Chapter Forty-Nine #2
The words on the page swim before me, the book almost slipping from my damp grasp. I roll the silver ball in front of the balcony doors to obscure the beautiful brunette faerie.
I can’t, she grits out, and I am back in my body, trying to breathe through the pain.
I’ll be quick, I think.
I don’t know if I can—
I pull the two pins from my hair, crouching before the lock. Straining, my genius slips under the door, and I gather the faintest sound of snores on the other side.
I am in the garden again, gripping a book I’m not reading. I’m pacing before the brunette faerie, I am the brunette faerie, I am a child with clumsy hands, picking the lock of a basement window, my father urging me on from the bushes.
Remember the coin pouch, he says.
Now is not the time for sentimentality, Kassandra cuts in. I shake my head again, but the pain swells, a splitting of my mind, the galloping of my heart.
I can’t keep up three—
Drop the balcony Illusion, I say.
Are you in yet? she asks.
Are you in yet? my father asks. The window jerks in its frame, and I am shoving the pane upward, with all my strength. I slip inside the cool basement, dropping down on a desk.
The balcony doors click open. The snoring inside sputters, then starts again. My mind splinters.
Drop, I grit out. Drop something—
The silver ball pitches over the balcony edge, unraveling to a thread that lands before the silver cat. The cat pounces on the prodigal magic, the Illusion sighing in relief. The words on the page fall back into place, and the pain eases.
I am back in my body, my sweaty forehead pressed against the doorjamb, hairpins clutched in my hand. The air is cool and dark, filled with the scent of sex. I am inside Dominik’s chamber. Slowly, so slowly, I turn.
Garish crimson-and-gold walls greet me.
What color is the furniture? Kassandra asks.
My mind reels as her voice bites into my side.
I twitch. What are you doing here?
I’m stuck in you. Now—furniture?
My focus returns to the room. From my position on the floor, the red velvet drapes surround the four-poster bed, the chest of drawers and armoire stained black, the trim details more the color of brass than gold.
It’s as if someone designed the room to look regal without ever having been in the Pith before.
He could’ve used his own décor allowance, I think.
The chipped diamond bites into my rib playfully. Now that this space is known to the both of us—me for the first time, and Kass for the first time in decades, I can picture the path out of here, lacing directly down to the garden once I am done, avoiding the stupidity of the balcony.
My eyes fall on the servants’ door, blending in if one did not know where to look. At the very least, I could escape that way, but then I will be seen, no doubt, by one of Dominik’s attendants. After last night, we do not want to test anyone’s loyalty—no one but each other’s.
Has the tea been drunk? she asks.
A servants’ stand is to the left of the bed. I crouch forward, slinking along the carpet, until I can see the two teacups.
Drunk dry.
Based on the snoring from the bed, the sleeping tonic has taken effect. Dominik will eventually wake and may even rise after I’ve made my move, but not before then. That is what matters the most.
So I crawl to the side of his bed. His slack expression faces me, his companion on the other side of him. I cannot reach him like this, and it would be too risky to loom over his bedfellow. I must wait until he rolls over.
I slide under the bed, heart pounding, hand slipping into my pocket. I take out the king’s gold letter opener, perhaps the only real gold in this room, and clutch it tightly.
Then, I and a sliver of my lady wait like monsters under her brother’s bed.
Time passes. Kassandra turns a page, her hand twitching with effort. The Illusion magic pulses behind her of an attendant who is not there. I strain for my mind to remain where I am—muscles stiff, under the bed, listening to the sleepers above.
How long has it been? I ask.
She turns another page. Almost a half hour.
The tonic may wear off soon.
Perhaps I can help.
Is that possible?
How is it possible that some of my essence has woven into yours?
I fight the urge to groan. How do we know so little about magic?
Because it’s easier for them if we do not know.
I think on this. What can you see?
Nothing. I can only feel your emotions. Hear what you hear, what you think.
Can you move up my body?
What the planes are you saying?
I breathe. It’s as if you’re stuck in my rib.
Gross.
I roll my eyes. If I can hear you in my mind, doesn’t that imply some of your soul is already there?
Philosophical little Avery.
Meld your magic with mine again.
How? We aren’t touching—stop that!
I dig two fingers into the spot on my ribs, pain blooming through my side. I grit my teeth, pressing harder.
Ouch, what the—you’re making it worse!
What worse? I demand.
I’m slipping away.
I notice it, too, my vision dampening, my heart still racing, but my body slick with clammy sweat.
The black powder is wearing off, and we don’t know yet if nature will allow us to keep our own magic or render us—or just me—a Molder.
This was the risk we both took—it must pay off.
And with my clearing and weary mind, anger rises, for this is what the males experience all the time.
This power, this awareness, this unfair advantage. How often do they take it?
Move to my tongue, I think before I can get away from myself.
How the planes—
Find a way.
The mattress creaks above me. I pause, clutching the letter opener in my hand. As I drag myself out from under the bed, I feel it—a pinching in my throat, a scraping—as if I have swallowed a gemstone.
Kassandra has moved, and so must I.
Now, she says.
I spring to my feet, looming over Dominik, who sleeps on his back. My eyes flick to his lover—Rose Tunes—face slack in deep sleep, magenta hair slung over one shoulder.
He’ll wake, I say.
Be quick, then.
I place the letter opener between my teeth. With trembling hands, I grab his shoulder and hip and heave. His body rolls onto his side, facing away from me. He startles, snores halting. His body twitches, a grunt escaping his lips.
This is the only warning she’ll get. He’s waking.
I rip the letter opener from my teeth and, with all my strength, plunge it into the base of his spine. Dominik’s body spasms. He grunts, sluggish.
I push it in farther, his legs twitching, spine arching, body convulsing. Rose stirs. Her tonic may still be in deep effect, but his wears off as the injury registers. The lord inhales deeply, his back expanding, lungs filling—a throaty wail building.
Open your mouth! Kass screams, my tongue pinching with pain.
I have to trust her. I do not have a choice.
I open my mouth as a slippery, shimmering, ashen magic tumbles out—a voice so rich and full, so true in its nature, even I believe he’s in the room. I believe it to be Maxian.
“Do not forget yourself, Dom,” the king says—I speak—Kassandra spins.
Dominik shudders beneath the Illusion unlike any I’ve experienced before, the wail dying in his throat. I part my lips again, leaning just above his pointed ear, and let the king, let Kass, finish.
“You can clear the House, but never forget who owns the land.”
I twist the opener, something snapping in the column of his back. He lets loose a high-pitched keening. Then I am backing away as his entire body convulses in pain, the golden crest blurring in the air.
I stumble into the shadows. My genius stretches outward, scrambling under the balcony doors, tumbling over the edge.
“Wha—” a muffled voice starts. Rose. She shifts in the bed, groaning.
Now, I shriek in my mind. Now, Kass—
My genius expands beyond me, almost out of me, stretching, reaching, screeching as I push it down down down to the maiden in the garden below.
Her silvery magic shoots upward like a spout, and suddenly the two are crashing, smashing into each other, the remnants of the oily, unnatural power fading away.
Lace! Kass screams. Lace!
My mind cannot stretch any farther; I am in the lord’s bedroom, I am on the bench below, I am in the air between. It is time to let go, like we practiced, and I do.
I trust Kassandra with my life, and dissolve into nothing.
As my body breaks down to the smallest form, I fly under the doors, my essence elongating like putty, over the balcony, and in a moment, it is snapping together like a rubber band and my body slams into the brick wall beside me, an emptiness in my ribs.
I collapse to the ground in a heap, gasping. Before me, Kassandra sits on her stone bench, back to me, air shimmering with an Illusion that flickers. She turns the page in her book.
“Stand,” she rasps. “Please, stand up.”
My legs feel clumsy, but I grip the wall for support.
“You can let go,” I tell her when I’m up.
The Illusion drops. Kassandra slumps forward, dropping the book. On weak legs, I circle the bench and kneel before her, picking it up. She keeps her face buried in her hands.
“Shall we retire?” I ask, throat dry.
My mistress nods. The comedown has begun, the colors of the world darker, the air damper. I reach out my hand, she takes it, and together we stand. We hobble around the perimeter of the Illusion courtyards until finally we reach her chambers.
Once the doors are locked, Kassandra rips off the gloves covering her debt rings and I kick off my boots. We collapse on the ground, bodies sweaty, hearts pounding. I glance over at my panting mistress. She grins back at me, face flushed.
“One day, we will get them both,” she promises.
“For now, we can enjoy them turning on each other.”
“As they have tried to do with us so many times.” Kassandra stretches out a tattooed arm. I clutch her wrist, and we lie there, reeling in our advantage and debt and hope.
“What is this feeling?” she wonders. “I like it on you.”
I let my emotions flood around us. “Victory.”
“Victory,” she repeats. “It smells like a garden.”
A few minutes later, the vomiting starts, black bile surging up our throats. It does not stop for hours.