by Eva Chase
I tipped my head to meet his kiss, firm but not demanding. I remembered very well what it was like to let Malcolm take charge of me for a little while. But seeing him today had brought an ache into my chest that was a lot more than just lust.
Regardless of the things I hated about his father, growing up with the Nightwoods had taught Malcolm some things that were useful. It’d prepared him for life as baron better than maybe any of the rest of us were. He was meant for that role—it was made for him. He would enjoy directing the fearmancer community as much as he’d enjoyed leading this meeting, and he’d be good at it too.
All of those facts made me love him more, and they also made it all the more certain that our time together came with an end date. Even if he’d offered to give up the future he’d worked toward for so long, I couldn’t imagine letting him.
Even if, in moments like this, the thought of letting him go, watching him form a life with another woman, sent a dagger straight through my heart.
I pushed down that pain and kissed him again before easing back. “I’m supposed to meet my mother in town soon,” I said with a grimace. “Some kind of tour, she said.”
“That sounds delightful,” Jude said with open sarcasm, and swooped in to give me a quick hug and a peck on the cheek.
Connar glanced over with a frown. “Do you want any of us there nearby, just in case? With that new assistant hanging around trying to screw you over…”
I waved off his concern. “I’ll be okay. I’ve managed to survive this long. And my mother is still keeping Maggie at a bit of a distance because of what happened with Lillian. I’m not too worried about that.” Yet.
Despite the nonchalance I’d tried to convey, my stomach tied itself in knots as I went to grab my car. My mother had said more about the tour than I’d conveyed to the guys. Apparently some of the prominent families were joining us so we could show off the benefits of having the Nary population under our thumbs.
I hadn’t gone into town since the announcement, worried that what I’d see there might be too much for me to keep my mouth shut. Maybe if the Scions’ Guard strategy worked out here at the university, we could adapt it to reduce any terrorizing that was going on in town too. In the meantime, I wasn’t sure what I could do without proving the other barons right and losing whatever trust I’d built with my mother before I had any way to really change her mind.
On the surface, the town’s streets looked more peaceful than usual in the muted sunlight, but there was an eeriness to the quiet. Normally in the middle of the day, I’d have seen locals ambling along the streets, doing some shopping or heading to lunch or just stretching their legs. Today I only passed a couple pedestrians, and both of them froze and watched my car rumble along with widened eyes. One of them dashed into the nearest store as soon as I’d driven by.
There were other people out and about. A blacksuit and a few seniors I recognized from campus were standing at the edge of the square when I parked nearby. One of the patrols the barons had called for, I guessed—the responsibility I’d gotten Cressida out of by insisting I needed her as part of the Scions’ Guard.
The sky was clouded, and as I got out of the car, the breeze smacked my face with a waft of dampness. The one troop marched off through the streets, but when I came into the square, a couple other blacksuits and two more student patrollers were standing off to the side of my mother and the cluster of fearmancers gathering around her.
“You can see how subdued they all are already,” Baron Bloodstone was saying as I reached them, with a sly little smile that made my skin creep. “It didn’t take them long to see how outmatched they are. Just a few demonstrations, and now we call all the shots.”
“Were they all so quick to surrender?” one of the men asked.
“None resisted for very long—that much you can be sure of. When the other families arrive, we’ll take a stroll around town and you’ll see our authority is recognized everywhere.” She beckoned me over. “My daughter can assist with the tour, since she’s become familiar with the place over the months she’s been at the university.”
I not only had to join in this demonstration but narrate our supposed triumph as well? My stomach flipped right over. I managed a smile and a nod, hoping I was concealing my discomfort well enough for it to go unnoticed.
My uneasiness only increased a minute later when Maggie came trotting over with three other couples in tow. Her gaze skimmed right over me, and she bobbed her head to my mother. “I believe this is everyone.”
“Then we can get started.” My mother patted my arm. “Where would you normally have gone on your trips into town, Persephone, and what would the atmosphere have been like before?”
“Yes,” Maggie chirped helpfully. “Let’s hear your take.”
What was she expecting from me here? I swallowed thickly.
“Well,” I said, keeping my tone as even as I could, “normally I’d have seen more people out taking care of… whatever they needed to take care of. If I had to buy groceries, the store I’d usually go to is just down this street.”
I stepped forward, and the others followed me. I realized belatedly that mentioning I bought my own groceries was probably a little odd for any high-ranking fearmancer, let alone the daughter of a baron—some of our group exchanged glances that might have been puzzled or amused. No one commented on it, though, so it might not have been that large a faux pas. They all knew my history and could chalk some strangeness up to that.
As we meandered through the familiar streets, my queasiness only bubbled higher. The one Nary woman who was shopping in the grocery store abandoned her cart and fled for the back door at the sight of us; the cashier stood stiff as a board behind the counter. My mother blatantly lifted an apple from a stand right in his view and started eating it on her way out, without the slightest gesture toward paying for it or acknowledgment that she should have.
The fearmancer-run bar we went by had a decent bunch of students patronizing it; the other restaurants where I’d gone more often stood empty other than a waiter or waitress eyeing us warily from the back of the room when we peered through the front windows. My new favorite café had a CLOSED sign hanging on the door, the windows outright shuttered. I glanced up at the second floor where I assumed the couple lived, wondering what they were going to do now that their business had been interrupted.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” Maggie said to me, loud enough for the group to overhear. “Your mother and the other barons have accomplished so much, so quickly.”
By sheer force of will, I kept my gaze mild when I looked back at her, as much as I’d have liked to shoot her a death glare. “It is amazing how much they’ve accomplished.” Was she trying to get me to admit that I wasn’t happy with those accomplishments? What did she think I’d have wanted instead? She’d accused me of being power-hungry—it could be she simply figured I wished I’d been the one getting the “glory” for this progress.
“This is, of course, the initial stage of transition,” my mother said as we turned down a residential street. “They’re retreating as they come to terms with their new reality. Once they’ve adjusted, they’ll continue living their lives and doing their work much the same way they did before—other than having the rules we impose to follow, and giving us due respect and preference when we have need of it.”
“How long do you think that transitional period will take?” asked a woman beside her.
“Well, we don’t have any similar examples to go by, so we can only speculate based on—”
A wordless bark of a voice cut her off. A half a dozen kids—preteens and young teenagers by the look of them—burst from one of the driveways, all of them glowering at us. One of them raised a butcher’s knife he must have grabbed from his parents’ kitchen.
“We don’t want you here,” he shouted. “And we’re not scared of you.”
Chapter Twenty
Rory
My mother blinked at the squad of Nary kids for a moment
before a laugh spilled from her lips. The wry sound carried down the gloomy town street with its line of white- or cream-faced houses. A few of the kids cringed, but the one holding the knife kept it raised, his knuckles pale.
“What are you going to do with that?” the baron said. “Do you really think you could hurt us with something so mundane?”
She spoke a casting word, snapping her fingers for effect, and the blade shimmered. In less than a second, it’d transformed into a flayed silver ribbon that sagged across the boy’s hand.
He let out a cry of dismay and flung it on the ground. My mother no doubt expected them to run away after that display. She turned to continue down the street—and the boy hollered, “Come on!”
Faster than any of us were prepared for, the kids hurled rocks they’d been hiding at our group. As soon as they’d let their projectiles fly, most were groping on the ground to dig up handfuls of dirt and pebbles that they threw too. Their faces were sallow with terror, and quivers of that emotion raced into my chest as it must have the fearmancers around me, but that didn’t stop the determination that burned in the kids’ eyes.
The rocks weren’t all that big. The mages closest to them muttered with disgust and waved a quick barrier into place that deflected most of the barrage that followed, but I didn’t see any of them so much as wince. My mother spun back around with a blaze of fury in her expression, though.
“Rein them in,” she demanded to the blacksuits who were already striding forward. “Let’s make sure they remember never to badger us again.”
At the sight of the blacksuits and their student helpers descending on them, the kids scrambled backward—but only to the front of the house. The boy who’d held the knife snatched up a larger, sharp-edged stone that bordered the garden, inspiring the others to do the same, and lunged at the officers before anyone had a chance to transform that makeshift weapon too. The other kids sprang in with a volley of ragged yells.
I cringed inwardly, but I expected the blacksuits and their helpers to push the assault back with about as much force as the other fearmancers had before. These were kids after all. I didn’t think the oldest could have been more than thirteen. But our protectors were all calling out spells at once, sending the stones flinging away from the attackers’ hands, pushing them back—and one of the students shoved out his hands with a force so brutal it whipped through my hair even behind him.
The wind he’d conjured blasted into all of the kids and hurled them up the driveway. Some of them tumbled with pained yelps and the crack of broken bones on the concrete between the two houses. Three bodies rammed straight into the brick side of the neighbor’s wall with a sickening crunch.
Bile rose up my throat as those three kids crumpled at the base of the wall. Blood streaks marked the bricks; more of the scarlet liquid pooled beneath their heads. The guy, who I doubted was more than eighteen himself, dropped his hands, a tremor running through him. He’d killed them.
And not just the ones who’d been charging at us. “Sammy!” one of the girls who’d fallen in the driveway cried out. She stumbled to her feet and hurried over with a lurching limp before collapsing beside the bodies with a sob. When she reached toward the boy in the middle, I registered how much smaller he was compared to the others. He looked more like a kindergartener.
I hadn’t seen anyone that young in the onslaught. He must have been a younger sibling, tagging along to see what the big kids were up to and hanging back behind the pack… where he’d been caught up in our rush to defend ourselves.
The girl touched his little blood-flecked face and rocked as she wept. I had to clench my teeth and will back the urge to vomit. They’d attacked us like monsters—because we were acting like monsters.
One of the blacksuits spun on the guy who’d cast the final spell. “What did we say about control?” he rasped, keeping his voice low. “You only exert the amount of force needed to offset the threat.”
“There were so many of them,” the guy said with a vague motion of his hand, but the color had drained from his face. “I was just trying to stop them—to protect everyone.”
“They should have known better,” a woman near me said in a clipped voice. “They looked as if they’d have liked to kill us. Everyone here has to learn the consequences.”
A few heads nodded, but I thought several of the others we’d brought on our tour were taken aback, their eyes averted or startled. I guessed I should be glad they weren’t all celebrating, but it was hard to feel much of anything beyond the mash of guilt and horror swelling inside me.
My mother sliced her hand through the air in the direction of the blacksuits. “Your people need to deal with this. Clear the area, see that they end up where they belong.”
Her voice was cool and steady, but her lips pressed tight when she was done speaking. Her gaze fixed on the little boy. A shudder ran down her back, so small I wasn’t sure anyone else would have noticed it or thought much of it.
I knew how hard she had to be shaken for even that little lapse to show through. She shifted her weight, but she couldn’t seem to wrench her attention away from the bloody bodies.
She was horrified too. A quiver of hope penetrated my nausea. Was she horrified enough to reconsider the path she’d set us off on? I had to try—for her, for every Nary in this town who might have to face the blacksuits and their accomplices in the future.
I couldn’t say anything to her in front of all these spectators, though. Her pride would take over before I could get through.
“Well,” I said, smoothing the ragged edge from my voice as well as I could, “clearly the Naries don’t stand a chance against the powers we can wield. And now you’ve all had a very thorough tour.” I stepped closer to my mother and tucked a hand around her elbow. “It’s just about time for the business matters we needed to attend to. We don’t want to leave them waiting.”
My mother managed to tear her gaze away to look at me. She had the wherewithal not to show her confusion with more than a brief blink. She might not know what I was after, but she could tell I was angling for something between the two of us. And she trusted me enough to nod.
“That’s right. We were just about to wrap up as it is.” She glanced around at the other fearmancers. “Thank you for joining us for this demonstration. As you can see, we can dominate the Naries with no trouble at all.”
I turned away from the scene in the driveway, my jaw clenching. A few more blacksuits had just arrived—alerted by their colleagues, I assumed. One of them started directing the tour group back toward the square where most of them must have parked while the other officers gathered around the dead or injured kids.
My mother and I drifted to the back of the crowd. Maggie stuck close by us, her eyes narrowing when I looked at her, but the other families were too busy talking amongst themselves to pay us much mind. At our first opportunity, I tugged the baron toward a side-street, and she followed me. She moved with brisk strides, but her arm trembled in my grasp. When we’d passed out of sight of most of the others, she rubbed her forehead like she had when I’d found her in her bedroom the other day.
Maggie pulled out her phone. I tried to ignore her as I led my mother toward the outskirts of town where we could talk without even the locals overhearing, but she obviously wasn’t satisfied with supervising us on her own. As we reached the sparse forest across the quiet highway from the town’s first buildings, two cars pulled up with five blacksuits between them.
Great. We still had an audience. At least it was a smaller one, and made up of people whose opinion I didn’t think my mother cared about quite as much as the families from the tour. I’d still have to handle the situation delicately.
Hell, I’d have needed to take a delicate approach even if it’d been the two of us on our own.
I stopped amid the trees and turned to my mother. Whatever Maggie had said to the blacksuits, they hung back, in easy reach but not intervening. This shouldn’t look like anything other than a baron speaki
ng with her scion to them.
“What’s this about, Persephone?” my mother said, peering at me. “I think you’d better explain quickly.”
How could I put it in a way that she’d accept and not get defensive? The last thing she’d want was for me to point out her own regrets—her weakness—in front of anyone.
“I think you’d better—” Maggie started to say in a cutting tone, and understanding struck me.
I wouldn’t make it about my mother’s weakness. I’d make it mine. I didn’t give a shit what the people around us thought of my supposed strength or lack thereof. And the fact that I was saying it in front of them would give her witnesses to prove she’d acted for me rather than because of fears of her own.
“I’m sorry,” I said, cutting Maggie off and grasping my mother’s hand. It didn’t take any effort at all for my voice to come out choked. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the other families. I just—what happened to those kids—what our people did to those kids—I don’t think I can take it if this is how things are going to be now.”
Let her comfort me. Let her be the strong one while being compassionate at the same time. I was giving her an opening to change her mind without having to look fickle.
She drew herself up with a cock of her head. “What do you mean, Persephone?”
I waved toward the town. “I know you want us all to be more free. I think that would be amazing. But is it really going to change our community for the better if that’s the kind of magic it’s going to bring out of us? We’re going to be so busy policing and punishing Naries that we have no time to look after anything we used to do. We’re supposed to be mages, not jailors.” Not murderers. At least not if I had anything to say about it.
“I’m sure things will settle down given time,” my mother said, but her gaze wavered with uncertainty. She was listening.
“I don’t know. People don’t give up easily. They’ll just get smarter in how they rebel, and we’ll have to keep fighting with them…” I hugged myself. “Honestly, I wish we could just wipe everyone’s memories of the whole thing and go back to the way we used to live. I know that’s probably not what you want to hear, and I really am sorry—I want to do other things with my magic, that’s all. This doesn’t feel like freedom.”