Kallia’s brow crinkled in earnest. Zarose Gate. It had its place on the map, yet always felt like a legend at the core. Every time she’d stare at the map of Soltair in her past studies, that point of reference was all she’d known of Zarose Gate, aside from stories. “That’s all the way on the eastern part of Soltair.”
At that, Jack drawled out a laugh. “Some Patrons claiming a pile of rocks on a map as the legend is only believable if the people buy it. Doesn’t make it the truth.”
“And why would they lie about it?” Kallia had never crossed paths with the Patrons herself, but she’d always understood them to be the peace and order of magicians. Demarco had hardly ever spoken of his aunt, but there was a distinct respect in his voice whenever he did. Those who wore the white gloves could not afford to get their hands dirty.
As if hearing her every thought, Jack paused just to throw her an incredulous look. “Apologies if this may come as a shock to you, but I’m not the only liar in this world. Everyone lies. Sometimes they have to, sometimes they want to. But good or bad, we all lie—especially when it comes to power.”
Jack walked on before she could pick at his words, but even she was not so naive as to deny them. She’d told her own share of lies, never one so large as this. Another side worth hiding. A world below.
Once upon a time, a magician fell into a world below …
It all snapped into place, Erasmus’s voice spinning the start of the story. A tale that began long ago, one that built the world she knew and the magicians that inhabited it. A world brimming with so much power, it would’ve consumed everything, had Zarose not shut its jaws.
It’s not gone forever.
“You said my magic would come back.” There was no sneaking around it anymore. She needed to know once and for all.
Jack paused, waiting for her. “It’s not gone.”
“Well it’s not entirely there, either.” No matter how much steel she forged into her voice, it always bent. “How?”
It couldn’t be a question of if. In a world like this, she needed everything if she stood even the slightest chance of leaving it.
“I can’t say for sure, it’s never happened to me. I’ve always been powerful.”
“Lucky for you.” She growled.
“No, what I mean is…” Jack trailed off, looking off into the distance as if his eye had just caught something. “Magic is not the same on every side. It might take a magician time to acclimate, or it could take just one step in and it’s there.”
“One step where?” Kallia set her gaze out, following his line of vision. Expecting darkness.
Instead, she found the moon, a murky distant light in the ceiling above. The soft glow of the trees and plants of all shapes and sizes around her was brighter, filling out the vast room cased in old glass.
Warm night air washed over her, sweet and familiar with wild, sprawling growth all around.
Should I have gotten you something bigger than a greenhouse?
Kallia blinked, surprised at how her eyes stung with warmth. How a place could make her want to stop, just to remember. To wait for Demarco to arrive and complete the picture.
Her pulse quickened at the sound of footsteps.
“This isn’t your greenhouse.” Curiously, Jack walked through, every plant and pot dissolving in his path. The deeper he stepped into the scene, the more it disappeared.
Kallia swallowed hard as she wrenched her gaze away. The desperation to stay gripped her hard, but she fought that false promise. It wasn’t real, none of this was.
Not real.
She was only convinced when Jack shook her out of it. The greenhouse, gone. The illusion, vanished. Once more, they were standing in the dark. The loss, as overwhelming as a death that she had to shut her eyes for a moment before firmly fixing her stare back to the ground, hoping for the end as she walked past him.
Only Jack didn’t move to follow her. Hadn’t moved at all.
Perhaps he wasn’t so impervious to the traps after all. Panic spiked in Kallia as she uttered his name, especially when his shoulders hiked up. “It’s here.”
Lights played across his face, forcing Kallia to spin around.
Her breath caught hard in her throat at the sparkling lights that nearly blinded her.
A mirage. It had to be. Like some grand trick, where there was only barren wasteland ahead was suddenly blocked by glowing gates, wrought-iron and bent into all manner of rectangular shapes.
Cards.
She drew back at the familiar sight. Her pulse quickened once more. It couldn’t be.
Those gates. Her vision narrowed on them. They glinted and glowed, but it was less like a dream. More a nightmare.
And Jack didn’t even try waking her from it.
“These…” Kallia took in all that she could of the wall, of the entrance. “These are the gates to Glorian.”
Jack’s reaction to the arrival was stoic, as if staring into the face of an old friend. Or an enemy. “Not the Glorian you know.”
5
Daron had been escorted out before in the past. From parties or clubs where brawls broke out when the drink poured too freely and guests grew too rowdy. The ever-sober corner of his brain knew never to fight the hands of guards dragging him out if he partly deserved it.
From the hospital to his hotel room, Daron struggled against the Patrons every step of the way.
The fog of rage had blackened out most of it. He only knew from the harsh bruising grips on his arms still steadying him, his heart racing from thrashing in their hold. One moment he was being pulled away from his aunt in the hospital, and the next, he was shoved toward the door to his hotel room.
“You need to calm down, Demarco,” muttered a stern-faced Patron. “Get some rest.”
That only enraged Daron more. “I don’t follow your orders,” he seethed. “What the hell is going on here? I need to talk to my—”
“There’s a lot of ground to cover, so you’ll most likely be able to reach her by the day’s end,” the other Patron supplied, setting back her shoulders. “Until then, it might be in your best interest to stay put.”
Stay put.
He’d done nothing wrong, other than let a lead slip right through his fingers.
Look for the gate, and you’ll find her.
How could Aunt Cata have silenced the mayor like that? The way she’d done so, without any hesitation at all, sat so uneasily inside him. It was never the way of the Patrons to enforce magic upon another without magic. Especially one who posed no threat.
He’d been so close. To something, anything.
The Patrons weren’t leaving until he marched right into his room, so he slammed the door in their faces, immediately pressing his ear to the surface for a few beats but the doorknob was already stiff when he tried twisting it.
They’d locked him in.
Daron gave one last kick to the door before thinking through all his options. The last thing he wanted to use was magic, if there was any left in him. He could scream until other hotel guests were disturbed enough to get him out, climb out the window and scale the ledge because surely—
“Zarose, are we bloody stuck here now, too?”
Daron whirled around, slamming back-first into the door at the sight of two intruders casually in his common room area—Aaros splayed across the couch, Lottie perched comfortably on the arm of it as she read through her notebook. Both settled as though they’d been waiting for a while.