Luxury was a comfort that not many Chromians could afford—not if you lived in the south. For Magic, he considered himself lucky if his mother was able to return back from the marketplace with enough fabrics to sew him a new blanket for the wintertime when he was younger. That was the closest he got to luxury: plush cotton that was heavy enough to keep his nerves down at night, secure enough to easily lull his restless mind into sleep.
He cared little for fineries; they didn’t last long enough for him to enjoy them.
But he could get used to being on the receiving end of them, and the inn Vallian had directed them to was a sight to behold.
Bright lavender walls seemed to shine, even in the slowly dimming neon lights of the Central District (with each passing minute, Magic wished to see the flare of the Eastern Curtain, the natural sunlight, the natural night, not artificially made). The clay looked almost polished, a bright purple gemstone in the center of rundown houses made of cracked clay, a crumbling village beside a pristine monument.
Large windows, freshly cleaned and sparkling, filled up space on each layer of the building, the separation marked by a shiny black and brown rim that circled the perimeter of the walls. Low hanging curtains with frills on their sides could be seen from the outside.
Even the front porch, made of oak and rimmed with white and black marble, was new and the smoothness of it beneath Magic’s fingertips was awe inducing. In the back of his head, he wondered how much it cost to keep the building in this shape.
He and Mira tied up their goats to the side of the building where other animals ranging from donkeys, pigmy horses and sturdy oxen were holed up, though Bjorn threw a fit at the separation. The goat had tossed his head, shook out his fur and stomped his hooves in indignation at the idea of being chained up and Magic had never seen the goat so agitated. He ran his wrapped palms along the goat’s horns before making his way towards his steed’s chin. Bjorn tipped up his head, stardust sparkling in his pale blue eyes.
“We’ll be back,” Magic said, rubbing the goat’s fur beneath his fingers. “Keep Jeralt in line. Don’t let him start any fights with the other animals here.”
Bjorn huffed hot air into Magic’s face, effectively fogging his glasses. He took them off and wiped them clear, staring at the blurred image of the goat as he continued. “Don’t give me that. If I can keep my sister in line, you can do the same for Jeralt. And who knows? Maybe we’ll have to run errands.”
At that, the goat made a sound in his throat that almost sounded like excitement.
Magic smiled, pressing his forehead lightly against Bjorn’s with his eyes closed. “Be good,” he said, returning his glasses to his face. “Don’t leave or go anywhere without us. We need you.”
I need you.
The goat’s coiled horns scratched against his face and Magic pulled his face away before giving the animal a heavy pat on the shoulder and accompanied his sister up the grand porch and into the lobby of the building.
If the Central District Library was grand, the inn magnificent—it was a few steps down from the spacious lobby of the library, but it was far more taken care of than any building Magic grew up around at home.
Surrounded by wooden walls, shined and buffed by careful hands, the first floor had enough space to hold at least a few small families to wait for their rooms. It was separated into two distinct waiting areas, complete with plush, velvet couches that were smooth to the touch surrounding a tiny square coffee table mounted atop a rug on the left hand side. On the right of the front desk, the couches made an ‘L’ in front of a fireplace, the sound of the popping wood slightly irritating to Magic’s ears though he did his best to stand as far away from the heat as possible and, while Mira was securing the room, he took the time to flip through the pages of the two journals that Delilah had given him. To his delight, one read of tales like a storybook while the other a series of accounts from Scepters fleeing their hometowns compiled in one book, the penmanship varying between beautiful, calligraphy-level script and illegible, scratched gibberish.
He could hear the sound of something rushing through metal pipes above his head; he wasn’t sure if it was steam or smoke from the fireplace that was circulated around the building, but something was leaking in the spots where two separate metal rods had been welded together; tiny droplets dripped behind the woman at the front desk who didn’t look bothered by it, though it unnerved Magic a great deal. But he couldn’t bring himself to intrude on the conversation, not while Mira was giving a detailed account of what brought them to the inn that Magic had eventually tuned out in his observations of the building.
He wasn’t sure why his sister felt the need to detail their entire life story just to get access to the room, but the desk worker just blinked and nodded along to the tale and propped her elbows up on the table, a keychain dangling from her fingertips. “This will get you to the room you need,” she said. “Two beds, one wash.”
“And the cost?” Mira asked. “You’re certain there’s nothing that we owe?”
“Correct. Val made it quite clear over the phone that we are to be housing you both, so make what you will of the amenities here. Just don’t mind the heating system and be careful with the lanterns.”
Mira tilted her head, but before she could open her mouth to ask, Magic prodded her shoulder with the journals. “Look above you,” he said, motioning to the piping with his free hand. “It looks nice, but it’s leaking.”
The innkeeper grinned. “How astute you are,” she said and, based on her tone (which felt a bit forced), Magic wasn’t sure if it was a genuine compliment or if he was being insulted. “Truth be told, this building has had a bit of an issue keeping itself intact. Never mind the scent of oil if you come ‘cross it. We have it scheduled to be fixed in the coming days but who knows how long it will actually take. Engineers have a habit of taking their sweet time.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Mira muttered, and Magic raised a brow wondering when Mira ever had to wait for something to be serviced. Only when his sister took the key and winked in the innkeeper’s direction did he realize she was simply playing a part. The facade fell away as they climbed the steps together and she ran her fingers through her hair, effectively hitting him in the face with stray strands as he fell in step behind her on the staircase.
Mira heaved a sigh, shaking her head. “That was exhausting.”
“And here I was thinking you enjoyed talking to people,” said Magic, waving the irritants away from his face.
“I do enjoy talking to people. I don’t enjoy talking to people who stare at me like I’m a puzzle to be solved.”
Magic frowned. “Damn.”
“You’re an exception, Mags, you do that to everyone—and I expect it from you, but I didn’t expect it from … them.” The word sounded dirty when it left her mouth, so full of accusation. “The Subsidians stare like there’s something wrong with me. People didn’t used to do that back at home. This was never something people looked at.”
“People also didn’t know what the myths were back at home. As far as I know, my mom and I were the only ones who had the books that spoke about them—or, at least Ori. The stories were never in any official libraries or in the school building. All of the ones I got my mother brought back home when she sold her fabrics.”
He didn’t have to see her face to know she was frowning. “I knew what they were.”
“Because I told you about them. And, if memory serves, I remember you also telling me that they were just modern fairytales. That if these things existed, we would have heard about them by now.”
Mira kept quiet for a long time, continuing her march up the steps until she got to the landing on the third floor where their room was located: last room on the left hand side. As they approached, she wiggled the key into the lock, took a breath and stared down at her shoes. “And if we hadn’t left town,” she said, “I still might have thought that was true. So, I guess I deserve the ‘I told you so.’ ”
Magic only shrugged. “I won’t say that. But I will just ask you to have a bit more faith.”
“In you? Or these creatures?”
He scoffed. “A little bit of both wouldn’t hurt, I think.”
Mira rolled her eyes, pushing the door open with her shoulder. “I trust you. It’s everything else I … don’t …”
Her words faded to nothing, little more than dust carried away in the wind. Two steps into the room was all Magic needed to understand why.
The room Val had set aside for them was a luxury suite. It was twice the size of Magic’s room back at home, maybe more, with half the walls painted a rich purple, the bottom half a wooden wainscot of dark, burnished oak. Black metal wire lanterns were mounted to the walls, the flames in them flickering, tiny little dancers waving in place.
A bed lay front and center, pristine white sheets pressed as if they had been anticipating an incoming arrival. Split in half by a divider wall (where Magic assumed the other bed was), it essentially looked like two small rooms merged into one with amenities of a single room. It was far more than Magic ever had at home and he’d nearly forgotten that they were going to just camp up here in the inn when he rounded the wall, placed his belongings on the ground and laid down on the bed, the journals scattering out beside him.
Weariness hit him in a wave, replaced with the comforting knowledge of security. When was the last time he’d even slept on a bed? Alaric had them on the couches downstairs and he could hardly count the cots in the Southern District as being beds. Those mattresses were cold and hard as rocks.
This was plush, soft; the mattress folded around him, dragging him further into the cushion. Like a pair of welcoming arms, hugging him. Magic didn’t even care that his glasses were sliding up his face and digging into his forehead. Stars, he could’ve fallen asleep. He could have sworn he did for a minute or two, brief jolts of awareness gracing him each time he nodded off. If he could stay like that all day, enveloped by the comfort, he would—
“Mags,” called his sister from beyond the wall.
“Hm?” he mumbled.
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“Are you snoring?!”
“Huh?”
Mira groaned—he could picture her tossing her head back in that exasperated way she always did whenever he did or said something that inevitably annoyed her. There was almost always something that did. “Don’t fall asleep on me, Mags, we have things to do. You have things to do because I’m not deciphering those journals by myself.”
“The beds are comfy.”
“And those journals need reading. Come over this way and we can start going through them together.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Magic rolled to sit up, adjusted his glasses into being usable for his eyes, and picked up the journals, flipping through one of them page by page, though he kept the other tucked under his arm as he rounded the divider and sat at the foot of Mira’s bed while she raided the dresser drawers for something to wear over her hoodie. The deep purple jacket she’d been wearing was crumpled in a pile just to Magic’s left and he slowly scooched it over to give himself more room.
He tossed the second journal onto the bed closest to his sister. “Take that one,” he said. “From what I briefly saw of the content, it should be less heavy on the faith and more detailed about the journey. Careful, though, the entries look like they were written in a bit of a rush.”
Mira looked over her shoulder, dragging a thick-looking robe from one of the drawers that it may as well have been a jacket. Made of fluffy, gray cotton with wool insulating the inside of it, Mira tied it around her hoodie and jumped to sit on the bed beside him, grabbing the book he’d laid out for her. “I grew up reading my dad’s sloppy handwriting for basket orders. I think I can decipher the language of chicken scratch.”
Magic made no further comments and, other than a knowing tip of his chin and quickly raised eyebrows to urge his sister into reading, the two of them lapsed into silence, the only noise in the room being the crinkling of old paper as the pages turned.
Truth be told, Magic didn’t know what he was looking for—he’d had a vague idea on the way to the inn, but flipping through the pages, which jumped between different accounts of rumored Spectacle sightings, he wasn’t sure where to start. Some were incomplete, others so poorly structured that following them made his brain hurt and a select few were written in penmanship so tiny, Magic thought he needed a magnifying glass in addition to his glasses.
But then he found a page and paused, the script legible enough for his eyes to linger on and read.
I saw her today, started the page, and Magic adjusted himself to lay on his stomach, pouring over each word as they graced him.
I saw her today, perched outside my window. Nothing more than a ball of light—my sister thinks I’m imagining things, but Momma told me once that I had potential. I didn’t know what she meant before, but I think I get it now.
Ori.
Which meant that this writer was a Scepter from the west, but for the author to be that knowledgeable, they were likely from the capital. Magic’s fingers buzzed and his heart raced, tracing the lines of script.
He’d always found comfort in the idea that the mythical bird existed, but to know he was not the only one to have such faith (even though he knew it was stupid to believe otherwise) was a small reassurance.
Below this, another entry, but messier, a thin pen’s marks combined with a frivolous hand.
Father brought us to the shrine today to give our offerings for good luck. I need it for my test tomorrow and we borrowed a boat to get to the ‘pelago. I know Qu’ar doesn’t do the “luck” thing, but it’s about all I have. You would not believe the journey it took to get us here.
Bossians led us from the docks to the shrine; even with Mister Caea’s blessings they wanted our word and our proof that we were not here on behalf of the Vultures, but Soma’s children who come to visit our “beloved serpent”—that’s what Momma calls him. They held us at the docks for three days. Joslyn was angry, but I could tell she feared the delay more than she did hate it.
“Our beloved serpent.”
The snake carved on the south end of the tree with horns like a crown—it was the only conclusion that made sense to him. All the talk of the water and the “ ‘pelago” only shifted his attention south to the Maribyssian waters. According to the compass etched on the Maidenwood tree, it was the only logical conclusion.
And then well beyond that, a novel, written in scratched scribbles. A furious rant.
I have never wished to dive headfirst into the sea as much as I have today.
I know my truth. I know in my heart my truth. And yet still they refuse, they refuse, they refuse.
I heard his voice. He talked to me along the water, through the ripples of the boat and, though I could not see, I could hear his voice calling to me above the roar of the splashing tide. My cousin would not believe me. He called me crazy, patzio, as if we do not come from the same lineage born to connect with the Tide Caller and his siblings.
He says it’s because I lack her Blessing. I lack her genes, so it is the only way I can be heard in this world, to make things up.
Auntie did not believe me either.
Neither did Uncle.
Mother and Father only smiled that full-teeth smile they always do when they’re nervous. They just nodded their heads.
The only one who believed my words was the librarian. I trust him. I do.
I am not a foolish son.
I know what I heard. Storms, I wish they’d believe me.
Magic ran through the entry from top to bottom over and over again, sliding through its contents with the pad of his finger, tracing over the scratchy penmanship. Wasn’t this exactly what had happened to Mira in the Maidenwoods? The voice she’d heard that she said came from Locht?
He felt a bit of a thrill go through him. Finally, some solid evidence.
“Mira, I found it,” he said, flipping between the pages before looking up at his sister. But Mira did not move, did not even so much as acknowledge his words. She was unmoving, still as a statue, one hand cupped over her mouth. There were no tears, but Magic knew there would be. “Mira?” he said again, gently.
“My sister is gone,” said Mira, her eyes glued to the pages. “Gone, and never returning. I couldn’t get there fast enough. I should never have let her run through the fair. Mom trusted me to keep her safe.”
Oh, Stars …
He’d only skimmed the journals to make sure she wouldn’t get confused by the mythology references.
He hadn’t realized. “Mira—”
“I have watched these birds, ravenous vultures, burn this town to nothing,” she went on. Her eyes had shifted downwards, likely to another entry. “There are cinders where the houses should be. My childhood home lays in ruin; acid drips from the bricks like a faucet. I am one of the lucky ones. I cannot see beyond a mile and the children on the street are crying, ripped from Seeing parents.” She fought the waver that colored her voice and failed, the hiccups evident in her breaths. “And the parents—they scream, too, the haunted sound of a dying animal. We are fleeing prey. Fleeing prey from a vulture’s talons …”
Mira’s hand slid up, shielding her eyes from view, her usual easy smile replaced with a sharp frown that quivered in time with her shaking shoulders. What he could see of her cheeks were a deep hue and shiny track marks streaked down her face, forming droplets on her jaw before staining the pages.
Magic sat there on his side a few feet over, fidgeting with the book in his hands before setting it down on the mattress. A heavy weight settled in his stomach, combined with a nagging guilt at not just insisting that he could read it to her and go through it together that way. He slowly reached over, took the spine of the journal and closed it shut, but her hold on the bottom portions of it remained stiff and strong. Magic made a small tug in the hopes that she could get the message, but Mira didn’t budge. “Let it go, Mirabel,” he said.
“I don’t want this to be my life, Mags,” sobbed his sister, pressing the pages of the journal against her face, taking Magic’s hand with it. “I don’t want this to be what I have to do for the rest of my life. I thought I’d be living life at home taking the bakery from my father once he was too old to run it himself or living on one of the coastal cities on the western side of Droidell—”
“Mirabel—”
“—with a partner or something just living life the way it should be. Not hopping from alias to alias on the run because of something I don’t have—”
He snagged her shoulders by the loose fabric of the robe she’d draped over her sweatshirt, seizing it by the collar to give her a little shake. “Mirabellis, listen to me!”
She jumped and tossed the book, a gust of wind breezing just by Magic’s ear before landing with a thud beside the other. As if realizing the mistake, her eyes widened into a mixture of fear and guilt, the black pools of her pupils swallowing the blue and gray of her irises. Like she was waiting for the reprimand.
“This isn’t going to be your life,” he said. “You’ll get to do those things.”
“How do you know that, Mags?” Mira asked, still shaking through her sobs. “Did those people know that?”
Truth be told, he didn’t know anything. As for the latter, Magic didn’t much care what they knew or didn’t. That wasn’t going to help them now. But he did know that, as far as family went, Mira was all he had. His confidant and best friend. And Magic wasn’t about to let some group of low lives hellbent on tearing people apart get a hold on his sister.
“I don’t know,” he said, and when Mira’s shoulders dropped and she slouched a little in distress, his grip on her shoulders tightened. “I don’t know, Mira. You’re asking me an impossible question with an impossible answer. What I do know is that if the Cardinals want you eliminated, then they go through me, first.”
A small chuckle made her tremble. “It’s not like you have your knife anymore. You won’t be able to slice and stab at people.”
Magic found himself grinning, releasing his hold and shuffling back into his own space. “As my teacher once said, so long as you’re crafty, anything can be used as a weapon.”
“Your teacher was also about three inches shorter than you and nursing a broken set of ribs who may or may not have been half joking when she said that.”
“Fortunately for us both, I grew up being able to threaten you with a sewing needle.”
Mira rubbed at her eyes, flicking away the teardrops and wiping the stains from her face. “You should do this more often.”
“What?” Magic asked, brows furrowed, genuinely confused. The shift amused his sister into laughing loudly. “What?”
“Be more confident. It suits you.”
Magic only rolled his eyes with the smallest shake of his head. He was about to say something to dismiss the topic and reassure his sister of it all when she reached over and hugged him.
And he froze.
Something in his brain stopped working and a dull aching in his palms throbbed at the base of his wrist, pulsing against the skin; Magic wiggled his fingers to fight against the urge and closed his eyes. Every muscle in his body locked without his approval. Even his lungs seemed incapable of gathering air for all the good it would do him.
Mira knew better. He knew she knew better. And despite the discomfort, the suffocating discomfort, he understood why; Mira always had a habit of putting herself in other people’s spaces without regard for their preferences, but she’d always made a point of avoiding Magic’s space if necessary. Every gesture was said through a hold of the sleeve and he’d always been appreciative of it.
But she needed that. She needed that reassurance in the form of a knowing hug.
Stars, he couldn’t breathe. His head dropped against Mira’s shoulder, a wheeze trapped in his lungs like dust, spiriting away oxygen. When he could bear it no longer, Magic shakily took his hands and gripped Mira’s arms, prying her hold on him loose. “Fire,” he croaked.
Mira scrambled away with such speed it was like she’d touched hot coals, retreating into the mound of pillows at the headboard with her elbows bent and hands raised to her face as Magic got up and paced around in a circle, just to wait for the prickles on his skin to peter out and the tone in his ears to calm.
“Sorry,” muttered Mira, staring at her feet.
“You’re okay,” Magic replied, though he wasn’t quite sure if he was saying it to himself or his sister before settling on both. The hunch in Mira’s shoulders told Magic that she didn’t quite believe the words coming out of his mouth, but he found himself too strangely exhausted to care. “Look,” he went on, shoving his hands into his pockets, “we’ll see if we can find a way to figure out for certain if you’re what the Cardinals want. Look at me, Mira.”
Slowly, her eyes gazed upwards stopping when their eyes met. Magic couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his sister so upset, so … distraught. Anguished. That was probably the better word.
“We’ll find a way, the two of us.”
First, there was silence, an unbearable weight that magnified the guilt piling on his shoulders.
Then, there was a whisper. A small whisper, but one that reminded him of the oaths made as children. The plea of a broken daughter possessed by a demon.
“Promise me?” Mira asked.
“Yeah,” Magic said. “I promise you.”
And that much he knew in his soul to be true.