The Circle

by Val St. Crowe

  “But where are your wings?” I said.

  He stood up. “We have to get you out of here.”

  “You just laced to me,” I said, and my voice wasn’t strong.

  “You were going to die,” he said. “I let Enid die, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for it. I couldn’t do it again.”

  “Wait,” I said. “She really did die because she was unlaced?”

  “Come on,” he said. “That text I sent to Abbadon isn’t going to keep him busy for long. If they find you—”

  “No, you have to answer my questions,” I said. “Nothing makes sense right now.”

  “We don’t have time for your stupid questions, for fuck’s sake.” He glared at me. “I’m already regretting saving your life.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said sharply, getting to my feet. “It was special for me too.” I couldn’t believe that several moments ago, I’d been hoping that he would be the one with me while I died. He was a dick. And if he was demonborn, then he was betraying his kind by working with the Circle.

  And anyway, I hated demonborn, just on principle.

  Occultists and demonborn were mortal enemies.

  “I’ll do a cloaking spell on you,” said Phist. “And when we get you upstairs, you run straight for the front door. And this time, when you leave…” He cringed. “Aw, shit, even if you leave, you’re laced to me. Why didn’t I think this through?” He surveyed his cigarette. “Nice move, Blake. Way to think with your head and not your—”

  “You found her!”

  Both Phist and I looked up.

  Abbadon and Grayson were standing in the doorway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Phist gave them a lopsided smile. “Well, you two would have to show up right now, wouldn’t you?” He glanced at the wet bar, spied an ashtray, and stubbed out his cigarette. He blew out a noisy breath. “Suther,” he said, not looking at me, “you’ve ruined everything.”

  I took a step forward, and I reached into the vast pool of power that was now at my disposal and I blasted it at Abbadon and Grayson.

  It was rainbow colored, blue and orange and purple and green, and it flew from my fingertips and into their bodies.

  They both screamed, little-girl screams that stretched on and on unnaturally until they both cut off.

  They fell to the ground, and their eyes had been burnt out, leaving behind only blackened eye sockets.

  They were dead.

  Phist doubled over, grunting. “What the fuck?”

  I looked at my hands, which were still emitting rainbow-colored sparks. “Oops.”

  It was quiet.

  * * *

  Phist was pacing in front of the corpses.

  I was sitting with my back against the wet bar, feeling cold all over. My fingers were numb. I’d never channeled that kind of power through my body before. I guessed this was what it was like to be laced. Even though it had been more magic than I’d ever felt in my life, Phist was fine. He’d recovered moments after it had all happened. Just how damned powerful was he?

  I’d killed two men.

  Horrible, nasty, rapey men, yes. But, um, I was a murderer.

  I’d come to this school for revenge, but looking at their bodies, it was not good. All I could think about was Grayson’s mom, who had once carried Grayson in her womb for nine months, and then doted on him when he was born, probably rubbing her nose against his tiny one, and letting him grab her fingers with his tiny hands, and singing him to sleep, and thinking about what kind of man he would grow up to be. She’d probably expected Grayson to live for another fifty or sixty years, to get married and give her grandchildren and call her for Mother’s Day. And I had taken all that from her.

  My fingers were numb.

  Phist rounded on me. “What. The. Fuck?”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  “I killed them.”

  “You’ve blown my fucking cover.”

  “Cover?” I remembered Abbadon saying something about a cover. “Wait. You’re under cover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you’re demonborn,” I said. “You infiltrated the Black Circle. That’s why you showed up and were so determined to get in when you didn’t have the pedigree.”

  “You seem to know a lot about me,” he said dryly.

  “Well, you’ve kind of been in my face ever since I showed up at the school,” I said. “I developed an interest. But, seriously, where are your wings?”

  “It’s just a glamour,” he said, and suddenly, there they were, and they were massive, streaked with multi-colored fluorescent veins and taking up the whole room. I could see them, and they were there, but they also weren’t there, like they were superimposed over the surroundings. I reached up to touch one, and my hand went right through it.

  “Parts of demonborn are pure spirit,” said Phist.

  The wings disappeared, just like that.

  “Makes them easy to hide,” said Phist. “Doesn’t take much magic at all. And keep your hands off my wings.”

  I licked my lips. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… disrespect…” I hugged myself. “I’m just so confused right now.”

  “Really, I thought you had everything figured out. Isn’t this the scene where Sherlock lays it all out for the suspects? Didn’t you solve the mystery, Suther? Who killed Enid?”

  I shook my head. “Uh… I don’t know.”

  “Well, you’re probably missing one important piece of information,” he said. “I’m guessing you don’t know about Keaton.”

  “Who?”

  “The love of your sister’s life? The man who died in her arms?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “No, I know you don’t,” he said, sighing. “She didn’t think you’d understand.” He rubbed his forehead. “Maybe we should back up to a few summers ago, the first time that I met your sister.”

  “You’ve known my sister that long?”

  “She was always doing research on magical things, poking into stuff that wasn’t her business.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” I said.

  “So, while she was doing that, she found us,” said Phist.

  “And who’s us?”

  “The demonborn resistance movement.”

  My lips parted and I just stared at him.

  “Keaton was our leader,” said Phist. “When he and Enid met, it was like—”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You have a resistance movement? Why?”

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “After everything you’ve seen, you’re asking that?”

  “Demonborn terrorize the occultist community,” I said. “Your kind killed my parents—”

  “Do you have any idea how many demonborn have been killed or enslaved or raped or ruined by occultists?” His eyes flashed, and his voice was rising. “You have a community. You have a school. You have leaders who live in big fucking mansions. We skulk in the shadows and we’re hunted. So, yes, there’s a resistance movement, because you occultists treat us like animals.”

  I swallowed. Okay, so, maybe I could see his point. I caught sight of the bodies of Abbadon and Grayson again, and I thought about how easy it had been to snuff out their lives.

  Suddenly, I was shaking, and I couldn’t stand. I backed up until I collided with the wet bar and then I slid down to the ground. I shook and I tried to breathe.

  Phist looked me over. “You all right?” He sounded disgusted.

  I took a deep breath. “So… Enid, she was working with the demonborn.”

  “She wanted to help,” said Phist. “But she was really shit at being undercover. She found those women in Abbadon’s house, and she wanted to bring them care packages and prenatal vitamins and that kind of crap. And she had this panty rule, which Keaton was in full support of, because he never wanted her to go in at all, and he definitely didn’t want to share her with a bunch o
f entitled occultist pricks—”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” I stood up again, clutching the wet bar for support. “So, all those things I thought I found out about her, she did them because she was trying to preserve her cover. She wasn’t a horrible person at all. She was the sister that I knew.” I wanted to cry. “And she did all this for your kind.”

  “Yes,” said Phist.

  I furrowed my brow. “And you… you said that you let Enid die…” I turned around, gripping the wet bar, bowing my head, thinking it over. Then I turned back. “Something happened to Keaton.”

  “Well, like I said, she was pretty shit at being undercover,” said Phist.

  “The Circle figured out she was pretending,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “And once they understood that she was Keaton’s weakness, they used her.”

  “He turned himself in, hoping to save her,” I said. “To trade himself for her.”

  “Exactly,” said Phist.

  “But,” I said, “they killed him, and they didn’t let her go.”

  Phist looked away, his jaw twitching. “Keaton was… he was more than just our leader. He was my friend. He was… I didn’t have a family growing up, and when I found the Resistance, he took me in and accepted me. He was my family. I loved him.”

  I was momentarily robbed of speech again, because I didn’t think I’d ever heard a man so nakedly declared his love for another man, not in a platonic, friendship way. It made me like Phist, the first real, true positive feeling I’d had for him.

  Sure, I’d found him attractive, and I’d even admired him, but it had all felt against my will, something ripped from me unbidden. This was something else, and it surged through me and then lit up a connection between us, which I realized must be because he had laced to me.

  He turned on me, teeth bared. “Don’t do that.”

  “I… I don’t even know what I did.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m half-spirit, and my body makes magic when I breathe and move. It just comes off me in waves. I have more than enough, so you being laced to me, it’s no big deal. I mean, I’d prefer you don’t channel as much power as you did to kill these guys. You really overdid it. But, you know, it’s fine. Just… don’t send anything through the bond, okay? I don’t need your stupid pity.”

  “I wasn’t—” I shook my head. “I lost someone too. I lost Enid. This whole thing has been about Enid.”

  “I can’t believe I laced to you,” he said. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that.

  We were quiet for several minutes, and then I began to speak again, picking up the story of Enid’s demise where I’d left it.

  “Enid was laced to Keaton,” I said. “I knew she would never lace to a demon, so it’s the only thing that makes sense. That’s how she had the magic to do what she did. But when Keaton died, she was unlaced.”

  Phist nodded. “They kept them in a makeshift prison underneath Prynne Hall on campus. They have chains down there and cages. It’s all very medieval. They questioned them both, trying to get them to give away the secrets of the Resistance, but they wouldn’t break.”

  “The bruises and cuts on her body,” I said. “They were from torture.”

  “Yes,” said Phist.

  “And when you say ‘they,’ who do you mean?”

  “The Circle is training ground for admittance to the Acclasia,” he said.

  “This was sanctioned by the occultist leaders?”

  “All of it is, Suther.”

  I shook my head. “But that means in order to stop it, we have to…”

  “Tear it all down,” said Phist.

  I put my fingers to my lips. Everything was so big, suddenly. To avenge my sister’s death, I would have to destroy an entire institution.

  “They made me help,” said Phist, and his voice broke. “I had to do it. If I didn’t, I would break my cover, and you have no idea how long it’s taken to get me in as deep as I am. Years of work, years of building trust. I’m the Resistance’s best hope, currently. If I can graduate, infiltrate the Acclasia, then we’ll know all secrets. It was too much to sacrifice.” His eyes pleaded with me to understand, as if he was asking me for absolution.

  Which, he should. Because he was right when he told me that he killed Enid.

  “Eventually,” he continued, his words hollow, “they decided that Enid was the weakest link, and they thought that if they focused on her, they’d have better luck getting answers.”

  “They threatened Keaton, right? Told her that they’d kill him in front of her if she didn’t talk?”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “But she didn’t break. She didn’t tell them anything. And then, they left me in there alone with Keaton for a few minutes, and he knew it was almost over, and he grabbed me, begged me to save Enid, but…” Emotion overwhelmed Phist’s voice, and he didn’t continue.

  A long silence stretched out between us.

  “They killed him, and she became unlaced,” I said. “And then she started to die.”

  Phist nodded.

  “You could have laced to her,” I said. “You could have saved her life.”

  Phist didn’t answer and he didn’t look at me.

  “But you didn’t,” I said. “Because it would have broken your cover. Everyone would have known you were demonborn, and then—”

  “I was going to do it anyway,” he said, looking at me earnestly. “I swear to you I was. But she wouldn’t let me. She said that if I did that, then Keaton’s sacrifice would have been worth nothing, and that she and I would probably die anyway, because they would capture me and kill both of us. And she said the Resistance would be left with nothing, and she…” He shook his head. “She wouldn’t let me.”

  I sighed. “That sounds like Enid.”

  “Watching Keaton destroyed like that, right in front of her eyes, I think it had an effect on her will to live, to be honest.”

  I was quiet.

  “I could have forced her,” he said. “I was alone with her a few times, and I could have reached through the bars and gotten hold of her, or used magic, and made her hold still. I could have gotten my lips on hers. But I…”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said suddenly.

  He looked at me as though I was insane. “How can you say that? Are you listening to me at all?”

  All this time, I kept finding out things about Enid that had made me question whether I knew her at all, but now it all made sense. She’d been brave. Indescribably brave. And heroic.

  “She was a very stubborn person,” I said. “If she didn’t want you to lace to her, there’s no way you could have forced her. She made a sacrifice. She…” I wanted to curl up in a ball and sob. It hurt my heart, but it was also exactly what I would expect Enid to do.

  “I didn’t like her,” Phist said suddenly.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “She was human. Occultist. She was everything we hate. And to have Keaton fall for her, it disgusted me. And then, having her in the Circle, having to look out for her when she was so hopelessly bad at everything, I…” He clenched his hands into fists. “I didn’t want her to die, though. I wish I’d saved her.”

  I lifted my chin, looking him over.

  “I do,” he said. “I dream about it all, almost every night. And in my dreams, I always make a different choice. In my dreams, I lace to her, and she’s okay, and…”

  It was quiet.

  I shouldn’t let him off the hook. He was Phist, and I hated him. But I truly couldn’t blame him, and I didn’t really even know why. In this scenario, though, the people I blamed were the Acclasia and the Black Circle. They were responsible for Enid’s death, not Phist.

  “If you’d saved her, she might have been killed anyway,” I said. “It’s like she said. They would have killed you both.”

  “I don’t like you either,” he said.

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “You said you w
ere going to kill me, didn’t you?”

  “Well, now that we’re laced, that would be a particularly stupid move, wouldn’t it?”

  “I didn’t think of that.” He grimaced. “Maybe I wish I did die. Maybe that’s what I deserve.” He turned to look at the bodies of Abbadon and Grayson. “You have no idea all the things I’ve had to do in order to be accepted in the Circle. You have no idea who I’ve had to become.”

  “I kind of do, actually. Have an idea.”

  He sighed. “What are we going to do?”

  “Well, not die, hopefully?” I said, spreading my hands.

  * * *

  “All right,” I was saying, “who else knows that I discovered the women in Abbadon’s basement?”

  “Well,” said Phist, “Abbadon hadn’t gone to the higher-ups with it yet. He wanted to try to minimize the damage before reporting to them.”

  “Really?” I said. “Well, that’s good. But wait, someone knew, because Mr. Belial spent the afternoon raising hell—”

  “Mr. Belial only dealt with Abbadon,” said Phist. “Abbadon called Grayson and me in. He wanted to keep it as quiet as he could.” He folded his arms over his chest. “So, this is good, then. We actually don’t have any loose ends. We have two dead bodies and—”

  “We have Mr. Belial,” I said.

  “Right,” said Phist. “Crap.”

  “And what are we going to do with the bodies? Can you do magic to transport them, like you did with me?”

  “Maybe,” said Phist. “But Grayson and Abbadon can’t just disappear. People will look for them, and no matter what I do with the bodies, they’ll find them. Magic will sniff out their remains. And then there will be questions.”

  I tapped my chin. “Okay, okay… so, I found out secrets, and I need to be silenced, but you decided to save me instead. And now there will be questions about why you didn’t, and you can’t afford those questions.”

  “Right, so, we say that you killed Grayson and Abbadon with some burst of crazy magic from somewhere. And then I killed you. And then you go into hiding—”

  “No,” I said.

  “You lay low in a safe house for six months tops, and then you can go back to your life and no one will even look for you. Occultists don’t care much about humans. Meanwhile, I’ll figure out some way for us to get unlaced and then—”