Chapter 10
The low hum of conversation surrounded Felix as he lay sprawled across the bench in the bay window at the back of the pub, feet propped up, arm hanging off the edge.
Felix had spent his entire life forced to conceal his talents and feign mediocrity, pretending he was inferior when he knew very well he was one in a million. To make up for it, he made it a point to take up as much space in the world as he could.
He refused to be invisible.
Silas perched on the curtain rod above, and as Felix twitched his fingers idly, the bird responded, preening its feathers as if they were real and not wisps of smoke.
There were only a dozen or so patrons tonight, all wielders, and he knew each by name. He didn’t bother hiding his magic—at least not the legal one—from them. Should someone new enter, the bird looked detailed enough to pass as a real raven.
A voice pulled his attention. “Hard day’s work, is it?”
Felix tilted his head to look up at the girl, who appeared upside down from his perspective. Marlow was a wispy thing with saucer eyes and olive skin and ash brown hair that hung almost to her chin, still in the process of growing out from the cropped cut she’d kept for most of her life.
She wore a simple beige dress he’d never seen her in before with buttons up the front and a white folded collar. The style was a few seasons old, the fabric worn thin in places. Clearly second-hand.
Marlow’s outfit choices varied daily between soft skirts with heels and dark ensembles with trousers tucked into soft leather boots. Whether she appeared gentle or lethal, he figured, depended on her mood. As a healer, she was always both.
“You getting paid to sit now?”
“I’m off early,” he shot back.
“Well, get up off your arse. Your girlfriend’s at the bar looking for you.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, Mar.” With a subtle flick of Felix’s hand, Silas dissolved into smoke overhead.
He tipped his head further and caught sight of the girl between the shoulders of the nearest table’s occupants.
She was hovering near the bar, honey-blonde hair pinned back with careful neatness.
Sarah Farrows stood out, not just in her demure appearance and fine garments, but in the discomfort painted on her face and the lack of rings in her light eyes. She wasn’t a wielder. In fact, she came from a noble family that, like most, despised them.
After their brief meeting at the festival, Felix had gone out of his way to ensure their paths met again. The Farrows house held the sort of influence that opened doors otherwise sealed tight for people like him.
Marlow rolled her eyes. “Right, well, the girl who isn’t your girlfriend is looking for you.”
Felix spread his hands out to his sides. “Am I difficult to find? Do I need to hold up a sign?”
Marlow’s nose crinkled. “She’s scared. This place is intimidating. Doubt she’d risk losing sight of that front door.”
He sat up and swung his legs around to hang off the bench. “Is it?”
The Raven’s Perch was cozy and welcoming. A gathering spot for wielders and the few decent folks who didn’t mind their company. There were some boorish regulars, sure, but he’d never considered it to be intimidating.
“For someone like her, yeah,” Marlow said.
Felix supposed some might take issue with the symbol of Arunas, the Goddess of Magic, above the front door; an open eye with a halo of sunbeams encircling the pupil. To many, she was a betrayer deity, not one to be worshiped.
And the portrait of Aesran Erynda, her face studded with knives like a grotesque pincushion, was hardly a warm welcome for someone like Lady Farrows. Wielders had no love for the nobility. Then again, few from Felix’s station did.
He shrugged. “Fair enough.”
But he didn’t care what Sarah Farrows thought of it. The Raven’s Perch was his favourite place in the world.
It was thanks to the pub that he and his ma had gone from not knowing where their next meal would come from to having a steady income, though it was still barely enough to keep the place running. He’d won the deed from a grey-haired gentleman with a gambling problem across town three years ago.
Felix had cheated, of course—with quick hands, not magic—but if the man had known he’d lost to a wielder, he still would’ve called the Watch and had him arrested.
Back then, the pub was a ruin on the border between the Conaeld and Copperhill Districts, with a different name and a hole in the roof, but Felix and his ma made something incredible from it.
“What’s she doing here, anyway?” Felix asked.
Marlow dropped onto the bench beside him. “You could ask her.”
“Been doing my best to avoid her.”
She fixed him with a serious look. “You wanna break off whatever unhealthy thing you guys got going, then grow a spine and tell her.”
“I will yeah,” he said dismissively.
“Don’t give me that. I mean it.”
Felix let out an exaggerated sigh, then pushed up from the bench. “Can you stop trying to make me a good person?”
“You are a good person.”
With a wolfish grin, he held up the money purse he’d snagged from her skirt pocket. “Am I, now?”
He ignored her glare, turning to stride across the room. He’d rather not get into the details of why he was avoiding Sarah.
Marlow knew why he hung around the nobles. She even seemed to understand it, for the most part. But he left out the gritty details, the full measure of the things he’d endured. He wouldn’t let her fight his fights, wouldn’t have anyone else die for him.
His mind brushed up against a memory. Hands in wielder cuffs, a noose tightening around a young girl’s throat. He froze, biting the inside of his cheek until the pain was enough to rein in his thoughts, then shoved the memory back in its box and tucked it safely away.
He didn’t need defending. Not anymore. He could take care of himself. Whatever needed to be done, he handled it, and he refused to dwell on it.
After taking a moment to compose himself, softening the roughness of his Copperhill edges and plastering the practised smile on his face like an actor slipping into character, he crossed to the bar.
Felix put a great deal of effort into the way he presented himself, not out of pride, but out of necessity.
His parents had both come from poor families.
He’d been given no advantage to help him reach his goals.
So he meticulously stitched his facade together like a patchwork quilt, fragments shaped by books and people and careful observation.
He used it as a steppingstone when the gap seemed too large to cross.
If he ever hoped to hold enough influence to make a real difference, he needed to forge connections with the right people. The type of connection—mentorship, friendship, romantic—was irrelevant.
He’d met a few decent ones, like the professor who found him a fascinating enigma, amused at the remarkably intelligent lower-class kid with oversized ambition. Felix had hoped the man’s mentorship would help him gain admission to his prestige university, but the professor lost interest.
There was a sweet old Countess who said Felix reminded her of the son she’d lost to the war. But when she invited him to a dinner party, her husband threatened to have him killed.
Then there were the bored socialites. They enjoyed having someone tag along to stroke their egos and make them feel good about themselves in front of their friends. They were usually short-lived relationships, but often led to further introductions.
The worst ones were the spiteful wretches eager to make someone else suffer for their own unhappiness. Each of those offered a unique brand of torment, and Felix wasn’t sure he could handle another.
Lady Farrows fell among the bored socialites, and she’d seemed like a nice girl. He needed nice after the last monster. It had taken three months to heal the bruises the viscount’s son left. But sometimes her niceness crumbled away, and she’d talked down to him like all the others.
She allowed him no boundaries and took hesitation as a personal insult. He was starting to worry that he’d placed her in the wrong category, and he wasn’t eager for confirmation.
Hence the avoidance.
“Lady Farrows,” Felix said with a slight bow. “Can I buy you a drink?”
He opened the stolen money purse—for no other purpose than antagonizing Marlow. He didn’t pay for his drinks here, and though she never listened, Marlow knew she didn’t need to either.
As he studied the scant amount of caern inside, a hand snatched it from his grip.
“Taesan,” Marlow cursed as she stormed away, joining a group at a round table.
Sarah’s eyes went wide. “Did that girl just steal from you? Should I call the Watch?”
“That’s unnecessary,” he said. “It is hers, after all.” He dropped onto a barstool. “You were looking for me?”
Sarah perched beside him. “My father has forbidden me from seeing you. He doesn’t approve of”—her voice lowered to a whisper as she leaned in close—“the type of people who gravitate to this place.”
Not surprising.
Felix slipped his hands around hers. How did they all keep their hands soft as satin? “Then I suppose, for your sake, we should call it off.” His face was a pantomime of dejection. “I couldn’t live with myself if I caused unnecessary turmoil in your life.”
“No,” Sarah snapped. “I don’t want to stop seeing you, Felix.”
“Sarah,” he started, giving her a gentle smile. “We had fun, but don’t you think maybe this is a sign? Perhaps just for now—”
She pressed her lips forcefully against his, one hand tangling in his hair, the other clutching his shirt, drawing him closer.
He needed this to end on good terms to avoid any potential damage. And besides, her lips made an incredibly powerful argument.
So, he kissed her back.
“I think we need to discuss this further,” Sarah said against his mouth. “Is there anywhere a little more private?”
Felix grinned. “Of course.”