“What about the vampire? That Alichino guy? Or that Ma-Mammon thing?”
“Vampires are a myth among wizards. Supposedly they were destroyed long ago. An immeasurable panic would clutch wizard society if anyone knew that a vampire had infiltrated the High Council, but if Melchior knew Alichino was a vampire, then it’s possible the entire High Council has been compromised. As for the creature they called Mammon, I know nothing about it. The Institute has destroyed much of wizard history and left us in the dark about a great many things.”
We pressed Luther for more, but he didn’t know anything and didn’t care to speculate. I, however, had pieced together a great many facts based on what I’d learned and the book I found in the Night City: During the Third Magus War, wizardkind combatted a mysterious entity known as the Malebranche. Hanno Scherrer defeated the Malebranche by sacrificing his daughter to make a cintamani, which he used to wish the Malebranche away. After the Third Magus War, wizardkind formed a great assembly to protect the world from the Malebranche. Vampires had infiltrated this assembly’s High Council and now controlled the Institute, and they used it to kidnap wizards and feed them to a monster they kept in the Dreamhaven. The feeding ritual occurred every thirty years. Gaspar had witnessed a previous feeding, and that galvanized him to form the Defectors to stop the Institute. Gaspar had used us the same way Scherrer did his daughter, but he didn’t get to banish the Institute because Hunter used the cintamani to save me.
What common thread ran between the three Magus Wars? What was the Malebranche and how was it connected to the vampires in the High Council or Mammon? Furthermore, what ultimate plan did these vampires have that required them to keep Mammon trapped in the Dreamhaven? I wanted everything to fit together neatly, but we still lacked pieces to the puzzle.
Chapter 22
Everyone woke up an hour after we’d brought them back to Sanctuary. Luther sequestered Nephelie and Aquila in the office, and they discussed the situation in secret. We gathered in the reading room.
“This pisses me off,” Alison said. “We saved their asses and they’re in there keeping secrets?”
“Maybe we should find a way to eavesdrop?” Linh said.
“We could turn into flies.”
“And get squished,” Maleeka said.
“What do you suggest we do?” Alison said.
“They can’t stay in there all night. We’ll ask them when they come out.”
“They won’t tell us anything,” Blake said, resigned. “Y’all already know that.”
It was almost an hour before we heard the door to Nephelie’s office open. We filed out and surrounded her like an inquisition.
“We want answers,” Alison said. “We told you about the Dreamhaven, about Alichino and the admins, that Mammon thing, the eirineftis being pumped into the water supply—we told you everything. It’s time you stop keeping secrets.”
Nephelie scanned us. “I don’t have the strength to talk anymore.”
“That’s a bad excuse,” Blake said.
“It’s no excuse at all. Besides, you’re all too young to concern yourselves with our next move. You’ve done enough already. It’s time we all rest. The coming days and months may be the hardest of our lives. Now, follow me.” We didn’t know what to expect, but she led us into the garage, set a few boxes on the floor, and opened them. They were packed with fireworks.
“It’s getting pretty dark outside,” Aquila said. “Why don’t we celebrate you saving our asses.”
Nephelie smiled and nudged the boxes toward us with her foot. They said they wanted to celebrate us saving their lives, but really they sought to rest our minds. A great many doubts about our futures still hung in the air, but a festive respite was a welcome thing.
We took the boxes into the foyer and showed the children. Their faces lit up with joy. They gathered sparklers and fireworks and hurried outside. The sun was mostly behind the mountains, giving the sky a purplish hue. The children readied bottle rockets with bouquet patterns, and when they were done, they ran off with lit sparklers, laughing and playing like will-o-the-wisps on the pebbly shore.
We joined them outside. While the others were off making sure the kids had properly set up the fireworks, Hunter took off his shoes and walked to the water’s edge with me. I slipped off my shoes, too, rolled up my jeans, and let the minnows tickle my feet with each wave. He slid his fingers between mine. It was a small comfort. Nonetheless, it was a comfort I relished.
Hunter kept his eyes quietly trained on the foamy waves gathering around his feet. The water sparkled under the clear night sky.
He glanced at me with a playful smirk tugging the corners of his lips. “How bad did you miss me while I was gone?”
“Pretty bad.”
He went quiet again, like something was bugging him, but he didn’t know how to put it. I picked his hand up and kissed it. The rippling water danced in Hunter’s pensive eyes.
“It was really dark, Johnny. It was really dark and I was really scared, and you saved me . . . again.” Hunter swept up my other hand and cradled them both, like he was clutching diamonds. His somber expression faded, revealing his usual playful smirk. “What’d you miss most about me?” he asked, studying my fingertips.
“Your cute smile.”
“Liar. What’d you really miss?” A rosy blush framed the perfect symmetry of his smile. “You missed the D, huh?”
I shook my head. “Shut up, Hunt.” Then I leaned forward and kissed him.
The first blaze of pink and purple lit up the sky. Hunter put an arm around me and the fiery green and neon-pink explosions bloomed in his eyes.
Alison came up and nudged me. “It’s kind of wild you actually saved him. I can’t believe we’re still alive after all that.”
“We saved him, Ali. All of us.”
She rested her head on my shoulder. Blake came over and threw his arms around us. Dad’s words returned to me, about families being more than just papers or blood. It was Alison’s love and Blake’s love and Hunter’s love that had given me the courage to stand on my own two feet. But I’d given them courage too. Because we were a family, and a family drinks from the same reservoir of strength.
The End
Glossary
Aura: The mystical energy around wizards, magical creatures, places, and other living things. A wizard’s aura always reflects their life and personality, whether it smells like their favorite cologne or sounds like athletes playing sports. When an aura belongs to a magical creature, it usually reflects the creature’s nature, whether it’s base, atavistic hunger or Machiavellian power designs. Ordinary humans do not have auras. To detect an aura, wizards can use their wizard sight like a sixth sense. The aura then manifests as an emotional reverberation felt psychically. They can also physically see auras using the hard-reading aspect of their wizard sight. Visually, auras manifest as a golden envelope around the subject. Although wizards can mask their auras, only very intelligent, advanced Void-spawns and Maras can do the same.
Coins, the Legacy of: A Legacy dedicated to advancing the children of Western banking elites.
Creators, the: A mythical race of Void-spawns who escaped the Void, supposedly to build a paradise where they could experience love. According to wizard lore, and the stories Maras tell, they were wiped out in an eons-long war with the evil Void-spawns.
Crowns, the Legacy of: A Legacy dedicated to advancing the children of Western political elites.
Defectors, the: A rebel group of formerly extracted wizards, and some Lineage and Legacy sympathizers, who are fighting to bring down the Institute and its administrators. They informally refer to themselves as the Legacy of Freedom.
Dual-soul: A permanent union between a wizard and a Void-spawn that confers great power to the wizard.
Eirineftis (ειρηνευτής): A Greek word that means pacifier. It is bottled in metal canisters. Per standard r
egulations, Institute agents are required to carry them. Eirineftis is used to suppress magical abilities, and in higher doses can cause wizards to lose consciousness. It’s preferred that agents use little magic during extractions, so eirineftis is deployed to subdue noncompliant wizards. The Institute can also pump eirineftis into its extraction vehicles.
Glossing: When wizards interact with the magical world, whether by manipulating the vivit apparatus or by casting a spell off the top of their head, it leaves behind an ambient signature, usually based on the wizard’s aura. This signature can be used to track down wizards. Wizards who want to prevent themselves from being tracked this way can “gloss their auras,” or, essentially, use magic to undo the presence of magic. However, this technique isn’t perfect, and doesn’t work against very powerful wizards.
Guardians: Large robots whose sole purpose it is to protect the City at the End of the World.
Hard-reading: Wizards can psychically sense the magical world around them (soft-reading), but hard-reading describes when they use their powers to physically see the vivit apparatus or the auras around certain things.
Haywire: A state in which a spell loses control and becomes unpredictable. Haywire spells are often extremely dangerous.
Hobs: Small robots whose sole purpose it is to maintain the City at the End of the World.
Keep, the: The Legacy of the Crowns’ dorm.
Legacy: One of five fraternal orders within the Institute. Each order corresponds to a sphere of power in the Western world. Although members of a Lineage are always Legacies, Legacies are not always part of a Lineage. The most powerful Legacy is thought to be the Legacy of the Crowns, with the children of old European wizard aristocracy holding the greatest influence in the magical world.
Lineage: A bloodline that claims to have descended from a mythical figure, usually a wizard or God.
Mara: An Institute term used to describe a Void-spawn with high intelligence that resides almost exclusively in Everywhen. Because Maras tend to make even less sense than other Void-spawns, they are stereotyped as being mad.
Night City, the: The border between Everywhen and the Void, life and death.
Night Market, the: A place in Everywhen where Maras gather to trade secrets and memories.
Obmagikos: A heavy armor that is highly resistant to magic.
Somnambulist: Sleepwalker. A wizard whose mind is trapped between the material world and Everywhen. These wizards are often incredibly powerful. Being trapped in Everywhen is physically traumatic for wizards, so those who return as somnambulists always have white hair.
Spires, the Legacy of: A Legacy dedicated to advancing the children of Western academic elites.
Thorns, the Legacy of: A Legacy dedicated to advancing the children of Western military elites.
Union, Dream-rave: When two or more wizards enter Everywhen together. To enter a union, or a dream rave, the two wizards must be touching in some way. The most common method of conducting a dream rave is for all participants to lie down in a formation that allows their heads to touch. During a union, all participants can fully view the contents of one another’s minds, without restriction. This can feel emotionally invasive and is one reason why unions are greatly discouraged.
Vampire: A wizard who has become a dual-soul with a powerful Void-spawn. This union causes the wizard to grow fangs and develop an animalistic hunger for blood, which lend to historical stereotypes.
Vivit Apparatus: The magical clockwork the Creators built to govern the physical laws of the material world. When viewed using the hard-reading aspect of the wizard sight, the cogs and wheels of the vivit apparatus shine a translucent gold-orange color. Wizards can manipulate the machinery and change the laws of the physical world (i.e., magic). While low magic has wizards memorizing sequences to manipulate the machinery with their hands, more advanced techniques allow wizards to control the clockwork with their minds. If a wizard does not know the sequences to control a particular machinery (like a fireball), a spell may either fail, or go haywire.
Void, the: A sentient nothingness that predates the universe. Wizard myths tell that all things return to the Void in death and are reborn when they crawl back out. The Creators sought to break this cycle by creating a paradise for the souls of the dead.
Void-spawn: Any entity originating from the Void. Void-spawns exist on a hierarchy, with the most powerful usually taking on human form and having high intelligence, and the weakest being akin to earthly microorganisms. Ordinary humans can’t perceive them, but wizards can use the hard-reading aspect of their wizard sight to see them.
Witch-hunter: A non-Lineage wizard who sells their services as a bounty hunter to the Institute.
Wizard Sight: The wizard’s magical senses of the world around them. This is a passive ability that allows wizards to tune in to the emotional frequencies of everything around them, including things humans often claim don’t experience emotions (like rocks). Wizards can also use an aspect of their wizard sight called hard-reading to physically see the magical clockwork governing the laws of the universe, and to detect auras and see Void-spawns.
Acknowledgments
First and foremzzzzzzzzzost, I want to thank Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen for bringing Wattpad into the world and opening the doors for QBIPOC writers like myself. Publishing can be a merciless landscape for minority writers, but Wattpad has always been committed to giving marginalized voices a (large) platform on which to speak.
A big thanks to my two lovely editors, Deanna McFadden and Andrew Wilmot. As someone who has never gone to school for writing, these two handled me with kindness, patience, and care, and they guided me and helped me grow as a writer in more ways than I can easily express. I may have written this book, but it was 100 percent a collaborative project between us three. As an aside, the three of us worked on this book during a pandemic, so yes, these two are beyond golden, and I could probably gush for another few paragraphs about them alone.
I would like to thank Aron Levitz, the head of Wattpad Studios, for believing in my story and working tirelessly to build a platform for marginalized voices to be heard. My talent manager Monica Pacheco, and Rebecca Sands, Paisley McNab, Sarah Salomon, and Allison Dick. Also the marketing team helping me get my name and book out there so marginalized readers can find it: Tina McIntyre, Holley Corfield, Cait Stewart, and Jananie Kulandaivelu, and the amazing cover designer, Laura Mensinga! Too often all the credit goes to the writer, but this story wouldn’t be anywhere without all these amazing people lifting it up and carrying it to the finish line. I am endlessly grateful for the time and love they’ve shown me and my project.
Working on this during a pandemic wouldn’t have been possible without my wonderfully gentle and patient partner, who provides me with the material and emotional support I need to pursue this career. They are the biggest reason I am able to write, and even when it looked like our investment wouldn’t pay off, they have always encouraged me to keep pushing, keep writing, because they knew it was my greatest passion. Without them, I would be completely lost.
Also, I want to thank my gay wizards. You’re the reason I do this, and every day I work harder at sharpening my writing skills and storytelling abilities, not because I want to be famous—y’all already know how shy I am—but because I want to entertain you, and I want you to feel proud that believing in me was worth your time. My gay wizards have reached out to me, asked me how I was doing during this pandemic; they’ve been my friends and talked to me online and promoted me tirelessly, and I love all of them for believing in me and believing in I’m a Gay Wizard. You’ve all changed my world, and I don’t think a paragraph in an acknowledgments section will ever be enough to convey how grateful I am. But the same as before, I didn’t write this book alone, we all did, together.
About the Author
V. S. Santoni is the author of I’m A Gay Wizard. He’s a Latinx nonbinary guy who spends way too much time daydreaming, scouring YouTube for retro-anime movies, and s
obbing to sad, old punk songs with his best friend, a Chihuahua named Darla. He lives in Nashville with his husband.
Copyright
Content Warning: anxiety, eugenics, homophobia, self-harm, simulated patricide, themes of death and dying, transphobia, underage drinking—this list is not exhaustive.
Copyright © 2020 Santos Santoni. All rights reserved.
Published in Canada by Wattpad Books, a division of Wattpad Corp.
36 Wellington Street E., Toronto, ON M5E 1C7
www.wattpad.com
No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders.
First Wattpad Books edition: October 2020
ISBN 978-1-98936-536-6 (Trade Paper original)
ISBN 978-1-98936-544-1 (eBook edition)
Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental.
Wattpad, Wattpad Books, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Wattpad Corp. All rights reserved.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request.
Cover design by Laura Mensinga
In the City of the Nightmare King Page 22