22. The Silence of the Plumber #2
Her dark coat blends with the curtains. Her magic is actively warding her.
“Dorian,” she says.
My magic hits the air between us.
The curtains snap back as if struck by wind. Dust lifts from the boards. Somewhere above us, a light fixture pops, showering sparks into the dark.
“You texted me,” I shout.
“Yes.”
“Why do you have Fate’s phone?”
“I took it from her.”
Fate is cold in my arms.
The theater listens.
I can feel it—walls, rafters, painted scenery, old velvet, every false death ever performed here leaning toward this one horror.
“Why?”
“So she couldn’t contact you.”
“Does Alistair know you’re here?”
“No.”
Short responses. Not enough to explain what went on here. But enough to convict.
Enough to convict.
“What did you do to her?”
“We’re in a theater. She is playing Juliet.”
“She’s not playing anything. She has no pulse.”
Anneliese faces the side of the stage.
“She has no breath,” I continue.
“Remember the play.”
“Yes. Romeo kills himself to be with her. Do you have some poison for me too?”
“You will not need it.”
I stand slowly, Fate gathered against my chest.
“I don’t have time for this nonsense,” I say, “Either help me bring her back or help me join her.”
“Careful,” she whispers. “The walls have ears.”
The laugh that leaves me is not sane. “Let them hear.” My voice rises until the rafters shake. “Let them come find me. Let every wall in this cursed town listen. They have already taken everything that matters.”
Anneliese’s expression tightens. “You are not without options, Dorian.”
I look down at Fate’s still face.
Something inside me tears open so violently the stage lights flare white.
Options.
A door appears in my mind.
I remember that night at the Foglight. What did we discuss?
At first, the memories are garbled. Then, piece-by-piece, they come flooding back.
Old warlock magic. Forbidden for good reason. Death-door bargain. A life called back through exchange. Breath for breath. Pulse for pulse.
My grandfather knew it.
My father warned me never to learn it.
I learned anyway.
Of course I did.
I lower Fate gently to the stage and reach for what the spell requires.
Salt from an emergency ward pouch. Silver from my badge chain. Blood from my palm, opened with one sharp bite of magic. A name spoken with intent.
Anneliese moves closer. “You can't save her, Dorian. It is too late.”
“Do not.”
“If you cross that door, you may not return.”
“I am not asking to return. These are my options. You said it yourself.”
“She will not return. Not as she was. Not as who she is.”
Fear crosses her face at last.
Good.
I draw the first symbol on the boards in blood and salt. The theater shudders. The listening walls go very still.
Anneliese kneels across from me, not touching the circle. “This is not what she wants.”
“How do you know?”
“She chose to listen to her mother.”
“She chose alone.”
The words cut through both of us.
For the first time, Anneliese looks away.
She stares at a giant inner ear in the corner of the room.
I draw the second symbol. The air splits cold. Fate’s hair stirs against the stage though no wind moves.
My wolf quiets.
Not because he approves. Because he has already decided. Mate gone. Follow.
Anneliese’s voice softens. “You must learn patience and trust.”
“Stay out of my way.”
“You don’t understand. The spell cannot be rushed.”
“If you think I would trust anything you say to me right now—"
The third symbol waits beneath my bleeding hand.
Beyond it, the death-door begins to open.
Cold pours through.
I think of Fate laughing in my bed. Fate under moonlight. Fate saying choose me.
“I choose her,” I say.
Then I press my palm to the stage and begin the bargain.
The death-door opens under my palm. The stage drops away beneath my senses, and cold pours up through the boards like the theater has been built over a grave that has finally remembered my name.
I speak the first word of the bargain.
The air tears.
Anneliese lunges forward but stops at the edge of the circle, teeth bared, eyes blazing with old fear and something else.
“Dorian, do not finish that sentence.”
The second word forms on my tongue.
Then someone crashes through the side door hard enough to make the whole theater jump.
“Wolfe!”
Kelly.
Her voice hits the stage like a thrown brick.
I do not look up.
If I look up, I may stop.
If I stop, Fate stays cold.
Kelly runs down the aisle, soaked with rain, hair plastered to her forehead, one hand gripping her service weapon and the other clutching what looks like a fire extinguisher.
For one insane second, even the death-door seems confused.
Anneliese turns. “Officer Hart, stay back.”
Kelly reaches the orchestra pit, takes in the stage, Fate’s body, my blood on the boards, and the circle opening beneath my hand. “Absolutely not. I leave you alone for twenty minutes and you start doing death crafts?”
“Kelly,” I warn.
“No. Do not Kelly me in your ominous ritual voice.”
“This is not your fight.”
“That is the stupidest thing you have said all week, and that’s saying something.”
The third word burns in my throat. Cold grips my wrist, pulling. The bargain wants completion.
So do I.
Kelly stops just outside the circle. Her face is pale. She is terrified.
She steps forward anyway.
The ward line snaps at her boots, throwing blue sparks up her legs. She gasps, but she does not retreat.
“Officer Hart,” Anneliese says sharply. “That circle can kill you.”
Kelly looks at her. “So can half the dating pool in this town, apparently.”
Then she points the fire extinguisher at the circle and squeezes the handle.
A stream of foam squeals onto the stage. The salt parts, breaking the circle.
The circle screams. So does the theater—walls, rafters, curtains, every listening surface shrieking with feedback that drives pain straight through my skull.
I snarl and reach for the broken line.
Kelly drops the extinguisher and grabs my hands. “Stop.”
“Let go.”
“No.”
“I can bring her back.”
“You will die trying.”
“I do not care.”
Her eyes fill, but her grip tightens. “I do.”
That stops nothing.
So she says the only thing that can. “You told me fear lies.” Her voice cracks, loud in the screaming theater. “So don’t believe it now.”
The words hit harder than the broken circle.
Fear lies. My own rule. My own warning.
Thrown back at me by the human partner I tried to leave behind because I thought panic was prophecy.
Kelly is crying now. Furious about it, but tears are flowing down her cheeks. “You told me evidence matters. Look at the evidence. Anneliese is stalling, not fleeing. The spell reacted when I broke the line. The walls are screaming because they are not getting the ending they wanted.”
The ending they wanted.
Romeo drinks.
Juliet wakes too late.
Tragedy repeats.
My breath shudders.
The death-door strains beneath my palm, hungry for the final word.
Fate lies still.
Too still.
But beneath the cold, beneath the false death, beneath the muted bond—
Purple.
A flicker.
Not gone.
My hand trembles.
Kelly sees it. “Dorian.”
I look at her. My partner. Human. Terrified. Standing in a death circle because loyalty has made her braver than magic.
“Don’t believe it,” she whispers.
Behind us, Fate takes a deep, brutal breath.
The sound breaks the world.
I turn so fast pain tears through my shoulder.
Fate arches off the stage, choking air into her lungs like she has clawed her way up from the bottom of the sea.
The death-door slams shut.
The circle goes dark.
And for one impossible second, none of us moves.
Then Fate coughs, gasps, and opens her eyes violently. Not romantically. Not beautifully. She jackknifes upward with a strangled gasp, claws at the air, and nearly elbows me in the throat.
I have never welcomed injury more in my life.
“Fate.”
Her name breaks out of me as I catch her.
She is cold, shaking, alive. Her breath saws in and out of her lungs like each inhale has teeth. Her eyes are wild, unfocused, fox-bright with terror and magic.
“No—” she chokes. “No, I wasn’t—Dorian?”
“I’m here.”
She grips my coat with both fists. “Dorian.”
“I’m here.”
She makes a broken sound and buries her face against my chest.
Everything in me collapses around Fate.
My arms close hard. Too hard, probably. I do not care. I hold her like the stage might try to take her again. Like if I loosen one finger, she will slip back through whatever cold door the spell dragged her near.
Her body trembles against mine.
So does mine.
I feel Kelly a few feet away, still breathing hard, not sure whether to raise her gun or hide it.
Anneliese stands beyond the broken circle, pale and silent, Fate’s phone clutched in one hand. She looks up and says something to the ceiling.
I cannot look at either of them yet.
If I look away from Fate, I may become something no one in this theater survives.
Fate lifts her head. Her lips are blue-tinged. Her pupils are blown wide. “I’m sorry.”
The words land wrong.
So wrong they almost make me laugh.
“No.”
She flinches.
I soften my grip immediately but not my voice. “No. Do not apologize like this was a broken vase.”
Her eyes fill. “I didn’t know how else to—”
“You were dead.”
“Not dead.”
“You had no pulse.”
“It was hidden.”
“No breath.”
“Masked.”
“The bond went silent.”
Her mouth trembles.
That one gets through. Good. Let it.
“You do not get to explain the technicalities to me right now,” I say. “You do not get to make this tidy because there was a spell and a plan and a reason. I held you on this stage and believed I had lost you.”
Her tears spill.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers again, but this time the words are smaller. Not dismissal. Grief.
I close my eyes.
Fury and relief are not opposite emotions. They are the same storm moving in different directions.
I press my forehead to hers. “Never again.”
“I know.”
“No.” I open my eyes. “You don’t. If you understood what it did to me, you would not apologize like you tracked mud on the floor.”
A tiny, miserable sound escapes her. “Floors can be traumatized by mud. You’d be surprised.”
Kelly makes a strangled noise that might be a laugh and might be the last thread of her sanity snapping.