Chapter 34
Felix stepped back to let Marlow and the second aesling into the pub.
Gods, what a strange turn his life had taken.
Lottie threw her arms around August. “Thank Baellas you’re alright! I was so worried.”
“What are you doing here?” August asked, hugging her back. “How did you find me?”
“Marlow helped.”
Felix cocked his head and gave Marlow a curious look. “Full of surprises, aren’t you now?”
Her lips tightened into an unamused line. Marlow hated nobles, and dressed in her fine skirts and lacy collared shirt, there was no mistaking Lottie for anything but. Did she know who the girl actually was?
“Found her at the night market,” Marlow said. “Throwing your name around, looking for her brother. You’re lucky the Watch didn’t overhear. They might’ve put two and two together and come looking for the aesling.”
She did know then.
Felix waved her off, unbothered. “I’m not holding him hostage.”
“Might as well be. They’re out thick looking for him. They’re gonna pin his disappearance on you.” She gave August a disgusted glare, her nostrils flaring. “Why’s he still here, anyway?”
Felix placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Breathe, Mar. You’re more paranoid than usual.”
She shoved him away, sending him staggering back.
With a dramatic wince, he clutched his chest. “Be nice. I’m still recovering.”
She scoffed.
Was Marlow right? If the Watch found August in a place associated with wielders, would they try to paint it as something else entirely? An act of rebellion? An attack on the crown? The masses would easily believe that story. It would only confirm what they already surmised.
She crossed to the bar and placed a caern on top before she poured herself a drink.
“You don’t have to do that,” Felix said. “I’ve told you your drinks are covered.”
As usual, she ignored him.
“She’s right about the Watch,” said Lottie. “Mother is beside herself. Even the guards are out looking for you.”
August frowned. “What? Why?”
“Things have been weird at home,” she said. “Something’s different.”
Uninterested in the aeslings’ conversation, Marlow turned to Felix. “You talk to your girlfriend?”
That caught August’s attention, and he leveled a scathing look at her.
Felix let himself bask in the obvious jealousy, his distracted thoughts returning to that moment of closeness—the scent of sandalwood laced with the subtle, damp smell of the Hollow Dark that clung to August’s raven hair.
Then he remembered the night market, the nobles, the elixir.
“Yeah, I got some answers. But you won’t like them.”
Marlow grabbed her glass and went to sit in a booth. Once he joined, she took a long sip and then said, “Alright, out with it.”
“There’s an elixir being used by the nobility.” He glanced up at August and Lottie, who had gone quiet, listening.
“What’s an elixir got to do with missing wielders?” asked Marlow.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Not for sure.” He remembered the girl changing Sarah’s hair, and the way she had brushed the whole thing off like it was no big deal, like he was ridiculous for getting so worked up over it. “It gives them magic.”
Marlow folded her arms on the table, leaning forward. “Ah here now, that’s just ridiculous.”
A few days ago, Felix would’ve agreed.
“I saw it for myself,” he assured her. “They’re using magic like a plaything.”
Her expression darkened like a cloud blocking out the sun. “They’re paying money to use the magic they hate us for?”
This next part—the awful conclusion he’d come to—he dreaded telling her.
She’d lost close friends to this. They both had.
And though she hadn’t ruled out the worst-case scenarios, she still had hope that they’d show up.
He hated to be the one to stomp out that hope.
They were supposed to protect each other, and this . . . this was going to hurt her.
Felix forced the rest of the words from where they sat lodged in his chest. “I think they’re killing wielders to make it.”
Marlow blanched.
The ticking of the old clock in the room’s corner was deafening, every tick a violent blow, counting out the passing of each wordless second.
The worn leather of the booth creaked as Lottie slid in beside Marlow.
“You’re certain?” Lottie asked. “About this elixir?”
Felix’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “I hope I’m wrong. But it fits. A new elixir appears just as wielders start disappearing. One that hands over our magic. I keep going in circles, trying to find an explanation where they’re alive, but I can’t.”
The softness of Lottie’s face sharpened, and for a moment, she looked so much like the aesran, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it from the beginning.
“And you don’t think the Watch will help.” It wasn’t a question, but Felix shook his head, anyway.
He knew what happened when a wielder sought help from the Watch. He’d watched Elise pay for making that mistake.
No, they wouldn’t be going to the Watch for anything.
“I want to help,” said Lottie.
Marlow shot her a puzzled look. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? You said people are going missing, right?”
“Wielders are going missing,” Marlow corrected her.
“That’s the same thing.”
The answer, coming from the mouth of a royal took Felix by surprise, and Marlow stared at the girl like she’d just cut off her own finger and waved it around like a flag.
“What can we do?” Lottie asked. “Where do we start?”
Felix glanced up at August, who was still planted stubbornly by the door, pretending not to listen.
How different these two siblings were.
“I know where they’re buying it,” he said. “If we can get inside, we can figure out where it’s being made.”
“Where’s that?” Marlow asked.
“The Gilded Mortar on 5th Street.”
She tensed. “Now that can’t be right.”
“Why? You know it?”
Marlow traced her thumb over the rim of her glass, then nodded once. “It’s one of Ciaran’s. I run deliveries for them sometimes. It’s shady enough, no doubt. Definitely a front for crooked dealings. But Ciaran? He wouldn’t be mixed up in something like that. Not him. And he wouldn’t hurt wielders.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t know,” Felix offered, though he doubted that was true. Ciaran Ashcroft ran his businesses with precision. A man like that didn’t allow secrets to slip through his fingers. He knew. But Felix didn’t have the heart to tell Marlow as much. “Can you get us inside?”
“Ciaran has a handful of Watch in his pockets. Keeps some posted there. No way they’ll let me stroll in and poke through his business without his say-so. Just let me talk to him.”
“I can’t have you turning up missing.”
She shook her head. “It’s Ciaran. He’s family.”
Ashcroft was a criminal who clearly had a hand in all of this. He was dangerous, and Felix refused to let Marlow put herself in danger.
“If you talk to him, he’ll know we’re poking around, and we’ll never get answers.”
Marlow scrubbed a hand over her mouth. She knew he was right. “Fine. What do we do then?”
That was an excellent question. One that Felix had no answer for.
“Just let me think.” He shoved up from the booth and paced the length of the pub. They needed a way into the apothecary. A way to get past the guards.
A way to move without being seen.
He stopped abruptly, and turned to August, who must have guessed his train of thought, because he glowered and shook his head.
Traveling blocks of the city had left Felix drained, but maybe a shorter distance wouldn’t have such a drastic effect. It could work. It would work.
Felix crossed to him and leaned casually against the bar. He had to word this just right. August wouldn’t be easy to convince.
“I have—”
“No.” The harsh word cut him off. “Do you not remember what happened last time? I thought I had killed you. I’m not doing that again.”
“We’ll only stay on the other side for a minute. Two tops. I’ll be fine.”
“Absolutely not. There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t.”
“Find one.”
Heat flared through Felix. He clenched his fists at his sides, struggling to leash his temper.
Then August said, “I can’t help you,” firing the words out like bullets.
The impact shattered Felix’s composure.
“That’s not true, and you know it!” he snapped, his voice a sharp crack in the otherwise silent pub. “You can help, you just don’t want to. There’s a damned difference, August.”
The response earned him a scowl, but Felix didn’t care. He kept going, too angry to keep his formality in place.
“I know you don’t give a shite about wielders, think you’re all high and mighty, which is fucking hilarious, all things considered. But people are missing. Decent people. So stop actin’ the coward and help me.”
A flush of anger darkened August’s features. “No.”
“Auggie,” Lottie started, watching warily from the booth. “Why don’t you want to help?”
“I do,” August said. He settled his face before turning to her. “But I can’t.”
She studied his expression for a long moment, then offered a gentle smile. “I understand. It’s alright. We’ll handle it.”
The response sent a visible ripple through August, tensing his shoulders and hardening his jaw.
“No,” he said. “I need you to go home.”
“I want to help.”
“I’m not asking, Lottie. Go home!”
Felix was surprised at the harshness in his tone, but Lottie seemed unaffected. She slid out of the booth and headed for the door.
“Ready when you are,” she told Felix.
August’s gaze knifed toward him—a clear warning. He was desperate to keep his sister out of this, and Felix was more than willing to use that as leverage.
He turned and strode to the door, ignoring the low, clenched way August said his name. Then he yanked it open and turned back, one eyebrow raised in question.
Your move, he thought. What’s it gonna be?
August’s expression was venomous. “Fine. I’ll help.” His eyes went to Lottie. “But only if you go home.”
“Why don’t you want me involved?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, but his eyebrows lifted in the centre, softening his face into a silent plea.
She hesitated, then to Felix, asked, “Is this dangerous? Can you guarantee he’ll be safe?”
With August there, they had an escape. Even if they were caught, they could get away without anyone getting hurt. It was a foolproof plan.
Felix gave a dutiful nod. “You have my word that I won’t let anything happen to him.”
Lottie either found the answer acceptable, or she realized she didn’t have a choice. “Fine, I won’t go with you, but I’m not going home. Not until we have proof to show Mother.”
She propped her boot on a chair and hoisted her skirt to her knees, and after a moment of struggling with something, she pulled a sheathed dagger from beneath.
Felix almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
“Take this, just in case.” she handed it to August. “I’ll meet you in the market square in one hour.”
August attached the sheath to his trousers and agreed.
“If you aren’t there, I’m sending every last guard to track you down.”
She said it to August, but Felix knew the threat was meant for him.
After the door closed behind her, he rounded on Felix, the anger radiating off him in waves.
“You had no right to do that.”
“I only—”
“Don’t,” August cut him off, stepping in close. “It’s not your place to force me into things like this.”
The words—so similar to the ones Sarah had spat at him—hit with enough force to knock him back a step.
You’d do well to remember your place.
Perhaps August wasn’t so different from the rest of them after all.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mo Aesling.” Felix dipped into a bow, bitter eyes locked on August’s from beneath his lashes. “I forgot my place. Next time, I’ll ask your permission before I speak.”
The response seemed to shake August free from his anger. He rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, you know that’s not what I meant.”
Marlow scoffed from the booth.
Felix straightened, his thoughts a maelstrom inside his head. “I think for the first time since I met you, you said exactly what you meant.”
August may not have thought he fit in with his family, but he was an Ellingwood through and through. He and Sarah and every other noble in this godsforsaken city, they all assumed that just because they had their titles, they were better than him, and he was so sick of having to pretend they were.
Magic buzzed beneath his skin.
He closed his eyes, trying to stop himself from slipping, from losing control, but the images he found behind his eyelids only dragged him deeper.
His best friend’s swaying corpse. The blackened skin of his own leg.
He bit his cheek until he tasted blood, then forced his eyes open again.
“Felix,” August said softly, desperation in his voice. “I’m an idiot. You already know that. I say things without thinking. I’m a big, dumb…” He gestured with his hands, searching for the right word. “I don’t know. What’s something really stupid?”
Felix glared. “You.”
Marlow snorted a laugh.
“Exactly,” August said. “That was dreadful and tactless, and I’m so sorry.”
The apology seemed sincere, and it was more than he’d ever gotten from one of them before.
“Never speak to me like that again,” Felix growled.
August nodded, and Felix relished the nervous twitch of his lips.
The aesling was afraid of him.
Alright, that’s enough now.
They had both crossed lines that could ruin everything. Felix was used to being treated that way. He could swallow it, bury it, move on. But August wasn’t. If this wasn’t fixed, he might leave for good.
The thought gutted Felix.
With a deep breath, he uncoiled, and the thrumming in his veins slowly settled into a quiet warmth. He crossed to grab the keys from behind the bar, then stopped in front of August.
“I’m sorry for bringing Lottie into it.” It was mostly true. It had worked, after all. “But I really do need you, Auggie. Will you still help me?”
August sighed. “Alright, yeah, fine. But if you don’t die in the Hollow Dark, you’re cooking me something delicious.”
Felix couldn’t help himself. “As you wish,” he said, motioning August forward with a sweeping hand and a melodramatic bow.
“I hate you,” August muttered, but there was the edge of a smile as he turned and headed for the door.
Felix grinned. “Liar.”