19. Dangerously （Un）dressed #2
I dropped my glowing hands. Not again. Quickly I clutched them behind my back.
Tarantula didn’t seem to notice, focused intently on my face.
Mentally I concentrated on the pressure in my head, on releasing the magic.
Nothing happened. Exhaustion mounted, and more water gathered, a glittering whirlpool, spinning in the air behind him.
I didn’t know how to control my magic without gesturing, but if I brought my glowing hands up, it would give me away and Tarantula would know.
He’d realize my deceit.
Protect the quest.
“Ravenal,” Tarantula said with quiet danger, shadows stretching across his face. “Describe the dire bear.” He reached for my chin, long fingers extended, hovering a hair’s breadth from my flesh. “Right now.”
Heat and silver seeped off him, onto me.
“Uh . . .” The watery cyclone grew larger. “It had black fur,” I said in a rush. “And I think there was a white marking on its nose?”
Tarantula inhaled sharply. “Bruce.” The butterfly on his stomach slowly flapped as his striated abdominal muscles flexed tightly. He visibly shook from the force of his ire.
“Bruce?” I asked. “The dire bear’s name is Bruce? That’s—”
“The man.” He bared his teeth, and for a second, his canines looked sharp, like Axel’s. “I shall rip out both of his hearts for leaving such marks on thee.” Black flames leaped higher, the scent of magic burning.
Water spiraled faster in the air behind him, a blur of glistening droplets, defying gravity.
“Wait . . .” I whispered. “Are the dire bears people . . . who transform into . . . bears?” Are shifters real?
It sounded so ridiculous saying it aloud that I almost laughed, but then I remembered how so many people who ventured outside the Northern Commune walls were attacked by dire bears. Almost as if . . . they were purposefully patrolling, keeping us inside the city.
Tarantula didn’t deny it. Silently he seethed, still flushed, unable to meet my gaze.
Horror rose sharply, and I fought the urge to be sick. “The dire bears attack us on the Emperor’s orders.” I backed away from him down the hall. Please don’t look over your shoulder, I mentally begged him.
By some miracle, Tarantula kept his gaze forward and followed me as if entranced.
Please.
Please.
Please.
I crossed my fingers behind me for luck, drawing Tarantula farther away from the cyclone of sparkling water still spiraling in the air.
“But that means . . .” I said, thoughts sluggish, head throbbing from magical exertion as I struggled to connect the dots through my panic. “They let me live. The dire bear . . . it stopped attacking me. Why? Why me?” Why am I always so lucky?
Tarantula slowly tilted his head, tendons straining beneath chiffon as he followed me. A predator locked on its prey. Hunting.
I backed away faster, almost to the corner.
“I do not know,” Tarantula said. Whoosh. Silver exploded around his body. My hair whipped as wind gusted, ruined flowers and vines filling the air. Diamonds winked mockingly on his throat. He’s not contained in any way.
His shredded debris joined my cyclone.
A sound of fear escaped my throat. He froze at the noise and closed his eyes, head tipped, nostrils flaring like he was struggling for control.
Hastily I waved my glowing hands at the water behind him, and the cyclone stopped, droplets raining to the floor, taking flower petals with them.
Turning, I sprinted.
I glanced over my shoulder; Tarantula’s eyes shot open. He chased after me. Leaping down the stairs two at a time, I swallowed a scream. Bursting into the lobby, I nearly ran into the waiting twins.
“Did you try singing to him?” Axel suggested. “I find it helps.”
I panted with my hands on my knees.
“What helps?” Tarantula asked as he came to a stop behind me.
All three of us ignored him.
“It’s not your fault that you’re pitchy.” Axel winked at me. “Not everyone can be talented like me.”
“How do you put up with him?” I asked Ella.
“Excessive corporal punishment,” she deadpanned, and I forced out a laugh despite the abject terror clawing at me. Phantom pain laced down the scars on my spine.
The dire bears are people, and I almost just revealed my magic.
Breathing shallowly, I focused on Ella. I was playing a dangerous game, and I kept forgetting there were no rules.
Ella and Axel stiffened, both looking at Tarantula behind me, and I refused to glance back. He will not intimidate me.
“Let’s go,” I said, trying not to ponder any of the new revelations. There’d be time to panic later.
Ella linked her arm through mine and led us out into the street. “So, we’re looking for a tall man with pale skin, long light blond hair, and colorless eyes,” she whispered as we walked, reciting the description the Marshal had given us about Sibrain Cortz.
“Hideousness must run in the family,” I said loudly with disdain, hiding behind bravado.
My spine burned under the weight of his intense scrutiny. His fury seethed, a violent tangible energy. I fought the urge to cover up and scream at him to look away. It didn’t help that for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about his butterfly tattoo. Why does he have it?
Thoughts spiraling, I barely noticed as we traversed down a narrow stone path wedged between row homes.
We came to a stop at a tall wooden door with two burly men guarding it, dressed in similar chiffon fabric.
The building was completely concealed by thick vegetation, with torches hanging in its shadows.
“We’re here to sample your wine,” Axel drawled as he stepped forward, his chest puffed up.
The guards barely spared him a glance. “The Bear of the North,” one said with awe as he stared at me, enraptured, then at Tarantula, who loomed behind me in cuffs. “The first Knight Mage to capture a Royal Mage in all of history . . .” The guard trailed off like he’d lost the ability to speak.
He gestured to a large painting hanging on the wall beside the door. The canvas depicted me: I held up Tarantula by his hair, my knife protruding from his stomach, with a fierce scowl on my scarred, blood-covered face. Candles surrounded our notorious portrait. Some sort of shrine?
“It’s our greatest honor,” the other guard said as they both bowed low to me, “to be in your illustrious presence.”
“It was my privilege to serve the Commonwealth,” I said awkwardly. “It was truly my pleasure to stab him.”
In my periphery, Tarantula huffed and rolled his eyes.
“Frankly,” I continued, suddenly enjoying the moment, “I’d do it again, right now, just for the good of the—”
“Alright, thanks for having us,” Ella said as she grabbed my arm and cut me off. “May we enter? The Bear of the North has heard many great things about Babilon’s wine taverns.”
The guards made sounds of half worship, half shock, as they nodded at her with wide eyes, transfixed by her beauty. They hastily pulled open the door for us to pass, still unable to speak.
Nothing could have prepared me for the inside.
Dark, seductive, and leafy.
Mystically enchanting.
Immense windows were being pulled closed by muscular men yanking ropes attached to a pulley system, ushering in darkness.
The ceiling towered so high up that I couldn’t see it among the dense foliage.
The entire structure had been built around an impressive banyan tree; thousands of lanterns hung from its sprawling leafy branches and hanging vines; lights glittered like fireflies in the darkness.
The lanterns weren’t the only things hanging from the tree.
Male and female dancers twirled from colorful silk ribbons that dangled from the towering branches, silky chiffon fabric shimmering. They were upside down, their long legs contorted into impossible positions as they lowered and raised themselves up on their scarves.
Down below on the floor, within the tree’s thick roots, couches were spread around and filled with people in similar outfits. The patrons smoked long Southern cigarettes and laughed as they savored ornate glasses of wine.
A melody played from the glittering foliage. Musicians sat atop the high branches, playing various instruments, and the tinkling sounds were falling from above like rain.
Male and female servers in richly colored chiffon poured wine into elegant flower-shaped glasses.
“The Knight Mages!” a voice shouted. The music stopped, dancers paused mid-twirl, and the people on the couches sat up straighter.
Everyone gawked at us.
We waved awkwardly.
Murmurs filled the room, and cheers exploded.
The music resumed, and the dancers went back to twirling among the lanterns. Hyperaware of how much clothing I wasn’t wearing, I shifted my hair over the front of my torso, covering my chest. Of course, that left my scarred spine exposed, and a magical gust of air wafted across it.
Tarantula’s gaze burned.
A waiter appeared with a tray full of wineglasses. “Fairy wine.” He winked. “Compliments of the house.”
Axel grabbed the rose glass and threw the shimmering red liquid back in one gulp. Ella took the stem of a hibiscus delicately, and to my surprise, Tarantula accepted the jasmine glass.
The waiter gestured to the last artful glass, a bougainvillea. “And one for the Bear of the North,” he offered in a playful tone.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t drink.”
Mom had said someone wrote a story in the Democratic Papers that fairy wine, named after a fictional drink from the fairy tales, was secretly a dangerous import from the Empire. But the author died mysteriously, and the next paper renounced all their findings. It was all very suspicious.
Mom had warned me never to drink fairy wine because of the danger: the censorship.
The waiter winked. “Don’t worry. I have something we procured just for you today.” From a velvet pouch, he pulled out a skinny glass tube in the shape of an iris, full of sparkling silver powder. “They call it magic in a bottle. Just pour it on your tongue for a special . . . experience.”