32. AURORA
I hate waiting.
I hate being left behind, ignorant of what’s happening out there.
Left to go “sit pretty” in the corner.
Ugh.
It’s too much like the entire rest of my life.
I pace the length of the enclosure, unable even to concentrate on dance. Fuck. It has to have been at least three hours since Francois and Tally disappeared into the gloom. Three hours of waiting for news.
How are Alanna and Carson?
Is anyone else injured?
Please, Gods, don’t let any of…my people get hurt.
My people.
Yeah, they’re my people. The “people I care about” list seems to be growing dangerously long and in Quo that’s a liability.
Back in Havengard, that list had a grand total of one name on it—Cosmo. It was safer that way. Lonely, but safe. Now?
I fucking care.
Turns out, a lot of the inmates are just good people caught in the gears of a shitty system. I know this because Sky is the undisputed queen of gossip; she even managed to worm Layla’s backstory out of her during a long shift in the laundry.
Layla and Clay weren’t born criminals. They were arrested for breaking into an Elite Healer clinic, trying to steal basic potions for the people in Ashgrave who were being left to rot. Imran, poor, loyal Imran, had followed them like a lost puppy and got swept up in the chaos.
Three lives shredded because they tried to help the sick.
Viva la Revolution. I hope the Great Awakening hasn’t just brought magic back; I hope it’s burned every one of those gated clinics to the ground.
When I finally get out of this hole, I’m not going back to the Elite life. I’ve made the decision to kill Aurora Drakeward and bury her under the concrete of this cell block. My new life will be under a fake name, and I’ll be starting from zero.
I’m not romanticizing it—I know it’ll be a struggle.
Getting a job will be interesting. And learning things like cooking, and paying bills for electricity, rent.
The list of things I don’t know is a mile long. But I’d rather be poor, exhausted, and honest than spend another second on the side of the people who deny medicine to humans while they sip champagne.
Sky still has a year left on her sentence, which means I’ll be out a month before her. I’ve already started building a house in my head, a small place that is full of giggles—and freedom. She can move in with me. We’ll make it work.
Tally.
Thinking about his sentence feels like a physical weight on my chest. He has years left.
He’s supposed to be moved to the state penitentiary when he turns twenty-one, trading one cage for a bigger one.
But I’ll be there. We’ll all be there, waiting at the gates for the day the system finally spits him back out.
And then there’s London.
I haven’t seen him since the bus, but he’s often in my mind.
If I’m setting up a house for Quo misfits, he definitely gets a room.
I can imagine us in a cramped, drafty apartment in the Ashgrave slums. Layla grumbling about the dishes, Clay trying to get Imran to eat, and London…
probably hanging upside down from the ceiling rafters, singing nursery rhymes about the end of the world.
It would be loud. It would be messy. It would be a far cry from the silent, marble halls of the Manor.
And I want it so badly my chest aches.
I have to make this a reality. If I’m being practical—and Quo has taught me nothing if not how to be practical—I’ll have to go back to Havengard City first. I’ll need to empty my jewelry box. I don’t have a bank account or a cent to my name, but I have diamonds.
Layla would know how to move them without getting caught. We’ll use my family’s "legacy" to buy the medicine that will keep Imran’s lungs from failing. Please, gods, let him last that long.
My mind flicks to Cosmo—would my brother help me?
No. He’d freak and probably lock me back into my mansion quarters. He’s such a fucking snob. He’d never understand loving people from a different station in life.
And I do love them.
Lay, Sky, Imran, Clay…Tally.
London? Probably. I can’t wait to find out.
But listening to the distant yelling, that dream feels a million miles away.
I stand up and start to pace. Why isn’t Tally back yet?
Wump—ppp.
Heavy, uneven footsteps echo in the corridor, dragging my heart into my throat. I rush to the bars, my fingers gripping the cold iron as two shadows bleed out of the gloom.
Tally is leaning heavily on Francois, his face covered with fresh cuts and drying blood. Behind them, I see Dot and Clay, their expressions grim as they usher the rest of the block back into their cages.
“Tally!” I gasp. “You’re OK. What about everyone else? Where’s Layla?”
“I’m here, Barbie,” Layla’s voice calls out from the darkness. She steps into the flickering light, looking exhausted but intact. “Sky’s back in our cell. We’re all accounted for. Mostly. A few cracked skulls, broken arms and shanked flesh, but nothing deadly.”
“And Imran?”
Tally stumbles into the cell as Francois releases him with a look of profound distaste. He slumps against the bars, his chest heaving. “Not doing good,” he rasps, the words coming out in a pained wheeze. “Stupid idiot was trying to help.”
“Fucking Groundhog Day,” Layla grumbles. “He collapsed near the laundry intake, didn’t even make it to the battle. Shit, Rory. I don’t know how much longer he can carry on.”
Wump—ppp.
That poor kid. “He’s so sick. He needs help.”
Something occurs to me.
I whirl to face Francois.
He’s standing close to the cage, fastidiously wiping a smear of someone else’s blood off his sleeve with a rag, looking bored.
“You,” I say, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and hope. “You have to heal him.”
Francois doesn’t even look up. “I am not a vending machine for miracles, Aurora. And I’ve had a very long day.”
“I saw what you did for Tally!” I scream, my hand flying through the bars to grab his lapel.
I yank him toward me, ignoring the dangerous flash in his abyssal eyes.
“You made the bruises vanish. You brought Taliesin back from the edge, so do it for Imran. Use that green light, or the poison, or whatever the hell it is. Just save him. We all know you have magic.”
Francois sighs, a long, weary sound that sets my teeth on edge. He gently but firmly detaches my fingers from his coveralls. “You misunderstand the nature of my ‘gifts,’ ma petite.”
“Don’t try to bullshit me.”
“Listen,” he says, his voice dropping to a low, icy frequency that vibrates in my bones. “My power is not that of a Healer. I do not carry the ability to undo disease. I am the disease. So if I poison someone, I can get the toxin back out of a man’s system if I so choose. That is all.”
I can tell everyone in the cell is amazed Frank just admitted that, but I only care about one thing. “But you can withdraw toxins, so fucking try with Imran. Try. What could it hurt?”
He steps closer, his face inches from mine. “I cannot rewrite a genetic failure or burn away a cancer that is woven into the boy’s very marrow. To my magic, his sickness isn’t an invader; it is him. If I tried to burn it out, I would simply burn him to ash.”
I stare at him, my hand falling away. “So you’re not as powerful as you like to make out.”
“I am powerful,” he murmurs, and for a second, I see a flicker of genuine regret—or perhaps just annoyance at his own limitations—cross his face. “But that does not extend to miracles. I cannot make a dying flower bloom again.”
As Francois opens the cage, pushing Taliesin inside, the hope that had suddenly exploded in me simply evaporates.
Resting my forehead against the bars, I’m aware Clay and Layla are shuffling off—no doubt going straight back to Imran.
I know they feel endlessly guilty. Imran followed them into a trap because he loved them, and now he’s going to die locked away from his parents, his brother.
“It’s not fair,” I whisper into the gloom. “He’s just a kid.”
Tally’s hand finds mine. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. We understand some things are beyond repair.
Finally, I look at Francois again. He has everything; status, magic, a future, and he can’t do a damn thing for a boy who has nothing.
“Go away, Francois,” I croak. “Just go away.”
I don’t hear him leave, but the sudden shift in the air tells me he’s gone. I stay on the floor, listening to Tally’s ragged breathing and the distant cries and shouts of a riot aftermath.
Imran cannot be healed. He cannot be released.
All we can do is try and make his final days beautiful.
Somehow.
???
The next morning I insisted that Francois let me out. “I’m going to sit with Imran.”
“Why?”
Why? The asshole is really asking that?
“Because he’s family, and he’s dying. He’s like a brother to me.”
Saying the words brings a familiar ache to my chest.
Fuck. “How is he, Francois?"
I’ve been afraid to ask all week, terrified of showing a soft spot he could exploit. But I need to know.
“You’ll have to be more specific, ma petite. Which ‘he’ do you refer to?”
“Cosmo. Is he safe?”
Francois stills, a flicker of something dark—perhaps jealousy—in his eyes. “Your brother is being feted, chérie. He and his little band are hailed as heroes. When I left, they were being invited to the WMO board.”
The World Magic Organization? Cosmo seems like someone who would love power; figures he’d be climbing the ladder while I am rotting in a pit. It feels as if he’s forgotten I even exist. Tally is the only person truly in my corner.
“Thank you for letting me know, I’m going to see Imran now.”
I’d expected an extended battle, but he just waved me away.
So now I’m sitting on the floor by a narrow cot, watching the way the dim fluorescent light catches the translucent skin of the boy’s eyelids.
Sky is perched on the edge of the mattress, her hand trembling as she coaxes a spoonful of gray, lukewarm broth toward his lips. “Just a sip, Immy,” she cajoles, her voice breaking. “Lay made sure there was extra salt. She said it’s good for your electrolytes.”
Imran’s eyes flicker open. He looks like a ghost that hasn’t realized it’s dead yet. He shakes his head, a weary, infinitesimal movement that seems to cost him everything. “Thanks, Sky.”
He tries to swallow, but the broth runs down his chin in a pale, pathetic stream. I see it then—the unmistakable tint of blood in his saliva.
Wump—ppp.
I reach out and take his hand; it’s cold, the bones beneath the skin feel brittle and fragile.
“My dad… he used to make this deer stew,” Imran whispers, his eyes closing again. “Used to complain that Tally only caught the skinny ones full of bone, but then he’d simmer it all day until the whole house smelled like a holiday.”
Layla is leaning against the door frame. “Your mom would always yell at him for letting grease splatter everywhere,” she adds with a sad, small smile.
“Yeah.” A ghost of a grin touches his lips.
“Avi would stand on a stool, stirring the pot. He’s probably tall enough to reach the counter now…
” He shifts, a rattling cough shaking his thin frame.
Sky moves to one side so I can lift up his shoulders, steady him.
Once he can breathe steadily again, I help him settle.
“Do you think Avi has magic now, Lay?” he asks, his eyes suddenly bright with a feverish intensity.
I look at my friend. “Sure,” she croaks, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t,” she mouths, turning and leaving the room.
“I bet he can fly,” Sky says. “I bet he has so much fun flying around with the birds.”
It occurs to me that before the Great Awakening one didn’t gain their magic spark until they were through puberty. Is it still the same? Who knows.
“I wish I could fly with him.” Imran’s words come out as a sigh. “Just once. Me and Avi soaring through a blue sky.” He looks at me, and the sheer, raw longing in his gaze makes me want to scream.
“You can do that when you get out of here,” Sky soothes, though her eyes are brimming with tears. She shoves the spoon toward him again. “So eat the damn broth, Imran. You need to be strong for when it’s your release date.”
Imran looks at her, blinking his eyes. “It’s okay, Sky. I know. I can feel I’m going soon. Can I see Tally sometime? I want to… to say goodbye.”
I pull back, my throat tight.
I feel like a hollow shell. I’m Aurora Drakeward, daughter of one of the most powerful men in the Conclave, and I’m sitting in the dark with a boy who is slipping away, unable to do anything but watch.
He closes his eyes, his breathing evening out into a shallow, ragged rhythm. “Fly in the sunshine,” he breathes. “I’d like that.”
Sky sets the bowl down, the broth untouched and congealing.
We sit in silence, while the vibration of the Null-Wards continues to bear down on us, the anti-magic that stops all dreams coming true.
I hate it.