Chapter 44 Taera
Taera
Everyone—and I mean everyone—knows that I tried to kiss Nikolai and that I was humiliated.
No one knows about the real kiss. It’s a small consolation, given that Nikolai goes back to ignoring me the day after the party.
But I’m ready for his blunt display of disinterest, and I ignore him right back.
It’s not like it could have been anything more.
The kiss was wonderful—okay, incredible.
However, I won’t daydream over the same magician who tormented me for weeks beforehand.
No matter how beautiful he may appear, I can’t trust him.
I cut off every thought that strays in his direction as swiftly as I would sever any soft sentiments toward the desert.
But my social life is a pile of camel dung.
I’m the dumb first year, Nikolai’s practical joke, the laughing stock. My head becomes too heavy to hold up high—the weight of all the stares too much. So I avoid them. I drag myself through classes, sitting dumbly, unable to understand the lessons, ignored by the magician beside me.
But the party wasn’t for nothing. One of Jezebel’s sidekicks elbows me in the hallway and shoves a note into my hands.
I keep it stuffed inside my fist for an hour to hide it from Nikolai, hoping my sweaty palm won’t smear whatever’s written on it.
But when I finally unfurl it in the privacy of his chambers, I find it contains detailed directions to meet in a specific place at a specific time.
This changes everything.
Part of me, a ridiculous part, wishes I had a reason to stay—wishes that Nikolai wanted me here. That leads me back to the kiss that I’ve told myself to stop thinking about. He even warned me a kiss wouldn’t mean much to him, so why does it hurt that he acts like nothing happened between us?
I have every reason to leave—to go back to my village. Ezran, Gramps—they matter. They need me. That’s the truth I cling to.
That’s why I’m standing in a huge, empty ballroom that echoes the slightest scuffs of my feet. It’s dark, and so vast that I can’t see the end of the room. But I know I’m in the right place. I followed the instructions perfectly.
I don’t know why I left the note behind. A foolish part of me wants to say goodbye. To make Nikolai care that I left.
“Hello?” My own distorted voice echoes back. I aimed to arrive early, but—
“You came.” The voice that calls out from the darkness is definitely not Jezebel. It’s raspy and low.
“Who are you?” I squint into the gloom, making out a shadowy figure.
“You can call me Lee.” He steps into the light. He’s unnaturally beautiful, just like the rest of them, but his teeth shine too bright. His eyes are too blue, his skin too smooth.
“Where’s Jezebel?” I ask.
“She sent you to me,” Lee says. “To us.”
Four more magicians step out from behind him. They all share the same shade of blue-black hair and pace around me in a lazy spiral, slowly stepping closer. The hairs on my neck prickle.
This is so clearly a trap that I want to scream. But it’s a trap that will set me free. I channel my inner Nikolai to keep my face composed and force myself to think of my brother.
“I hear you want a way out of here,” Lee croons.
I grit my teeth. “Are you here to steal my magic?”
He freezes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can have it,” I say. “If it means I can leave this place.”
Lee’s eyes widen briefly before narrowing. He and his snake-like gang watch me like prey, as though waiting for me to bolt. I stand my ground.
“Well, then”—he smiles—“come with me.”
The magicians split around me, encircling me as we step deeper into the ballroom. The darkness is like mist, sticking to the corners and spilling out around our feet. But up ahead, a wooden chair becomes visible.
“You can take a seat,” Lee says. One of the other magicians slides a bag off their shoulders, pulling out a thick glass cylinder the size of their hand.
“Why?” I ask, eyeing the chair.
“We heard you’re untrained,” he says. “We have to strap you down. To help you withstand the pain.”
“The pain?” My voice is smaller than I’d hoped.
“Not too late to run away.” Lee sneers at me. “But I promise you that after we’re done with you, you’ll never be welcome in the Halls of Glass again.”
The threat should terrify me. And it does. But it also feels like freedom.
I stare at him. The idea of these magicians strapping me down turns my stomach. Is this really the only way?
“I won’t be tied down,” I say. My heart races, ready to run.
Lee shrugs. “Your choice. If you think you can handle it.”
He waves me toward the seat, and I reluctantly lower myself onto the hard, straight-backed wooden chair.
The wooden slats bite into me.
And five magicians close in.
“Since you can’t control your magic, we’ll be using this,” Lee says, taking the thick glass cylinder. When he approaches me, I see the etchings across the surface of both pieces of glass. I have to fight to stay calm. This is for Ezran. For Gramps.
“What does it do?”
“Channels it,” he says with a toothy grin, “without blowing us up. Heard you’re a powerful little thing.”
I stare at the cylinder while he pulls out a triangular pendant.
“This is going to hurt, darling.”
I take one breath. Another. “I’m ready.”
Lee lifts my sleeve with long, pale fingers. He takes the glass cylinder and jams one circular end against the skin of my upper arm.
The glass is cold. Then, the humming starts.
Except it’s not humming. It’s more of a grinding ache that starts in the bones of my arm and spreads up my shoulder.
I’m like a violin being played by a razor.
The gritty screeching grows louder and louder.
And then the agonizing suction begins, and I can feel it: magic being dragged from my body.
“That’s the stuff,” Lee murmurs. The pendant in his hands begins to glow.
I begin to pant, shaking even as I try to keep still, until a wail erupts from my mouth. The cylinder drops away from my arm, and the pain stops.
My robes fall back down. Unsteadily, I pull back my sleeve, revealing a blackened ring branded into my skin.
“Other arm,” Lee says.
I barely get to take a breath. He yanks up my other sleeve, and the glass digs into fresh skin.
It stings with cold, and then the grinding starts.
I bite the inside of my cheek—trying to stay quiet, stay still—and taste blood.
The cursed piece of glass screeches, excruciating, as it sucks my magic, leaving me hollow and shaky.
“This source is juicy.” Too-bright teeth grin in the background.
By the time Lee removes the cylinder, I’m panting. I can hardly hear through the piercing ringing inside my ears and the throbbing of my head. My legs twitch, and I’m grateful for the chair keeping me upright.
“How many more?” I gasp. I still need enough strength to find my way out of the desert.
“As many as we can get, sweetheart.”
“I don’t feel—”
I’m cut off by the cylinder digging into the side of my neck. The grinding swells to a roar inside my head, clawing at me from inside my skull. I try to scream, but no sound comes out.
Only a strangled puff of air.
“Shh. This shouldn’t take too long.”
When the glass drops away, air rips into my lungs in a ragged gasp. My vision swims, and cold blooms through my insides like frost spidering across a window.
Something is wrong. Very wrong.
Glass bites into the other side of my neck, freezing to the point of numbness. I try to think past the screeching pain. This is bad. I have to move, have to stop this. But my limbs slump uselessly. Even my fingers won’t curl. I sag against the chair, unable to keep my head from lolling.
I’m dying.
This is what death feels like. My body lists to the side, falling off the chair, slamming into hard marble. It should be painful, but it’s a momentary relief from the scrape of the glass against my bones.
Lee crouches, his shadow spilling across me. Presses the cold ring of the cylinder against my cheek.
I remember how to scream.