by Maya Motayne
“Thank you for this,” he said, leading his mother back to the seating area.
Alfie’s mind spun, not knowing what disaster of the moment to focus on. There was the fact that performing this service was wasting his time, that he and Finn should be carrying out their plan to break out Xiomara instead of being here. Then there was the terrible fury building within him, telling him to curse Marco Zelas’s dead body in front of his family. He gritted his teeth, wishing he could release the turmoil burning inside him.
When the guard looked at him pointedly, Alfie cleared his throat and dipped one finger in the bowl of ash on the dais and dipped another into the bowl of chalk. If he wanted to save his kingdom, he needed to get through this ceremony. With a tense finger, he drew a horizontal line of each across Marco’s forehead. He hoped he remembered this right. “You were born at the crossroads of light and dark. The gods kindled light in your heart, stretched a shadow at your feet, and put destiny in your hands. You have reached your final destiny, and to the crossroads of light and dark you must return.”
Alfie froze upon realizing what was supposed to come next. Cremation. Alfie was no flame caster, but the dueño the guard thought Alfie to be certainly was.
The guard gave a quiet cough behind him, urging him on. Alfie’s heart hammered in his chest. He raised an arm, his palm facing the corpse.
Could he tell the guard that he’d run out of strength and couldn’t cast a flame? Should he pretend to be ill and excuse himself? Every lie sounded ridiculous. He needed to light the body now before the guard got suspicious. He did not come all this way to be discovered before he could find Xiomara. His mind flailed, trying to think of something, anything.
A gust of pain swept over him, the dragon warming beneath his robes. Then, just beneath his palm, a flame caught on Marco’s chest and began to spread. Alfie gripped the dais to stop himself from falling, from crying out at the ache that swelled within him, suspended like a note that never ended.
As the body began to smoke and blaze, the flames licking the oil anointing the dais, the family watched on, faces drawn with pain. The guard, a wind twister, guided the smoke up and into the vents of the chamber ceiling with practiced movements of his arms.
Alfie’s body quaked as another wave of exhaustion swept through him. If he let go of the dais he would fall and lose the disguise Finn had given him. Sweat poured down his temples. They were going to get caught, and it would be his fault. Just as this magic was his fault. His hands slipped off the dais. He sagged sideways.
“Steady now,” Finn murmured beside him, her voice anchoring him to the present once more. His head pounding, Alfie righted himself and grasped the dais.
The guard cleared his throat and said, “I’ll take you back to your usual duties now.”
He led Alfie back into the prison. As he followed, Alfie swayed on his feet. But then Finn was beside him again, letting him lean on her shoulder.
“Keep it together,” came her voice in a taut whisper. Together they walked, Alfie using her as a crutch while the guard kept turning back to shoot him strange looks. He must’ve looked odd walking with such a lean. From what he could tell, the guard was leading them inward on the ground floor, through the tightening rings of the prison and toward the center—where they were already supposed to be planting the distraction if not for the maldito service. His head heavy with exhaustion, he couldn’t imagine climbing the eight floors to Xiomara’s cell, but they didn’t have a choice in the matter. Not with Ignacio running loose with that polluted magic.
Alfie rubbed at his eyes. His face tingled the same way it had when Finn had changed him. His heart leaped in his throat. He was getting too tired, and his face was beginning to shift back. He could feel wrinkles pulling taut with each step they took. He needed to get away from the guard and catch his breath before it was too late.
“Young man,” Alfie said, his voice breaking and sounding too young for a moment. “If I might be so bold as to ask that you take me to the nearest baño. My bladder is not what it once was.”
The guard grimaced and led him around a corner, pointing to a door. Alfie moved off Finn and walked in slowly to give her time to get in too.
“I’ll be just a minute,” Alfie said to him. When he shut the door he sped to the water basin and splashed his face. Finn’s magic slipped from his hold and the old face in the mirror shifted slowly back to his own.
A coughing fit erupted in his chest. He put a hand over his mouth and took hold of the basin to stop himself from falling. When he pulled his hand away, it was spattered with thickened blood. His breaths came out in sharp wheezes, as if his lungs were pinioned, spread flat and unable to take in a breath. He spat clots of blood into the basin, its metallic taste clinging to his tongue.
This magic was going to kill him.
Finn appeared beside him in the mirror’s eye, her hand pulling back the hood of the vanishing cloak. The look on her face told him that he wasn’t exaggerating. This was going to be the end of him. Alfie stepped away from the mirror and pressed his back against the cold stone wall, his body quivering as he slid to the ground.
He had some control over the magic and it was hurting him. What would it do to his people if it went on unchecked?
Then there were soft hands on his face, halting the dizzy spiral of thoughts. Finn was crouched before him, her eyes locked on his.
“Hey, hey,” Finn was saying over and over again. Her palms were cold. He leaned into her touch, too afraid to stop himself. “Look at me.” When he said nothing, she gripped him by the chin. “Mírame. Count.” She said it with a calm that spoke of practice, of routine. The surety of her gaze steadied him.
“Diez, nueve,” she started, nodding at him to continue. He counted on, his voice feeble.
She took his hand and pressed it to her chest. He could feel her heart beating steady beneath his palm, so controlled compared with his own. “Slow yours down, meet me in the middle.”
Her heart thrumming beneath his palm, Alfie closed his eyes and counted. With every count down his pulse slowed and calmed.
“You’re okay now,” she told him, and somehow her words made it true. He couldn’t help but wonder when her words had begun to carry weight that could tether him to life as he felt it slipping so quickly from his hands. Whatever had caused it, he was thankful.
“I’m okay.” He opened his eyes and nodded shakily. “Where did you learn to do that?” Alfie asked. When she squinted at him, he said, “Counting.”
She stilled, her lips drawing into a tense line, and he knew without asking that this had to do with Ignacio.
“Given enough time,” she said, her eyes on the wall behind him instead of his face, “you can learn to survive most anything. You learn to breathe when your lungs are too scared to move and you learn to calm before your heart bursts. You learn.” She shrugged. “Or you die.”
Her heartbeat was picking up beneath his palm, and Alfie’s chest ached at her words. He couldn’t help but wonder what else she’d been made to learn to survive. How much of herself had she hollowed out and cut away in that effort?
From the moment he’d gotten stuck in her door, his perception of her had been shifting, sliver by sliver—as if he stood before a painting streaked with dust and he need only brush his fingers through the grime to see more of it and less of what he’d thought it was. And he could not go back, could not replace the dust and see what he’d wanted—a ferocious, heartless thief. Now he only saw someone who was risking her life for his own foolish mistakes. Someone who bore more scars than he could count, but still rose for another fight. Someone who, if they’d met in different circumstances, might be his friend.
Before he could stop himself, the words spilled past his lips. “There are some things people should not have to learn. At least not so well.”
Finn’s eyes met his and again he got the impression of something unseen swimming beneath the calm of her face. With his hand splayed over her heart, his thumb had fallen in
to the soft hollow of her throat. When she looked away from him and swallowed, he felt her throat move with the act of it, sending a thrill through his fingers.
Finn said nothing. With a careful hand, she took his palm from her chest and put it down on his bent knee. Her eyes scanned his sallow, sweating face before looking at the dragon.
“When you were standing over that guy’s body, your eyes went wide like you were seeing something I couldn’t see. What happened?”
Alfie swallowed thickly, the anger inside him flickering back to life. “That man was involved in my brother’s death. He used to be a friend of my family, someone we trusted.” Alfie’s jaw clenched tight at that. “I never understood why he did what he did. I asked for clarity and the dragon answered.”
Finn blinked at that. “It just answered? Just like that?”
Alfie nodded, his head aching from the slight movement. “This magic, it’s not like normal magic. . . . It just, it listens. Or it listened to me. It responds to desire without a word, without question.”
Her eyes darted back to the dragon, her gaze wary. “What did it show you?”
The image of the strange tattoo flashed in Alfie’s mind and he wished he could recall it now and see something in it, something that would give him a clue as to why Dez was taken from him, but he saw nothing new. Only the snarling bull and its sharp horns. “It showed me a tattoo of a bull.”
Finn tilted her head at that. “A bull. Like an angry-looking one with its horns thrusting forward?”
Alfie stared at her, his heart beating in his throat. Had she seen some other tattoo of a bull or the same one he’d seen in his vision? He had to know. He reached hurriedly into his bag and pulled out the roll of parchment he’d brought to communicate with Luka. “Could you draw it?”
He unfurled the parchment, laid it flat on the stone ground. At the top of the page Luka had scribbled three lines of messages.
Everything all right?
Alfie?
You had better respond or I will go to Paloma this maldito second.
Alfie could hear the words in Luka’s voice and wanted to laugh, but instead what rose in his throat was another wet cough. Blood splattered the parchment.
“Shit,” he cursed. Luka would see this and think the worst, which wasn’t far from the truth. Alfie quickly scrawled a note.
We’re fine, hurt but fine. Don’t worry.
Those last two words seemed absurd as he wrote them. With the parchment flecked with blood, worry would be the only thing on Luka’s mind. But Alfie pushed that thought away; he needed to know if Finn was thinking of the same tattoo that he was. Maybe she would know more?
“Here.” He handed her the black-feathered quill from his bag. “Draw it. Please.”
Finn crouched beside him and on the lower corner of the parchment she drew the exact tattoo that the dark magic had shown him, from the black eyes to the froth pooling in the bull’s curled lips. As she used the quill, its black feather began to whiten at the tip with the release of the ink.
“Yes,” he said, his voice hushed. “That’s it. Do you know anything about it?”
“I don’t know a thing, but the mobster who blocked my propio had it on her arm.”
Alfie’s mind spun. What could this mean? Was this some sort of organization that was unhappy with the royal family? Those involved had confessed that it was just a group of nobles, but if a mobster was involved, then it must be more than just nobles. He wanted so badly to know more. To call upon the magic and demand that it tell him everything.
The dragon seemed to hear and it warmed on his chest, pulsing as if it had a heartbeat of its own.
“Prince.” Finn was staring at him, her eyes flickering between him and the dragon. “Don’t.”
“I just,” Alfie said, stopping before his voice broke. “I just want the truth.”
“We all want the truth, but is it worth your maldito life?” she said, and he looked away from her, the answer sitting sour on his tongue.
“I don’t like this,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Then we finally agree on something,” he said.
Finn looked at the dragon for a long moment, then nodded to herself as if she’d decided on something. She outstretched her hand. “Give it here.”
“Give you what?”
“You know what.” Finn motioned to his neck.
“Qué? No.”
“The thing’s clearly deadly and you’re too easily tempted into using it. If you wear it the whole time you’re going to die. You’re all shaky.” When he didn’t budge she gestured at the ground. “Look at your maldito shadow if you don’t believe me!”
Even when he’d caught a deadly flu as a child and the fever had left his blood boiling, his shadow had never gotten this pale. It looked like a mere outline now, the shadow of a shadow. She was right, the dragon was drawing too much on him and he kept calling upon it by accident. But still, it was too important to be out of his sight.
“Finn, this is a dangerous thing—”
“I’m a dangerous thing,” she said, insistent. “Prince, you brought me with you to help, so let me help! We’ve got to break out this prisoner fast if we want to stop Ignacio from turning this whole maldito city to dust! If you keep letting that magic sap you dry, you won’t last long enough to even get to the prisoner.”
Everything she was saying made sense. The night before when he’d gone to bed, he’d taken the necklace off and kept it at his bedside. Being separated from it made him feel better immediately, as if he weren’t as connected to it. He was sure he couldn’t call upon it unless it was on his person, and since he was the one who could turn his magic black, he felt certain that he was the only one who could command it. He should just give it to her. If she carried it, he wouldn’t accidentally call upon the magic anymore. He was entrusting her with his life, whether he liked it or not. He should be able to let her hold it for a little while, shouldn’t he?
“Very well,” he said, surrendering. Alfie slowly pulled the necklace off his neck and handed it to her. When the dragon fell into her palm he felt a strange sap on his energy, as if a piece of himself was pulled away from his body. He swallowed thickly. The Englassen book had been right; he’d truly bound himself to this magic, body and soul.
With a wary look, Finn pulled the chain over her head, letting the dragon fall against her chest.
Even though she couldn’t turn her magic black to call upon the dragon the way he could, Alfie hoped that while it was in her possession it would, somehow, protect her from harm. That it would listen to her if she needed help. That they could both make it out of this prison alive.
“Finn,” he said. “Just be careful.”
Finn looked down at the dragon on her chest, as if daring it to try something. “I’ll be fine, Prince.” She extended a hand down to him. “Now get up.”
Alfie took her hand and let her pull him up. She quickly reapplied the disguise.
“We let this guard take you wherever he wants, you stay there while I set the distraction, then I’ll come back for you and we’ll head to the prisoner. Then we’ll set it off, get the prisoner, and get the hell out of here,” she said.
Alfie shook his head and told himself it was the fact that she was carrying the dragon that made him so desperate to stay by her side. “The plan was for me to stay close while you lay the distraction in the center ring so that after we could head to Xiomara’s corridor together.”
Finn shot him a look. “Prince, you can barely stand. If we want to make it out of here alive, you need to stay sharp. Go to wherever the guard takes you and wait for me there. Try to catch your maldito breath before we go any further,” she said, her eyes darting to his shadow once more. “At this rate, you’ll be too exhausted to do anything when the time comes to trap Ignacio.” She met his eyes then. “If we make it that far.”
Alfie breathed a long sigh through his nose. She was right again, annoyingly so. “Fine. I’ll wait for you.”
Alfie carefully handed her the shrunken bundles of fireworks from his bag—this was the distraction that Luka had come up with. Once the fireworks went off at the center ring of the tower, the guards would be drawn from their posts, leaving Xiomara’s cell unguarded. They fit in her palm like marbles. In their miniature state, no one would be able to see them when they were placed. On the night of the Equinox Festival a grand fireworks show took place over the palace, so the storeroom was full of so many that the ones Luka had stolen would hardly be missed.
“These aren’t regular fireworks you can buy in the Brim. These ones were meant to be launched from the palace roof. Be careful.” He eyed her warily. “Just lay them throughout the center ring of the tower; do not set them off until you and I are together again, near Xiomara’s cell, entiendes?”
If she set them off and he was down here on the lower floor of the prison, waiting for her, then he wouldn’t have time to get all the way to Xiomara’s cell at the top of the tower to break her out while the guards were distracted by the light show. If the fireworks were triggered early, this whole plan would be for nothing. He worried his lip between his teeth.
She rolled her eyes. “From here on out I’d like five gold pesos every time you tell me to be careful. I’m not an idiot, Prince. I won’t set them off until we’re in position. Now, are you ready to go?”
Alfie nodded shakily as he rose from the ground and leaned against the wall.
Finn pulled the hood of the cloak over her head, disappearing before Alfie’s eyes.
After taking a deep breath, Alfie pushed off the wall, and opened the door. The guard straightened, grumbling about how long Alfie had taken in the bathroom before leading him down the hall. After walking down more twisting corridors, they walked into the center of the tower, where there stood a sweeping circular chamber as big as the palace’s grand ballroom. This was where the prisoners were kept. Guards made their rotations, walking in circles on each floor of cells, stone banisters closing off the higher floors from the drop to the ground floor. And, of course, the prison’s namesake was also here.