by Tess Adair
Beside her, Logan could feel Sasha shaking with quiet laughter at the unnecessary drama of the moment. She might have joined her, too, if she weren’t busy clutching the unseen handle of the knife just inside her jacket.
There was a reason that bindings were illegal outside of the Order of Shadows. They were incredibly unpredictable and unstable, and they were more vulnerable to interference than other kinds of casts.
If Blake was the Wolf, now would be the time for her to make her move.
It probably wasn’t common knowledge among the crowd, but for one night only, Adepts Harrison and Yang were at a physical peak that they would likely never experience again. For roughly 24 hours after the binding, the bound experienced an unwavering physical high, fueled by the potent combination of adrenaline and magic. When Blake was bound, she would experience the exact same thing. But after those 24 hours, the adrenaline would inevitably begin to fade. Many newly bound fell into a deep sleep at that point, often sleeping for days. When they woke again, they would still be superhumanly strong, but never quite as strong as that first day.
So if someone were planning an attack, their binding would be an opportune moment. Logan’s grip tightened.
Eliana Blake ascended the stage. Her back was rigid and her shoulders squared as she assumed the same position the others had: facing the crowd, hands clasped behind her back, gaze straight ahead and steady. Seer Clément raised her booming voice once more.
“Adept Blake,” she said, “you have been named Champion of the Gauntlet for these ceremonies. Do you accept this title?”
“I do,” answered Blake, her voice ringing with certainty.
“As Champion, you must submit your will completely to the will of the Order—those who speak with the voice of the First Priestess Morgana. Do you submit?”
“I do.”
“Then it is sealed. Champion of the Gauntlet, take your place.”
With that, Blake turned away from the crowd, walking to the back of the dais to kneel before the stone tablet. As she rested on her heels, she lowered her head and placed her clasped hands atop the stone. Like the others before her, she waited.
“The hour is struck!” called Clément.
“The hour is struck!” replied an unseen chorus, scattered through the crowd.
Her grip on the knife didn’t slacken, but even Logan found it difficult to take this call-and-answer ceremony. She leaned her head closer to Sasha.
“Che drammatico.”
She heard Sasha bite down a giggle.
Up ahead, Clément gave a deep bow and walked off the stage. Once again, the lights all went out. Logan listened for steps that perhaps only she could hear. When the lights came back up, Atherton stood up on the dais. He carried a hanging silver censer, thin tendrils of smoke drifting out through its intricate design. He mumbled a few casting words that Logan could just barely make out. They comprised the beginning of the binding chant.
Walking over to the stone slab where Blake still kneeled, he placed the censer on the far end. Then he reached into a small pouch hanging from his robe and pulled out an unidentifiable powder.
“The Champion has submitted,” he said, just barely loud enough for the rest of the room to hear. “In exchange for her will, she will be blessed. Champion, raise your face.”
Blake lifted her head and tilted it back, allowing Atherton to smudge some of his powder on her forehead. Logan’s vantage point didn’t allow her to see it, though she had a guess. Once he was done with Blake, Atherton raised his hand to his own forehead and drew the same symbol there, confirming Logan’s assumption: the traditional sun and sword of the Order.
“It was the First Priestess Morgana who began our ceremonies,” Atherton intoned. In what appeared to be an unconscious movement, he reached up to smooth down his perfectly smooth goatee. “And so it is Morgana’s blessing we seek. The master shall drink from the cup, followed by the pupil.”
Unable to help herself, Logan put her lips right up to Sasha’s ear again.
“Were you given a schedule, or are we on our own out here?”
“Honestly, I was kinda hoping your magic boogeyman would have crashed the party by now.”
“I’ve never been sadder about a reprieve from violence in my entire life.”
One of the strangers at the table cleared their throat with clear indignation. Logan rolled her eyes into the relative darkness.
Up on the dais, Atherton was now drinking from a copper chalice, stamped with the same symbol now drawn on his forehead. When he finally swallowed, he took a moment to stand perfectly still, eyes closed, as if he were basking in the delights of his own ritual. Then his eyes popped back open, and he leaned over to bring the cup to Blake’s lips. She drank deeply, until he placed it back on the table. It might have been the lighting, but they both seemed to glow.
“Morgana has blessed us!” he announced, turning to the crowd. Predictably, the room of adoring donors burst into applause.
Logan sighed, irritated despite herself. She knew for a fact that Morgana had blessed nothing that night. Though the liquid was a part of the casting, the blessing was not; it was just more pomp for the Order’s overinflated sense of importance.
Eventually the crowd quieted down again, and Atherton turned to the final piece of the casting. A small cedar box sat on the table. He opened it up and extracted a long knife of carved black stone: an obsidian blade. He raised it up high in one hand and began to chant.
“Invoco Ishta,” he hissed, his voice rising with every word he spat out. “Invoco viribum, invoco letheiram viribum! Cum spiravo, invoco legare due anime! Legare due anime! Invoco Ishta!”
With his free hand placed over Blake’s clasped hands, he brought the obsidian blade down, forcing it through his own flesh, as well as hers. Both Atherton and Blake cried out in pain, but only for a moment. If Logan had suspected they were glowing before, she was sure of it now. Dropping to his knees, Atherton came to rest beside Blake. For a moment, nothing more happened.
Then, the place where their hands were still joined by the blade began to shine with a new, unearthly light. The light expanded, growing ever outward like a slow-moving explosion. Logan could feel the crowd around her stilling, entranced by the stage. Eventually the light grew beyond the table, then beyond the dais, until it finally spilled into the crowd, snaking tendrils swirling along the floor, wrapping around chair legs as they went. Logan remained perfectly still as the wave of light reached their table, and as it engulfed them, her vision became nullified, the whole world turned to white-out before her.
For several strange, suspended moments, the world remained a blank, empty space. Then, just as slowly as it had spread, it receded. The light shrunk away from all of them, revealing the darkened space once more.
Up on the dais, Atherton made a show of pulling the obsidian blade out of his and Blake’s conjoined hands. He set it aside and raised his wounded hand, which continued to glow brightly as the wound knitted itself up and healed completely in a matter of seconds. Logan cast her gaze to Blake, who hadn’t raised her hands. She now stared down at them in apparent disbelief—hers were healed, too.
Atherton turned to face the crowd, his smug smile once more plastered on his face.
“Our Champion has been blessed,” he announced. “Such is the miracle of Morgana’s will, and such have we chosen few gathered to witness. Champion, please rise, and take your instrument.”
Behind him, her back still to the crowd, Blake got to her feet. She reached into the remaining, much larger, cedar box on the table, and pulled out what appeared to be a large sphere. After a moment, Logan registered that the sphere was made of solid stone.
Holding the stone before her like a sacred object, Blake turned to the room. With a nod from Atherton, she raised the sphere in her hands and began to press inward.
In a few short seconds, the stone sphere crumpled into pieces in her crushing grasp. The crowd began to applaud before she was even halfway done, and by the tim
e she finished, she faced an ongoing standing ovation. Her face slowly relaxed into a grin as she took in the reaction of the crowd.
Atherton turned to her and bowed, and she returned the bow. When he was upright again, he reached back to the table for one last item—and handed her a sword. Taking it from him, Blake turned to the crowd and raised it up in salute. The crowd roared with renewed applause and cheers.
An extra spotlight found the sword, casting an immense shadow on the wall behind the dais—the shadow of a sword held in a fist, slightly off-center in the circle that encompassed it.
Well, they’re certainly keeping it on brand, aren’t they?
Finally, the lights went out again, and Logan heard Atherton escape from the stage one last time. She also heard movement in the crowd and felt someone slip right past her. When the lights came back, Clément had returned, holding a champagne flute in one hand. Blake stood at attention behind her, the hands behind her back now holding onto a sword, its point down and resting on the floor. Slowly, the chandelier lights in the rest of the room started to come up, bathing the crowd in a soft, golden glow.
“We’d like to extend our thanks to you all one last time,” said Clément. “It is your generosity that keeps us fighting, and it is in your name we serve. You will notice your waiters have all returned to your tables with champagne for the toast. If you would, please take a glass and join me.”
Logan glanced to her left, where a red-sleeve stood holding a platter with exactly enough champagne flutes for everyone at the table. He must have been the presence she’d felt slipping past her in the dark. In a few short moments, he had passed each of them a glass. Logan turned back to the dais.
Clément waited patiently, her arm slightly elevated as she gazed out at the crowd. Eventually the last of the waiters slipped back to the edge, signaling the completion of their task. Clément raised her hand a few inches higher.
“The hour is struck!” she called.
“The hour is struck!” the room responded.
All around her, people clinked their glasses in self-congratulations before bringing them to their lips to drink. On her left, Sasha leaned in again.
“At least the hour gets to see a little violence, hm?” She saluted Logan with her glass before taking a sip. “It’s a bit sweet.”
Logan allowed a small smile to grace her lips as she brought the glass up and pretended to drink. It returned to the table with all its liquid intact.
“Too sweet for my taste, I think,” she said, casual as could be. “But I’m sure it was nice and expensive. Gotta give us all our money’s worth, don’t they?”
The strangers across from them looked affronted.
“Let’s have one last round of applause for our Champion of the Gauntlet, shall we?” called Clément. The room obliged. “Champion Blake will be around for the rest of the night, should any of you wish to meet her. Of course, be advised that should you do anything to annoy or disturb her, she will be quite capable of putting you in your place!” The crowd laughed heartily at that, but Logan surreptitiously touched the handle of her hidden blade. Meanwhile, Blake left the sword on the stage and joined a group of her fellow graduates toward the north end of the room.
“And with that, let the feast commence!” announced Clément.
The waiters appeared once more, bringing plates of appetizers to every table. A waiter asked if she was done with her champagne, so she took the opportunity to ask if they had anything a bit drier. He nodded without a word and darted off again, leaving behind a plate of dainty crab rangoon puffs arranged artfully atop a tapestry of inedible green leaves.
Sasha leaned in again.
“Did you just send him off to get you an alcohol beard?” she said, her voice tinkling with repressed laughter. “Shameless!”
Logan turned her face to whisper back.
“Keep it to yourself, will you?”
“Your willing conspirator, as always.” With a wink, she turned to address herself to the strangers. “So, where are you folks from?”
Logan pasted a bland smile on her face as she tuned out their tablemates’ answers. To give herself cover, she grabbed a crab puff and immediately tore off a bite.
The conversation continued seamlessly without her, aided as it was by Sasha’s considerable charm. For just a moment, Logan had a flash of Sasha as she was the moment they’d met, with her nose ring and her dramatic, peacock-inspired eye makeup. She’d been the light of the party they were attending, up until the moment she’d accidentally touched Logan on the arm.
Logan swirled the sweet drink she could not consume. A part of her imagined what it might be like if she could simply enjoy the trappings of the Gauntlet Ball, enjoy her old friend’s company, enjoy a drink. Instead, she brought the drink to her lips to afford herself a moment to move her eyes around the room, searching for Atherton.
She found him at an elevated table on the north end, surrounded by Seers and other high-level Adepts. His expression was serious but distracted, as if he couldn’t quite hear or connect to anyone around him. Beside him, Clément held court with another Seer—white, female, light blonde hair. Whatever they were talking about with such intensity seemed to barely glance off the High Priest.
Suddenly, Atherton’s eyes flicked right over to Logan’s, as if he’d somehow sensed her watching him. His face turned on like a light, a smile stretching out his lips as he raised his champagne glass with one gloved white hand. It was a smooth, almost robotic motion. Logan returned his smile and his toast with equal grace, her client-facing front sliding into place with ease. As one, they brought their drinks to their lips. Logan’s mouth remained closed as she tipped the glass upward in a near-perfect imitation.
Her eyes, meanwhile, zeroed in on his face, his mouth. Was his action as much facsimile as hers? Was it her imagination, or was that a bead of moisture running down the side of his mouth, into his goatee? When he brought the drink away, his free hand reached up and stroked the hairs on his chin, confirming her suspicions.
She couldn’t spy on him all night, of course. At least, not from this vantage point. She looked away again, pretending to be drawn back to her own table. Her hearing, on the other hand, did its best to stay trained on that end of the room, where the majority of Order Adepts and graduates congregated.
Eventually the waiters brought out everyone’s entrees. Logan ate with one hand, her other ready to reach inside her silk jacket at a moment’s notice. Her dry champagne had arrived as well, so she made sure to pause every once in a while to sip from it.
She wasn’t sure how quickly time moved, but at some point, a live string quartet made its way up to the dais, which had been cleared of all remaining letha accoutrements. They began to play a waltz, and immediately a number of people got up from the tables and made their way toward the dance floor.
Logan’s interest in the food before her was minimal, but she forced herself to finish off her last few bites of cod. The food was delicious, of course; it was only Logan’s resting sense of alertness that kept her hunger at bay.
She was taking a quick sip of champagne to wash down her last bite when she sensed someone come up behind her, stopping just beside her chair. Whoever it was bent down and brought his face a few inches away from her ear.
“Will you dance with me?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
A Dance for Three
Logan felt a funny warmth spread up her neck as she recognized Alexei’s voice. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect from him. Did he want to be able to confront her publicly?
“Yes,” she said, a little uncertainly, “of course.”
She set her glass down on the table and stood. There he was, the same sly smile playing on his delicately sculpted features. He was wearing his favorite shade of midnight blue, in a suit that had clearly been tailor-made to fit his body as perfectly as it could. To her surprise, she sensed no animosity in him. He held out his hand to her, and she took it.
Neither of them said
a word as they wound their way through the tables, eventually stepping out onto the cleared space of the dance floor. His hand felt warm in hers, but she did her best not to notice. Her boots fell heavily on the shiny wood surface below.
“Mind if I lead?” he asked, turning toward her with his right hand still entwined in her left.
He was the better dancer by far, but she’d be damned if she was going to tell him that.
“I’ll allow it,” she said, allowing her faint hope to inject a tease into her tone. “Just this once.”
“Fantastic.”
He placed his other hand delicately on her waist, then drew close to her, their hips nearly coming into alignment. For a moment, they stood perfectly still like that, their faces merely inches apart as they waited for the next song to begin. Logan did her best to keep her breathing smooth and even, well aware of the feel of his hand at her waist.
At last, another waltz poured out from the dais. The couples began to move. Alexei squeezed their clasped hands, then launched them into the dance. After a few beats, Logan found her feet as she followed his lead, the dance coming back to her from memory, ingrained in the muscles instead of the mind.
She had to say something to him. She had to let him know.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quiet but sincere. Though every fiber of her being told her to look down, she refused. She stared right into his eyes as she spoke. “I’m sorry I violated your privacy earlier, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth years ago. And I’m sorry I—well…I’m just sorry.”
I’m sorry I murdered your client’s son. Those were the words that refused to roll off her tongue. There were some things for which one couldn’t apologize.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said, gently. “I forgave you months ago. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”
A small fire in her heart, one she’d done a good job convincing herself was dead, began to rekindle. She could practically see him standing in his apartment, dressed to the nines, holding his phone and failing to call her.