Chapter 3
Rosabel La Rouge
“His time was long ago, long before the French and British colonies first set foot in what is now Canada. Titus was born and raised in what is now called Nova Scotia—an exceptional mage, more powerful than anything the people of his time had seen. A Whitefire and Laetus hybrid, more powerful than both combined.” Madeline pressed her lips into a tight smile as she slowly paced in front of me with the book still in her hands. “It’s a shame that the world hasn’t seen talent such as his often. Or ever, after him, if you ask me.”
My ears could be fucking with me. “ Talent? He created a curse to control people.” Just in case she’d somehow forgotten that part.
Her eyes brightened. “Precisely. The amount of power and dedication and attention to detail a curse of that magnitude requires…can you imagine?”
The question sounded rhetorical, but I answered anyway. “I don’t have to imagine anything—it already happened.” And she knew this way better than I did, apparently.
Madeline flinched—actually flinched. “Yes, it did.” She finally sat down on the coffee table again, the book on her lap. And I realized I’d never seen her so… not-perfectly-composed around me before. It was almost like she was human, like the rest of us, which couldn’t possibly be. This was Madeline Rogan, and Madeline Rogan was a monster who probably had no beating heart and no soul and her insides were made of plastic.
She continued.
“Titus was, in fact, trying to find a cure for curses, if you will. An anti-curse— the anti-curse that would serve to deflect and mute every curse ever cast by magic, but he created something far superior instead.”
Is it just me or is Madeline a fan of Titus? I mean, the way she was talking about him almost made me blush.
“And he wrestled with the idea for years and years. Wrestled with the morality of it, and that is the real reason why he went out in the world, traveled far and wide, in search—not for Laetus, but for reasons .”
I’ll be damned… “Reasons for…what, exactly? Why not to become so purely evil as to possess other people to make them do whatever he wanted?” I couldn’t help myself, though it might have been smarter to just let her get on with the story.
“Reasons why the people deserve their freedom,” Madeline said. “He searched for the good in people, sure that he’d find it, and the answer might surprise you—he didn’t . The idea of a good man is only an illusion. People are bad to their core, manipulative, lying, cheating bastards, all of them. To trust anyone at all would be foolish…” Her voice trailed off and she looked down at the book on her lap. “He concluded.”
So painfully obvious that she believed that, too. And I wondered, was that the reason why Madeline was the way she was? Did she really believe that all people are bad?
I would imagine so. She was a liar and a manipulator, and she knew she shouldn’t be trusted, I guessed. After all, it all begins with our own selves, doesn’t it? We see the world through our own eyes.
“Even if that was true, two wrongs still don’t make a right.”
“Regardless of what he considered wrong or right, he decided to move forward with his plan, to gather an army and take over the world to ensure that the people prospered under his care.”
A bitter laughed burst out of me. “His care, yes. Where he possessed some of the most powerful mages in the world and with them threatened the same people he cared about, sure. I see it,” I mocked, but Madeline might as well have been deaf to my voice just now.
“However, his methods were deemed inhumane by the people, and so they opposed him. Fought him. Died in countless battles before they came together and defeated Titus. That’s the end of the story.”
This was definitely the longest Madeline had ever spoken to me. I had never before in my life heard this many words coming out of her mouth within the same hour—or even the same year!
“Except the part where they practically banned the Laetus and called them Mud and cast them out of society and took away their right to have magic.” I shook my head because an ache had already started to develop behind my eyes. “The story never really ended.”
Madeline was silent for a moment as she went through the pages of the book.
“That is the nature of fear, Rosabel,” she finally said. “That is what people who are afraid of what they cannot control or comprehend or best do.”
That I actually agreed with, and suddenly I had this urge to ask her more, curious to see how she thought, what she believed in, but I stopped myself. Not just because of who she was but because time was ticking and Taland wasn’t with me and I needed to find him and find my bracelet asap. Before things went even more to shit. Before this became…irreparable.
“What’s a Regah chamber?” I asked instead.
Madeline didn’t look up from the pages of the book at all, but more shockingly, she actually answered my question.
“It’s a concrete space linked directly to one’s soul, so to speak. To one’s magic. Think of it as a bridge that links your physical location to the one that you have connected your magic to,” she said.
“Two different places in one,” I whispered, as the image of the Regah chamber came to my mind again, that veil of magic that separated us in Silver Spring from the Devil’s cell at the Tomb penitentiary.
“Precisely. Forbidden magic for obvious reasons,” Madeline continued with a deep sigh like she was nostalgic all of a sudden. “But it enables you to be present in two places at once— only two. The one where your physical body is, and the one you’ve tied your magic to. Even then, you are separated by the screen of magic that projects you to the place you are connected to, and projects the place you are connected to, to you. Basically, the entire thing is only projection but not only of images. Of all senses and of magical energy, too.”
I nodded. “Oh, yes. I saw that. The Devil literally attacked us from his cell at the Tomb.” Shivers erupted down my back at the memory of how his magic had suspended me on air. How it had taken complete control of my body, how I’d been barely able to finish that spell… “He took us to the Blackrealm, too. I don’t suppose you’ll mind telling me what that is, too, would you?”
“It’s nothing but a Blackfire trick gone wrong,” Madeline said, and this time she did raise her head from the book to look at me. “They’ve created this vast space that they can connect to for short periods of time, Goddess knows when. It has nothing but the color black, hence the name, I would imagine, but there’s a reason why accessing it is forbidden. There’s a reason why the strongest of Blackfires steer clear of it.”
“Which is?” I asked when it didn’t look like she planned to continue.
“You can lose yourself to the black, Rosabel. And if you do, there is no going back. One will forever be stuck in the black if one doesn’t know how to navigate through it—and believe you me, nobody really does, no matter what they think.” She lowered her eyes to the book again. “They used it as a punishment measure back when the IDD was first created. They would banish mages into the Blackrealm never to be seen or heard of again—which, if you ask me, is the cruelest fate of all. No in or out, virtually no senses, no time. I imagine one would want to lose their mind in such a situation—and what happens when you can’t even do that ?”
“That’s…awful.” Just to think about being in a timeless space surrounded by black, never seeing or hearing or feeling anything— fuck.
“That’s ignorance ,” said Madeline. “It was done by people who thought they had control over the Blackrealm but quickly found how wrong they were.”
“But—”
“Is this what you were talking about, Rosabel?”
Madeline didn’t let me speak when she suddenly turned the book toward me to show me illustrations of the Delaetus Army, the soldiers standing in perfect formation with their helmets on—and their bracelets.
I swallowed hard, thoughts of the Blackrealm momentarily forgotten. “Yes.”
“You stole this bracelet from the IDD Vault.”
“Yes.”
A moment of silence as she watched me intently but just now I couldn’t decipher that look at all. “And it worked.”
“It did.”
“You made…” Her voice trailed off, and I gladly finished for her. At this point I didn’t even want to hide anything anymore. So fucking tired of secrets.
“Colorful magic. Powerful magic,” I said, and I could have sworn her cheeks flushed a soft pink. “Hill has been planning for this since you were still in charge of the IDD. I know you don’t trust him, are probably weary of him, but he used me for that mission in school because I am your granddaughter, because if something went wrong, you’d be implicated as well, and the Council has a soft spot for you.” I leaned forward as far as her magic allowed me, which was actually more than I expected. “He’s a double agent, Grandmother. His mother was a Mergenbach, his grandfather the founder of Selem. He took Taland to that school to steal the veler.”
“He wouldn’t,” Madeline whispered, but even she didn’t believe herself.
“He did. Then he sent me to supposedly stop him, but he was never really going to allow Taland to actually steal the veler. He merely needed an excuse for the Council when he demanded they take that veler to the IDD Vault. I imagine it must have been easy at that point for him.”
“It was quite easy, yes,” she said, surprising me again.
“So, he has the veler that he needs right there, and he has all these other things, too. No idea how he collected them, but he has them. And the Devil helped him. He actually broke Taland out of prison to try to steal something from Hill, so that when Hill rose in power, he said, he’d rise with him. They’d planned everything in detail.” And nobody had even figured it out.
I wouldn’t have ever figured it out either, had I not stolen that bracelet when I did.
“I always knew Ammiz was a dangerous man. Him, I could even be persuaded to throw into the Blackrealm,” said Madeline, shaking her head.
“He’s in the Tomb. There’s only so much he can do. I think Hill is far more dangerous.”
“Oh, but Ammiz is weak. Weak men are the most dangerous out there,” she insisted.
“Regardless—Hill is the guy who actually plans to find and bring back the Delaetus Army, as absurd as it sounds.”
She slammed the book closed so abruptly I jumped, and this time I could. Either she was willingly letting me move more freely, or her spell had faded and she didn’t seem interested in reinforcing it.
I had no complaints.
“I guess I should have seen it,” Madeline whispered. “There were signs.”
As much as I would have loved to rub that in her face, I stopped myself. “You can still put an end to it. Where is Hill?”
Madeline looked me in the eye without even blinking for a good long moment. I thought for sure she’d tell me that he was captured, that he was in jail or something, but no. She didn’t answer me at all.
“Where is the bracelet, Rosabel?”
Fuck. “I don’t know.”
“But you had it. You used it.”
“Yes. I destroyed the screen of the Regah chamber with it and that’s how the Devil lost control of… our side of the room.”
“You destroyed the screen of the Regah,” Madeline repeated.
“I did.” Except…that’s not all I’d done, was it? The memories kept coming back to me, and I remembered dragging myself and Taland out of that basement, up the stairs and out the door, the yard…the ruined basement and stairs and yard . All of it had been ruined, the people knocked out, the ground with holes in it. Holes .
“It takes a lot of power to break a Regah. That’s the connection of magic between a person and a place. It takes… a lot of power.” Slowly, Madeline put the book down on the table and crossed her legs again. “You did it by yourself?”
I analyzed her for a moment. She didn’t seem suspicious, and she didn’t judge me or despise me or anything like that—no, she simply seemed curious.
“Yes.”
“You used all the colors of magic.” Again—a statement.
“I did, Grandmother. All the colors of magic and more. But right now, I don’t know where the bracelet is, if it fell off me when I passed out in Silver Spring, or if it was taken. Either way, I need to leave.” I pushed against her magic, and though it let me move, it still didn’t let me stand up, like this invisible blanket wrapped around my legs that was as strong as fucking concrete. Impossible to break through by myself.
“Who else was there in the Regah?” she asked instead.
“Grandmother, let go of me. Please, just let go. I need to leave.” I needed to go to Silver Spring or The Diamond Club to look for Taland. I needed to leave right now.
“Who else?” She leaned forward, her eyes dead and dull once more. “Answer me, Rosabel.” And the hold of her magic tightened around me.
Fucking hell… “Taland and Seth Tivoux. Aurelia and Zach Mergenbach. Three of the Devil’s men—Hakim, Bes, and another I don’t know the name of. Hill came at the end.”
“How long did it last?”
“I. Don’t. Know ,” I said through gritted teeth. “Let me go.”
“I can’t do that, Rosabel,” she said. “What kind of a spell did you use to break the screen?”
“What do you mean, you can’t ? We made a deal, didn’t we? You said?—”
“I said I wouldn’t let you go if you didn’t tell me. I never promised that I would if you did,” the bitch said, and by now I was fuming at the ears. “Tell me what kind of a spell you used.”
“No,” I spit. “I am not telling you a single thing anymore.”
For a moment, she just looked at me passively. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, Rosabel.”
“No—it’s you who doesn’t! I was there, Grandmother. I understand just fine.” My voice rose—I couldn’t help it and I didn’t care. She was really not going to let go of me, and now I was starting to panic again.
“The Council is on their way.”
I stopped.
The entire fucking world could have stopped spinning just now.
“What?” I breathed, sure that I’d heard her wrong because no fucking way…
“The Council is on their way here.”
My lips opened but no sound left me.
“They insisted I take you to them, but I told them that you weren’t capable of staying awake yet, that I would take you to see them later. They must be in a hurry because they decided to come to us instead,” Madeline said, and I couldn’t even believe my ears.
“Grandmother,” I whispered again, and it sounded like both a pleading and a warning.
“Hill is missing, Rosabel. Alejandro Ammiz, too. When the IDD went into that house, they didn’t find anyone you mentioned except you in the front yard, alone. I had to come personally to bring you back here instead of leaving you in a jail cell.”
“The Mergenbachs,” I whispered. “And-and-and Seth, they…” But Radock had been there, hadn’t he? And I bet whoever worked for Selem had taken Seth and the Mergenbachs out before the IDD arrived. Of course, they did—and left me there. I wasn’t one of them, was I? I was an outsider.
Tears in my eyes, angry ones now that I didn’t care enough to hold back.
“They weren’t there, only the ruins that you left behind, apparently,” Madeline said. “I wonder how much more power you could have used with that bracelet.” This last sentence she said under her breath, like she was thinking out loud more than talking to me.
“Taland,” I said and squeezed my eyes shut to get rid of those tears faster. “I need to see Taland.”
“How silly of you, Rosabel. To go and fall in love with your target?” She sighed. “Regardless of how things turned out—you shouldn’t have. I always knew you weren’t capable of doing a spy’s work. You’re way too honest. You feel too much, and you are not very good at keeping yourself under control.”
“I did! Hill saw me himself—it was my ability to control myself that got me that fucking job in the first place!” She was there, too, and she knew this.
But Madeline raised a perfectly manicured finger and shook it in front of my face. “Your ability to control your expressions got you that fucking job, Rosabel.” That was the first time I’d ever heard her cussing. “Controlling your emotions is a completely different thing. You could never force yourself to let go of something or to believe something you know is a lie. You could never manipulate yourself, not even when it suited you. Never—I’ve been watching you since you were a little girl.”
Fucking hell, this woman.
“I know you mean it as an insult, Grandmother, but that’s a compliment to me.” I didn’t want to manipulate myself, close my eyes when it was convenient. Pretend I wasn’t aware of things to make it easier on myself. I chose not to do that, despite what she thought.
“Not an insult, for Goddess’s sake. Just an observation. You are so very sensitive, Rosabel—so very, very sensitive. You take everything personally when you shouldn’t because nothing ever is.”
“Is that why, then?” I asked despite my better judgment. “Is that why you always choose Poppy, why you wanted Poppy to go on that mission for Hill?” Because Poppy could most definitely rearrange the narrative in her mind to suit her, to make things easier for herself. She’d admitted it to me herself, even though I’d never really noticed it. She had. “Is that why you could never stand me, didn’t love me, Grandmother? Because I can’t manipulate myself? Because I am not like you ?!”
Those fucking tears again—Goddess, I hated them so much. I hated that I was crying, and I hated her, and I hated me, and I hated the entire fucking world that was standing between me and Taland.
“Quite the contrary. It’s because you’re exactly like who I used to be that I don’t trust you.”
She could have slapped me, and I’d have been less surprised.
I am nothing like you, I wanted to say because she must have lost her fucking mind if she thought I was going to just let her say that and get away with it, but Madeline suddenly stood up. Redfire magic danced on her fingertips as she raised one hand toward the doors on the other side of the room and the other at me.
Her magic let go of me all at once.
“They’re here.”