Aaron
The Market is dead. The carts are covered and the lanterns are out. The last of the vendors disappeared down the path over an hour ago. Nobody looked at me twice. I don’t know if that’s strange or if I just don’t care anymore.
I push off the cottage wall and turn to face the door.
I’ve never been able to see the shield around the Glen before, but I can see it now—golden light stretched over the entrance, thin and shimmering, pulsing like it’s alive.
It’s the same gold from the dream. The exact same color, and my stomach turns because that means everything I saw was real.
I reach out and run my fingers over it. It’s warm and impossibly thin, vibrating under my fingertips. I can feel how close it is to breaking on its own. This is why Amir’s been pressing to terminate the realm. The seal is barely holding.
I pull my hand back and look at the door. Am I doing the right thing or am I about to make the worst mistake of my life?
The vision hits me before I can finish the thought. Mara on the grass in front of this exact spot.
I hold my hand up and conjure a mirror.
The glass forms in the air in front of me, edged in blue-gold light, and on the other side I can see the inside of a small home in the Witching Glen. A fireplace burning low, old furniture. Eric is sitting on the sofa with his hands on his knees, grinning at the fire like he’s been waiting.
He turns his head and looks at me. Stands. Walks over with his hands in his pockets and that same smile that never quite reaches his eyes.
“You came.” He stops in front of the mirror. “I was hoping you would come to me.”
“You’re already making me regret it,” I mutter.
He grins. “Don’t feel that way, son.”
“Don’t call me son!” I yell.
I start pacing in front of the mirror. My magic sparks every time my pulse kicks. “Look, it’s been a long ass twenty-four hours. I saw something and unfortunately, you’re the only person that can help me right now.”
“Well.” He tilts his head. “I’m flattered that you’d trust me.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Trust?” I almost laugh. “I’m desperate.”
“Tell me what’s going on.” He leans closer to the mirror. “I’ll help in any way I can.”
I pace harder with my hands pressed against my temples. I know better than this. My mother is the one I should be talking to, not a man I know I can’t trust. But she’s not the one who showed me what happens to Mara.
“I shouldn’t trust you,” I say. “You’re dangerous.”
“I’ve given you reason to feel that way.” He responds softly.
“I saw you. You were there when it happened.”
His brow furrows. “What do you mean? You saw something?”
“They took her from me.” My fists clench and the fury I’ve been swallowing all day comes pouring out so fast my vision blurs. “Mara! They took her, you stupid fucking warlocks took her from me!”
Eric holds his hands up. “Okay, okay. Aaron, calm down.”
“Calm down?” My magic flickers and the Market flickers blue around me. “I love her so much. I love her so much and I watched her die.”
“Let me help you, son.” His voice goes low through the mirror. “All I want to do is help. Haven’t I proven that over the time we’ve been connecting?”
I stare at him. My chest is heaving, my magic sparking off my body. Mara’s eyes going dull keeps flashing behind mine and my hands won’t stop shaking.
No. There’s no time.
“I’m opening the Glen,” I mutter.
The grin that spreads across Eric’s face is slow and wide, full of something I don’t want to name.
“I’ve wanted to hold you for a long time.” His voice catches, and it sounds so real my throat closes. “I wish words could begin to express just how much I missed you.”
I frown at him. It doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is keeping Mara alive.
I step back and look down at my hands. Blue-gold light pulses through my veins, brighter now, climbing my forearms. Can I even do this?
“You’re a Blackwood, son.” Eric’s voice comes through the mirror. “Stop second-guessing your magic and be its guardian. If you want to open the Glen, you can. You just have to give the command to your magic.”
I hold my hands up and the mirror vanishes, the glass dissolving into blue sparks that scatter into the night. I turn and aim both palms at the cottage door.
The command moves through me and my magic surges forward and hits the golden shield. The two colors crash together in a blinding wave, gold and blue twisting around each other, wrestling, and the energy pulls from me, dragging at the edges of my strength.
The shield bows inward and flickers and thins before it splits down the center. The cottage door starts to open. The hinges groan and the wood creaks and on the other side there’s nothing. Just darkness.
I lower my hands and watch. My breath comes out in clouds against the night air and nothing moves on the other side.
“Hello?” It comes out quiet. I take a step forward. The last time I was in the Glen I was a boy. It’s probably a much different place now.
I get closer to the door, then step back when Eric walks out of the darkness.
He’s not a reflection anymore. He steps out onto the ground, a cup of coffee in his hand, steam curling off it. It makes me smile.
“They have coffee in the Witching Glen?”
Eric chuckles, low and warm, and it sounds like something I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear. “Come here, boy.”
He opens his arms.
My eyes burn and I blink hard. I know this is stupid. But he’s finally right here with his arms open and his scent wrapping around me, and the boy in me walks straight into it.
Eric pulls me into his arms. I press my face into his shoulder and my hands grab the back of his shirt and hold on. It feels so good my body won’t stop shaking, and I hate myself for it because I know better. But I’ve been starving for this my whole life and finally, I have it. A father’s love.
“It’s going to be alright, son,” Eric murmurs against my head. “I’m going to take good care of you.”
My eyes snap open.
Energy starts flooding out of my body. Not the slow pull I felt when I opened the door. This is a siphon. My magic rushes out of me and pours into him through every point of contact. I try to push away but his arms lock around me and the draining accelerates, my vision dimming, my knees going soft.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shove against his chest but he holds tighter and I can feel my own power being sucked out of me. I wrench back just enough to see his face, and my stomach drops.
Eric’s eyes are glowing blue. The gray is fading from his hair and dark strands are pushing through. His face is smoothing out, the lines gone, his jaw tighter. His arms are getting stronger even as mine get weaker, and he’s grinning at me with my power burning under his skin.
My magic takes over. A blast of blue erupts from my chest and slams into him, throwing us apart. He flies backward into a vendor’s cart, wood splintering, and I crash onto the ground on my back and I can’t breathe.
I’m not completely drained. But I’m close.
I shake my head and try to pull myself up. My arms are shaking and the Market tilts around me. Eric is already walking toward me, rolling his shoulders, checking his hands and his arms like he’s admiring what he just stole. He looks ten years younger.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down, son.”
“You motherfucker.” I growl at him.
His boot connects with my face. My head snaps to the side and I hit the ground, pain exploding through my skull. I groan and roll onto my side, tasting blood.
“I’ll admit I was nervous about it.” His voice is casual. He starts rolling up his sleeves. He checks his arms and hands, runs a palm over his face and over his head. His grin widens. “But the elders council told me to never underestimate a father’s love.”
I press my hand against my cheek and look up at his smug face and it nearly guts me.
Because I walked into every single trap.
The dreams, the visits, the careful vulnerability, the promise that he could help me save Mara.
It was so formulaic. Every step laid out in advance, and I followed it like a fool.
“A father’s love does a lot of things,” Eric says, and reaches down and grabs my arm.
The draining starts again the moment his skin touches mine. My magic pours into him, my own power fueling something that was never meant to be his. I moan and try to pull free but my muscles won’t cooperate.
“You came here for your lioness,” he says, watching my face. “I had the same dream a very long time ago when you were just a boy, but it’s different for me. I only got small pieces of your future. I wasn’t standing in it. I have some strange connection to you, to your magic, that I can’t explain.”
He leans down and grins in my face, close enough that I can feel my own magic crackling underneath his skin. “But it’s certainly useful.”
“Let go.” My voice comes out thin and shaking.
“There’s something special about this thread between us.” His hand tightens on my arm. “I can feed off your magic. I can’t use your sisters because I don’t have a bond with them. But I have one with you.”
Another burst of magic hits him, involuntary and desperate, and Eric goes flying. He slams into the cottage door and the wood cracks down the middle, but he recovers fast and stands upright. He dusts himself off and rolls his neck.
“Well.” He flexes his hands. “I suppose that will do. Just enough to get what I’m out here for.”
I try to rise and my arms buckle. Eric walks back over and plants his boot in my stomach, kicking me onto my back, and I curl around the pain with a groan.
“We are bound by blood,” he says, standing over me. “I can only take so much, but the power you hold, son...” He shakes his head. “You’re technically a god.” He shrugs. “A stupid one. But hey.”
He holds his hand up and tears the air open. The portal splits and I can see the other side—night streets and tall buildings and the distant sound of traffic. Downtown Detroit.
I manage to sit up, my body screaming, my magic flickering in my veins.
Eric steps through the portal and turns to look at me from the other side with the city lights behind him.
“Your lioness is beautiful. I understand why you’d make such a stupid decision.
” He looks around and lets out a slow breath.
“Damn. Your magic is strong. I won’t have it in my system for long. It fades over time.”
The grin drops and something cold and flat replaces it. This is the real Eric. I’m looking at a man with absolutely nothing behind his eyes.
“The good thing about me is I don’t love anyone. Not even you. So this makes killing you once I get ahold of dark magic again so much easier.”
My hands drop to my sides and I stare at him through the closing portal because there’s nothing left in me to say.
“Make sure you take care of your lioness.” The portal starts to shrink and Eric holds my gaze through the narrowing gap. “Just so you know, you’ve altered the future just slightly. But not completely. There’s still a chance you’ll lose her.”
“Fuck you!”
The portal closes. The night air goes still and I’m alone in the Market, sitting on the ground with blood on my face and my magic guttering, knowing I just did exactly what he needed me to do.
I press my face into my hands.
I fell for it. Tiana told me he was manipulating me and I looked her in the face and went back to him anyway. Every conversation, every time he called me son, I let myself believe it was real because I wanted a father so bad I stopped thinking. And he knew that. He was counting on it.
And I don’t even understand what he was trying to tell me at the end. Altered the future slightly but not completely? There’s still a chance I’ll lose her?
I need to go to King Amir. I need to confess everything to my mother and tell them they were right all along. I need to—
The cottage glows behind me.
I spin around. The door that Eric cracked on his way out is pulsing with golden and blue light swirling together, and the seal I broke is collapsing inward. The darkness on the other side is moving.
I try to conjure my magic and it responds, barely. A flicker of blue that dances across my palms and fades, then catches again, steadier this time but nowhere near full strength.
The first figure steps through the door, a warlock with wild eyes and magic crackling at his fingertips.
He sees me and stops. Another one comes through behind him, then another, and then they’re pouring out of the Glen, breathing air they haven’t tasted in years, and every single one of them is looking at me.
I force myself to my feet. My legs shake and the Market tips sideways but I plant my boots on the ground and hold my hands out with blue light flickering between my fingers.
The first spell hits me in the chest and sends me flying backward, but my magic throws up a shield before the second one can land. Blue light domes over my body and absorbs the next blast, then the next.
I lie inside the shield staring up at the night sky through the blue glow. My body is wrecked, my magic guttering, and I’m wondering how much longer it’s going to fight for me before it runs out too.