by Laynie Bynum
“I was told I could come here and get help, away from the Guild’s prying eyes,” he said, mindlessly running his hand back and forth over his bandages.
“You were told correctly,” I answered before Lucy could continue her rudeness. If he came through the back, he wasn’t part of the Guild. Our spells and protections wouldn’t have allowed him entry if he was. Guild representatives could only enter via the front door, in plain sight of every magical being on our street.
And for a random street in Jamaica Plains, it was unusually populated with mages. Particularly, mages who did not take kindly to Guild interference. Mages who went out of their way to hide or help us when there were problems. Mages who’d watched over us since our parents died. Mages who made it possible for seventeen-year-old Winter to take on raising twelve-year-old me.
Lucy huffed and stomped to the kitchen. A moment later I heard the kitchen faucet turn on. She must have been washing the blood from her hands, although I’d been quite clear I’d appreciate it if they used the bathroom sinks for that sort of thing. The blood was difficult to get out of the grout, and that was the room we ate in.
The stranger took the opportunity to stand and close the distance between us. He motioned to Winter’s body. “Murder?”
Did everyone in this town act like this was just another episode of Cold Case? Or just the magical ones?
I nodded.
His head began to nod as well. “Mm-hmm. Makes sense. You were trying to get information out of her, weren’t you?”
I nodded again, this time with my eyes glued on the place where the shag rug met the hardwood floors.
“They'll know, you know. They’re like tracking dogs fixed on a scent.” He walked over to Winter and casually plucked one of the coins from her eyes, flipping it around his knuckles as he looked her over. “They’ve killed one Quinn sister, and now they have the opportunity to imprison the other,” he whispered to himself. It was so low that I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly until his eyes trained back on me. “You’ve got to get out of here, Autumn.”
Shock froze my body in place. I knew he was right, but I couldn’t leave. Lucy needed me. Winter needed me. “How do you know my name?”
The faint hint of a smile began to creep up his face but fell as soon as a bright light filled the room from the front windows. “They’re here. You have to run.”
He grabbed my arm and started to pull me into the kitchen, where the door to the basement was carefully hidden behind a curio, but I yanked free. “I can’t leave. I can explain.”
“They won’t stop to hear it.” He was pushing and shoving now. Desperately trying to get me to leave.
Lucy was nowhere to be found, although I knew she was in the kitchen moments earlier.
Nothing was making sense. My brain was fuzzing up. It was as if the human mind could only take so much in one day and mine had just simply refused to keep processing the horrible things that were happening.
My sister had died. I’d tried, and failed, to perform dark magic. Lucy now hated me because of it. This strange man was trying to help, or at least, I was pretty sure his intentions were good. Although I had no reason to believe him and he seemed to know way more about me than I knew about him.
I broke free from his grasp just as another set of arms wrapped around me from the back and started pulling me in the opposite direction.
“Stop,” he said forcefully, pulling up the sleeve of his uninjured arm to reveal a small mark. It wasn’t a scar, as I thought it was at first glance, but a tattoo of a G in grey ink.
The hands around me stilled long enough for me to look up and see the black robes and black hair of a Guild enforcer, the Guild’s personal brand of corrupt police force.
The stranger walked over to me and as he approached, I was torn between crying unmercifully and wanting to knock out everyone around me. Which I knew would be impossible, but it didn’t stop the fight half of my flight or fight instinct from kicking into high gear.
He leaned forward to hug me and my entire body stiffened. His breath tickled my ear as he whispered. “I can’t make them leave you here. But I swear on my honor that no harm will come to you, Quinn daughter.”
That was the last thing I saw or heard before a black hood was pulled over my eyes and I was ripped from my home.
Chapter Three
The nauseating riptide of a portal pulled my body this way and that, the chaotic wind whipping at my clothes and filling my eardrums with a mind-numbing roar.
The enforcer’s arms were still around me, unnervingly still, as we landed on a rock-hard surface. My breaths were ragged, and even with the black hood still covering my face, every inhale pulled in a sickly smell. Hospitals and morgues. The unsettling smell of things that couldn’t ever be truly clean and the chemicals people tried to cover them with.
Loud sounds of metal crashing into metal made me jump. And, while I should have been terrified of the arms restraining me, I almost wanted to turn into them. At least with them, I hadn’t yet been hurt. What was waiting for me when the hood was wrenched off would be another story. It was uncertain, unknown.
The strangers’ voice echoed in my mind, ‘No harm will come to you, Quinn daughter.’ What had he meant? How could he have been so sure?
I’d never seen Guild enforcers stop under anyone's command. They did what they wanted when they wanted. Or else.
Who had been left alone in my house with Lucy and our patients? Were any of them in danger? Was I?
The fabric slid off of my face so fast that it nearly took my nose with it and I fell forward to my knees. I pulled in gulp after gulp of fresh, or semi-fresh, air.
“Get up,” a deep voice commanded as a pair of boots came into view on the floor in front of me.
I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure I even could.
“I said get up,” the voice came again as thick, callused hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to a standing position.
The guard was much taller than me, and broader too, dressed in a uniform of solid grey. Even his hair was grey, in the unnatural way my hair was blondish-white to signify my white magic powers. But I’d never seen grey.
Blonde to white for white mages.
Brown to black for dark mages.
Grey… simply didn’t exist.
I stared at his hair, when I should have been paying attention to where he was leading me. “How?” I managed to ask around the taste of bile in my mouth.
“Prisoners do not speak to prison staff unless they are answering direct questions. Get in line.” He shoved me forward and directly into a haggard looking man with long brown hair and a heavy beard.
“Heyyyy,” the man said, clearly annoyed. “Watch where you’re going, girl.”
I took my spot behind him in the curving line, trying to crane my neck to see where we were going. More people dressed in grey uniforms surrounded us. Their arms were crossed, and their eyes were blocked out with dark glasses. They were expressionless, motionless statues against the harsh fluorescence of the room.
A blur of motion ahead of us had my heart racing as I tried to make sense of what was going on. About ten feet towards the front of the line flames began to rise, strange, heatless flames that could only be caused by magic.
The people in grey wasted no time. They were on the source in an instant, a blur of motion amongst the stunned crowd. The source of the fire, a girl barely my age, was pulled from line with more force than necessary for her small frame. Her chestnut colored hair was fisted in one of the guard’s hands as he slammed her head to the ground.
Another of the guards placed the heel of his boot into the small of her back, crushing her between it and the hard, concrete floor. “Soon, none of you will be able to use your magic,” he boasted to the crowd with a smugness reserved for those in power who do not deserve their control. “But this—” he motioned to the girl under his foot, “is why the stupidest thing you imbeciles could do is use your magic here.”
He step
ped off of her and I briefly wondered if his threat was only some bruises and the shame of being called out in front of everyone.
And then her body went rigid. Her arms and legs began to thrash as a piercing light lit up her veins. She cried out in agony and the sound nearly shredded my eardrums as it reverberated against the stark empty walls and concrete floor.
Before I could process what I was seeing, she was gone.
As if her entire body had shattered into pieces and disappeared from existence.
Murmurs of dissent spread through the crowd, even as the guards tried in vain to command us into order.
“Did you see that?” someone asked behind me. “I thought the terminus spell was illegal.”
The man in front of me leaned around to answer. “You’re already in the Grey. It’s not like you should care about what is illegal anymore.”
So, this was the Grey. The prison that haunted both children’s nightmares and adults’ news stories. A legendary institution that was supposed to keep us safe, but instead just solidified the Guild’s rule as ineffable and uncontested. It kept those on the outer fringes of society—those like me who didn’t take the Guild as the alpha and the omega—in constant fear.
No one had ever seen the inside and lived to tell about it. And, from what I could tell, no one had ever seen the outside either for that matter.
I looked around, taking in the bleakness of the place through wide eyes. It didn’t seem like somewhere shrouded in myth and legend. It seemed like an ordinary prison. Like one of the earthbound jails. That was, of course, if you didn’t look too closely at the inhabitants.
All around me were images of every type and Level. Dark mages with oil-slicks for hair and tattoos climbing up their arms and necks. Low Level white mages trying hard not to bring attention to themselves. Shrinking into themselves, being quiet, and hiding behind others as much as possible.
There was even a type of mage I’d thought was just a fairytale, her ocean blue hair flowing out behind her as if it was floating in the water even though there was no breeze to be found in the hallway.
She was just a few people behind me, so when the line started to inch forward again, I casually hung back, allowing people to pass in front of me until she approached.
I managed to covertly slide back into the line behind her and worked up the courage to speak. I had to know. She was the stuff of tall tales and overactive imaginations come to life. “Excuse me?” My voice was barely a whisper.
She turned toward me, her eyes the color of a vibrant hibiscus flower, her wave-like eyebrow raised as she looked me up and down. “Yes?”
“Are you a—” I look around the hallway, certain that anyone who heard me would think I was insane. “Mermaid?”
Her coral lips lifted into a sneer. “I hate that term,” she said. shaking her head. “No, I am not a mermaid. I’m a freaking water sprite.” It was obvious she wanted to say much nastier comments about the term mermaid, but instead she took a deep breath and muttered, “Landdwellers, I swear.”
I’d never in my life been called a landdweller. Earthbound, sure, by people who doubted my magical abilities. Rogue, which was fair. Even bottomfeeder, by people who believed that the Guild could do no wrong. But landdweller was an entirely new insult.
“I didn’t mean any offense,” I said quietly as she turned back around. “I’ve just never seen one of your kind.”
The scent of salt hit me like a tidal wave as she wheeled on me. “One of my kind? What is that supposed to mean? You think I’m some species of animal or something? I’m just as human as you are, Mage.”
I held up my hands in defense. “Seriously, I’m sorry. I’m not used to all of this.” I waved around us at the hallway, the guards, the people.
Her eyes softened a bit, the typhoon in them calming into a gentle rain, as the hint of a smile toyed at the edges of her mouth. “A bit of a fish out of water, are we?”
I smiled sheepishly in return. “My mother used to tell me stories about the magical creatures of the sea, but I never believed they were real.” The line moved up and we shuffled forward, inching closer and closer to our unknown fate in the dark room up ahead.
She waved her hand dismissively, a shimmer of aqua catching the light against her skin. “Darling, don’t you know all the fairytales are true?”
My eyebrows knit together as I contemplated a world of talking animals and wicked witches. “Surely not all.”
“Fine. Most,” she said sternly, but then followed it with a laugh. The sound of it made me understand what old sailors’ tales meant by a siren’s song. If I’d heard it while stranded in the ocean, I would have done whatever it took to find the source.
“I’m Autumn Quinn,” I said, sticking my hand out for her to shake. “Lower white mage of Boston.”
She stared at my outstretched hand before deciding to take it. “Kai, and sprites don’t do Levels. We’re all just sprites.”
“That would be nice,” I grimaced, thinking of the Level exams and how I’d never see Level Five, especially not now.
“What are you even in for, squeaky?”
I tilted my head to the side. “Squeaky?”
The line moved up and in front of us I was able to make out a table with perfectly folded orange uniforms stacked nearly to the ceiling.
Kai laughed again. “As in, you look squeaky clean. Like you don't belong here.”
My eyes fell to the floor, color filling my cheeks. “I tried to resurrect my murdered sister.”
“Damnnnn,” she whistled. “That’s heavy. I expected something bright and cheery, but you go girl.” She looked past me; her eyes unfocused for a moment. “What did you say your last name was?”
My own eyes shifted from side to side, trying to follow her line of thought. “Quinn,” I answered with a question in my voice.
“Oh snap, I should have put it together sooner. You’re Winter’s little sister.” She did a little dance with her shoulders, smug at her astuteness before my last words hit her like a piano falling from a window. “Winter is dead?”
“How do you know my sister?”
It’s not like we’d been attached at the hip or anything. We had our own lives, but they revolved around the house. Around our patients. If she knew a mer— I mean a sprite, obviously she would have told me. Right?
“I think you’ll find that everyone knows your sister. She’s a legend.”
Kai was a legend. This place, as horrible as it was, was a legend. Winter was just Winnie. Just a young woman trying her best with the lot life had given her. She was bright smiles and pigtails. The thought of her was as relaxing as watching movies on the couch with hot cocoa and warm fires. She was home. But she was gone. And I was left with the chill of loneliness. It was as if I had just been laying in her lap on the couch and she got up to refill our mugs. The warmth of her body disappearing and making my skin cold even on summer nights.
I shook my head. “You must be talking about a different Winter.”
“A different Winter Quinn, high white mage of Boston who opened up an underground Guild-free hospital?” She scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s a ton of them to confuse her with.”
“It’s not a hospital,” I said sharply. “If you call it a hospital, people expect us to be able to heal things we can’t. We’re just…” I grappled for the right word, unable to think as the line started moving closer and closer to the front. “A clinic, I guess. To me it’s home so I don’t know what other people call it.”
Ahead, a man stood behind the table, looking people up and down and then handing them a uniform from one of the many stacks. He wore the same dull grey clothing and had the same dull grey hair. It was as if everything, from their coloring to their lifeforce, had been stripped away from them.
Kai stepped up to the table, her head held high and shoulders squared. As if she wasn’t a five-foot nothing sea creature, but instead a hardened criminal.
“Kailani Akana, you are hereby assigned this
uniform. From here on out, you are responsible for its care. You will not get another, so do not underestimate its importance.”
It was a freaking uniform for goodness sakes. Not an ancient artifact.
She took the uniform and stepped forward to pass through the doorway before turning around to face me. “I’ll see you around, Autumn. Sorry about your sister, she was one hell of a woman.”
Before I could respond, it was my turn to get my uniform. The guard tonelessly repeated the same phrase.
When he put the uniform in my hands, though, it was heavier than cloth alone should be. As if there was something in between the fabric. But there was no time to look inside. The doorway was waiting for me. Pitch black behind a shroud of portal energy.
Chapter Four
I appeared on the other side, still clutching my uniform tightly and utterly alone in the black empty space in front of me.
“You have been tried and found guilty of performing unauthorized necromancy,” a robotic sounding voice resounded into my mind. My ears itched, the feeling of hearing without them foreign and unwelcome. “Your sentence is incarceration in the Grey.”
“But what does that mean? How long will I be here?” I yelled into the void in front of me.
The voice went on, ignoring my pleas for answers. “You will be stripped of your magic. No potions will be offered. You are now an earthborn.”
As the words fell into my brain like water dripping down a leaky pipe, my body was abuzz with sensation. Pins and needles all over as if all of my extremities had fallen asleep at once. And then, without any fanfare, it was over. There was a piece of me missing. I could feel it the way one wakes from surgery and feels their missing limb. There, but not there.