Shadowplay

by Laura Lam

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, the fear blooming again in my chest.

  “Do not fear, little Kedi. Nothing you cannot give. You will help me when the time is right. You will know what to do.”

  I pressed my lips together to stop them from shaking. This was too much. “Can… you tell the future?”

  “I can see possibilities, and which are more likely, no more. Sometimes, it feels as if I know less than anyone else.”

  “How?”

  “They’re written on the wind, in the stars and the sunlight. In dust motes swirling through the air. The world knows what has happened, and what may happen. You need only to look for it. You could learn, if you wanted to.”

  I pinched myself to make sure I was not still dreaming.

  “You do not believe me. You will in time. Do you recall the night you first arrived in this place? The séance?”

  “Yes.” How could I ever forget?

  “The magician said more than he knows and yet has no memory of the saying of it. The woman in the red dress. She is important to you, though I do not yet know how. The two of you are linked.”

  I held my hands to my temples. I remembered how strange I felt when I suggested Maske teach us magic. Had that been her? I should grab the disc and throw her from the roof to smash upon the pavement below. But I knew I would not. She looked at me as if she knew all I thought. Perhaps she did.

  “Do you know who chases us? The second client of the Shadow?”

  Her eyes unfocused. “I cannot. I can see the shape of the person, but not their face. It is blurred like the reflection of a puddle.”

  How conveniently unhelpful. I backed a little further away from her.

  “Little Kedi, you need not fear me. You are my charge. As I am yours.”

  I shook my head. “I am no one’s charge but my own.” I picked up the disc. She stayed where she was, but her form grew more distinct, almost alive.

  “I know you are afraid, little Kedi.” She tapped her temple. “I can wait. But know that if you need me, I am here. And when I need you, you will help me.”

  Before I could lose my nerve, I flipped the switch on the disc. She stared at me as she faded from view. She was gone, but I could still feel her, thrumming with energy in my hand. I had been numb with fear, but now the full cold of winter gripped me, as though the very core of me was frozen. I gripped the disc and walked to the edge of the rooftop. I held my hand over the ledge. My fingers would not let go. The wind whipped my hair and snowflakes landed on my face.

  When I could stand the cold no longer, I put her back in my pocket and returned to the loft. My teeth chattered from ice and fear. The edges of my vision blurred as I stumbled into the room, a pounding headache in my temples.

  Drystan was restless, burrowing deeper under his duvet. I looked at my own empty bed and I could not face it. Only nightmares waited for me there. I wrapped my arms around myself, squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I could. I fell to the floor and curled into a ball, too scared to even cry.

  “Micah?”

  The sleepy voice broke through the paralyzing web of fear. I sat up, feeling as though I had run clean across Imachara.

  Drystan was not awake. His eyes were closed, his forehead furrowed. He said my name again, more of a sigh. His eyes opened, his gaze blurry. I stepped toward him. Stopped. With a sleepy smile, he held up the blanket. Was that… an invitation?

  I licked my lips, wondering what to do. In the end, it was simple. I set the damselfly down on the bedside table and slid into bed with Drystan, curling my body around his. He shivered once at my coldness, but then he relaxed. I rested my head against his shoulder.

  I told myself that I’d only stay there against him until I had warmed up and the worst of the fear fled. Moments later, darkness claimed me, mercifully free of dreams.

  15

  THE SHAI AND THE SHADOW CAPTURE

  “Could a mermaid love an angel?”

  Translated fragment of Alder script.

  When I awoke, my mouth felt fuzzy and my eyes bleary. Then I realized where I was and felt wide awake.

  I faced the center of the loft, daylight streaming through the dragonfly stained glass. Drystan lay curled against my back, his breath warm against my neck. His arm lay around my torso, his hand on my chest. My chest, which did not have the corset underneath my shirt. My entire body tingled, my face burning in a blush.

  My mind whirled as I wondered what I should do. What had possessed me to crawl into bed with Drystan? I had been frightened and cold, and perhaps he had invited me, but maybe he hadn’t been fully awake. For Cyan’s sake we were pretending that we were a couple, but this skipped a few steps. Drystan even had a…well, morning condition, as did I. I scooted forward, feeling so many emotions I couldn’t give name to.

  But even as I prepared to sneak from the covers and back to my own empty bed, I did not want to. Drystan’s warm arms cocooned me, and I felt safe. Sleep still lured me with its siren call.

  Drystan yawned and stretched, pressing against me again. My muscles stiffened, even as I hoped he would not pull away. I should leave now, before he awakened. He would never need to know my momentary weakness.

  “Micah?” Drystan asked, sleep thickening his voice.

  Styx. “Yes?”

  “Any particular reason you’re in my bed?”

  “You invited me. I… I had a nightmare,” I lied, my voice small as a sheepish child’s.

  “I… didn’t,” he said, surprised. “First time I’ve slept the whole night through, since…”

  Since the ringmaster.

  I turned to face him. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have presumed–”

  He silenced me with a finger to my lips. The words died in my throat. I swallowed. He took his finger away, and my lips tingled. Without a thought, we moved closer to each other. He rested a hand on my cheek and his lips pressed to mine.

  It was not the first time I had kissed Drystan. I had kissed him dozens of times. But this was the first kiss without hundreds of eyes on us. The first kiss without pretense.

  A small sound escaped his throat and he pulled me closer to him. My hands twined about his neck and tangled in his hair. Our bodies fit against each other, a thin layer of clothing all that separated us. I could feel every muscle, and shivered as he ran his fingertips up and down my side, before his palm lay flat against the small of my back and pressed me even closer to him. I felt a tightening of my nipples, a clenching in my stomach and a stirring between my legs.

  Embarrassed, I broke the kiss and shifted my hips back from him. Drystan’s pale lips were pink, his pupils wide and dark. He was heart-wrenchingly beautiful. What would he want with me?

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice husky. My stomach tightened with desire.

  “But I’m–”

  “Micah,” he breathed, and I was not sure if he was answering or interrupting me. He pulled me back to him, and I pushed away my fear.

  We only kissed, for he sensed my hesitance and my nerves at doing anything more. But in that kiss, Drystan held nothing back, and I responded in kind.

  I concentrated entirely on Drystan – the sight, smell, touch and taste of him. I did not kiss him as a man or as a woman. I kissed him, and he kissed me.

  Our farce for Cyan became a reality. If Maske or Cyan sensed the change between us that morning at breakfast, they did not comment upon it. I was amazed, and terrified. It seemed like it could disappear at any moment. I didn’t tell anyone, and neither did he. Each night, there was a kiss, a caress, and a continued closeness. I was shy and he knew that, never pushing. But what was this between us? What were we to each other? I didn’t know, and to be honest, I didn’t think Drystan did, either.

  Drystan disappeared the morning after we searched Elwood’s apartments, with an unmarked envelope full of purloined documentation for the constabulary. We included a note made from letters cut from lithographic posters and newspapers, saying only, “Beware the crooked Shadow. More in
the safe behind the kelpie tapestry.”

  Now all we could do was wait and hope that Elwood had told no one else of our whereabouts. The pessimist in me feared that we would always be running. The second client could still find us. The policiers could follow a clue. Life in the Kymri Theatre could be only another temporary respite.

  But if Drystan came with me again, perhaps I would not mind so much.

  We were practicing our first grander-scale illusion: “The Sleeping Kymri Princess”. Drystan performed while I sat in the audience with Maske, holding two cymbals.

  “I learned of this magic from the great wizards of the golden Kymri plains,” he said, his Temri accent now flawless thanks to Cyan’s tutelage. “There, in a ritual under the full Penmoon, they performed a spell that would help me harness the powers of the ether of the stars. Starlight lives within me still.” He held his arms apart. His palms were coated in glitter. This he sprinkled over Cyan, resplendent in full green Kymri robes stitched in golden hieroglyphs, a circlet upon her head. She sparkled in the light of the glass globes and lanterns scattered about the dusty stage.

  Drystan laid his hand against her forehead, bidding her to close her eyes. When he took his hand away, he left a smudge of silver. He held his hands wide, muttering an incantation.

  Cyan collapsed backwards, her nickel and copper bangles clinking. As her head and torso fell, her legs raised until she levitated off of the floor, her body level with Drystan’s waist. Her unbound hair brushed the stage. Drystan moved his arms, my cue to crash the cymbals. Cyan rose higher until she was level with Drystan’s chest. Drystan grabbed a hoop hidden behind him on the stage. He passed the hoop around Cyan’s “sleeping” body, to prove that wires were not holding her aloft.

  “Through the ether the Princess of Kymri is now light as a feather,” Drystan intoned gravely.

  The moment was magnificent, and I set down the cymbals to clap. But perhaps I clapped too soon – the screech of metal echoed through the dusty theatre. The hidden metal ledge Cyan lay on tilted madly from the harness attached to Drystan’s waist. Cyan yelled as she crashed to the floor.

  Maske ran onto the stage. Cyan sat up, indignant, her circlet askew on her forehead. Maske disentangled Drystan from the entrapment. I came onto the stage, trying, and failing, to stifle my mirth.

  “Are you alright?” I asked Cyan through my laughter, reaching down to help her up.

  “I’m fine. And it’s not funny.” Cyan scowled.

  “It’s a little funny.”

  One side of her mouth quirked. “Only a little,” she said, straightening her circlet.

  “What happened?” Drystan asked.

  Maske studied the metal framework. “My figures must have been slightly off. It should have supported her.”

  “Maybe I’ve gained weight,” Cyan quipped.

  He gave her a smile. “Unlikely, my dear. I’ll fix it. It should not happen again. Are you unhurt?”

  “Just a sore bum.”

  “Apologies again. I am entirely at fault.”

  “Starlight,” she muttered.

  “I think that’s enough practice for today,” Maske said, his arms full of metal. “I’m going out. Spend the afternoon in the library if you like.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked. His suit was especially immaculate today.

  “I am meeting Lily again.”

  “Ooh, another date for Mister Maske,” Cyan teased, singsong.

  “It is merely a meeting between two new acquaintances.”

  “What is this, the third such meeting now? With an attractive widow,” Drystan pointed out.

  Maske waved a hand, but the spots of color returned to his cheeks. “I doubt anything will come of it, but it will be a delight to be in her presence once again.”

  “I’ll bet,” Drystan drawled. Maske straightened his suit jacket and walked off, as dignified as he could be with the three of us giggling behind him.

  “I think it’s sweet they’re growing close,” I said, and then realized the turn of phrase sounded more like something Gene would say, and not Micah. I peeked at Cyan, but she did not seem to notice.

  “It is,” she agreed. “I’ve never known him to have a lady friend.”

  Drystan brushed himself off, only covering himself in more glitter. “Ugh, remind me not to let Maske make me use this stuff for practice.”

  “You look as pretty as a pixie,” I chided. He stuck his tongue out at me, but his eyes twinkled. A warmth flared in my torso and I looked away with a small smile.

  “That fall was well-timed, in any case,” he said.

  “What are you talking about, Amon?” Cyan asked.

  “Well, it distracted Maske, and he doesn’t need to know…” his voice trailed off and he reached to the back of the waistband of his trousers. He held a newspaper.

  “Oh, no. What now?” Dread snarled my stomach.

  Cyan tilted her head at me, and I cursed myself for my slip.

  Drystan unfurled the newspaper. Front page headline: “CROOKED SHADOW BEHIND BARS”. He passed it to us. Cyan and I read it side by side.

  I studied it. An anonymous tip off had informed policiers that the eminent Shadow Kameron Elwood fabricated evidence in many of his cases. When all the documentation seized from his apartments had been categorized, it became clear that nearly half of his cases had been tampered with in some way. An innocent man had been falsely imprisoned for the past ten years due to erroneous information presented in court by Elwood.

  “Couple above, I hope we didn’t miss any documentation about us,” Drystan said.

  “Me too.” I looked back at the newspaper. “Ten years.”

  “I know. This man was a…” Cyan called him something so rude in Temri my eyes nearly popped out of my skull.

  We kept reading. Shadow Elwood protested that the documentation had been falsely planted by two people in an active case. Naturally, there was no documentation of any such cases found at his premises. We breathed sighs of relief. Reporters contacted the alleged employers, who said they never hired the services of Shadow Elwood.

  I smirked. If Cyan and I were the active cases mentioned, then Styx would sooner freeze over before my parents, the Lord and Lady Laurus, would ever admit to hiring a Shadow with such a taint upon his name.

  The Shadow claimed this case was the root of his downfall. Authorities were listening to his claims but disinclined to comment further. Shadow Elwood was being held in the Snakewood Prison, awaiting further justice. I wondered if they had housed him with anyone he ever investigated.

  I looked up when I finished reading. “So it worked?” I didn’t feel any better.

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Drystan’s eyes, conversely, glowed with triumph.

  “There’s still the second client or a second Shadow to worry about, though,” I said.

  “What’s this?” Cyan asked.

  “We found it in his notes. Elwood sensed he was being watched.”

  Cyan gave a low whistle, resting her head on her hands. “More problems.” She paused. “I’ve been hoping you two would tell me, but it seems I must ask. When you went to Elwood’s,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “did you find anything about me?”

  I was tempted to lie, to say we had not found anything, that the Shadow had not been hunting her or us at all. That would probably have been the wiser thing to do.

  “Follow me,” I said instead and made my way from the main theatre.

  I felt Drystan and Cyan’s eyes on my back as we entered the gloomy hallway. My foot kicked a loose mosaic, sending it skittering into the darkness.

  We went to the loft and I pulled her file from where I had hidden it under the mattress. Her sharp eyes saw the second file underneath. I ignored the questions in her eyes and slid my own story from sight.

  “He was following me.” Her voice was flat with surprise. She cradled the files and perched on my bed. “You could have pretended you never found anything,” she said, head bowed, hands c
urled loosely around the brown paper of the folder.

  “That’s true enough.”

  Her head rose. “So why didn’t you?”

  I turned the words over in my mind before I uttered them. “You live here. You work with us. You knew who we were and you said nothing. You’ve trusted us, or I believe that you have. The least I can do is offer the same courtesy.”

  She ran a fingertip over the front of the folder. “Thank you.”

  I said nothing. She opened the folder and read. Drystan kept trying to catch my eye, but I would not meet it. Yes, it was perhaps foolhardy to trust her so readily. But I had lost Aenea through lies. And I did not think I trusted the wrong person. She was on the run, like me. Like us. I could find out what a Shai was from elsewhere, but the best way to hear it was from her own lips.

  She closed the file.

  “Well,” she said. “You read it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Before I could lose my nerve, I asked, “What’s a Shai?”

  “Hogwash, that’s what.” She fed the papers to the banked coals of the fireplace, where they smoked, blackened, and then curled.

  I almost threw Iphigenia Laurus’ file onto the coals as well, but I was certain that some of his notes were written in code. I did not want to miss anything.

  “How’d he find us?” Cyan asked. “It’s a big city.”

  Drystan and I exchanged a look. Maybe she’d know how to work it. I retrieved the Mirror of Moirai from where it remained in Drystan’s pack. We explained to her what it was and turned it on.

  Drystan and I had spent hours trying to puzzle it out. We knew that we’d both touched it enough that it would probably be able to find us. Sometimes, I almost felt as if I could puzzle out the strange Alder characters, but then they eluded me. At one point, something that looked like a stylized map appeared on the screen, but we had no idea what to do from there. Even if the second client or Shadow was somehow stored in the mirror, we did not know how to locate him through the Vestige artifact. Again, Anisa would know, perhaps, but I wanted to see if we could somehow discover its secrets ourselves, first. I wouldn’t put it past her to bring up results and then lie to me about what they were.