Fire.
The blaze crackled in her ears, drowning out her thundering heart.
Get out. The warning sliced through her and she tried pulling away, but the flames encircled them. Trapped them—
The mirror cracked in veins across the panel surface.
“Enough, Kallia.”
Her breath hissed as she pulled back. Jack lifted her left palm up, thumb pressed to her wrist. “Your pulse is racing. You believed it.”
Kallia’s panic dropped cold. She turned from the broken mirror to the rest of the room—finding it unharmed, the air clear.
An illusion.
She swallowed down a hard knot. “You messed with my mind?”
“With the mirror,” he reassured. “What I see in the mirror is what you see, to a point. The objective pieces of the picture—the background, the floor, something as simple as a book in your hand—are easier to change than the mind. A basic illusion,” Jack clarified. “Prey on trivial details that don’t matter, and then make them matter for the viewer.”
“You could’ve warned me,” Kallia snapped. She could stand the teasing and taunting, for she fought back with her own tools every time. But actual tampering of the mind crossed a line. There was no honor in a power that snuck into heads and told them how to think. “I thought we weren’t doing those sorts of tricks.”
Jack’s smile fell. “Every trick is a manipulation, Kallia. Mirrors are merely another plane for it,” he said. “What you see in any reflection is a world unto itself, one you can believe in because what you see aligns with what you know surrounds you.”
“And it’s not?”
“Some mirrors are like windows designed to be more convincing than others. You should always approach them with care. Always think first before trusting your reflection.”
Kallia cocked her head. “If you haven’t noticed, we have no shortage of mirrors.”
He rubbed his thumb slyly beneath her palm as he guided them back to the center of the room. “Don’t worry, firecrown, my mirrors are harmless.”
His voice softened under a pleased laugh, but Kallia couldn’t find it in her to join him. What was the point of giving her a glimmer of the dangers outside the House if she would never encounter them? To keep sharpening the blades, but never use them to fight?
“Now, I’ve held up my end,” Jack said, the teacher gone. The master returned. “What’s upsetting you?”
Glorian. The Conquering Circus. The competition.
The words threaded back into her thoughts, but the unease of his illusion sat in her like stone. “Don’t do that.” Her throat tightened. “You don’t get to play with my mind and just…”
Kallia looked down—safe, away from her reflection—but Jack tipped a finger beneath her chin. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, penitent. “Mirrors are those rare creatures that straddle the lines between mind, magic, and reality. There are tricks that require far more twisting, but they’re very tedious. And I would never test them on you.”
“Then what do you call this?”
The question hung around them, in the space between their lips.
Jack’s brows pinched. Most times he held himself as if he’d lived a thousand years, but only rarely did he look his age. Only a little older than Kallia, she knew, though he’d never given her the specific number. Only looks, lessons, and dances.
And most important of all, knowledge.
“Are you going to teach me how, then?” Kallia stared back at their forms in the mirrors, the smooth panels shining whole before reaching the veined surface that broke them in pieces.
At the sudden squeal of strings, Jack lowered her into a dip, guiding her back up. “Something tells me your mind is still elsewhere.”
Glorian.
The whole dance had been a charade to get there. He could’ve simply invaded her mind for answers, influenced her to spill her own guarded secrets. But not once, Jack always promised, had he ever used his magic on others in such a way. He dealt in memories, fleeting things often forgotten that were won and lost at his game tables, but not the actual puppeteering of one’s mind and actions. He wasn’t one for empty-eyed dolls; he preferred those who came to him to be very much alive and aware of their choices.
Even after the mirror illusion, she believed him.
“Kallia,” Jack prompted.
She blinked. Over the years, it hadn’t taken long to find ways of seizing back the game, using whatever wiles necessary. “You’re leaving soon. Like you do every year.”
Reluctant, he played along. “To settle vendor accounts, yes?”
Not too fast, let it build. When they were face-to-face, Kallia dropped her hands before Jack could seize them—letting her fingers travel slowly, palms grazing the taut planes of his abdomen through his shirt, his chest.
“What if you didn’t have to go alone?” she drawled, feeling his muscles stiffen on her way up. “You spend too much time by yourself, working. Even on your free days, you’re off in your workroom packing smoking leaves and memories into pipes.”
His eyes darkened. “What are you suggesting?”
Kallia hooked her leg around his waist, tilting her head with a sweet minx’s smile. “I’ll go with you.”
“It’s dry business, Kallia. You’d find it boring.”
“We’ll make it fun,” she said slyly. “There’s got to be more than just business beyond these woods. I hear there’s a show happening in town.”
The music spiked louder for a second.
Jack paused, and for a brilliant moment, Kallia thought she’d won. Heart racing and flushed, she waited, thumbing the edge of his shirt collar. His pulse jumped beneath it, before he pushed away her tight-clad thigh from his waist. “What town?”
“Glorian.”
The room fell silent. His steps slowed, and Kallia nearly jerked at the hardness of the wall that met her back. Jack didn’t press her into it, just lowered his head enough by hers that she shifted back on her own.
“Kallia.” He breathed out like a warning. “You know very well we can’t do that.”
Most people would never dare be so close to the master of Hellfire House. It was like encountering a starving wolf in the woods. He fixated on the curve of her shoulder, her neck, her mouth—roving with a freedom, a hunger, as if each glance were a taste.
Channeling the wolf herself, her lips curled. “Why not? There’s a circus in Glorian hosting a magician’s competition. Are we not magicians?”
The words before were a spark to the flint; now, a douse of cold water. Jack withdrew the hands he’d caged over her head, tension roiling over him. “Where did you hear about this?”
“Some of the servants were gabbing about it in the kitchens.” The lie flew easily from her. She’d grown adept at training lies into truths, fixing her expressions and the tone of her voice. But it was the skip in her heart she couldn’t fix, and the corner of Jack’s mouth turned as if he heard that loudest of all.
“They lied.”
The flyer flashed in her head. “I know what I heard.”
“Oh really?” His posture eased a fraction. “You heard, or you saw the message on the rooftop of your hideaway?”
An uncomfortable flush crept over Kallia’s skin, little bumps bursting across her arms. Jack stared, as if admiring his handiwork. “The secrets you hold are louder than you think, firecrown. There’s little anyone can hide from me in my own house.”
Kallia had thought the same about her greenhouse—Jack had made her believe it.
But he knew her tucked-away secrets, and the betrayal for something so seemingly small stung harsher than she dared admit. “Then I guess you know what I want,” she said. “To go to Glorian and have a look at the competition. Show magicians have a place there now, and you know I’m good enough.” There was no chance he could doubt skills forged under his tutelage.
Yet quiet anger poured from his tight expression. “How many times must I tell you—”
“That Glorian i
s not the sort of place for you or me?” Kallia sneered. “That excuse is getting old, Jack.”
“You can’t lay out your powers on the show floor and just expect they’ll take you.” His eyes simmered. “Your audience here will not be the same as the one you’ll find there. Out there, it’ll be harder to protect yourself, and your powers will be vulnerable.”
“Against what?” she seethed and pushed at him, breaking their hold. “I am not powerless.”
“There are other ways to be powerless.” Jack frowned, as if the possibility disgusted him. “You still have much to learn. You’re not ready.”
All of it came at her like a blow to her chest. “You think I’m any better off staying here, performing for drunks and learning tricks I’ll never use?” One by one, dagger by dagger, she’d felt doubt before, but none like this. She wasn’t going to just accept them. “If you won’t throw me to the wolves, I’ll find them eventually.”
“You want danger?”
“I want more than this.” It was like a breath releasing. A scream. “And I can’t get that if I stay here.” It was all he’d ever done, keeping her in place like a dance set to a song with no end.
“Don’t forget. You chose this, firecrown.” His voice curled over with a snarl. “You honestly believe you could walk into that barred city and come out with them bowing before you? You’re too ambitious for your own good, Kallia.”
“And what’s so terrible about that? What do I have to be ambitious about here?”
“Here, I give you everything—knowledge every magician on this cursed land would kill to know.” His eyes flashed. “Is that not enough?”
No.
It stilled on Kallia’s tongue. The moment it was released, it could not be unsaid. But like her beating heart, Jack heard it in the silence, and it pulled a cruel laugh from him as he backed away. “Stay away from Glorian. Trust me. Only fools find their way there.”
At the sight of his back, her throat tightened into a metal coil, cutting her inside.
“Better a fool than nothing,” she bit out.
The instruments halted their song and crashed to the ground. Jack paused at the door. The muscles of his back shifted and tensed, but something stopped him from turning.
“You’re not nothing … you’re just not ready. And neither are they,” he whispered, looking down at his brass knuckles. “Don’t mention this again. I beg you.”
3
I beg you.
Others begged, but not Jack.
The sound of it haunted Kallia into the next afternoon, a couple of hours away from Hellfire House’s opening. Jack had not called on her again, not even to go over tonight’s performance or warm up with exercises. He hadn’t left his workroom all day, and even the House was beginning to notice.
“He’s always got too much on his mind,” said one of the kitchen ladies. Kallia crept by the archway, hidden in the shadows. Wherever she strutted, silence followed. The only way she could ever hear anything of truth was to hide.
“I’ll say,” a man interjected. From the slur of his voice, it was the groundskeeper. Always drinking well into the day. “You’ve heard what’s happening in Glorian, haven’t you?”
“Difficult not to,” another tsked. “Some of the gents who visit won’t shut up about it.”
“You all better shut up as well, if you like your memories where they are.” An older woman grunted, and they spoke no more. Kallia paused like the rest of them. Careful, even with Jack flights and rooms away.
She hated feeling just as delicate. Her fights with Jack never lasted long, but this one was different. It wasn’t over an accident or bruised ego; this was something she wasn’t sure could be fixed with mere words.
Kallia wasn’t sorry, but the hardness inside her chipped away when she ventured to his workroom, only to find it unexpectedly empty.
Frustration reeled through her. It wasn’t like them to not speak, especially when he was about to depart for his trip. It wouldn’t be for long, yet Kallia couldn’t let him leave like this.
The door to his bedroom was the most beautiful of the House. Each one was carved and crafted like portals to different worlds. Wooden frames and panelings all soaked in a burgundy wine shade, designed with dramatic shapes that told stories across the archway. A forest of blooming trees over one door, scrolls of sheet music with sprawling notes over another. Kallia’s door possessed an archway of wooden birds in flight studded with gems across their wings.
Jack’s door frame rose tall, cased in black glass.
The farthest she’d ever gone. Each time she’d ever reached for the doorknob, he’d somehow been the first to open it. She’d had no problem avoiding it before when the room had been occupied by Sire, who’d hardly ever left his bed. At first Kallia had found it strange how Jack had settled into the room his father had withered away in, but she never questioned him. Having never known grief, Kallia couldn’t judge how it manifested.
For the first time, Kallia raised her fist over the surface and no one answered. Before she could knock, muffled noises burst from the other side. A gruff, heated curse on someone’s lips.
“I won’t be blamed for this. I’ve done my part every damn year.”
Jack. With someone, though Kallia was certain no guest had passed through the entrance today. She couldn’t quite hear the response, but Jack’s scoff was clear.
“That won’t happen. Of course she’s not going.”
Her. They were talking about her. Kallia’s heart thudded as she leaned closer against the door, worried the slightest creak would give her away.
“I was set to depart in a few days, but I’ll leave tonight.”
Kallia strained to hear what the other person said, but it was a gravelly murmur too soft to reach her.
“No, it’ll be quick. Always is.”
She flinched back at the sound of his feet, suddenly pacing, and nearly turned away to the wall—
“I never stay in Glorian longer than I need to.”
She froze, the air so quiet around her that it felt like a mockery. The words echoed again and again, the nausea twisting her stomach. Punching her heart with loud, brutal beats. Each hit against her chest, a realization.
Every year, once a year.
Not to vendors across Soltair.
To Glorian.
Ice entered her, fury following. She had to know who else was in that room. Her fingers trembled as she grasped the knob and shoved the door open.
Shards of a smashed glass scattered the floor, the room warm and barely lit except by the windows at the wall swathed in gray, a mirror hanging in between. And there was only Jack, looking at his reflection before whirling around at the interruption.
Kallia’s eyes were fixed on the mirror. Only it didn’t show Jack or his turned back, but something else, dark and shadowed.
A monstrous face.
“Kallia.” Jaw clenched, Jack began striding toward her, enraged. Or stricken. She suddenly couldn’t tell the difference as she backed out of the room, realizing she was shaking.
That face. The harshness of it branded the back of her eyelids each time she blinked. Whoever it was—whatever it was—it was too much. A million voices inside her suddenly screamed all at once to go. Run.
And one: stay.
“Kallia—wait.”
Jack’s voice ran circles in her head, over and over.
Glorian is not the sort of place for people like you or me.
Glorian had never been a horrible, forbidden place. Jack’s business trips led him there. No one but him, doing Zarose knew what.
All this time.
Hearing Jack’s feet pick up after her, Kallia took off down the hall. Stumbling, her vision wavering. It was instinct to run as far and fast as possible, but Jack didn’t need to in order to catch her. He could close the walls in around her, raise the floors until they blocked every path imaginable. Trap her, without so much as taking a step.
Panic hammering at her chest, she glanced
over her shoulder and threw a slap to the wall. The force reverberated down the hall behind her, rippling the sides until every hanging portrait and candle and ornate table came crashing down in a wave.
“Kallia!”
Mild annoyance, at best. At her back, he stomped over glass and debris, each step shaking the ground. Her muscles tremored in tune with the loss and surge of energy, running high and low as her eyes darted everywhere until landing on the stairs ahead.
Kallia cried out as the long hallway rug yanked violently, tripping her. Dragging her back in the opposite direction from where she came.
“Please, firecrown. Stop running.”
The nickname sounded wrong, all wrong. Rage that had been simmering, that had been buried so deep she’d forgotten its name, seared through her. She gritted her teeth and thrashed to the side off the moving fabric. Kallia could barely hear what he said next as she ran for the stairs, only her heart thundering. The roar in her ears, deafening.
Flying down the grand wooden stairs, she clawed the air at her back. With each step down, the one behind her collapsed. One by one, the levels cracked and caved after contact with her heel until the thick bannister snapped. The entire structure, fallen by force.
Kallia couldn’t even tell if he was still following her. She expected staff to come running at her from all directions, but the entire first floor was chillingly empty. The main door at the entrance, unguarded.
The quiet around her broke under a voice, calling her name from behind. A muffled echo. It could’ve been Jack’s. It could’ve been anyone.
Kallia ignored it and wrenched her gaze away from the broken staircase. Ears ringing, breath held, she headed straight for the door.
To the forest that had held her prisoner for as long as she’d known.
* * *
The voice persisted.
Kallia, stop.
Kallia, wait.
Her feet plodded through the lawn’s damp grass, her focus shooting straight ahead yet acutely aware of each marker in the corners of her gaze.
Where Dreams Descend Page 3