Chapter 20
At the mouth of a dark alley, Felix slammed to a stop. August watched his shoulders heave with a single deep breath before he froze, posture rigid, the air around him crackling like a storm.
He was still angry. August couldn’t blame him. Keeping secrets when all of Felix’s were laid bare felt like betrayal. The lies sat in his chest like stone, a constant reminder that whatever this was between them, it could never be real.
He risked a glance at the anchored that had been shadowing them since the square. Its face rippled from a boy with heavy-lidded eyes to a smooth black void and back again, its neck bent at an impossible, sickening angle.
No, he couldn’t tell Felix. Not about the anchored. Not about his other life.
But he had to say something.
“Felix,” he started, but when Felix turned to face him, the words caught in his throat. He didn’t look angry at all. He looked haunted.
“They hate our magic so much,” he muttered, each word strained as he pressed his palms against his eyes. “They kill us for using it. But they pay to have it for themselves.”
August frowned, struggling to catch up. “Paying? For magic?”
“Someone is making elixirs that…” Felix sagged against the wall, sliding down until he sat slumped on the cobblestones, hands falling limp in his lap.
The sight made something twist painfully in August’s chest.
“There’s an elixir,” Felix tried again. “It gives nonwielders magic.” His hands curled into fists. “Why do they hate us, then? It’s not the magic they despise. So, what is it?”
Guilt stirred inside August as he searched for the right thing to say. He knew he was no better than the rest. Judging, fearing, hating.
Because they’re dangerous, he reminded himself.
But the wielders he’d met at The Raven’s Perch hadn’t seemed dangerous at all.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t.
How many wielders had been arrested in his lifetime?
How many executed? Too many to count. The City Watch, the ministry, they wouldn’t punish innocents.
Every wielder they condemned must have done something to warrant it.
Maybe not all wielders were dangerous, but when the number was that high, distrust felt inevitable. Justified.
Felix’s moment of defeat was fleeting. He inhaled sharply, then stood. “I’m going to The Gilded Mortar. I need to find out where they get their supply.”
“Why?” asked August. “It’s awful, and you’re upset. I get that. But it’s just an elixir. It’s not actually hurting anything.”
Felix gave him a flat, unimpressed look. “Wielders vanish, and suddenly this new elixir appears? You don’t think that’s a bit too coincidental?” He brushed off his pants, determination hardening his face. “It’s connected. I know it is.”
“All the more reason to stay away. Nobody knows what you are. You’re safe.”
“But they aren’t.”
Frustration swelled, then quickly crested into panic. Wielders were missing. Felix could be next. What if something happened? What if Felix didn’t come back?
“I don’t understand why you’d risk your life for this.”
Felix’s jaw clenched so hard that a muscle jumped along his cheek. “Of course you don’t understand. You can’t. They’re only wielders, right? Less than human. Trucagh.”
August recoiled at the accusation. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Why should you care about anyone you see as beneath you?” His eyes narrowed as his gaze dragged over August. “You’re just another noble slumming it with the less fortunate to feel better about yourself.”
August blinked. “You think that’s why I like being around you?”
A heavy silence settled between them. At last, Felix’s expression crumpled, and he gave a small, dejected shrug. “Why else?”
The words lodged in August’s heart like thorns, and his breath caught at the pain.
“Because—” He faltered, throat suddenly dry. How could he explain what he didn’t even understand himself? Every part of him yearned to close the distance, to press his lips to Felix’s, to show him just how utterly, irrevocably crazy he was about him.
Instead, he forced out, “Because you’re my friend.”
The words were cowardly. Inadequate. And the miserable look on Felix’s face said as much.
A shrill, off-key voice drifted down the street, each warped note of the song punctuated by the sharp click of heels on the cobblestones.
At first, August assumed it was an anchored. He glared at the twitchy one, and it flickered once, then vanished. But anchored didn’t make noise when they walked.
A skeletal woman rounded the corner, and it only took a moment for her sunken, shadowed eyes to find them. The song fell away, and surprise flashed across her gaunt face.
“Oh, hello,” she crooned.
She held a fistful of her skirt in one hand, hitching it up so her thin legs were visible beneath, and she clutched a small hatchet in the other.
August’s blood ran cold. Why would someone be carrying a hatchet through the city?
“Can you believe he cut me off?” the woman asked, taking a slow step forward. “I’m his most loyal customer.” Another step. “I told him I’d pay. Eventually. He knows my family’s good for it.”
Felix grabbed August’s wrist, pulling him back in a protective movement. “I think you have us confused with someone else.”
She hoisted the hatchet casually over her shoulder. “What does he expect me to do? All my caern is already jingling around in his pockets. Who the hells does he think he is?”
A faint tingling danced across August’s fingertips as his eyes darted to Felix.
He seemed eerily calm. Was this normal? Did people walk around swinging hatchets? It certainly didn’t seem normal.
“We should go,” Felix said.
As they took a cautious step back, the woman straightened. Her eyes fixed on August’s, sharp and unyielding, like a predator on its prey.
“Well, I don’t need him. I can do it myself.”
Felix tugged his arm. “Run.”
They bolted, but only made it half a block before she crashed into August from behind. He went down hard, throwing his hands out to catch himself, but the impact still smashed the breath from his lungs. When her weight lifted, he rolled onto his back, gasping.
“I can smell your magic,” she whispered, crouching over him.
He let out a strained cough. “That . . . is a really odd thing to say.”
She leaned in uncomfortably close, her breath warm against his skin. She studied his eyes as if she meant to pluck them from their sockets. “What are you, little mouse? Shall we find out?”
“Back up.” Felix’s voice echoed off the buildings, and the air rippled around the words.
The woman’s face went slack as her hands fell away, and she settled back on her heels.
With a grunt, August pushed himself up to sitting and looked up at Felix, whose irises were glowing gold.
“Get up and leave.”
The air rippled again, only this time, the order didn’t seem to land. The woman’s gaze swung to Felix with an intensity that made August recoil.
“Oh,” she breathed, an eerie smile splitting her face.
Felix’s eyes widened, a look of pure bewilderment.
He recovered quickly, yanking August off the ground, and they ran, hands clasped as the sound of her pursuing heels clacked behind them.
The twitchy anchored appeared suddenly in the centre of the street. With no time to avoid it, August held his breath, bracing himself. He passed through the figure, the cold like needles over every inch of his skin. The sour taste of decay made his stomach turn.
When they spilled back onto the open edge of the bustling market square, Felix stumbled, his hand slipping free as he tumbled forward.
August quickly dragged him back up.
“Solach,” Felix hissed, yanking up his trouser leg. “Not now!”
The woman crept out from the side street, hatchet swinging in her bony grip like a pendulum. The bouncy melody she’d been singing earlier floated over the sounds of the market.
“Get the Watch!” August shouted to the crowd as Felix fumbled with the straps of his prosthetic.
For a breath, nobody reacted. Then the woman hefted the hatchet to her shoulder. All at once, panic erupted. Screams tore through the crowd as people scattered in every direction.
Nobody was going to help.
“Come on, Felix!”
“Almost got it.”
August’s eyes locked on the hatchet as the woman sauntered closer. He had to do something.
The prickling in his fingers flared, and the air thickened to a shimmering, gossamer fabric.
He could get them out. He knew how. But he’d only done this once, and that was four years ago. Could he still manage it? Would it work with someone else?
I am here to save you. The anchored woman’s voice was a chilling whisper in the back of his mind, the memory of her icy hands on his shoulders—an impossible reality.
She’d pushed him slowly forward, easily overpowering him.
As his bare feet edged closer to the window, he reached out and grabbed hold of the fabric, tearing open the barrier between this realm and another.
The hands on his shoulders had vanished.
The place on the other side was terrible and haunting, and the pain that met him when he returned was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. But it had saved him that night, and it was his only chance of saving them now.
The woman pulled back the hatchet just as a handful of City Watch surged through the crowd across the square. Too late. They’d never make it in time.
August reached out, and with a swift, decisive swipe, tore open a doorway. Please let me bring him. He grabbed Felix’s arm, tugging him forward and through just as the woman swung.
The veil didn’t resist. They both made it through.
Chaos roared behind them, the sound muffled as it pressed through the rift. Orders rang out. People screamed. Footsteps pounded.
Above it all, August heard his title called out like an order.
To his horror, the woman’s hand passed through, searching. He slammed the tear shut, severing the arm at the elbow, and it fell to the ground as the silence swallowed them whole.
He pulled in a jagged breath, staring out at the expanse of grey.
It had been four years, but the world beyond the veil was just as he remembered. There was no pain yet. No, that would come on the other side, excruciating and sharp, like icy claws tearing at his insides. Here, there was only an empty stillness. The air felt thick, like swimming in an inkwell.
After his first (and only) time here, August had taken to calling it the Hollow Dark, a name borrowed from a Jivanten fairytale their father used to read to them. A story of a runaway boy stuck forever in another realm among otherworldly creatures with wings and horns and pointed ears.
This place haunted his dreams as much as the anchored did, though it wasn’t a fear of the place itself.
The Hollow Dark was undeniably peaceful, wrapping around him like a soft blanket.
It was the feeling of his father scooping him up and holding him close, the gentle pressure of Lottie’s tight hugs. A quiet, steady, familiar comfort.
August loved how he felt here. Like he belonged. Like he was bound to this strange place. And that was what scared him.
The air seemed to grab hold as it flowed through his veins. He felt like if he stayed there too long, it wouldn’t let him leave. Or worse, he wouldn’t want to.
Like the boy from the story.
And so Lucien sat to rest in the field of wondrous glowing blooms and impossible creatures singing wistful songs.
He leaned against the ancient tree as it whispered gentle words of assurance and promises of adventures to come, all memory of his former life fading like night’s mist beneath the morning sun.
There he remained until his body turned to bone, and then to ash, carried away upon the sweet breeze.
August’s gaze drifted lazily across the empty market square. He picked out a handful of anchored in the faint silvery light, but they were only wisps of fog against the colourless surroundings. Peaceful and drifting.
The crowds and Watch were gone, the shops and homes all hollowed out and decayed, dead vines sealing the shutters. A sea of dried, brittle leaves blanketed the square.
A subtle musty scent filled his nostrils as he took another deep breath, and the strange taste it left on his tongue forced his thoughts back into focus.
Dread crashed over him as the past few minutes caught up, the calm shattering like a mirror into a hundred splintered pieces.
August had just used his power in a public place. People saw. The Watch saw.
Felix saw.
He spun to face Felix, who was sitting on the ground, legs splayed, confusion creasing his brow as he stared straight ahead. His pale hair was a shock of light in the surrounding darkness.
What was August going to say? How could he explain this? He’d lied over and over, and now those lies were all on blatant display. Felix would never forgive him. August had just ruined everything—not only their friendship, but his entire life—with one spontaneous decision.
Panic rose like bile in his throat.
When Felix looked up, his skin was pallid, and heavy shadows circled his eyes. August may have belonged to this place, but Felix didn’t. They couldn’t stay here.