Nocturna

by Maya Motayne

  Alfie stared at her, wondering how anyone could be so foolish as to chase this magic in the name of pride. Yet he couldn’t help but consider the offer. He didn’t want to go after this magic at all, let alone by himself, and it wasn’t as if he could ask someone else. Admitting what he’d done would be too shameful, but this girl already knew it all. She’d witnessed it with him. Alfie shook his head. This was absurd. Fear was driving him to stupidity.

  “As if I would take you with me.”

  Finn gave a snort. “You’d be maldito lucky to have me.”

  “A moment ago you threw a dagger at my face—”

  She waved her hand at him dismissively. “Just to scare you a bit, don’t be a baby.”

  “—I cannot have someone I don’t trust with me while I’m trying to remedy this.”

  “You don’t need to trust me, you need me. Period. You know your way around a library, but this won’t have anything to do with that. At least not completely.” Alfie looked away from her. “You know I’m right.”

  “Why do you want to come?” He didn’t want to do this alone, but he wasn’t foolish enough to depend on a girl who’d leave him in the lurch. If she was coming, he must know why.

  “I told you, nothing makes me feel small wi—”

  “Yes, I heard that.” That brash response was nothing. He wouldn’t rely on the promise that her ego would keep her around. That was too much of a gamble. “It isn’t enough.”

  She threw her hands up. “Why do you need to know? You’re lucky I’m even offering.”

  “I won’t take you with me unless I know your motives.” Alfie watched her magic flow erratically. She did not like this question. “I will know if you are lying. So don’t waste my time.”

  With every moment that she stood before him refusing to tell him, time bore down upon him, begging him to chase what he’d released. He needed to make this decision quickly. The city was full of representatives from every province and major city here for the ball. For months his parents had toiled to instill confidence in them for Alfie’s upcoming rule, all their hard work leading up to tomorrow’s ball. If it got out that the prince had released something dangerous so carelessly, they certainly would not want him to be king.

  His mistake could put an end to the Reyes’ reign.

  When she only glared at him, Alfie pressed on. “Tell me or I will leave you behind.”

  Finn would’ve laughed at how ridiculous the boy looked, demanding an answer from her as if she couldn’t beat him to a bloody pulp with her hands tied behind her back. But his question hung heavy in the air, smothering her chuckle.

  She should know better than to go after an opponent that she didn’t understand, even if it had the gall to make her feel like a scared child. But still, there was something to be gained here and she couldn’t grasp the words she needed to explain. Or she didn’t want to grasp them, to turn them over in her hands and see them for what they were.

  She thought of the moment she’d left the prince’s rooms without dumping out the poisoned bottle. Of Bathtub Boy dying of that same poison. She’d done her fair share of terrible things, and she knew that such things would cause others pain, but she’d never been around to witness the aftermath. The prince’s face at seeing the boy dying, the terrible hopeless sound that had wrenched through him; these were things she would never forget. They’d crawled into her mind and made a home there. She couldn’t help but wonder how many were left to mourn, how many had wept over a corpse that she’d left behind with reckless abandon for survival.

  For Ignacio.

  A monster, just as I always said you were, Mija.

  Finn pushed Ignacio’s voice away before it pulled her under. Her stomach twisted into a knot of guilt and a searing desire to be something other than what Ignacio had told her she was. To be better.

  Or to at least try. For once.

  “Finn.” The prince’s voice snapped her out of the memory’s choke hold.

  She sucked her teeth. “I grew up in a world where watching bad things happen to others and not lifting a finger was how you survived, if not doing some bad things yourself. It’s how I’ve lived my life for a long time.”

  The prince tilted his head. “But not today?”

  Finn looked away from him and picked at her nails. “No, not today.”

  “Why?”

  “Because whatever monster you released looks like it could end the maldito world if it feels like it. I need to fix this, so that the world keeps spinning and I have more chances to say, ‘Not today.’” She held his gaze. “Understand, Prince?”

  She’d spent so much time drowning in her past that she hadn’t been able to swim to the surface and see a future for herself that wasn’t stained with blood and fear. She wouldn’t let memories of Ignacio or some strange magic snuff it out before she had a chance to reach for it. To take it and weigh it in her hands like a freshly filched coin purse.

  The prince looked at her for a long moment, as if he were reading a compass. She squared her shoulders, inviting his scrutiny, though she knew that if she were a compass, she would be one that had never pointed north. She wondered if he could see it all through her skin.

  “Very well,” he said. “I believe you.” He seemed a little relieved.

  Finn nodded, her face unfazed. But something reverberated through her, as if the taut string that held the broken pieces of her together had been plucked. It took her a moment to realize that was the first time anyone had ever said that to her. At least, that she could remember.

  “Fine,” she said flatly to fill the silence and quiet that ringing thought. “And I still get to borrow the cloak when this is all done, are we clear?” After this she was going to hunt Kol down with that cloak and get her propio back, one way or another. That was really why she had to help the prince, she decided. Not because of the heartbreak on his face as he’d knelt over that boy. No. She was doing this for the cloak. For revenge.

  “Fine,” he said back.

  When the quiet stretched a beat too long for her comfort, Finn looked at him expectantly. “Well? What’s the maldito plan?”

  Alfie looked up at her from where he knelt beside Bathtub Boy. “First, we get Luka to bed. Then, I need a book.”

  Finn rolled her eyes as the late morning sun stretched its glowing fingers across the room’s tiled floor. “Of course you do.”

  15

  The Man in the Gray Cloak

  The magic soared through the air, hungry for a home of flesh and bone.

  In a tangle of black smoke, it moved past the green expanse of the palace grounds and through the sunlit rings of the city, from the immaculate haciendas of the Bow to the swirling marketplace of the Brim, the dirtied alleys of the Bash, and finally the sea-soaked, outer ring of the city—the Pinch. And yet it could not find what it searched for.

  It went unnoticed by the men and women who celebrated and drank in the name of tomorrow’s holiday, their energy tugging on the magic as if begging it to claim them as its own. But as it drew nearer, making the downy hairs on their necks rise in quiet alarm, the dark magic grew repulsed.

  It could hear the thoughts in their simple minds, the hopes for love, for safety, for the health of their children. It could feel the light burning within them, the stench of it stifling.

  The magic could not take just any body. Only a body that could hold a candle to its former master’s darkness would do; the rest would crumble to ash, as they had in the palace. It had zoomed through the city several times now, finding nothing but useless bodies. It was like a man dying of thirst surrounded by poisoned waters it could not drink.

  Aggravated, the magic made its way, yet again, through the Brim, hoping that it had simply missed its prey when it searched before, hoping that this ring did have what it so desperately sought. It flew down a dank alleyway between rollicking pubs where the air smelled of sweat and spilled tequila. There, leaned pathetically against the alley wall, was a man in a tattered gray cloak taking a long s
wig from a nearly empty bottle of tequila. He had a scar across his eyes, as if someone had drawn a blade from one temple to the other in a messy slice. The man stank of poverty. His irises were a milky green, and the way he moved down the alley told the darkness that his vision was murky at best, perhaps not fully blind but close. This man should mean nothing to the magic, just another drunk in the Brim, and yet the dark magic felt a pull to the man, like a fierce current hidden beneath calm seas.

  It drew close, attracted to the darkness that roiled inside him. Within the man’s mind, a single desire beat like a drum.

  To kill.

  The image of a person sat in his mind, heavy with ire, someone he’d once called his kin. His hands were curled into fists, his chipped, dirtied fingernails biting into his own flesh as he dreamed of the girl’s demise over and over again. At his feet curled a graying shadow. The magic pulsed with excitement at the sight. This man had propio, a deeper connection to magic that made him stronger, an ideal host. Those two simpletons in the palace had had moving shadows as well, but they were not dark enough. This man was the perfect combination of all that the magic sought.

  He was magnificent.

  The dark magic drew close to him, making the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end. He shivered and pulled his cloak closer about him, his cloudy eyes searching for the source of the sudden chill.

  We can give you what you seek. . . . The magic purred around him, its voice a braid of hisses.

  The man started where he sat. “Who are you? What do you want?” he croaked.

  We want to give you what you desire. . . .

  He stiffened at the proposition. “How do you know what I want?”

  The dark magic pressed into his mind and played the images the man so desperately wanted to make reality—that girl dying in his hands, begging for forgiveness.

  The man gasped, his hands clutching at his head. “What are you?”

  We are a power that can give you what you seek, for a price. We can make you what you once were.

  Again, the magic pressed into his mind and pulled upon the man’s fondest memories. Memories of the time before his eyes had been ruined by the one he so desperately wanted to kill, when his power over others was as unstoppable as the rising sun.

  The man’s eyes flew wide with hunger, and the dark magic could sense him wondering if this was all a dream.

  “Name your price,” the man said, his voice cracking with desperation. “Please, I will do whatever you ask.”

  Give us your body to grow in, help us spread over this city.

  To awaken its master, it first must spread its darkness to others. Only then would it have enough to take what belonged to its master from the palace and clear the throne for a true king.

  Once we have accomplished this, we will give you the girl. . . .

  The man barely seemed to be listening, his mind clinging fervently to the fantasy of what was to come.

  “Yes,” he said. He spoke the word as if he were saying a prayer. “Please take me.”

  The dark magic reared back like a cobra of smoke and poured itself into the mouth of the man in the gray cloak. The man wrenched backward against the wall as the magic worked its way down his throat, into his very veins. The further the magic dug into him, the more the man’s shadow drew inward, his own darkness moving inward to eclipse whatever smidgen of light he had left.

  The man screamed in agony as his body burned from the inside out, filling with a power meant for a god that must instead settle for a man.

  For a moment, the dark magic feared the man would burst into ash and it would be homeless once more. But then a calm fell over him. Now that its essence had been given a body, the magic could feel its power fortifying the man, bringing him strength.

  That, and a hunger to spread.

  The man stood slowly. As he passed a hand over his eyes, the magic heard his unspoken command. His vision was restored. The magic surged with the pleasure of serving a master even if it wasn’t his own. It was made to be commanded and this man would do until its master returned.

  “Incredible,” the man sighed, his head swiveling as he took in his surroundings.

  That is only the beginning. . . .

  The man flexed his hands and slid his shoulders back. Desires slid from his mind and into the magic’s grasp without pause. In the blink of an eye, his shabby clothes were made new. The worn shoes at his feet were replaced with boots of fine leather, his legs draped in soft-clothed trousers and his shirt of rough-hewn fabric transformed into a fine emerald silk that hung loose on his chest. The holes in his gray cloak knitted closed as it returned to its former spotless glory. He was clothed in a gray storm cloud and could not wait to unleash a barrage of lightning.

  The dark magic spoke in his mind. Spread over this city; find those who are dark-hearted and they will become our servants, ours to control.

  The man strode out of the alleyway, his head held high. He moved toward a pub with a bright blue door, as good a place to start as any. Perhaps there were men with dark intentions within, men who would be worthy of their cause, men whose bodies would help awaken their waiting master. The magic stretched its jaws, spreading its own hunger through the man’s veins like wildfire. The man shivered.

  “I’ll do as you ask.” His hand on the pub’s doorknob, the man paused. “And then I get what I want.”

  The magic flashed the image of the one he hungered to punish in his mind once more. You will have exactly what you wish and more.

  “Then let’s begin, shall we?”

  16

  The Book

  Hunched close beneath the cover of the vanishing cloak, Alfie and Finn moved through the tiled corridors of the palace to retrieve the book.

  First he’d lugged Luka to his room (a sight that the guards were quite familiar with thanks to Luka’s habit of overdrinking and underthinking). Then, while the thief remained hidden, they used the cloak to walk to Paloma’s private room unseen by the guards and the servants who rushed about to prepare lunch to be delivered to the doors of the royal family after yesterday’s late night.

  All the while, Alfie feared that they would turn a corner and the dark magic would be there, lying in wait. But they had yet to encounter it. Whether by luck or because it had truly left the palace, Alfie didn’t know, but he was grateful all the same.

  Until he found himself stepping into a pile of ash that went over his shoe. He moved backward, giving a short sound of surprise. Thankfully, the corridor was empty.

  “What the hell is that?” Finn asked as she pulled the cloak off them.

  “I’m not sure,” Alfie said, his fingers ghosting over the black ash. But it wasn’t black. It was a shade darker than should be possible, so dark that he blinked at it, startled by the depth of the color. This was a part of that foul magic, it could be nothing else. But why would it leave behind a pile of some sort of residue? His finger skated over something small and smooth beneath the surface of the dust. Alfie tentatively pinched it between his fingers and the black sand parted to reveal a silver earring.

  His heart caught in his chest.

  The servant boy who had nearly dropped a feather duster onto his own head, the boy who had looked at Alfie with such hope and admiration. He’d worn this earring.

  Alfie shot up to his feet, his stomach roiling.

  “This,” Finn said, her eyes wide. “This stuff was a person?”

  Alfie could only nod, his throat feeling as if it was closing, leaving him to choke.

  Hunger. That was what he’d felt emanating from the magic before he’d freed it from its cage of rings—a desire to feed that left Alfie feeling like a cornered animal. What would happen if the Englassen book didn’t have the answers he needed? Would all of Castallan be reduced to this black dust?

  “Prince,” Finn said. She pointed over his shoulder, her face pale.

  On the far end of the hall sat another pile of ash, this one larger than the first.

  Alfie le
aned against the wall, his hands shaking. He wasn’t fit to be king; he was scarcely fit to live after this. He’d done the very opposite of what his parents had taught him—he’d thought of himself, of his own desires above all else. And now people were suffering because of it. He put his face in his hands and willed his stinging eyes not to spill over.

  The sound of rock rumbling quietly brought his attention back. Finn made a parting motion with her hands, and the stone ground beneath the first pile of ash split open. The remains of the boy fell in.

  When he stared at her, she shrugged. “You said you want to take care of this without anyone finding out, right?”

  She was right; they could hardly leave the piles of ash in the corridor, but his chest ached at the sight. “They deserve a proper burial.”

  Finn stared at the sunken ashes. “A lot of people deserve a lot of things. But if this thing is destroying people that quick, we don’t have time for that.”

  Guilt aside, he found himself nodding. A thought struck him. “Wait, don’t close it.”

  They would need to track the magic down somehow, and if this dust was what it left in its wake, it was the perfect thing to use for tracking spellwork. If they followed the dust, they were bound to find its source. Alfie reached into the crevice, his throat burning at the thought of the little boy it once was. He pulled a handful of dust from the floor.

  “To trace it by?” Finn asked, her eyes on his black-stained fingers. He nodded, glad to not find an ounce of judgment in her eyes. He pushed the black dust into his pocket.

  “Rest easy,” Alfie said to the pile of remaining ash. There would be no body for this boy’s family to bury, to weep over. Just like Dez.

  Finn made a closing motion and the stone pressed together again. They walked to the next pile and she did the same. Alfie watched, trying to swallow the bile crawling up the back of his throat. He couldn’t help but be both disgusted by her and grateful she was there. The way she stepped over the remains made him wonder what she’d done in her life to make this so easy. Yet without her resolve he didn’t know if he’d still be standing.