“There’s nothing to remember. Nothing off, nothing strange.” Aaros shook his head. “This is pointless.”
“There’s always something to remember. Or there should be,” she fired back. “Do you remember the last mayor before Eilin? Any unrest? The last time any real crime crossed these city streets? Petty thievery not included.”
Aaros didn’t even have it in him to look offended. Only confused. “I don’t know what exactly it is you’re looking for. Before Spectaculore, Glorian’s always been peaceful.”
“That’s not how cities work. Nothing is ever always peaceful,” Lottie stressed. “Either that’s the lie you’ve always told yourself, or have been told all along. You’ve really never questioned a single thing about the world you’ve lived in, even once?”
“Do you?”
“All the time. Especially now,” Lottie answered soberly. “Why do you think I do what I do for a living?”
“Because you like to question everything?”
“So why do you feel the need to question nothing?”
Daron was tempted to step between them at that point, but Aaros had already risen from his seat. He didn’t glance in either of their ways, though in passing, he was noticeably shaken as he strode away. The Patrons must’ve left their watch by then, for Aaros had already slammed the door behind him before Daron could utter a warning.
The silence lingering afterward pressed from all sides.
“You knew.” Daron inhaled deeply before setting his sharp stare on the woman across from him. “You asked him all those questions, knowing he wouldn’t be able to answer them.”
Lottie pressed her lips tight. “I didn’t need to be convinced. You and I have both known something about this city is not right. This only just confirmed those suspicions.”
“So you believe him? The mayor?”
“Why not?” She raised a definitive brow at him. “You were so ready to believe him at his word about a map. Why not believe this as well?”
A fair point. He couldn’t pick and choose what was truth and what was madness. It was either entirely one or entirely the other. “I just don’t see how it all connects. Especially to Kallia, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps the reason is in why dear old Cataline went all rogue.” Lottie tapped her fingers against her chin. “The Patrons would never act unless there’s a threat. Or unless something of what the mayor said was the threat.”
Daron swallowed hard at the idea, so against everything he knew his aunt to be. “These are all hypotheticals.”
“For now. We need answers.” She crossed her legs, assessing him intently. “And you’re going to get them.”
“Me?” He grimaced. “I’m the last person she’s going to want to see.”
“Of course not, you’re family. Play that card hard while you still can.”
Nothing about this turn in the conversation sat well with Daron. “If you remember not too long ago, she had me forcibly hauled off the premises and out of her sight,” he said. “She would never just tell me anything.”
“Obviously, it wouldn’t be that easy. You’ll need to be a little more artful than that.”
“No, I mean we have not spoken in almost two years. My aunt would never just trust me implicitly with her dark secrets.”
“So you were a terrible nephew for a short time.” She shrugged. “Put on your best apology face and change that. Grovel. You’re still important to her in ways the rest of us could never be—so you have the advantage,” she said. “How else do you think I’ve kept Erasmus Rayne on a string all these years?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
Her expression slitted. “He loved me. Might love me still, but the dent I left in his little heart is the kind that’ll never go away. Love is a scar like that. And pressing on it can come in handy sometimes.”
The lengths Lottie would go to for her work shouldn’t have surprised Daron in the slightest. For whatever heart she may have possessed, she’d still always be the Poison of the Press. “Do you love him back, though?”
Lottie tilted her head to the side, as if the question were new to her ears. “Not the point,” she said in such a carefree manner, resuming her shrewd assessment.
“Love is a way in. Use it.”
6
Kallia’s jaw hung at the pretend city before her eyes.
It wore the bones of the Glorian she knew, but the flesh stretched over it was not the same. She knew that much just from looking beyond the gates—the lights flashing and colors dancing across her vision, raucous laughter mingling with music echoing in the air, mocking her from afar.
“Is this a joke?” Kallia’s scoff rasped in her throat. Her first arrival in Glorian, which already felt like ages ago, had welcomed her with nothing but silence. Scornful looks and ice in the air so biting, not even her cloak could shield her from it.
Nothing of that world existed in this one.
As expected, Jack was the picture of calm rolling back his shoulders. “It’s just an illusion.”
“Just?” She had never seen one on such a large scale, with so much life and detail in it even from a faraway glance. Standing just outside the gate, the familiar shapes of spires and roofs peeking beyond the gate tops. All of it overwhelmed her. A city. Even she couldn’t fathom re-creating such a feat, and maintaining it as a living, breathing place at that. The choice, above all, haunted her more than anything. “Why Glorian?”
“You’d have to ask the magician behind the illusion.” He assessed the city with not nearly as much awe. “Of all the places, who knows why he chose to bring this one to life.”
That immediately edged her curiosity. “Who is it?”
It shouldn’t have surprised her, the silence that met her question. Just when she thought she’d calmed, the spark of rage lit inside her again. “Jack.”
“Let’s keep moving,” he said, the city flashing before them. “Knowledge comes at a price, behind those gates. And the less you can claim to know, the better.”
Every curse imaginable flashed through Kallia’s head. She could wring his neck. Her fingers clawed with the temptation, but she needed him alive more than she wanted him dead.
“Do you honestly believe that, or do you think I’m just stupid?” she hissed, keeping at his side. “In case you haven’t noticed, that philosophy hasn’t exactly worked out so well for you, either.”
Clearly, from the way he watched the city—like some ghost he thought he’d long since banished—returning was the last thing he imagined would happen. The fact that it did, against every secret and lie told, was as unnerving as it was satisfying. He might’ve been the Master of Hellfire House before, in control of every part of the show. But this world beyond the mirror had shown it would not be controlled.
A resigned sigh slipped under his breath. “The magician behind the city goes by the Dealer. If you find him, or he finds you, a deal will be struck whether you intended to enter one or not.”
Kallia crossed her arms tightly. “I don’t make deals with strangers I’ve only just met.”