no longer in the dark room. I realize where the burning sensation is coming from—the water in my lungs.
The prince’s arm is around my waist, pulling me to the surface faster than I sunk. I cling to the edge of the lake while I cough up water. Today I’ve almost died by fire, water, and shadows. I am absolutely right to think of this school as the enemy, along with everyone in it.
When I’ve finished coughing, Lucian offers me his hand and pulls me from the water.
“Did you see?” I ask him, my breath shaking and weak. If he saw her face and could identify her, I’d have done the exact opposite of what she wanted. But he might know where that was.
“I did.”
“Where was she?” I say so fast that I start coughing again, wheezing between breaths. How ridiculous I look, how weak, what a contrast to how I want him—anyone—to see me.
“I don’t know,” he says, but his tone is different. Different enough for me not to believe him.
I narrow my eyes at him and catch my breath as best I can, making sure my voice is strong when I say, “What happened to your back?”
A prince with scars is a rare sight. I’d think, at least.
He levels his eyes with mine and his eyebrows push down, making him look fierce. He’s trying to show me I don’t intimidate him, but clearly I do, otherwise he wouldn’t be looking at me like this.
I match his gaze, mimicking the placement of his eyebrows. When he smiles, I smile right back at him. I hope I look deranged, like someone he has no choice but to fear. It’s a long shot, considering I’ve been completely at the mercy of his power and decisions this entire night, but it’s hope. It’s not meant to make sense.
“Born with it,” are the only three words I get. He picks up his shirt and throws it over his head and dripping hair, turning to leave.
“You were born with burns?” I question before he has a chance to take a step. He looks at me quizzically and I add, “Fire Folk. I’ve seen a lot worse.”
“They’re not burns.”
Either someone is lying to him, or he is lying to me.
“My mistake,” I say.
“It’s but a problem.”
The prince turns once more, and I disrupt his attempt to escape again. “Do me a favor and don’t tell anyone what you saw tonight?”
“Now why would I want to incriminate myself?”
“I’d be the only one to pay for it.”
“You’d be surprised what I pay for.” This time when he attempts to leave, I don’t stop him.