by TJ Nichols
“The clouds are breaking up,” a woman said.
“But it never hit us?”
“That’s not right.” Chatter erupted around the room.
Terrance forced himself to sit. His thigh muscles were still a little twitchy. The clean sweep had been neutralized. “Angus stopped it.”
No one moved to open the door, so Terrance got to his knees and paused a moment to steady himself. The sky was clearing, returning to the bright, painful blue that promised no rain.
It was only when every cloud had melted away that Terrance stood. He walked to the door and glared at the two priests who’d stopped him before. Neither moved. “I’m going out.”
This time no one challenged him.
The door squeaked as he shoved it open. He swallowed and checked the sky again, but it was clear. Nothing was going to happen to him, so he let the door swing closed behind him and made his way to the stands around the court, expecting to see Angus sitting there exhausted and triumphant.
There was no one there at all.
“Angus?” He jogged down the stairs and peered down. The rubber ball was against the wall, but there was no Angus.
“Angus!” He had to be here somewhere. Where else could he be? “Angus!”
His voice echoed off the stone walls and came back at him. He was too late. If the clean sweep had destroyed Angus, surely there’d be bits… evidence. But there was nothing. Had it somehow swept him up and taken him away to Vinland? That seemed unlikely because the storm had never turned.
Where had all the magic gone?
His stomach hollowed out as the answer hit him—Demonside. Angus had let it all go, so he must be there. Terrance needed to get to a doorway.
Screw that. He’d open the void right here.
He had nothing in his pocket to make a circle, so he would have to rely on will alone—something he’d never been very good at. Angus was probably fine. He’d be walking through the doorway at the Training Temple while Terrance fretted. He worried at his lower lip and flexed his fingers. What if he wasn’t walking through the doorway? What if he wasn’t walking at all?
It was his job as anchor to open the void for Angus. Even if he did open the void, it would go straight to the doorway, not to Angus, but Angus should’ve opened the void to the doorway too. Angus should’ve been here, not in Demonside.
Had something gone wrong?
He closed his eyes for a moment and weighed up his options, but everything led back to the same place—the doorway. There was no point in breaking a rule when everything would be fine and he was freaking out for no reason. Angus knew what he was doing.
Terrance uncurled his fingers and sighed as he tried to let go of the knots of worry that had drawn tightly around his gut. He’d go to the Training Temple and wait.
Angus was probably already there, wondering what was taking him so long. Cadmael would want to know what had happened. He smiled. Angus’s idea had worked.
Sirens trilled through the city as he got on a tram and hurried back to the Training Temple. He checked Angus’s room and then his own, but they were both empty. The knots tightened. Maybe he hadn’t come through yet, or maybe he’d gone straight to see Cadmael. There was an easy way to check.
He ran to the doorway, which was guarded by two soldiers, as usual. Then he scanned the log, but Angus hadn’t signed in. Maybe he’d been in a rush.
“Did Angus come through?” he said in Mayan. “Red hair and spots?” He didn’t know the word for freckles. How could he not have learned that?
“No one has come through,” one of the guards said.
“Are you sure?” That wasn’t possible.
The soldier scowled at him. “Of course I am.”
“But….” Maybe he was hurt… or spending time with Saka… or…. There had to be a reason, but every reason he thought of ended with blood and death.
Saka would look after Angus on that side. So why were his insides knotting with the kind of fear he usually reserved for when he was tied up and in serious strife?
He stepped away from the soldiers and their knives and bows. Sweat trickled down his back, and his heart beat fast from the run and the panic that wouldn’t let him go. Something wasn’t right, but who would believe him? His mind churned over names until he settled on Kabil.
He turned and sprinted to Kabil’s room, but he didn’t respond when Terrance knocked. Was he at the Intelligence Temple? Cadmael would be there. Terrance needed to tell someone or go through the doorway himself.
He opened Kabil’s door and peeked inside. The room was empty of life. Books were piled on the desk and a notebook lay open, but he couldn’t read Mayan, and he didn’t care what it said. He picked up a pencil and wrote a note that would hopefully be found soon.
Angus was outside during the clean sweep. He wanted to try something, send the magic to Demonside, I think. I’ve gone through the doorway to find him. He might be there.
Terrance.
It was a shit note that explained very little, but he didn’t have time to write an essay. He left the door open, so Kabil would know someone had been there, and he raced back to the doorway. He was a sweaty, panicky mess when he got there. The soldiers scowled as he put his name in the logbook so there would be a record of him leaving. He shouldn’t be going. He was the anchor.
The cold of the void was what he needed to cool his blood, but it was gone too fast. Instead the heat and sweet air of Demonside enveloped him as soon as he was through.
Six mages stood around the stone platform. On either side of Terrance were stone pillars that he remembered from their rescue. Back then he hadn’t known it was a doorway that limited comings and goings.
The mages looked at him, and he stared back. It seemed that he had interrupted something. He was relieved to see Saka, but there was no sign of Angus. His heart edged higher in his throat.
“Why are you here?” Iktan asked.
Terrance turned to him. “Angus… he should be here.”
“Why would he be here?” Saka’s voice was level, but his words were cautious.
“There was a clean sweep during the pitz game.” That was when he realized the ground was wet and the stones slick. The air was more humid than he’d ever felt it, like moisture would bead on his skin at any moment. Fuck, he was thirsty. He swallowed, but his throat was dry. “Angus stayed out to try and send the magic here. It rained? It worked?”
“It was more than usually comes through from a pitz game.” Iktan’s ears flattened as he spoke.
“Where’s Angus?” Why was no one freaking out? “Why are you all here?”
“He opened the void to send the clean sweep through?” Saka stepped forward and took Terrance’s hand to stop him from waving it around.
“Yes. Well, that’s what he said he was going to do.” Terrance licked his lips. His breath was still coming in short pants. He should have known better than to come to Demonside without water, sunscreen, or hat. He wasn’t prepared for a search and rescue. Or was he overreacting?
“The magic didn’t come through this doorway,” Saka said looking to Iktan.
“That was odd,” Iktan concurred. “By rights it should’ve.”
“So he came through a different doorway?” Still no one was doing anything. The mages were all standing, still waiting for him to leave. “He was in Uxmal. It should’ve been this doorway. Why isn’t he here?”
Saka closed his eyes. His chest lifted as he took a deep breath and then spoke. “He is here, and he isn’t dead.”
“How do you know?” Though if anyone would know, it would be Saka. He wanted to shake the answers out of the demon. How could he be so calm?
Saka opened his eyes and stared at him. It was too easy to fall into the bottomless black and get lost in them.
Saka tightened his grip on Terrance’s hand. “Because I can feel the connection, and if you tried, you’d be able to too.”
Terrance lowered his gaze to his sandaled feet. He probably should’ve tried
that. “I knew something was wrong during the clean sweep, but I didn’t go out and help him.” But if he had, he’d be dead. He couldn’t do what Angus did.
“That he is alive after facing a clean sweep is no small achievement,” Iktan said.
Terrance lifted his gaze. “But if he isn’t in Uxmal and he isn’t in town… where is he?”
Chapter 28
EVERY BREATH hurt like someone was driving a knife into his back. There was a lump on the back of his head that felt like half a rotten orange, and he was saturated. Water dripped off his hair, landed on his nose, and rolled down until it fell off the end. He lay on the stones, staring up at the sky, and let the rain pummel him, only forcing himself upright when it stopped.
He’d come through a doorway, but not the one he should’ve come through at the village. The stones on the ground were broken, and one of the pillars was half crumbled. But he recognized the view because he’d been on his back when he was here with Saka.
That time had been infinitely more pleasurable.
He touched the lump on his head again. It had stopped bleeding, but he was more concerned about his ribs. Breathing hurt… and he was alone.
Wek wouldn’t be nearby in a tent half hidden by the trees, and Saka wasn’t going to suddenly appear.
This old, supposedly broken, doorway was several days from the nearest village. He took a careful breath and tried not to let panic take hold. He might as well have been on the other side of Demonside. No help was coming.
He reined in his thoughts. That wasn’t true. Terrance should be able to open the void for him. He must have realized he was missing, but no one had come for him. What was the point of having an anchor if it didn’t work when it needed to?
“Come on, Terrance,” he muttered. But with every heartbeat his hope sank. Terrance would be expecting him to come through a doorway. Would he have realized something was wrong?
If he had… why was he not being the anchor?
Angus sat and waited for the void to open, but it didn’t. He couldn’t sit and wait, and he didn’t even know how long he’d been there, exhausted and unable to move as the rain fell and flattened him to the stones. He’d brought the rain and he’d bathed in that satisfaction but despite the heat in the air and the steam rising from the ground, he was cold to the core. He’d always been told not to wander alone in Demonside. Aside from what he was wearing he had nothing with him—his ankle was naked of bells and he had no knives. If he stayed put, predators would see him as a wounded, easy target, which he was.
He needed to do something, get himself to a doorway—one that was open to Humanside. This one was supposed to be dead, but it had worked well enough for him. He pressed lips together in a grim smile. Maybe he’d made a doorway with that rush of magic.
He knew what he didn’t have. What he did have were clothes that covered him fairly well, so at least he wouldn’t burn too fast and sandals, also useful.
He checked his pockets but found nothing.
His ID card was still around his neck, but he couldn’t buy his way out of this trouble.
He forced slow, shallow breaths while his heart beat hard, driven by fear. Terrance would’ve already noticed he was missing. It wouldn’t matter where he was, he was far enough away from the working doorway that the void would open near him, just like it had when he came through to Saka. All he had to do was survive for a little while.
But he had a limited amount of time before Demonside sucked the magic and marrow out of his bones and left him a husk in the… jungle. At least there were trees, and he kind of knew the path Saka had taken to get to the village. He could make his way there, and he had to believe that Terrance would open the void soon.
He used the pillar to stand, but each breath was a fresh pain. He wasn’t going to get far with broken ribs or be able to fight off predators, and any magic he used would hasten his death.
Angus leaned against the pillar and reached for any magic he could. Then he brought up a circle around the doorway. It crackled as blue and bright as always and felt familiar and safe. He gritted his teeth to ready himself for the pain of healing. He wanted to spill blood to help, but he knew he had to work with magic drawn from around him, not from within him. It was much harder to wield, but even a half-healed bone was better than one that was totally broken. Heat laced through his back, spread along his ribs, and constricted his breathing until stars bloomed in his already-tender head. Tension locked his jaw, but he pushed on until he felt the bones start to knit.
He held out for another two heartbeats and then quit and leaned on the pillar for support so he didn’t crumple to the ground again. A sob escaped, but his breathing was easier.
The circle fell, and he was slightly less wounded but still alone in Demonside. His stomach rumbled, but he had no food, and it had stopped raining, so he had no water. Even with all the magic in the world, without water he’d be dead by tomorrow.
Chapter 29
KABIL HAD been waiting for Terrance at the doorway when he came back from Demonside. He was annoyed that Terrance had been in his room and horrified by the note. They went to the Intelligence Temple straight after but were forced to wait for Cadmael because there was some other crisis happening. The doorways in other cities weren’t working, but if they weren’t working, why couldn’t he get to Angus?
Terrance ran his hand over the fuzz on his head. What was going on?
The round mat on the floor was his focus for the circle, and the void shimmered open. Once again a guard stuck his head through and rolled his eyes, unimpressed that Terrance was trying a fourth void opening in minutes.
“Are you thinking of Angus?” Cadmael asked again.
“Yes,” Terrance snapped.
“Then he must be within the area serviced by the doorway.” Cadmael glanced at the jade skull on his desk. “I need to respond to this.” He placed his hand on the skull and closed his eyes.
Terrance glanced at Kabil. “What do we do now?” The area serviced by the doorway couldn’t be that big.
Kabil put his finger to his lips.
If it weren’t for the stupid doorways, he’d have been able to open the void next to Angus and they’d be having dinner and laughing about how Terrance had freaked out.
Cadmael’s features twisted, but not in anger. He was supposed to know everything, and Terrance didn’t like to see his confusion.
Cadmael jerked his hand away, and his scowl deepened. “More cities are reporting that their doorways no longer work.”
“What do you mean? Our doorway works,” Kabil said, his concern echoing Cadmael’s.
“People can go through, but they end up at our doorway in Arlyxia instead of their own. What exactly did Mage Angus do?” Cadmael stared at Terrance.
“I wasn’t with him.” If he had been, maybe Angus wouldn’t be lost in Demonside. “He said he was going to send all the pitz magic and the clean sweep to Demonside. He didn’t want the Vinnish to take that magic.” It was a hasty but good theory. And Saka was sure Angus was alive and had vowed to get him back. If it had been any other demon, Terrance wouldn’t have trusted their word, but Saka loved Angus enough to leave his tribe. If that didn’t count for something, then nothing mattered.
“Maybe the pathways were overloaded,” Kabil suggested.
Maybe, but Terrance didn’t think so. “There were six mages gathered at the doorway when I went through.” Not one of them had answered his question about why they were there. Had they been about to bind the doorways?
If all doorways went to the same one, how big was that area? They’d never find Angus before Demonside drained him of magic or something ate him. He had to think. Before his thoughts could get too wild, he drew in a breath. “Unbind them or something. There has to be a way for me to reach Angus, otherwise what’s the point of being an anchor?”
“If the mages bound them, we can’t unbind them. Doorways are set up by priests and their demons. To create one takes a huge amount of magic,” Cadmael
said as though speaking to a child.
“I don’t care about the doorways. How do we get Angus back?”
Both priests were silent for too long. Finally Kabil spoke. “If the mages have limited void opening to one doorway, they must be trying to limit the flow of magic.”
“In theory, they can then close the one doorway,” Cadmael said.
Terrance didn’t need that explained. Demonside would be shut with Angus on the wrong side.
Chapter 30
“IF WE close this doorway, we will not be able to open it.” Saka stood almost toe to toe with Iktan. It would never end in a fight, but it was coming close.
“You are only worried because your human is out there.”
“Would you also not be worried if your human were out there?”
Iktan shrugged. “Cadmael knows the risks.”
“Angus did this to help us. To trap him here is a death sentence. It would also be foolish when he is the only one who can redirect a clean sweep to us.” It was a small strike at Vinland, and it had only returned a fraction of the stolen magic.
Iktan’s ears twitched in annoyance. Saka had wrapped the tip of his tail into the leg of his pants to prevent such an obvious sign of irritation. “If we leave it open, Cadmael may come through and demand answers.”
Saka crossed his arms. “Let him. And tell him the truth. We must protect what we have left. They can still rebalance, but they cannot come and go as they please anymore.”
“Except that is what you want for Angus,” Iktan muttered.
Saka inclined his head, admitting that was a flaw in his argument. He wanted to protect Demonside, but he also wanted to save Angus.
“On the third evening we will shut it. He will be dead by then if he has not been found.” Iktan sighed. “If we spread the word, the humans still on this side will have a chance to get home. We will do what is right.”