Chapter XI #2
“Max.” Vic didn’t know why she said it, why she thought of Max in that moment. His power, the fear he inspired in the other Order members. It made sense.
Something flashed across Aren’s face. Anger flared in his bright blue eyes, and Vic was certain that this was the first honest emotion he’d shown her. A glimpse, as brief as a lightning strike, of the man behind the curtain.
“You wound me,” Aren said. The mask slipped back into place. “I did all that work, and you think of Shepherd. Tsk-tsk.”
Vic stared at him. “You?”
Aren nodded, his eyes on the stem in his hands as its dance restarted. “I was a Mage with the Order for years. I was Born, you see, to an ancient line. But it was my job to push the boundaries of my abilities, to find out what the Order didn’t already know. It was the natural thing to do.”
“How did you do it?”
“It took a very long time,” he said. “Years of work and practice. Though in the end the only thing that mattered was the willingness to try. It’s a gamble, and it could just as easily have gone the other way.”
“You were willing to die for the chance to become more powerful?”
Aren smiled. “For the chance to learn, Victoria. And yes, of course.”
“You don’t remember anything?” Vic asked.
He watched her carefully before speaking, and Vic had the unpleasant sensation of being understood by someone she did not know. “I do not,” he said at last. “But that’s not the path for you, little dove. You have more exciting things in store.”
Vic frowned. She hoped that none of this was real. The alternative was too invasive, too alien. But if this was all in her head, she could at least sort her thoughts.
“Max believes that I can learn magic,” Vic said. “Without having to be Made, I mean.”
Aren nodded, like the news was unsurprising. “Shepherd has nurtured this theory for a long time. I’m sure he’s delighted at the chance to test it.”
“How is that different than being Made?” Vic asked.
“Made magic is Veil magic,” he said. “It comes from a different place; it behaves differently. It’s the Order’s most sacred belief that Born witches alone are blessed with the magic of the natural world.
The suggestion that this could be learned, acquired, undermines their entire philosophy.
” Aren shrugged. “Shepherd is an iconoclast.”
“Do you think he’s right?” Vic didn’t know why she should trust this man, if he was a man.
“Suffice it to say I am one of many who are eager to see the outcome.”
When Vic said nothing, he leaned closer to her.
“Would you like to find out?” he said.
Vic looked up at him, wary.
“What do you know of Orcan magic?” Aren said, leaning away from her and straightening the items on the altar.
Vic shook her head, considering. “It’s forbidden,” she guessed, recalling mentions of dangerous magic.
Aren gave a derisive smile. “Ah, yes, that’s what they call it. But it’s a kind of magic like all the others, available to witches who need it.”
“Why is it forbidden, then?”
“The Order would have you believe that using magic of the realm of the dead threatens the integrity of the Veil. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with Orcan magic,” he said. “The Elders practice it, after all.”
No one had told Vic that.
“Despite this hypocrisy, the Order is deathly afraid of Orcan magic,” Aren said.
“Why?” Vic asked.
“It can lead to unexpected…outcomes,” Aren said, and he met her eyes with a shrug. “It eats.”
Vic wanted to step away from him then. She wanted to run. But something held her to the spot. Some desire within her overwhelmed any concept of consequences.
“Orcan magic is easier to manipulate than its earthly alternative,” Aren went on. “So even witches with little or no training can become dangerous if they start playing with the dead.”
Vic remembered Nathaniel’s warning when he came to collect Henry. He said that witches without training were dangerous. He said people like her mother hunted them. Could this be what he meant?
Aren beckoned with an outstretched palm.
“Your hand,” he said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Test Max’s theory for me,” he said. “If you’re learning the Language, if you’re picking up on things the Order doesn’t want you to understand, the spell will work. If it doesn’t work…then you have your answer.”
With significant unease, Vic held out her left hand.
“Your dominant hand, please.”
Vic reminded herself that she was dreaming, that nothing that happened to her here would follow her into reality, and stretched her right hand forward.
His palm was warm under hers and strong fingers held her steady.
When Aren reached for the knife, Vic jerked backward.
Aren’s fingers closed around her hand and kept her from pulling away.
“Be brave, Victoria. You will like it.”
Biting down a rush of anxiety, Vic forced herself to stay still. She stared at his hand as he pressed the sharp tip of the knife into the pad of her index finger. She hissed when the point broke the skin, and a drop of blood welled up. Crimson slid down to her palm.
“One more,” Aren murmured, then did the same thing to her middle finger.
Vic held her breath as the blade dug in and exhaled when it pierced the thin barrier of skin. Another trail of blood dripped from the new slice in her hand.
“Follow me,” Aren said, directing Vic’s attention to the altar in front of him. He held the reed in his hands like a pencil and drew on the stone surface of the altar. The reed crumbled and left black dust behind. “Use your two fingers and repeat what I’m showing you.”
He couldn’t hurt her here, Vic reminded herself, because none of this was real. She was dreaming, and the pain in her hand would be gone when she woke.
Vic mimicked his movements on the stone, beginning with a straight line about the length of her hand. Two V’s, crossing in the air, three shapes like X’s with longer tails. Then, Aren watching Vic’s face, they pressed their palms flat in the center of the symbol at the same time.
It was a rush Vic had never felt before.
Blood burned in her cheeks as all her senses flew open.
She could hear the trees whistling in the wind below.
She could hear Aren’s heartbeat like a drum in her own chest. She tasted the room as she inhaled, notes of blood and charcoal and the crisp mountain breeze.
The sensation lasted an instant and was gone, and Vic was left laughing breathlessly over the table.
“I knew you had it in you,” Aren said, and Vic smiled up at him, and his mouth twisted in a crooked, unconscious grin. It made his face look almost boyish, and Vic couldn’t help imagining this imposing and controlled man at her age, eager, as she was, to make a name for himself.
“Magic,” he said. “Just a taste.”
“Forbidden magic,” Vic said, and her smile faded as it dawned on her that she might have made a mistake.
Aren waved a disinterested hand, and practiced calm took over his face again. “Nothing to worry about. More a parlor trick than anything.”
“Why…” Vic struggled for words. “Why are you helping me?”
“I’ve been exiled for years,” Aren said. “And you’re interesting, even if you know almost nothing about what’s happening to you. Perhaps because you know almost nothing about what’s happening to you. And I could not disagree more with the Order’s stance on secrecy.”
Aren leaned in until their faces were inches apart.
“Spread my secrets far and wide, Victoria. Knowledge cannot hurt me.”
Vic bristled at his proximity. Before she knew what he was doing, his hands were on her.
“What are you—”
“Shhhh,” he whispered in her ear.
Aren spun her around. One of his hands held one of hers, the wounded one, while the other grasped tight around Vic’s waist. He led her forward with his chest at her back.
Held captive in his embrace, Vic saw the snow-capped mountains and a streak of winding blue she knew must be the river, and it was a stunning scene.
She was too distracted by the feel of warm hands on her body to realize what he was about to do until it was too late.
“You must face your fears, Victoria.” His lips brushed the shell of her ear as he spoke, his breath hot on her neck. “It is the only way to grow.”
And he pushed her.
—
Vic woke gasping. Her body pulled into itself like she really had fallen from the North Tower. She lay there panting and clutching at her chest before the truth settled in her mind. At her back were rough, unfamiliar sheets and a hard mattress and none of it had been real.
It had felt real, though. The wind biting her skin. Colors of the sky and the ground swirling around her. The terror as she fell.
What a horrible dream.
And what had the man said before he pushed her? Something about facing her fears.
Already, the finer points slipped through her mind like oil through her fingers. Vic forced herself to remember as much as she could before she lost it all. Made witches, secrecy, something about Max.
That man had shown her a spell. A parlor trick, he’d called it.
Vic wondered how her subconscious had come up with such nonsense. Was she really so desperate to fit in that she was dreaming about strange men helping her practice magic?
She banged her head back against the mattress. Her skin was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and she felt bitterly cold. She’d kicked the sheets away in her sleep, leaving her legs tangled in a mess of russet fabric.
Vic groaned and pulled herself up to sit.
She’d slept, as she always did, in a pair of underwear and a T-shirt, but it was freezing in the castle in the middle of the night, and the sheets were too wet to warm her.
She felt disgusting. She needed a robe and a hot shower and a break from all this madness.
Vic rubbed her eyes in the darkness and froze at a flash of pain.
Her breath came hard and shallow as she squinted at the hand in front of her face.
On the tips of her first two fingers were bloody holes like snakebites.
Vic scuttled back against the headboard with a shriek. She swallowed and tried to breathe, but she was panicking. She couldn’t wade past the abject terror that everything had gone very, very wrong.
Something moved in the darkness.
She was not alone—there was someone in the room with her.
The curtains were pulled shut and it was black as pitch on the far side of the room, but she could feel someone, or something, crouched in the darkness. Watching her.
Vic thought instantly of the man from her dream, the blond man who must exist in reality. Had he followed her here? She thought of the shadowed Orcan, the laetite, any number of unspeakable things that might lurk in the darkness.
“Who’s there?” Vic called.
She climbed out of bed and kept her back to the wall.
“I know you’re here,” she said, trying not to sound scared. “Who are you?”
Vic strained her ears for any sound of movement, but her eyes wouldn’t adjust fast enough and she couldn’t see a damn thing.
But the presence of another hung heavy in the room like a hot breath, and she could feel eyes tracking her movements. A watchful gaze scraped her skin like a needle’s tip.
“I can feel you,” she said, but only silence replied.
Vic edged along the wall until her fingers closed around heavy velvet. She took a gasping breath and wrenched the curtains open, drenching the room in moonlight.
It was empty.
There was no one there.