Chapter 13
They didn’t bother with the shackles or chains this time.
Instead, they opted to lead us both into a small cage with iron bars for walls.
They hadn’t bound us. Paul acted like it was a huge favour.
What exactly did he expect? That me and Ace would thank him for his magnanimous generosity and start heavy petting the moment they closed the basement door?
Nothing like impending death to put you in the mood.
Gah.
“It’s going to be okay,” Ace said, his deep voice rumbling as the iron bars closed in around me. We had already tried the lock picks. Neither of us could contort our bodies enough to reach the lock on the outside of the cell.
“You’re going to be executed tomorrow. Pardon me, if I disagree.”
“There was a time when you would have been glad to hear the news,” Ace said.
I shook my head. I might’ve despised him, loathed him, but the hatred was fueled from the pain of rejection. I’d never wanted anything bad to happen to him. I just never wanted to see or speak to him again.
Big difference.
Ace watched my face before tilting his head. “Not even a little?”
“Okay, maybe a little maiming or dismemberment,” I admitted. “But not actual death.”
He smirked.
“In my defence, you were a total asshole.”
“Not true.” He shifted his position. He sat with a stiff back and avoided touching the iron bars.
Did Paul know of Ace’s aversion to iron or was this simply a coincidence?
“You nicknamed me Mouse,” I whispered, trying to take my attention away from Ace’s discomfort. “A small, helpless rodent.”
“It’s a cute nickname.”
“You told me you chose it because I was a street rat, but rats were too fierce and intelligent for me to be named after one.”
He rubbed his jaw, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah…yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?”
I whacked his arm.
“I had to do something to keep you away from me,” he said.
“Was I really that horrid?”
“Quite the opposite, actually.” He turned to me, his gaze darkening.
I swallowed. “That makes no sense.”
“You were my best friend’s sister, Mouse. My only friend’s sister.”
“I’m beginning to think that friendship was a little one-sided.”
He laughed quietly. “Did the jail cell give it away?”
“Death sentence.”
“Fair.”
The most frustrating part was knowing I had magic.
The ability to use the power lived inside me.
Magical phaanon blood thrummed in my veins, but it was a song I’d never learned to control.
I closed my eyes and searched for something, anything, to answer my desperate plea. Surely, magic could get us out of here.
A spark of something cold shocked my body.
I sat upright, banging my head on the bars.
“What the phaan was that?” Ace asked.
“I…I don’t know.” I reached for the power again. It hummed and danced in my veins before flittering away.
“What did it feel like?” Ace asked.
“It felt like metal somehow.” I pursed my lips and searched for words to describe the feeling. What did it feel like? “Kind of like when I’m about to shoot an arrow.”
Ace squinted at me. “You feel magic when you shoot?”
I nodded. “It feels like power is flowing into me from outside and guiding my shot.”
He hesitated, his expression growing serious. “That’s not an outside power, Mouse.”
“Then what is it?”
“That’s you,” he said. He didn’t smirk or laugh. Instead, he studied me, his expression remaining serious, his brows drawn down. “That’s your magic. You’re not blessed by a mysterious god. You are your own source of power.”
I opened my mouth to argue and then shut it again. Could he be right? I knew I had power, of course, that wasn’t in question, but I always assumed the power took over, controlled me, not the other way around.
Surely, he was wrong.
“How would you know?” I asked. “You don’t exactly have a lot of experience with magic.” He claimed that while he was phaanon, he wasn’t immortal like me. Not a high phaan. Did he have access to magic or something else?
Ace frowned. He started to reach out but stopped himself. Instead of touching me, he let his hand drop back to his side.
“I’ve seen things,” he said.
“Sounds rather ominous. You were gone for a few years, not a lifetime.”
He looked away. “Sometimes it feels like it was a lifetime.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Ace lost in his thoughts while I got lost in staring at the floor trying not to let the feelings of hopelessness overwhelm me.
“Do you really think I can control it?” I asked. “I mean for something other than shooting arrows.”
Ace shrugged, still looking away. “Worth a try. It’s not like either of us are going anywhere.”
He had a point.
I reached forward and gripped the metal bars.
Nothing happened.
Of course, nothing happened. I had to actively use my magic, which I’d never knowingly done before. Shooting arrows came naturally, without any effort on my part.
My heart pounded as I fought to breathe through the panic already rising within me. We needed to escape this cage. Now.
But I needed to remain calm. Focused.
My fingers tingled where I pressed them to the cold metal bars. Something hummed under my skin, making the iron feel alive.
When I shot an arrow, I felt connected to my power. I needed to focus on that.
Closing my eyes again, I imagined drawing an arrow, the brush of fletching along my cheek, the stretch of the bowstring, the polished wood in my grip.
A familiar feeling of magic flowed over me.
I focused on that feeling. I focused so hard, I could taste it.
The bars grew slick under my palms, as though the metal itself was breathing.
A sliver of ice ran up my spine. I kept my eyes squeezed shut and blocked out the chaotic panic in my mind.
I continued to grasp at the magic, but like water, it kept slipping through my fingers.
Again, and again, and again. I mentally snatched at empty air.
Focus. Just focus.
“It looks like you need to use the toilet.” Ace’s gravelly voice punctured the moment. “That’s going to make things awkward as far as my last night alive goes.”
I hissed as the metallic magic slipped away. “You’re not helping.”
“Sorry.”
I inhaled sharply, and that’s when I felt it.
Thick, molten metal-like magic slowly slithered from my chest. It crawled under my skin, sluggish and viscous at first, as if it didn’t want to move.
This was nothing like shooting an arrow.
Instead of connecting to the power as I took aim, I was pulling the magic out, forcing it to bend to my will, and it didn’t want to obey.
My breath hitched as magic pooled in my hands, the sensation of it flowing like a river of melted iron, cold yet burning with unnatural intensity. My fingertips tingled and ached as if they were melding with the metal.
Heat flushed my body and sweat dripped down my face.
“Mouse,” Ace said.
I strained under the cold, heavy flow of magic threatening to drown me. I reached for more, letting it crawl over my skin, down my arms to my fingertips. It was like trying to change the direction of a river with a fork. And like water flowing past the prongs, the magic evaded my command.
My stomach twisted as the cold crawled farther, and a pulse of unbearable pressure built in my chest. The magic was on the precipice of ripping free and spilling out of me.
Come on.
“Mouse, you need to stop.”
I couldn’t even hold my magic, let alone command it.
And Ace would die because of my inexperience and failure.
Rage filled my body, flowing through my veins and over my skin. Power pulsed and rushed over me. My fingertips tingled and my breath grew shallow as my focus snagged on the metal of our prison, on the lock that prevented our freedom.
With one final, desperate push, the metal groaned.
A deep, aching sound vibrated through my bones and the bars, once stiff and immovable, shifted.
Slowly at first, like the hesitant flow of molten metal finding its path.
The metal curled around my hands as though the iron bowed to me.
The jagged edges of the lock melted and reformed.
Power surged within me with terrifying intensity.
I was drowning in it—pulled under by the weight of magic I couldn’t control.
My vision blurred and the cold burn of my power consumed me.
Ace’s voice broke through my haze, rough and urgent. “Mouse. Stop.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My magic roared now, wild and untamed, pouring from me freely like blood from an open wound.
The lock snapped open, and the magic fled. It slipped from my control and, like the ebb of a giant wave, withdrawing back inside me.
My stomach twisted again, and a wave of nausea flowed over me.
“You did it.” Ace straightened, his gaze flashed with excitement and something else. Pride? “You’re phaaning amazing.”
He leaned forward and gripped both my shoulders to pull me in. He planted a hard kiss on my lips.
The nausea rose, and I pushed him away in time to turn to the side and throw up.
Ace shied away. “Errr.”
I retched again, my whole body heaving from the intense withdrawal of magic.
“Can’t say I’ve had that effect on a woman before.”
“I find that surprising.” I wiped at my mouth and waited for the wave of nausea to fade. Once my stomach untwisted, I turned to face Ace. “Also, not everything is about you.”
He narrowed his eyes before waving at the lock. “It certainly felt like some of that was about me.”
My brother’s words came back to haunt me, I know what he means to you, even if you don’t.
I remained sitting, confusion clouding my brain. My lips tingled from Ace’s kiss, but my brain couldn’t process that at all, nor could I muster any energy to be embarrassed about emptying the entire contents of my stomach. I’d used my magic. But how? And why did it warp the metal?
“I don’t…I don’t understand.”
“I’ve given up trying to understand you a long time ago, Mouse.” Ace used his boot to kick the door open. He crawled out of the prison and turned to offer his hand. “But I always suspected you could manipulate metal.”
“How, Ace?” I slapped my hand in his and let him haul me out of the cage. My arms and legs shook while my vision swam, and my mind reeled. Another wave of nausea rolled over me. I swallowed and waited for the moment to pass before attempting to speak again. “How did you know?”
“Your affinity to metal. Most phaanons can’t touch iron, but you command it. I think that’s why you were able to blend in with the galeons so well and why they never suspected you. I think your brother will have a similar power if he ever bonds to a familiar.”
“I know you technically answered my question, yet I’m more confused now.
” I licked my lips and glanced around the room.
“But now isn’t the time for this discussion.
We’re not free yet.” I reached forward and jabbed Ace in the chest. “The second we are, though, you’re going to answer every single phaaning question I have. ”
His gaze darkened and a slow grin spread across his face. He caught my hand and squeezed. “As soon as we’re safe, Mouse, I’ll give you everything you want.”