When Night Breaks

by Janella Angeles

  The magician’s words fell away as Daron glanced around and froze in place.

  Aunt Cata, across the room.

  His stomach dropped at the sight of her, sitting cross-legged on a table in a gauche scarlet dress with a crown of feathers atop her head. Unrecognizable in the getup, she held court over a group of men and women watching her with lust.

  What the—

  He flinched as someone nearly bowled him over with a slurred giggle. “Your hair is quite luscious.”

  Daron jerked away at the hands crawling up his jacket—hands with nails sharp as knives, and a face that almost had him falling over.

  Aaros. Daron blinked rapidly at the man who tried reaching for him again. He was forged like a cabinet in his garish yellow attire. Not at all the assistant’s build, yet the face behind the paint-splattered mask was Aaros’s.

  “He’s not interested.” Herald inserted himself firmly between them, when Daron continued gaping wordlessly. “Look, you’re already giving him nightmares and he’s not even sleeping yet.”

  A vulgar growl and belch erupted from Aaros before he stumbled away. Though when Daron’s gaze flitted up for another look, there was no trace of the assistant on the harsh face of a glassy-eyed stranger.

  Daron’s pulse faltered. He searched for the red dress across the way—but the figure in it now was someone he’d never seen: a bright young face with tattooed roses sitting upon her cheeks. A different person entirely.

  “Hello…?”

  The roar of blood in Daron’s ears ceased at the rapid snapping of fingers. “Demarco?” Slightly alarmed, Herald poked him in the chest. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  If only he knew. Because as soon as Aunt Cata and Aaros appeared, more emerged. Familiar faces surfacing over guests like something out of a nightmare: Lottie, descending down from the ceiling on vast golden silks that wrapped around her ankles, stopping her in a split. One girl strolled by, sporting shorter hair and jewels studded over a face that looked remarkably like Eva’s. And then among the pool of dancers was Ira, in a lush, bouncing ballgown of frills with the Devils card thrust high above her head.

  They were all around him. Vanishing, reappearing.

  He was losing his damn mind.

  “I see…” Daron shook. He needed a drink, and desperately began hunting for a tray. “I-I keep seeing things. People that shouldn’t be here—”

  When he thought he saw Eva again by the dance floor, joined by a couple other girls with jewels by their eyes, the nausea hit hard. He swayed, before a rough grip at his shoulders steadied him back firmly.

  “Shit.” Herald sighed with slight irritation before delivering a few smacks across Daron’s cheeks. “Hey, you need to focus and get out there. There’s nothing wrong, you’re just seeing ghosts. It’s normal.”

  Normal. A strained laugh bubbled up Daron’s throat.

  “It happens to everyone.” With one last hard shake to the shoulder, Herald stepped back from Daron carefully. “The mortal life inevitably follows when you cross here. It’s all illusion, unavoidable, but it passes.”

  Daron groaned as his head started to throb.

  It was exactly what he needed, another reason to not trust anything around him. With a last deep breath, he dared one sweeping look around the room, relieved to find no ghosts teasing him from the crowd. For now. “Where’s Kallia?” he bit out.

  Find her.

  The one anchor kept him from drifting away. She was here, and he was so close.

  Just find her.

  “I don’t know.” Herald appeared to be searching, but only to steal a delicate flute of some purple fizzy drink off the nearest table. “My job is essentially done. From here, it’s all you.”

  “I thought you were supposed to deliver me to her?”

  “I was supposed to deliver you to the party.” The magician downed the entire flute in one gulp. “Though my advice is to get out on that floor. Because do you really believe the showgirl would be standing idyll around the room?”

  The bastard was right, and he hated it. Kallia would never be waiting at the edges of a party; she would be right at the center of it. The eye of the storm.

  And she’d be laughing in his face if she saw him right now. “I don’t know the dance.”

  “Thank goodness for magic, then.”

  Daron barely fought Herald from guiding them both toward the edges overlooking the floor. Rows upon rows of people moved in lines to their partners at the strike of strings. An intricate collection of steps that everyone executed so perfectly in unison, Daron didn’t doubt the magic guiding their feet. Once the song dropped to the grand chords of a piano, the dancers turned to switch partners—and the routine went on with newly paired couples, as orderly as clockwork.

  “Come on, Demarco.” Herald clapped a hand over the shoulder. “Time to fly.”

  Without warning, he pushed Daron onto the floor with such force, it nearly sent him toppling into a partnered couple. No doubt causing the start of the rows falling like dominoes.

  Remarkably, once his feet rested fully on the floor, a thrum went through him and he straightened into position on the spot. It was like a drug entering his veins, his blood, wrapping them in some thrall. Every limb and muscle hummed as well, as though the song in the air somehow breathed through him, too.

  At the first notes, a soft command fell over his thoughts. A spark of energy, waiting to be touched. He could refuse if he wanted to. But why would he?

  Something in the start wanted him to bow one knee to the ground, so he did. The other partners in line with him bent down similarly, while the others across answered in a regal bow of their own. An ask and an answer.

  Daron waited as his partner drew near, the picture to his frame.

  He worried what awaited him upon lifting his gaze, relieved to find a face he didn’t recognize behind a mask layered in copper lace that matched the fragile wirework of her gown. She gifted him a smile before circling him, walking her fingers across the backs of his shoulders before waiting for him to rise.

  As the instruments switched, so did the direction; and as a result, the partners. Without the guidance of the floor, Daron imagined a battlefield of fallen bodies and pained cries with every graceless partner change.

  The floor now, and the rows of dancers upon it, moved with an ocean’s rhythm.

  It was certainly a fantastic show of magic, easy to get lost in. Without doubt or exhaustion to hinder him, he felt compelled to stay for one more minute. An hour. Forever, if they’d let him.

  Until his eyes caught a light.

  Red jewels, red lips.

  The cascade of full dark hair, curling at the ends.

  Daron stilled as the floor disappeared for a moment. He jolted at the music’s return to full volume. His body primed for the next steps, even as he craned his head over the sea. Searching. He hardly spared a glance at his partner until an annoyed, “ahem,” huffed before him, the figure waiting for Daron to hit the next move. All muscle memory at this point, even if the strength behind his steps weakened. A half-hearted lift, a distracted bow.

  He kept looking between every part of the routine for some other piece of her.

  Her.

  As he thought it, the ghosts came back as if to join his search. First, as one of his new partners—a slim-coated gentleman bearing Mayor Eilin’s head, who, midturn, disturbingly dissolved into the face of Janette.

  Then he spotted Erasmus Rayne a few heads over, partnered with Canary.

  Aaros, executing an impressive leap toward the center.

  Some left, others stayed. But they all kept coming, until Daron couldn’t discern what was real anymore. It no longer mattered. The world blurred in this constant carousel of ghosts he might never see again. He didn’t know whether to savor the glimpses or look away entirely.

  The song came to an end, with a promise to start once more. It meant a breath, a momentary rest as he bowed down his knee. Sweat gathered at the back of his ne
ck as he caught his breath and waited.

  A glimmer caught at the corner of his eyes. A long silvery-gold hem with intricate beading trailed closer and closer to him. A new partner, another dance.

  Lifting his gaze, Daron suddenly forgot every step.

  His heart seized in his chest to one thought.

  Her.

  32

  Him.

  Despite the music, Kallia struggled to keep up with the steps.

  Demarco stood before her, donning a striking suit and bronze armor across his eyes. The mask shielded most of his face, but she didn’t need to see the rest. She’d know it anywhere.

  The music surged her forward, and for a moment, she was almost afraid to begin. To get closer, to touch him.

  Just a ghost. She repeated the words until they set her at ease as she stepped toward her partner.

  The magician wearing Demarco’s face watched her the whole time he kept his knee to the floor. Her stomach tightened at the careful way he followed her every step, even as she crossed behind him.

  By the time her fingers finished trailing across the firm line of his shoulders, a stranger would be waiting when to meet her. But when she turned, it was still his face. Still a ghost.

  And he wouldn’t leave.

  It was just what she needed after Jack’s departure. Right before her duel, before Ruthless brought the night down.

  Focus. Vain would rip into her if she didn’t, now that the party had begun at the Dealer’s entrance moments ago. When Roth’s bellow of a laugh reached her, she tensed, relieved to be trapped on the floor away from him.

  Until now.

  The gems scattered over her cheekbones and forehead like additional armor she was grateful for. She needed it as she let the music take her. Losing herself to it.

  Eventually, the command of the notes took them, and they fell into the steps. Just like before.

  When their palms finally touched, her heart ached entirely. It remembered the hand that would reach for hers in secret, when they thought no one was looking as they walked along sidewalks. The hand that cupped the side of her face whenever the door closed behind them soon after.

  Not real. He wasn’t real.

  Like everything else here.

  When Demarco twisted her around, she focused directly on her palms braced at his chest. Her cheeks burned at how little it took to break her. How much worse it felt, to remember like this.

  A friend, a love? The opposite?

  Vain’s words pecked in the back of her head like a taunt. Enough for Kallia to finally look up to Demarco watching her from behind the mask.

  Kallia swallowed hard, resisting the urge to run. There was no need to fear him or any of the others who visited. But the power this pain held over her, carving deeper into her heart, was worth fearing. For an instant, a stranger’s embrace made her forget. It made her remember, if she simply closed her eyes. And because she knew the truth but welcomed the hurt anyway, it made her weak.

  The melody forced them away first. Every chord struck a new command in her bones, joining their hands while they circled each other. She kept finding him at every turn, meeting her step-by-step as the dance bound them together. A breath away, an almost embrace.

  Until he lifted her up high when the notes swept upward, before lowering her slowly so that they were chest to chest, faces close. His heart pounding over hers.

  They stood so still, as if the music had abandoned them entirely. Though she wouldn’t have noticed. Demarco kept haunting her, and he wouldn’t stop until she let him go.

  Let them all go.

  They weren’t going away. For Kallia, they were only growing stronger.

  “Please,” she managed, pushing at his arms. “Please just go—”

  “Is this real?”

  Kallia stopped breathing. “What?”

  A new swell of strings swallowed the answer, snapping the floor into new formations swift as a twisting kaleidoscope. Couples parted ways, switching to their next partners. The melody urged her to do the same, but she fought it. Unsuccessfully, as the tide pulled her away to join the next row of dancers.

  Frantically, Kallia searched over the heads and between shoulders, rushed through the motions while trying to pull herself from the song. Every time she caught him, she lost him.

  The farther they grew apart, the more their gazes found each other’s across the floor.

  Until all trace of him was gone. No matter how many directions she turned for one last glimse.

  Once her pounding heart returned to a steady beat, the voices and laughter slipped back into her ear. The party kept moving around her, even when the music had finally stopped. The floor cleared, the smoke swirling at her ankles gone. Under the dimming lights, the crowds gathering at the sides tittered in excitement as circles surfaced across the grounds. Dueling marks.

  “Oy!”

  Kallia startled at the loud clap in her face.

  “Dancing’s over.” Malice strutted away with the toss of her hair and a wink. “It’s showtime.”

  Clarity doused Kallia with much-needed cold water, and it still wasn’t enough. Another duel. Any nerves for the occasion were long gone, crushed to ash as a sharp elbow threaded forcefully within hers. “Yes, try to redeem yourself tonight, mortal,” Vain murmured, guiding them off to the sides of the dueling floor. “At the very least, don’t embarrass me again.”

  “A true inspiration to us all.” Malice sauntered beside them. Her smirk fell after a double take at Kallia. “Are … you all right?”

  No. She was still trying to catch her own breath. Demarco wasn’t here. She knew that. But no encounter with a ghost had ever left her so shaken.

  Is this real?

  “Oh, Zarose, not now.” Vain drew them both to a stop and inspected Kallia’s face with a spark of alarm, dropping quickly into a scowl. “No stage fright. You’re a Diamond Ring, which means you’re better than that.”

  Vain’s worst thorns really only emerged when under pressure. Her one nervous tick. The last thing she’d want to hear was a strange ghost story about her own brother wandering about the party. “I’m fine,” Kallia assured through clenched teeth, shaking off the nerves.

  “Then prove it.”

  Like the changing of the stage, the enchanted dance floor from before had transformed into a grid of designated battlegrounds squared off to fit no more than a dozen duels at once. Attending illusions oversaw each corner. Some guests, especially those more elaborately and inconveniently dressed, opted to spectate from the sides and place their bets before anything began.

  For the ones who wished to duel the headliners themselves, lines already formed around each prospective match.

  Around the square reserved for the Diamond Rings, the line coiled like an unruly snake eating its own tail. Roth had yet to make his way to their square, but she’d seen glimpses of him with his devils not too far off. Attracting an audience of this size was sure to draw his attention soon.

  “Would you look at that?” Malice nodded over her shoulder as they reached their side of the dueling board. “If we don’t get any wins, at least we can claim popularity.”

  Kallia understood the true reason for the mob. Not so much due to popularity as it was the promise of a sure, quick win against her. After her last duel, the target on her back had only grown larger. Any magician hoping for an easy way to get noticed by the Dealer would take advantage of it.

  “I’d rather claim victory.” Kallia turned her back on the crowd.

  “Likewise. It’s a lot more satisfying.” Vain paced, sweeping a furtive glance over the heads around them. “She should’ve been here by now.”

  Ruthless. The girl had slipped off on her own some time during the night, after making sure she was seen throughout the party. Whatever mayhem she’d forged into her gown, it would light the party up fast. And end the duels even faster, which seemed more and more unlikely as all of them inched closer to Kallia’s starting place.

  “Maybe she got
caught,” said Malice.

  “Or decided she didn’t want to do it,” Kallia supplied, cracking her knuckles. “She was worried—”

  “Both of you, shut up. She’ll pull through.” Pressing a finger to her temple, Vain took a moment to think before her features crinkled as if some terrible odor entered her nostrils. “Why is he back?”

  Kallia looked up, and straightened as the hairs on the back of her neck rose.

  Their sidelines were packed with onlookers, and Jack stood among them, stoic as ever. Already, a ring of space formed around him from those inching away, nervous to even catch his notice for a second.

  Surprise fluttered up her spine, twisting at her insides, forming a strange smile she couldn’t be buried across her lips. She hadn’t … expected him to stay. When he left her on the dance floor, she assumed he’d be long gone by now. He had no further business here, nor any responsibility to her anymore.

  Except he was still here. Refusing to meet her eye, which amused her all the more. “I invited him,” Kallia said.

  Vain’s shriek was immediate. “After I told you not to?” Her expression flashed from annoyed to murderous in a blink. “Damn it, Kallia, what did you—”

  The first bell rang, alerting magicians to assume their positions. Fighters shuffled into place, while everyone else eagerly stepped back behind the lines.

  “You better pray nothing backfires tonight, or else,” Vain hissed, pointing a sharp-tipped nail at Kallia with a clear desire to stab. “Also, good luck.”

  Raising her chin, she stalked off. Malice followed, not without a thumbs-up and a wink for more luck that could very well go to waste if the duel was cut short. That alone should’ve been a relief, with Jack on the sidelines and the world watching her again. Waiting for yet another brutal loss.