It had always been staring him in the face, since he arrived in Glorian.
Since he’d met—
Lottie’s bitter laugh sounded across from him. “If I’m right, then this began long before you came to this city. No surprise you’re only noticing now. Too much spotlight will do that,” she muttered with a shrug. “Do you really think as the Daring Demarco, you were running the show that whole time?”
“Of course not,” he bit out. “Eva and I always worked—”
“Together? Is that why you’re here and she’s not?”
Cold blood thundered in his ears. It ripped away the numbness like a curtain drawn back, revealing more. All that he’d missed and ignored so often.
There was him, every time he took final bows at his past shows, grabbing Eva’s hand so she could join him. And her fingers trembled. Always trembled in his hold.
Then the shadows under Kallia’s eyes—he’d seen shadows like that before. Exhaustion plagued them after every performance.
Though he felt none himself.
“I didn’t—” Daron couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. “I didn’t know…”
It never would’ve occurred to him when that wasn’t how the world worked. Magic couldn’t just abandon the magician and latch onto another, prey on another.
“No, you didn’t,” Lottie noted with genuine dismay. “Eva never even told me outright, but I’m good at connecting dots. I remember this one time when she showed up at my apartment late one night, practically halfway to death, while you were off at a post-performance party.”
Daron’s chest seized once more. “How could she say nothing?”
“She didn’t want you to know,” she scoffed. “Didn’t want your name tarnished … not only to protect your stage act, but because she’s your sister.”
“And I’m her brother,” he gritted out. To hell with their stage act. “I would never want to harm her in any way.”
Lottie flattened her lips, as if debating whether or not to say what she wanted to. But Daron already knew. Intent was a false shield when the harm was already done. Even if he hadn’t known the whole truth, the signs had been there. Even clearer with Eva.
Those moments of irritation. Comments that sniped at his starring role before deflecting with humor. The days she didn’t wish to practice with him. The long hours before their last performance when she wouldn’t smile. Not until she hit the stage.
Somehow, his mind had parted with these glimpses. As if grief only wanted to hold onto the good, the happy, and never anything else.
There was so much wrong he had to make right. So much broken he needed to fix.
His temple nearly banged into the window from the rocky jerk of the coach. The motion jolted him with an icy awareness of the trees outside, the weathered velvet of the seats. Zarose, he’d almost forgotten where he was altogether.
“Don’t worry Demarco, I have no plans to add more fuel to the fire.” Lottie inspected her fingernails. “Lucky for you, gossip never lasts. You’ll be fine not being Soltair’s golden boy for now. You’ll survive people hating you, losing whatever Patron privilege came with your name before everyone forgets—”
“Do you think any of that matters to me?”
His outburst shook the carriage, caused even the winds outside to fall still.
He stared hard at his palms, nausea roiling in his stomach. These hands, that had stolen so much. Careless. Thoughtless.
And deep down, he’d always felt something was wrong. Why else hide away after Eva had gone, from his aunt, from the stage, in the years that he’d become nothing?
Not nothing, something worse.
Daron suddenly wanted out of the carriage. He didn’t care what the Dire Woods would do. He needed to stop. To breathe. To scream so loud, the woods would bend.
“If you knew…,” he whispered, brow furrowed. “Then why say nothing, all this time?”
There had always been that fury in Lottie’s eyes. Even now, beneath her strange shadow of calm. “I couldn’t be sure until I met Kallia, but she wouldn’t have believed me. Nothing I said could change her opinion of you. Or keep her away,” she said with a small eye roll. “But aside from that, what good would that do to hang you out to dry?”
“You could’ve turned me in to the Patrons.”
A snort of a laugh. “I’ve been shouting about magician disappearances for years and it’s gotten me nowhere. The one time I covered one as a death, they actually cared enough to show up to the ‘funeral,’” she said, miming stiff quotation marks. “Now that the papers are all churning out the strangest shit I’ve ever seen, maybe they’ll finally take notice.”
Daron gave a wary nod. The stories spreading throughout Soltair would reach their notice, one way or another. With every terse, casual correspondence from Aunt Cata that week, it was the last worry on his mind.
“And besides, ruining you would only make you hate me more,” she continued. “And I’d rather see this to the end now that we have another shot.”
Daron blinked. “Another shot?”
“To do things differently.” Lottie’s thumb twitched, as if itching for a pen that was no longer there. “Searching in our own corners before didn’t bring us any closer to answers. And now—”
Her lip quivered as she stopped, but Daron knew that hope. “You think Eva’s still out there, too?”
He hadn’t dared voice it before, but the thought haunted him. She and Kallia had both vanished through mirrors, so reason stood that they might’ve landed somewhere similar.
The possibility fired up his pulse, but Lottie didn’t appear nearly as optimistic. “I don’t know. We can’t assume. Time matters so much in the case of a missing person, and a lot can happen in a day. For Kallia, it’s been a couple weeks. For Eva…”
Years.
Of nothing. Silence.
“It’s harder to tell when years like that pass…” The faraway look in her eyes cleared. “But our recent lead with Kallia is strong. So let’s take it.”
“With what?” Daron shook his head. “Without that club, there’s nothing else.”
Somehow, her smile deepened. “Just because Hellfire House was a dead end doesn’t mean there’s nothing. Only way to start figuring it out is by going back,” she said, pounding at the ceiling above. “And finally getting out of this—”
Their carriage slammed to a stop. Daron almost flew out of his seat as Lottie buckled forward with all of her papers sliding to the floor.
“What the hell”—Disheveled, she gripped the velvet seat to push herself back up—“was that?”
Head ringing, Daron helped her up. A chill numbed him at the jarring stillness, the alarm in the air.
And distant shouting, outside their window. Hoarse cursing from their coachman, at someone or something.
Odd. He’d never encountered other travelers in the woods before.
Daron opened the carriage door, shaky on his feet as he leaned out. “Everything all right?”
The hulking coachman whipped his head around with a grunt. “Delightful. Bloody white gloves and their little caravan won’t get out of my way until I declare my business.”