The Midnight Before Me

by Elizabeth Lo

  SCREECH…

  When Glorieux first hears the scrape of metal and rock, she disregards it with her royally befuddled mind, still ruminating about her past.

  Somehow, she assumed that she was safe because Sucre, burning away in his habitat, still frozen in place, should have been as weak as a housefly by now.

  It’s not until that overwhelming taste of magic fills her senses and pops her small faux world that she finally bolts up from her spot on the bed, and the fear finally sets in. This magic, even in this small amount, is immense and tastes slightly of Marigold and slightly of something much more potent.

  There’s no doubt. She has felt this magic before.

  Practically leaping from her position on the floor, she flings the door open, ignoring the crash it makes as it hits the wall.

  Glorieux sprints through a ballroom and dashes through winding corridors—that girl already has a head start. She needs to run faster. She can’t let her freedom slip away so easily.

  She hadn’t expected Sucre to call out for help; she’d assumed he would be too proud for that. Not to mention that, of all people for him to reach out to, it was that girl. The girl with unrealized potential and the magical secrets hidden behind those fuchsia eyes—secrets that the magician, Felicius, never fully revealed all those years ago.

  She hurtles around the corner and pumps her limbs faster than her small, spoiled legs have ever run, skipping down the stairs, and finding the door in the corner of the wall that practically blends into the wall itself.

  Glorieux desperately claws at the large mahogany and realizes with horror that she forgot the key in that room. A hole boring through the keyhole tells her that the girl already got in. The magic she used, Decomposition, to get through the thick wood and metal of the door is something Glorieux has never seen in person before. In fact, even in textbooks, she’s never seen it so well controlled.

  It reminds her so much of Marigold, that Glorieux unintentionally starts to smolder even more.

  And that’s when she realizes her grip on Sucre has weakened as a new hand takes over. Sucre is moved out of her magic hand and into a different space.

  He’s escaped. Hollow dread floods through her as she realizes how careless she was. She celebrated too early.

  But the moment of loss lasts only a few moments, and the rush is still potent in her blood.

  No. It’s not over. What am I panicking over?

  She stands up, places her hand on the door to push it open, only to realize the door and the entire corridor have already started burning from her anger. The old, thin wallpaper immediately erupts into flames. A scream erupts from her throat.

  Unwanted panic fills her. The bright orange flames taunt and tease her as they start to burn through her clothes and, soon, her flesh. With every inhale, she receives nothing but putrid smoke.

  No. Don’t panic. She only has to wait for the door to burn down and then she’ll be free. A little burn is nothing.

  Freedom is the only thing she wants. She can’t lose. No. Not here. Not so achingly close to her goal.

  Pain flutters on every inch of her skin. Pain so hot, it’s cold. She can barely hear her own cries of agony over the roaring of the fire. Her fire. Her out-of-control fire. She can’t control her own magic anymore.

  The hole forming in the door is finally just big enough for her to slip through. She stumbles out, crisp and thoroughly baked. Her milky white skin is pulsing with heat and pain.

  She looks up to see Midnight near the edge of the cage looking down at her with wide eyes.

  “Stop…” is all she can croak out. What a ridiculous, laughable sight she must be.

  Midnight opens her mouth, then seems to think better of it. She turns to the window, and, to Glorieux’s despair, explodes it into nothingness with the same spell that got her through the door.

  The magic force from the spell slams into her, just as powerful as she remembers it, only even more so than before. It seems to break every bone in her body and then fit them back together all at once.

  Glorieux tries to claw herself forward. But her legs are weakened, and her uncontrollable fire is pressing hot against her back, eating away at her like a famished demon.

  Midnight is fading in and out of view. She dimly sees the girl hop onto Sucre’s furry back as the two take off into the sky.

  No. She’s not done yet. Not now.

  She can’t recall falling onto the floor, but her face is pressed up against the hot floor as the flames tickle her feet and start to consume her.

  No. Not here.

  She will stop Sucre and Midnight Thunder. Destroy them. Because she has a feeling that if she doesn’t, they’ll destroy her instead.

  Chapter Seven

  Midnight

  The white castle looms below me with a solemn look on its white marble face. Fire continues to spread through its walls, consuming an entire wing, leaving only an ashy black and white skeleton behind.

  That woman. The same as that one from before. The Queen of Galviton.

  You know her? Sucre asks. I mean, you’ve met her before?

  Oh? So the all-knowing nuagepanthère can’t read thoughts. He wouldn’t ask for clarification if he could.

  Yeah, I respond. Well… I saw her during that trial. With Felicius Harvey. Two years ago.

  That… is unfortunate.

  Sucre and I fly in a circle around the burning castle as that woman is consumed by flames. I can feel the peculiarity of the magic flames: hungry and unnatural. Saving her would be almost impossible.

  It should be put out, I think inexplicably, accidentally projecting it.

  No, it really shouldn’t, Sucre responds.

  But…

  It’ll die down soon. That sort of fire will run out of magic very quickly.

  Ah… I project. So that’s what an Assembler can really do…conjure flames like that from thin air. Intriguing… and dangerous.

  Not the best first encounter, I’m sure, he says. But then he stops and thinks. Well… that’s not really your typical Assembler anyway. Even me, you, and your mother combined would still be weaker than the magic power of this monster before us right now… You would need to deplete all of her magic at once in order for her to return to any sort of normalcy…

  After that, Sucre continues to ramble on about this and that, but I tune out, focusing instead on the scenery around us.

  The skies here in Northern Galviton are cold—much colder than it was down the hill.

  He said, “the one who set this whole thing into motion” was the one coming to kill him… Does that mean… that Queen Glorieux Frost was the caster of the Memento Mori curse or something? Or maybe… it was only just the fact that she had killed the King that had triggered everything… Sucre really likes being as vague as possible about this stuff.

  At least for now, we’ve made it out of that castle alive. I don’t know where we’re going from here, but at least Glorieux won’t be much of a problem.

  Um, so where to nex—

  The moment I begin speaking, I hear a buzz. The buzz isn’t significant. It’s almost like the buzz I get from when a fellow magician is around, but it slowly gets louder, making me realize some thing is behind us. Following us. Like an incredibly obnoxious bee is tickling our behinds.

  I crane my head around and confirm that it is indeed an incredibly obnoxious bee. A bee with a metal encasing striped with the Galviton colors of white and gold along with a camo design the color of rain, a deafening propeller, and a pilot donning the signature teal hair of the Falcon family sitting in the cockpit.

  The pilot’s staring right at me. I can feel it.

  Oh no… They already found out?

  “Who…? Found out?”

  That right there… is a fighter aircraft of the Imperial Forces. Though… it’s a bit of an outdated model…

  “Go,” I say out loud.

  You don’t have to tell me… Sucre grumbles.

  At least the pilot hasn’t started sh
ooting yet. But we shouldn’t chance ourselves on when he will.

  Okay, Midnight, get ready. I’m going up. Brace yourself.

  Before I can question why, he rises faster and faster into the air until the expanse of my vision turns into nothing but sky.

  My ears pop, and my head feels like it’s being crushed. Distantly, I can hear the buzz of the plane recede from earshot. Light glares into my eyes, and clouds mist past us as we ascend above them. Above us is an even larger stretch of pastel blue peppered with white blobs and streaks.

  Sucre-

  We level out, and I catch my breath again. I’ve never flown this high before.

  Do you think that will lose him? I ask.

  But before he can answer, the buzz of the propeller can be heard again.

  Sucre curses and then starts moving even faster through the bright misty space. Light glares in my eyes and burns my skin.

  How? He mutters. Only specialized pilots go this high… Not to mention that plane isn’t built for high altitudes…

  I’m starting to feel lightheaded. The clouds take ages to pass us; the wind brushing its fingers through my hair is the only thing letting me know that we’re at least moving forward somehow.

  It’s getting closer. So close I can feel the breeze coming off of the propeller.

  I never expected the military to get involved this fast.

  Sucre curses in even more profane words, and an influx of magic power strains its way out of him. His flying becomes unsteady, but the magic keeps pumping.

  He lurches forward as he propels himself forward in frantic desperation. Just when I think we can’t, we climb even higher into the sky. The wind stings my cheeks, and every breath seems to send a few more stars into my vision.

  By now, even Sucre is panting and heaving. I’m surprised we both don’t immediately pass out on the spot.

  We should be safe now. A pilot can’t reach this height…

  But the effects of this altitude have just begun to take their toll. The drastic rise and fall of his fluffy pink sides heave me up and down, and up and down we also fall.

  My weight seems to be lifted away from me, and it’s troubling that it’s lasting longer than a few seconds.

  To my surprise, we haven’t traveled far. The Summer Palace is only a tiny white dot in the distance, but it’s still visible. I feel as if I can still recognize all the trees below us.

  A sudden upward gust of wind and more weightlessness alerts me to the fact that Sucre is rapidly dropping—much faster than I think should be the ideal descending velocity for a pink fluffy creature.

  “Sucre, are we supposed to be falling this fast?”

  No. His voice is coming out calm in my head, but I can imagine him gritting his teeth right this moment.

  Lovely, I respond.

  My teeth chatter in the wind as I try to hold on, and the wind is so loud that it drowns out my own thoughts. My ears pop. The forest below is careening into view.

  At the last minute, Sucre slows himself. Blood rushes to my head.

  He flops to the ground at the nearest opportunity, and I clamber off.

  I think we lost him.

  “Uh… One second…”

  I end up emptying whatever remainders of food left in my stomach out onto the forest floor. I sit down next to him to catch my breath.

  Glancing around the area, I stretch all of my limbs. There’s not much around. Just trees, trees, and more trees. Even though Galviton has little land, there’s still quite a lot of forests and untouched land around. The more life that’s around, the more magic energy is naturally in the air to absorb. Therefore, we try to preserve our wildlife as much as possible since our economy and military are based on magic.

  But I suppose, magic’s also what’s been making the military fall now, if everything I hear is true.

  Magic, when tampered with incorrectly, can create catastrophic consequences. Some countries shy away from it due to religious strictures, but the main reason most countries don’t rely on magic is really because of the danger. Magic is essentially the energy from living beings’ souls being used to manipulate the world. The possibilities of what it can do are endless, only constrained by the limitations of a human’s ability to utilize their own energy. One wrong move can lead to irreversible disaster. Wars have been started with Galviton for the sole purpose of getting us to stop using magic, but, of course, to no avail.

  Every creature has its limitations. Humans… in the grand scheme of things are really not the most magically threatening creatures on the planet. Nuagepanthère’s, on the other hand…

  Flying like we did before… It would be tiring for me, yes, but should Sucre be this fazed by it? I guess there was some truth in his words before; he most certainly can’t undo a national curse on his own if he can’t even do flying like this. But why? When did he lose so much magic?

  No, I shouldn’t be focused on that right now.

  I can’t hear the plane; how long will this silence last?

  Sucre’s presence moves closer to me. The buzz of his magic is distinct. Loud and powerful, but not boisterous. Like the low register of a flute.

  I almost jump when I see his alarmingly huge yellow eyes staring at me when I turn around.

  “You’re awake,” is all I can manage.

  Of course, I am, silly. I recover much quicker than you humans. But his eyes don’t meet mine. In physical strength anyway.

  “Your magic seems pretty weak right now,” I observe.

  Unfortunately. Compared to most creatures, nuagepanthères absorb magic considerably slower due to—

  “Surface area to volume ratio… right? Your size works against you.”

  Correct.

  “But even so… you would have had to lose quite a lot of magic to be as weak as you are now…”

  His ear flicks in response, and he looks away. The equivalent of a dismissing hand wave.

  “So what now?” I ask, obediently dodging the topic for the time being.

  We keep going, he says matter-of-factly and turns around, his ears pricked forward intently. I can’t hear anything, but clearly, he can. Anyway, he continues once he decides that whatever he heard wasn’t a threat, we’re going to a small place named Berningdale in the southwestern region of Galviton. There, you’ll meet a… certain magician.

  Okay, I say. Are you going to explain that more? Or…?

  Sucre physically tenses. His eyes stare right at me like a predator determining whether or not I’m worthy prey. The forest seems to still as he sizes me up.

  “Sucre…” I say, smoothing my hair out behind my head. “The only reason… why you need me is because you can’t do whatever you want to do with this curse. Correct?”

  Sucre dips his head, a somewhat clear yes.

  “You still haven’t told me what… exactly… it is that you want me to do.”

  I told you. I want you to undo the—

  “But you haven’t told me how I’m going to do that. I trust that your intentions are good for now… but even so, I find it a little… strange for you to just come to me out of the blue and ask me to perform some impossible task.”

  Well… he says, once again taking time to consider his words. For most humans, it would be impossible to undo a curse without extensive magic training or a near death experience… Either you take over the entire curse with your magic, or you starve the curse from magic power by starving yourself and hope you live and the curse inside of you doesn’t.

  “Yes, yes… I’m aware. But how do I fit into this picture?”

  As I said, it has to do with your eyes… Well, really, with why your eyes are the color they are. Why you come back to life after you die, and why you haven’t physically aged a day ever since your first death.

  “And that is…?” I’m trying to sound normal, but I can’t help but lean forward in anticipation. This is the first time I’ve gotten this close to finding out what exactly I am.

  You… when you were still an unborn
child, were… cursed—if you can even call it a curse—by a certain someone, Felicius Harvey. The ever-famous magician, or some bullshit like that. Anyway… how the ritual went, at its core, is that you were fused with a raw spell—unrefined.

  “And…?” I’ve heard this much already.

  And, well, you haven’t heard the full effect of this. Yes, your eyes are a fancy color now because of the concentration of magic in your entire self and you can come back to life and all that, but the core reason is because… your body is part spell. Magic can’t age or die… but because you used to be human… You still have a consciousness, and your soul is still here as it’s been fused with a spell… but you… are not human.

  At first, everything seems to stop. My heart that was just fluttering in my chest, has slowed to the beat of a nocturne.

  No. That’s a lie, right? I laugh, but it’s short-lived. It’s a lie.

  He just looks at me with an unreadable expression.

  No, he says. It’s not.

  He’s just lying to get me to go along with him, right? He just wants me to think that I’m a tool. A spell.

  A spell is something to manipulate. A spell is no different than a puppet.

  Surely… I’m more than a puppet…

  Surely? What am I saying?

  Cold laughter rings around the forest.

  “I see, I see,” I say, laughing it off. “That explains a lot, right? Yeah, that explains a lot. That… explains a lot.”

  That explains why I can’t ever break free from this curse of mine.

  I mean… because that would mean I’m not even holding the gun… I am the gun.

  Sucre shifts between his two forepaws.

  It’s nothing to be ashamed about… he tries. I just thought you should know. That very nature of your body allows you to manipulate magic itself… But… well…

  His ears flop to the side, and though his body language is quite obscure, I can tell he’s uncomfortable.