Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in the United States of America by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, 2012
Published in Great Britain by Berkley UK 2012
Copyright © Devon Monk, 2012
Cover illustration @ Larry Rostant
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-71-819760-5
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
BERKLEY UK
Devon Monk has one husband, two sons and a dog named Mojo. She lives in Oregon and is surrounded by colourful and numerous family members who mostly live within dinner-calling distance of each other. Devon’s previous novels, Magic to the Bone, Magic in the Blood, Magic in the Shadows, Magic on the Storm and Magic Without Mercy, have also been published by Penguin. Visit her on the web at www.devonmonk.com.
By the same author
Magic to the Bone
Magic in the Blood
Magic in the Shadows
Magic on the Storm
Magic Without Mercy
For my family
Without the many people who have contributed time and energy along the way, this book, nay, this entire series would never have seen the light of day. My deepest thanks to my agent, Miriam Kriss, for believing in Allie and her story, and also to my wonderful editor, Anne Sowards, for her keen eye and amazing knack for making each book better. A huge thank-you also to the fabulous artist Larry Rostant and to the many people within Penguin who have gone above and beyond to make this series shine.
There are two first readers who made it through every rough draft of every book, and probably deserve a medal for that. Thank you, Dean Woods and Dejsha Knight, for all the last-minute reads, for the crazy brainstorming sessions, and for your wonderful suggestions, enthusiasm, and help. I could not have done this without you. A big, squishy thanks to my family, one and all, for being there for me, offering unfailing encouragement and sharing in the joy. To my husband, Russ, and sons, Kameron and Konner—you are such strong, creative people and the very best part of my life. Thank you for putting up with me. I love you.
To you, my dear reader, go my greatest thanks. A book can only really come alive when there is someone to share it with. Thank you for giving me the chance to share these people, this world, and this journey with you.
I never expected cookies at the end of the world. Some other more violent dessert perhaps, like volcano cake or devil’s food or heck, maybe even zucchini muffins, since everyone knows zucchini is evil. But cookies? Those are happy, life-goes-on desserts.
And that was exactly what my best friend, Nola, was cooking. By the truckload.
Two days ago I had led a small group of magic users, who were also my friends, in a magical battle for the safety of the people and magic in Portland, Oregon, against Jingo Jingo—a powerful and mad Death magic user. The only reasons they’d needed me, Allie Beckstrom, to lead them were one: we were on the run, and two: our backup for the fight—Hounds who, like me, tend to work in the shadier corners of the city tracking down illegal spells—would listen only to one of their own.
Magic had been poisoned—a problem we still haven’t solved—and it was spawning the Veiled: ghosts of dead magic users who were infecting and killing the living. Not that anyone in the Authority would have believed us about any of that. We had fought Jingo Jingo, and the entire Authority—the secret group of people who decide who uses magic and how.
None of us had gotten out of that fight unscathed. Some of us would carry those wounds, and the things magic had done to us, for the rest of our lives.
Jingo Jingo was dead but we still hadn’t come up with a cure for magic.
Which was why we were all here at Kevin Cooper’s estate. We had to find a way to cure magic before Leander and Isabelle, two undead and superpowerful magic users who made Jingo Jingo look like a fluffy puppy when it came to madness and magic, showed up to kick what was left of our asses.
Generally not a situation I’d expect to be celebrating with cookies.
“Nola,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“Allie!” She bent in front of the oven, her honey-colored hair pulled back in a long braid, a plain white apron tied at her waist. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
She drew two sheets full of cookies out of the oven and turned toward me. “Nothing’s wrong. Cookie?” Her freckled cheeks were pink from baking, her hair doing that cute curl-thing around her face from the heat. But she wasn’t smiling.
I stared at the cookies on platters, stacked in step-mountain pyramids across the counter tops, and filling bowl after bowl in rounded domes. Chocolate chip, sugar, gingersnaps, oatmeal, and something that looked like red velvet.
“You bake when you’re worried. You bake a lot when you’re really worried.” I pointed at the heaps of cookies. “What’s wrong? Really.”
She shrugged one shoulder and expertly slid the spatula under a black-and-white crinkle cookie, depositing it on the cooling rack.
“Nothing,” she said. “Well, nothing new. To you, anyway.”
I took a sip from my water bottle and waited for her to continue.
All this violent and secret magic stuff was new to Nola. I was afraid my friend wasn’t coping with this new knowledge with her usual aplomb. Finally, I asked, “Is it Cody? Is he okay?” Nola had taken Cody in about a year ago. He had gotten mixed up with a lot of the wrong people and ended up with his memories taken away and his mind broken. We’d done what we could to heal him a couple of days ago.
Still, it was strange to see her without him by her side.
Nola stopped sliding cookies onto the rack and turned to face me.
She frowned, looking worried, which I supposed was better than exhausted or injured. “He’s still trying to get his footing, I think,” she said. “Since Zayvion joined the two parts of his … soul … or mind … or memories?”
I shrugged. She jabbed the spatula at me. “That. That sums up everything.”
“What ‘that’?”
“The shrug. You just take all of this in stride. Like it’s normal for a young man to have half of his mind and soul or whatever broken in two. One part of him nothing more than a ghost, the other part of him alive and struggling to do the simplest things. And then it’s normal to shove those two pieces of him back together again so that he’s someone different, even though he’s the same.”
“It’s not normal,” I said. “It’s just I’ve been aware of this level of magic and magical cost and retributions for months. You’ve only just found out about it. It takes a while to get used to it all.”
“You could have told me.”
“About the Authority?”
She nodded.
Ah, so this was what had sparked the baking explosion.
I relied on Nola. Magic had always made me pay the price in pain like everyone else who used it, and then it had taken a chunk of my memories for good measure. I’d lost fewer memories lately, but if what Jingo Jingo had said about my father, Daniel Beckstrom, was true, it was possible people—like my dad—had also used magic to take my memories.
Nola had always been the one to give me back my memories when I lost them. For her to be able to do that, I confided in her and told her everything that was happening in my life.
Everything. Even the uncomfortable stuff … until I met Zayvion Jones, got framed for my father’s murder, tangled with the secret organization of magic users, and realized telling Nola everything I was mixed up in might just get her killed.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked.
I dragged my hand back through my hair, trying to tuck it behind my ears even though it was too short to stay put.
It was strange to think that it had been only two days ago we’d been fighting for our lives in St. Johns. Fighting against the very people who were going to be gathering now, here, to try to stop an even bigger threat.
Leander and Isabelle. We knew they possessed the Overseer, the one person who held the highest and most powerful position in the Authority.
Which meant they had every member of the Authority in the world at their beck and call.
All we had was us.
Well, and cookies.
I didn’t know who was going to make the decisions about what to do next. Maybe Victor Forsythe, who had been my Faith magic teacher, or maybe Maeve Flynn, who taught Blood magic and was also my friend Shamus Flynn’s mother. Hell, it could be twins Carl and La, since they’d stepped up to serve as spokespersons for the Authority right after the battle with Jingo.
Whoever it was, they’d have a plateful of hard choices in front of them. Like how to stop Leander and Isabelle. And how to convince every other magic user in the world that two dead people were possessing the highest ranking magical official in their organization.
“Must be a big reason if it’s taking you that long to answer.” Nola scooped dough that smelled like peanut butter onto the sheets.
“Not really,” I said. “I’m just … not at full speed yet. On anything.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “Maybe you should get some sleep before the meeting?”
“No. Maeve wants to talk to Zay, Shame, Terric, and me to see how we might use the disks to cure magic. And I want to see how Shame and Terric handle magic now.”
“Now?”
“Since the fight. When they … died for each other using magic.” I said it as if that explained everything. Only it didn’t really explain anything. Not to a woman who had spent most of her adult life living in a small town on a large farm without magic.
“Zay and I are Soul Complements,” I said. “We can make magic bend the rules of what it will and won’t do. All Soul Complements have that ability. I think that’s why it’s so rare to have two people linked together in that way. When you use magic together like that, you can do things other magic users can’t do. Usually deadly things.”
“How many Soul Complements are there?”
“In Portland?”
“In the world.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never asked.”
For the briefest moment, a parade of faces flashed behind my eyes. Memories from my dad, who was possessing a corner of my mind. Memories of people he knew—Soul Complements. Men and women, young and old, from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds, all smiling in that over-the-moon-in-love kind of way. Several of the faces carried with them Dad’s emotions, and I was surprised he thought kindly of these people. Maybe even cared for many of them.
“Maybe a dozen pairs?” I continued. “I know of Zay and myself, and probably Shame and Terric, though Shame refuses to be tested to find out if he and Terric are a match. Chase and Greyson were Soul Complements too. I haven’t met anyone else, although now I kind of wish I had.”
“Chase?” she asked. “Zayvion’s ex-girlfriend?”
I nodded.
“Is Greyson still alive?”
“No. Leander killed him. Killed him, and used him to kill Chase.”
“Allie,” she breathed. Nola was no stranger to death. Behind her country girl manners, she was no shrinking flower. Still, her gaze was heavy with the knowledge that Leander, on his own, had already successfully killed two Soul Complements.
“It hasn’t always been this way,” I said. “Maeve and Victor told me that things aren’t usually this death-y in the Authority. It’s just since my dad died …”
“And possessed you.” Again with the even gaze.
Oh, there was no way I was getting out of this now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I mean I couldn’t just call and say, ‘Hey, Nola, guess who’s in my head? My dead dad! Yes, he’s still a self-centered jerk, yes, he still wants to rule my life, but you know, no biggie.’ It just sounds too crazy. You would have thought I’d really lost it. I tried to get rid of him. More than once. Thought that when I did I could tell you he was gone, and it wouldn’t matter if you believed me or not. But now … he’s been helpful lately. I guess.”
“Do you trust him?”
I thought about it for a second or two. Dad had been quiet in my head since the battle. I could still feel his awareness there in my thoughts, his wintergreen presence, but he wasn’t getting in my way, wasn’t offering suggestions. Other than that sudden flash of his memories, it was like he was observing and meditating, resting up for a big effort of some kind.
And he might be very wise to be doing so.
“I don’t know. It’s weird. I want to trust him.”
Nola’s eyebrows went up and she smiled a little. “Really? You, the rebel child?”
“I told you it was weird. But since he’s been dead, we’ve had to work together. He’s been … respectful. Mostly. But he’s still done things that … that I don’t like.”
“So you don’t trust him?”
I sighed. “I guess I should at this point. But, no. Not with every fiber of my being.”
“But you trust Zayvion.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t have to be. She knew.
“Down to the last drop.”
“So when you use magic together, as Soul Complements, you can make magic bend the rules,” she said. “Can Shame and Terric do that too?”
“If what they did out on the battlefield against Jingo Jingo is any indication, yes.”
“Is it more dangerous to use magic that way?”
“I guess so. But magic is always dangerous. Zay and I try not to cast together like that because when we do, we sort of get lost in each other’s minds.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“It’s not. At all. But it’s hard to let go of him and want to stay breathing in my own body when I’m wrapped up in the man I love.”
“Oh,” she exhaled.
She was such a romantic.
I took a drink of water to cover my smile. “We’re okay. Zay and I are pretty good at not using magic together in ways that make us do something … disastrous.”
“How disastrous?”
“Well, Leander and Isabelle were Soul Complements. They were the first pair ever discovered. A few hundred years ago they used magic to torture, kill, and destroy anyone who disagreed with them throughout the world. The only way the Authority stopped them was by breaking magic into two forms—light and dark—which drastically changed how it can be used.”
“Wait,” she said. “A few hundred years ago?”
I nodded.
“After breaking magic, the Authority killed Leander, and broke Isabelle’s mind. But apparently that wasn’t enough. They found their way back from death and possessed people, starting with Sedra, who used to be the head of Portland’s Authority, and was Cody Miller’s mom. And now they want all the magic, which we won’t let them have, and all the world, which we won’t let them take. They’ll be headed this way to go all apocalypse on anyone standing in their way.” I gave her a smile to try to take the sting out of all of that.
“Is that what this is, then? An apocalypse?”
“Naw. Not with all these happy cookies to eat.” But my smile faded, and I ran my fingers through my hair again, nervous. I may talk a big game, but the truth was, I was scared out of my pants to have to face Leander and Isabelle again.
“Maybe,” I said quietly. “If we can stop them and send them both back to death, maybe it won’t be the end of the world. We’ll still need to find a way to counteract the poison in magic, and find a cure for people who have been infected by it, and make sure the Veiled aren’t going around trying to hurt people. I guess someone will have to rebuild the Authority since we’ve lost a lot of people in the last few months.”
I swallowed hard against the flashing images—my memories—of Bartholomew with the bullet hole I had put in his head, gasping his last breath; of Jingo Jingo sucking the life out of dozens of people; of Shame, more dead than alive, crushing Jingo Jingo’s heart until it stopped beating.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, even though my voice quavered a little.
“You mean you’ll figure it out,” she said firmly.
“I doubt it.” I reached over and dug up a finger full of cookie dough. “I bet I’ll be ground troops in this fight. There are much wiser minds than mine who can deal with all of this.”
She shrugged and went back to scooping drops of dough onto the sheet. “I think you’re underestimating yourself. And you still didn’t tell me why.”
“Why I’ve been keeping secrets? Sure you don’t want to discuss it some day over a case or two of wine?”
“I don’t think we’re going to get a ‘some day’ anytime soon, do you?”
“No.”
“Then right now, over a mountain of apocalyptic cookies, will have to do. Spill.”
“Fine.” I popped the raw dough into my mouth. “Mmm. So good. You really must be worried.”
“I’m not worried,” she said archly. “I’m trying to feed an army. And putting this industrial dream kitchen through its paces. I don’t think it’s been used in years.”
Kevin Cooper’s kitchen was just as grand as the rest of his house. When he’d first suggested we all gather at his place—and stay if we wanted—I hadn’t thought it was a good idea.
But then, Zayvion hadn’t bothered to tell me Kevin was rich. Like old-school, going-back-generations rich.
Kevin certainly had the house—well, manor—to show for it. Kevin said he didn’t live here, preferring a modest house in a quiet neighborhood. I didn’t blame him. This place was big enough to be a hotel.
“Have you looked at these ovens?” Nola continued with a wave of the spatula. “Gorgeous. And you are getting off topic.”
“All right. When I first joined the Authority to learn how to use magic, they told me I’d be Closed—have my memories taken away—if I ever told anyone about them.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone. Victor, Maeve, Jingo Jingo, Zay, Shame. All my teachers. Don’t get angry. It’s the rule—the same rule for everyone who is a part of the Authority. I was worried that if I told you anything, they’d Close you too. I couldn’t do that to you, couldn’t know that I was responsible for your memories being taken away.”
“They wouldn’t really take your memories away.”
“They very much really would. Without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Even Zayvion?”
I held my breath on that. “Not now,” I finally said. “Definitely not now. But a while ago? Probably.”
She raised one eyebrow.
“It’s his job, Nola, or it was. He’s practically grown up in the Authority. He’s very … loyal.”
“And you didn’t think I should know any of this? That I shouldn’t be there to help you out if you were Closed? You should have told me. I’d rather be at your side—even if things are bad—than not in your life at all.”
“You were always in my life. I didn’t push you away.”
“No, you just didn’t tell me the truth. I hate being lied to.” She scowled and hooked her thumb in the bowl, scooping out dough.
“Okay,” I said, “it wasn’t the most honest thing I could have done. But I was trying to keep you safe. And”—I held up my hand to cut off whatever she’d been about to say—“I wanted you safe for purely selfish reasons. You’re my best friend. If it came down to it, if I had to do this last year over again, I might try to do it differently.”
Memories of Grounding a wild magic storm, walking through death, fighting and failing to stop Leander and Isabelle as they dragged me out of my body and tried to kill me and all of my friends stuttered through my mind.
I winced.
“I’d definitely do things differently. For one thing, I’d try to tell you about all of this—the people, the secret magic, the risks—sooner. But, Nola, if it all goes to hell again, I’m still going to try to protect you from the worst of it.”
She shook her head. “Have you ever thought about just leaving?”
Huh. Strangely, I hadn’t. “No. This is my home. Well, not right here at Kevin’s, but this city. No one can make me leave it. Even my dad couldn’t make me leave it, and he drove me nuts.”
She smiled and finally popped the dough in her mouth. “Now that so many people know about the Authority, what’s going to happen to us and our memories?”
“Honestly? I have no idea.”
The kitchen door opened and in walked Kevin Cooper. Sandy-haired, sad-eyed, he was one of Zay’s long-standing friends. He was also a hell of a magic user. He’d somehow gotten himself assigned, by my dad of all people, as a bodyguard to Violet, my dad’s wife. Somewhere along the way, Kevin had fallen in love with Violet, and he was still her stalwart guard.
“Allie,” he said, “we have a problem.”
“We have a lot of problems.”
“Seattle’s been scrambled.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
I’d never seen Kevin shaken. I’d never even seen the man sweat, and I’d seen him in the middle of a magical battle against overwhelming odds. He was sweating now.
“The Authority members in Seattle have been ordered by the Overseer to secure Portland.”
“Secure?” I asked. “How?”
“They are going to lock us down so that no one can enter or exit, and Close or kill any member of Portland’s Authority who stands in their way.”
“My God,” Nola said.
“It’s okay.” I gave her an encouraging nod, which was a big fat lie. “We can handle this. Right, Kevin?”
He didn’t say a word. Just stood there looking grim.
Note to self: Kevin sucks at the big fat lie.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
“Right now? Don’t burn the cookies.”
“Allie,” she admonished.
“As soon as I figure out how bad it is, I will tell you what we need to do. Give me a second or two to talk to a few people, okay?”
She nodded. “Paul said he’d be here in a half hour or so.”
“Good.” Paul—Detective Paul Stotts—was her boyfriend, and was now just as deep in Authority business and end-of-the-world magic users targeting Portland as any of us who had been a part of the Authority for years. It would be good to have him on our side. I had the feeling we were going to need the cooperation of the police to get through this.
I jogged out of the kitchen, Kevin right on my heels.
Kevin’s place had the feel of a grander sort of living, of balls and ceremonies and social events from a century prior. Not a speck of dust though. Kevin may not be living here, but he still had someone come in once a week to clean and air out the place.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“They’re coming to kill us.”
“Right. Heard that. Can they do it?”
“With magic poisoned and most of us still not recovered from fighting Jingo Jingo? Yes.”
Not the answer I was looking for. My heart was beating too fast. All I wanted to do was run, hide. Get the hell out of town. But too many people were relying on me being here, and hadn’t I just told Nola I’d never run?
“How much time do we have before they get here?” We crossed the long, carpeted hall accented with woods and paintings that were probably priceless. I took a left, heading to one of the smaller meeting rooms.
“Three hours at the least. Four at the most.”
“Then it’s time to make some plans.” I pulled open the double door to the room and strode into the sparsely furnished space.
“About time you got here,” Shame said as soon as I crossed the threshold. “I was getting tired waiting for the world to end.”
There were three people in the room: Zayvion, Maeve, and Shame. Shame sat in a bright red cushioned arm chair with gold tassels across the bottom of it. It did not fit in with the rest of the room’s decor of silk white wallpaper, dark wooden central table, matching chairs, and gigantic lead crystal chandelier.
Okay, maybe it fit with the chandelier, but it was obvious someone had dragged it in here from one of the other more elegant sitting rooms.
He wore a heavy, black cabled sweater with a black turtleneck under it, black fingerless gloves, black beanie, and blue jeans.
Out of all that blackness, his eyes shone through, startlingly green against his sallow skin. I could still see magic with my bare eyes, which was, as far as any of us could tell, a side effect of magic being poisoned and me hitting my head on concrete a few days ago.
Sometimes, when I had a spare minute to give in to my fears and suspicion, I wondered if it was being possessed by my dad for nearly a year that had changed me.
Looking at Shame made me wonder how much I was seeing him, and how much I was seeing what magic had done to him.
He wasn’t just wearing dark clothing; he was surrounded by shadows.
Shame looked like death.
He’d been on the thin side lately, but the fight with Jingo Jingo had made it only worse. Every angle of his face stood at hard relief to the shadows surrounding him. Both physical and magical blackness covered him and roiled like inky smoke, licking outward with questing tendrils, as if looking for something to taste.
Shame sat in the center of that sliding darkness, burning like a hard white flame.
I didn’t want to admit it, but the shadows reminded me of the souls and Veiled I used to see hovering around Jingo Jingo. Except the darkness and magic around Shame wasn’t made of dead people, it just seemed to be made of magic and death.
He gave me a slight smile. Suddenly it was the very much alive Shame staring back at me.
He might have been changed by magic, but he was still Shame.
“Done getting your beauty sleep?” he asked.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was talking to Nola,” I said. “And if I remember right, we were waiting for you to wake up.”
“Behold my awakeness,” he said, spreading his long, thin fingers. “Let’s party.”
Zay, in jeans and a T-shirt, had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He strode toward me, his left hip bothering him enough that he didn’t try to hide the catch in his stride with his usual swagger. The doctors had done a lot of good for us over the last two days, but anyone who had been a part of that fight in St. Johns was still nursing pain.
Zay’s dark, thick hair was cut short against his skull, giving his high cheekbones a prominent angle beneath golden-brown eyes that seemed to see right through my soul. He wasn’t scowling, but his eyebrows were creased in question and concern.
Beyond the physical Zayvion, I could see the magic that marked him—that had always marked him since I’d first met him. Glyphs of spells branded into his dark skin burned with silver fire tipped in red and blue. He’d told me once they were the mark and power of his position as Guardian of the gate. The glyphs were part of why he could work both light and dark magic for short amounts of time, which was in turn why he was such a strong magic user.
Some of those glyphs no longer burned. They traced dusty gray lines of ash across his bare arms and hands, used, exhausted, burned out.
Ever since he’d fallen into a coma, fought Leander and Isabelle, then Jingo Jingo, the glyphs had changed. The magic he carried, magic spells he wore as part of his job of Guardian of the gate, were burning out. I didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t want to talk about it.
“Allie?” Zay took my hands. His pain and fatigue rolled through me, just as I was sure mine carried to him.
My heart literally skipped a beat. Not because we were both hurting and tired. It seemed like we were always hurting and tired.
But because I loved him, and I hated knowing that we were both headed into a fight underpowered and outmatched. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. There was no guarantee either of us would get out of this alive.
What he needed, what we all needed, was about a month of sleep. What we didn’t have was one damn second to spare.
Terric walked into the room. “Are we ready?”
“I’m okay,” I said to Zay, then, “I have some news.”
I turned toward Terric.
Shame was darkness and death, but Terric seemed to glow as if moonlight pooled beneath his skin. His white hair, now streaked with black, gave him an edgier look, and his face, which I’d always thought was handsome, carried that underlying light. It was hard to look away from him, especially when he lifted his gaze to me, catching me with his clear blue eyes.
“Oh,” I said. “Wow.”
Terric’s chin lifted just a fraction more and I found myself fascinated by the hard line of his jaw, the soft curve of his lips, the set of his wide shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist.
“What wow?” he asked.
His voice buzzed under my skin, soft as a lover’s finger.
Influence? Some kind of Illusion, or mesmerizing spell? One thing was for sure, I’d never felt like this looking at Terric before. He wasn’t my type. I certainly wasn’t his either.
It had to be magic.
“You’ve kind of got your charisma set on high beam,” I said, breaking eye contact and looking instead at my shoe.
As soon as I did so, my head cleared. It had to be magic.
“It better be magic,” Zayvion rumbled, catching both my thoughts, and probably all my emotions too.
Fabulous.
“Did you cast a spell?” he asked Terric.
“No.”
“What do you see, Allie?” Zay asked.
I blinked a couple of times, then looked back up at Terric.
Magic shifted around him in a golden white light that illuminated every lovely feature that boy had. He looked like an angel. I wanted to touch him. Wanted to stand nearer to him and be touched by him.
“It’s magic,” I said, managing not to add “of course” to it. “Terric looks like he’s made out of sunlight and sex, and Shame looks like the dead.”
“The sexy dead?” Shame asked.
Zayvion shot him a look, then glanced over at Terric.
“I’m not seeing what you see,” he said.
“Maybe cast Sight?”
“I have. But I can again.”
He let go of my hand and I tucked it into my pocket, laying my palm against the warmth of my hip so it wasn’t empty, hollow.
Every inch of my body wanted to be closer to Zayvion, held by him, holding him far from the danger I knew was coming.
“Make it quick,” I said. “I do have news.”
“Just tell us,” Shame said. “Z has ears.”
I shook my head. “After he casts.”
Zay took several steps away from me, putting himself between Terric and Shame, and I strolled over to the other side of the room, closer to Maeve. Magic made me sick. Getting too close to someone using magic made me sick too.
Zay drew a Disbursement, which he Proxied.
Huh. I didn’t know the Authority was using Proxies again. I wasn’t sure that I approved of other people bearing the price for the magic we were using. Especially when that magic was poisoned.
Zayvion set magic into the glyph and the Disbursement formed in front of him, then sifted away, as if tugged apart by a breeze. A pink string of magic circled his wrist.
The Disbursement glyph should find the person who was holding Proxy and attach to them in some manner.
In just a moment, a pink string slipped back in through the wall and drifted across the room, tying to the magic band on Zay’s wrist. His Proxy was set.
Zay cast a nice tight Sight. He held it over his fingertips as if balancing a globe, and looked through it at Terric.
“The light around him?” Zay asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Light?” Terric asked. “Seriously?”
“Look at Shame,” I said.
Zay pivoted so he could see Shame through the spell.
Shame made a kissy face.
“Shadow,” Zay said. “I see darkness around him.” Zay dropped the Sight spell, which was good because it was starting to stink up the place.
I liked it better when I couldn’t see magic with my bare eyes and smell it like it was hot garbage.
“All you saw was light and darkness?” I asked.
Zay nodded. “None of it particularly sexy.”
“But then we all know you have no discerning taste, mate,” Shame said. “And why does it matter? Let’s hear the news.”
“Seattle has been scrambled,” I said.
Everyone in the room went silent.
Shame finally whistled quietly. “You ever heard of an entire city being sent to lock down another city, Mum?”
Maeve, who had been quiet all this time, shifted in the chair at the table. She had braided her hair back in a single band, and it somehow made her look younger even though she still had to use a cane to get around since Jingo Jingo had tried to kill her. Dark circles stood out like bruises against her pale skin. “No, I haven’t. Do you know when they’ll be here, Allie?”
“Kevin has the details.”
“Three or four hours at the most,” he said. “They have orders from the Overseer to lock us down, refuse any magic user entrance or exit and to Close or kill if we don’t like it.”
“To what ends?” she asked.
“Buying time,” Zayvion said. “Keeping us under their thumb until Leander and Isabelle can get here.”
“Swell,” Shame said. “Other than a fight for our lives in a few hours, is there anything else I have to know about? Tired, hungry, and in a foul mood over here.”
“Which is different than when?” Terric said.
“Fuck you is when,” Shame said.
“We need to make a plan,” I said.
“You need to make a plan,” Shame said. “You’re good at that.”
“Fine. My plan is this: Kevin, call every member of the Authority you can reach and tell them to get out here in the next half hour. We need to explain this once, to as many people as possible.”
Kevin pulled out his phone and was already talking to someone by the time he left the room.
“Shame, Terric,” I said. “I want you to use magic together so we know what you can and can’t do with it.”
“Like hell,” Shame said.
“Now?” Terric asked.
“Yes, now.”
“So, you want us to waste time messing with magic when there’s an entire city of people coming our way to fight?” Shame asked. “Forget what I said about plans. You suck at them.”
“We do this now because I don’t want to be on the front line with you and have something unexpected happen.”
“You’ve fought alongside us before,” Terric said.
“Magic changed you. Changed both of you when you died for each other on the battlefield.”
“No,” Shame corrected. “No, we did not die for each other. We died to kill Jingo Jingo. Isn’t that right, Ter?”
Terric didn’t say anything.
“Don’t care how you want to remember it, Shame,” I said. “I want to know what you can do with magic before we are in another life-or-death situation.”
“Did I mention I hate this idea?” he grumbled.
“Don’t care.”
“Let’s be done with it then, Son,” Maeve said. “It should only take a minute or two.”
She obviously wasn’t in the mood to deal with delays either. Shame had killed Jingo Jingo, and changed greatly to come back from that. Her boyfriend, Hayden, was recovering in one of Kevin’s bedrooms, heavily medicated and missing a hand.
It had not been a good last few days.
“We need someone to Ground,” Maeve said.
Zayvion held up his fingers.
“Good.” She walked around the edge of the table to stand at the foot of it. “Zayvion will Ground and I will Block the room.”
Shame clapped his gloved hands together and pushed up out of his chair. “Fine. I’m starving anyway.”
Maeve looked surprised. “Didn’t you just eat?”
“Dying makes me hungry.”
“Shamus. Don’t,” she said quietly.
“Die? Not planning on it. Once was enough.” He didn’t say it like he was angry or worried. Just maybe … resigned to the way things had turned out. “The sooner we find out that Terric and I cast magic exactly the same as we always have, the sooner I can eat something, or hell, get a damn smoke.”
Zayvion positioned himself near the door.
Terric, who still had a case of the glowing gorgeous, moved to stand in front of Shame.
I wasn’t sure where, exactly, I should be. Didn’t even know what good I was since I couldn’t use magic.
“Shamus and Terric,” Maeve said, “I will tell you each what spell to cast. You will do so, in the order I tell you and at the smallest level possible. If it becomes too difficult, tell me immediately. We’re going to see what you can and can’t do alone, then together.”
“Bullcrap,” Shame said, shaking out his hands as if getting ready to arm wrestle. “You’re going to test to see if we’re Soul Complements.”
“Ah, Son, no,” Maeve said. “You already took that test.”
“When?”
“When we died for each other,” Terric said softly.
Shame glared at him. “I didn’t die for …”
Terric held him with a patient gaze.
Shame shut his mouth. Must have finally figured out there was no use denying it when we all knew the truth.
“Terric,” Maeve said, “let’s begin with you. Please cast a small Light spell.”
I decided it was time to find a wall, and walked to the far end of the room, at the head of the table.
Zayvion drew a glyph in the air, but didn’t pull magic up into it yet, holding it ready for when or if Terric or Shame slipped.
Terric traced a Disbursement, waited for the Proxy to connect, and drew a small, beautiful spell of Light that looked like a lacy globe. He called magic into it, and the globe became visible, glowing in front of him with a butter-soft light.
“Can you control it?” Maeve asked.
Terric nodded, then made the light grow to the size of a basketball, then shrink to a pinpoint.
“Let it go,” Maeve said.
The light winked out.
“Shame, please cast a small Light spell.”
Light was one of the easiest spells to cast, and usually one of the first anyone learned. It really couldn’t do much harm.
Shame drew a Disbursement, set it free to Proxy, and as soon as the returning ribbon slipped around his wrist, he traced a basic no-frills Light spell. It popped into existence with a snap of red, then rolled into a hot orange flicker.
“Control it,” Maeve said.
Shame whispered and the light became a single candle flame; then he said another word and the light roared out into a heatless fireball.
He extinguished it with a flick of his fingers.
“Very good.” Maeve sounded relieved. Was she that worried that they wouldn’t be able to handle the simplest of magic?
“Now,” she said, “cast Light together.”
Terric looked at Shame. “How do you want to do it?”
“Quickly, so I can get a drink.”
“Cast, then combine?”
“And hope we don’t blow up the place.”
“Let’s hope for a little more than that,” Terric said.
The faint pink Disbursement spell was still wrapped around Terric’s wrist from his last cast. Shame was holding a thin tether of Disbursement for Proxy on his wrist too. The price of this spell would be paid by someone else.
When Shame and Terric stood this close together, the glow around Terric seemed to dim to a more normal level. He was still radiating charisma, but it wasn’t so strong, so alluring. Shame looked more normal too. The darkness around him thinned to flickering tendrils of smoke that drifted gently around him.
Terric drew Light.
And so did Shame.
Then they pulled magic up into the glyphs. Just as before, Terric’s Light spell was a soft lacy orb, and Shame’s was a ball of flame.
They each sent the spells closer together, their movements in perfect synch. The two spells joined and the orb flickered with orange flame. A beautiful combined spell of Light.
“Very nice,” Maeve said. “Now make it smaller and larger.”
Terric pulled magic up from the ground. It leaped to his hands like lightning, and burned there, a crackling stream of pure white light snapping with gold.
That was a lot of magic. Too much magic for such a small spell.
Shame drew on magic. It burned upward into his hands like black fire, a ragged river of black heat. Hard, strong.
Magic is invisible to the bare eye. Shame and Terric could not see what the magic looked like as it poured into their hands. But I could.
White and black magic arced between them, light and darkness biting, clashing, and finally, blending. Shame and Terric didn’t say anything. They didn’t have to. Soul Complements knew what the other was thinking. Or at least Zayvion and I did. Even if Shame and Terric couldn’t read each other’s minds, they were certainly working magic as if they had an intimate knowledge of what the other was going to do.
It was more than a little hypnotizing to watch them work magic together.
I licked my lips, and wished I were standing next to Zay. Wished he and I were joined together, lost in the magic between us.
Hot white magic jumped from Terric’s hand to Shame’s, becoming ebony flame that dripped from Shame’s fingertips back into the ground.
With his other hand, Shame pulled magic out of the ground. It leaped to Terric’s palm and melted into gold and white drops that slipped through his fingers, falling back to the ground.
Within that loop, that infinite band of drawing on the magic given and releasing the magic taken, the Light spell changed and changed until it crackled with unmatched brilliance.
Then two sets of hands adjusted the spell and the light grew smaller and smaller until it was only the tiniest speck, like the glitter of a single star resting in the space between them.
That kind of work, that kind of finesse in joint-spell manipulation, took a hell of a lot of concentration.
Without any outward signal I could see, the light began to grow. Shame glanced at Terric with a satisfied smirk. Terric chuckled as he exhaled slowly, sharing some silent, private connection that made me ache again for Zayvion.
Terric and Shame threw their hands wide.
The loop of magic between them spun into a spiral around them, the symbol for infinity. The Light spell grew larger until it was big enough to engulf them. Then it pushed outward, lacy orange fire reaching up to the huge crystal chandelier and setting it to glow, with diamonds and firelight covering every inch of its surface.
“Beautiful,” I said. And beautiful didn’t even cover it. The magic danced through every crystal, as if winged creatures out of some kind of fairy tale fluttered there.
Zay lifted his hands, waiting, ready to Ground if the magic slipped their grip.
The cinnamon sweetness of the Block spell Maeve was supporting around the room grew strong enough to make my eyes water. The Block strained to keep the magic Terric and Shame gleefully pulled upon contained in this room. The sheer weight of magic in the air pressed like hands on my shoulders.
The Light spell grew brighter, rays touching the corners of the room, falling like warm honey as it caressed faces, hands.
When the spell touched me, the magic caught fire to the patterns of magic down my arms, bringing the metallic markings alive like incandescent flame that wound down to wrap each of my fingertips.
I glanced around the room. It wasn’t just me. We were all glowing.
Shame and Terric shifted their stance, drawing new spells in the air between them, and pulling even more magic into the room.
Shame no longer looked sick, tired, dead.
He burned with light, just as mesmerizing as Terric had been, just as alluring. Except Terric had shone with pure angelic light. Shame, on the other hand, radiated darkness and sin, blackness and a hard edge that drew my eye and made my pulse beat faster. He was beautiful. Forbidden. And promising every dark desire with those emerald eyes.
What did you know? Sexy dead.
Terric, in contrast, no longer looked as angelic. The magic around him carved him into something so powerful as to feel alien. He was gold and white light, his blue eyes heartless, cold, judging.
And they were pulling on more magic. So much more.
“Zay?” I said, taking a step backward and bumping into the wall behind me.
Whatever Shame and Terric were doing, whatever it was they were becoming from using magic together as Soul Complements, I wasn’t sure it was a good thing, a safe thing.
I wanted my friends to use magic.
I didn’t want them to become it.
The floor trembled as darkness fed light and light bloomed from darkness. Magic burned to ash only to catch fire again. Shame and Terric called magic as easily as breathing, commanding it to rise, fall, extinguish, and live to the beat of their hearts.
The walls shook, the chandelier rattled and chimed. The Block spell seared the satin wallpaper to a black crisp.
So much magic, so much power. I couldn’t breathe.
“Enough!” Zayvion cast the Ground spell.
Magic exploded in a flash of light. Darkness poured into its wake.
And for several heartbeats all I did was try to breathe.
I blinked hard, trying to adjust to the darkness and lack of magic in the room. Only it wasn’t dark—the room was lit. Normal electricity seemed feeble compared to the light Shame and Terric had just called upon.
Shame and Terric were on the floor. Maeve was already hurrying over to them. So was Zayvion.
I just stood there, stunned, unable to figure out what had happened. It had been only a minute, maybe two, since they drew on magic. But that had been a staggering amount of magic for two people to use together.
Maeve knelt next to Shame, her hand trembling as she pressed fingertips against his neck.
“They’re alive,” she said, checking Terric’s pulse next.
The door burst opened and Kevin strode into the room. “What the hell just happened?”
“They used magic,” I said. “Together.”
He lifted his phone. “That was Thomas over at the Proxy pool. Every Proxy working the day shift for the Authority just passed out.”
“All of them?” Maeve said.
“All of them.”
“Is that why Shame and Terric passed out?” I asked.
“No,” Zayvion said quietly. “Shame and Terric passed out because they blew the Proxies.”
Everyone was silent for a second. I wasn’t grasping the scope of the situation.
“How many Proxies were working?”
“Three hundred,” Kevin said.
Okay. Now I got it. They had pulled on so much magic that the price to pay for it had knocked three hundred people unconscious. Well, three hundred and two, counting Shame and Terric.
Holy shit.
I looked down at Shame and Terric—two men who had lived and died for each other, two men who could use magic like I’d never seen before—and wondered who or what they really were now.
Soul Complements, Dad said quietly in my head. Even he sounded afraid.
“It was just a Light spell,” Maeve supplied over our silence.
“They blew all the Proxies?” I repeated slowly. “All of them?”
“Thomas doesn’t exaggerate,” Kevin said. “Do they need Dr. Fischer? A hospital?”
“I don’t think so,” Maeve said. “Let’s give them a few minutes and see if they come to. Kevin, do you have any medical equipment here?”
“The staff isn’t here today, but I can pull up the list of what we have in inventory and get that for you.” He started toward the door, then put his hand on the doorknob. “Everyone’s coming,” he said to me. “We’ll be ready in less than twenty minutes.”
“Good,” I said. “We’ll be there.”
Zay was already trying to get Shame and Terric into more comfortable positions, rolled onto their backs, legs straightened instead of where they’d fallen in a heap.
I bent down to help with Shame.
“Maybe we can move them to beds?” Maeve asked.
She was looking at me expectantly. Right. Other than Shame and Terric, Zay and I were the only Soul Complements around.
“I think distance from each other might make it harder on them,” I said, standing back up again. “Especially since they were working so closely together to use magic.”
Maeve nodded and checked their pulses again.
“We need to have a plan,” I said. “Less than twenty minutes until everyone in the Authority will be here.”
Zayvion straightened and slipped his arm down my back, mine sliding around his waist. “Have you talked to Violet about the disks?”
“Using them to cleanse the wells? Briefly, yesterday. She said she’ll bring the remaining disks here so we can use them if we need too. She should be here any minute.”
I glanced back down at Shame and Terric. I didn’t want to leave to see if Violet was here until I knew if they were going to be okay. “They weren’t anywhere close to controlling that spell.”
“Obviously.” Zay smiled. “No one’s ever knocked out every Proxy in Portland.”
“Was that every Proxy?”
“Only the day crew. Still, impressive.”
“And frightening,” I said.
His hand tightened on my hip. If that’s the way Terric and Shame were going to pull on magic, they’d kill themselves before they finished drawing the first line of a spell. We could not afford to lose three hundred people to pay the price for their spells every time they cast simple magic. They would be useless in a fight.
“They can’t work magic together,” I said.