by Cayla Keenan
Jayin snapped her shields back into place, shaking away the excess magic before pinpointing the disturbance. One of the boys was having a nightmare.
“Hey,” Jayin said, placing a hand on the boy’s leg. He startled awake and Jayin pressed a finger to her lips. “You’re having a bad dream,” she whispered. “You’re okay.”
“Gulwitch,” the boy whispered, looking at her with wide eyes. They reminded her of Maddix, or who he might have been before the Pit.
“Call me Jayin, okay?” the boy nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Arin.”
“Do you want to take a walk with me, Arin?” Jayin stretched out a gloved hand. Arin hesitated but took it, his hand feeling tiny and fragile in hers. They didn’t go far, just walked around the block. Jayin didn’t try to initiate conversation, content with silence until the boy broke it.
“How’d you know that I was having a bad dream?” Arin asked.
“See that smoke over there?” Jayin said, pointing to the gray tendrils that drifted up in the sky. “People are like fires, and I can see the smoke. Sometimes, like when someone’s having a bad dream, there’s more than usual. That’s how I knew.”
“So I’m a fire?”
Jayin nodded, pressing two fingers to his forehead and drawing them back with an exaggerated wince.
Arin’s eyes were wide and a smile spread across his face as quickly as the sun appearing from behind a cloud. “Stop that.”
“Can’t help it,” Jayin said, tapping the back of her hand under his chin and pulling it back again. “What’s that?” she asked, squinting at the side of his head. “I think—I think there’s steam coming out of your ears.”
Arin swiped at her, then flapped his hands around his head to dissipate the imaginary smoke.
“There is not,” he protested, but he was almost laughing.
“You can’t lie to me,” Jayin said. “I’m the Gulwitch. You can’t lie to the Gulwitch, didn’t anybody tell you that?”
“I thought you said your name was Jayin,” Arin said.
“You,” she said, her smile wavering a little, “are a smart kid.”
“You’re not as scary as people say you are,” the boy went on. “I don’t think you’re very scary at all.”
“What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re sad. Like Ravi is sad.”
A very smart kid, Jayin thought. She swept the area as they walked, more out of habit than anything else. Something flashed in her second sight, catching her attention like Arin’s nightmare, only much, much stronger. Stronger and familiar.
“Arin, I need you to wake Ravi up and tell him to meet me on the edge of the territory.” The boy’s smile dropped and he nodded. He disappeared without so much as another word, and Jayin took off towards the flare.
She knew that aura, but it was impossible. Angry, violent energy churned in the air. Carrions.
“Bleedin’ skies,” one of them spat. Jayin could sense four of them from where she was pressed up against an alley wall. This was their turf, and she had no idea how long it would take Ravi to get here. “You said she was askin’ for the Gulwitch?”
“Yeah and she looks like she’s gonna kick it any second.”
“Let’s just get this over with then,” the first one said and Jayin heard the sound of a sword being drawn.
“Step back and I let you live,” Jayin said, spinning her Gulwitch glamor and freeing her knives.
There was a split-second pause and the carrions surged forward, their weapons drawn. Jayin blocked and dodged, making herself look bigger so they were swiping at the empty air. Snarling, Jayin slashed her knife at the first carrion, her blade ripping clean through his stomach. His legs gave out beneath him and he screamed, trying to keep his insides from spilling out.
One of his companions ran at her from behind. Jayin spun and grabbed his arms, leaning forward so that she nearly lifted him off the ground, balanced on her back. The boy swore and Jayin threw all of her weight backward, slamming them both to the ground. She lurched back to her feet, but the boy didn’t move, half-crushed. He was lucky the impact hadn’t snapped his neck.
By the time Ravi and two other kids showed up, the carrions retreated, pulling their injured comrades away. Jayin barely noticed them, her focus on the prone figure huddled in the corner of the alley. The girl’s face was an emaciated mask of its former self and there were two nasty cuts on her cheek, but there was no mistaking the blonde hair or her aura.
“Maia,” Jayin breathed, going to her knees at the girl’s side. “Maia, how—?” There were so many questions that only the single word came out.
“Jayin,” Maia said but her voice was weak. Her aura flickered, guttering like a candle in a strong wind.
“Tell me,” Jayin said, but Maia had used the last of her strength.
Gritting her teeth, Jayin took the girl’s hand and pressed it to the side of her face. Pain throbbed against the inside of Jayin’s skull and with it came fractured images. They all rolled together, nearly impossible to decipher, but when Jayin pulled away her breath caught in her throat and there was only one thing she knew for certain.
Maddix was in Pavaal. And the Guard had him.
Chapter Thirty-Eight:
Maddix
He was awake. Slowly, bit by bit, his senses started coming back to him. Water dripped from the ceiling, and a damp, musty smell clung to his nostrils. Maddix’s whole body ached from the beating he’d taken, even the smallest movement feeling as if it was breaking something anew. There was something familiar about the air, something that made him think of darkness and despair and—
The Pit. For a moment Maddix was sure he was back underground, somewhere no one would hear him scream or bother to look for him. But then his eyes adjusted and Maddix could see rays of late-afternoon sunlight shining through a tiny slit in the wall. He was on the surface.
Maddix forced himself to breathe, inhaling shallowly through his nose. Whatever other kind of trouble he was in, he was above ground. He wasn’t in the dark, and that was something.
It wasn’t much.
His relief was short-lived. It might not have been the Pit, but he was still imprisoned somewhere. There was barely enough light to see by, but Maddix could tell that this new cell was hardly tall enough to allow him to stand. Even if he could, his ankle was chained to the wall behind him.
“Stars,” he swore. Mist curled out of his mouth before vanishing. Whatever was keeping the air cold, it wasn’t natural. Outside, the seasons had just turned spring into summer, but within these walls it felt like the dead of winter. He tugged at the iron chain uselessly, but he wasn’t strong enough to do much more than rattle it, and every movement set the wound on his hip afire. He should’ve let Maia heal it when she offered.
Maddix’s breath hitched as he thought of her. Where was she now? Had she made it out of the guard post? Had she found the Gulwitch—had she found Jayin’s people? There was no way for him to know.
“Stars,” he said again, leaning his head back against the wall. He was going to die here, the only question was when. He was surprised they hadn’t killed him already. Maddix knew that he’d proven himself too difficult to let live, so why they’d bothered to lock him up was a mystery. He doubted he was going to like the answer.
Gritting his teeth, Maddix forced himself not to panic. They were trying to break him, with the cold and isolation. He knew that. That’s why the Pit was so successful. Years in the dark, alone except for the voices in your head, drove people mad. He could still hear the screams of the woman in the cell across from him as she tore open her own skin. Absently, he wondered if she was still alive. Probably not. The Pit had a way of making death seem like a welcome respite from endless, maddening blackness.
He wasn’t going to let that happen to him, not this time. Not ever. His hands were free, Maddix noted, taking stock. He still had his own clothes, though they were bloodied and torn from days of travel and his unsuccessful escape fro
m the Guards. He was alive.
And she was too.
Jayin was still out there somewhere. The thought of her smile, her real smile, not the glittering snarl she wore so often, helped keep the swirling fear at bay. She was probably on the ocean by now, sailing to the Isles without a single glance back. He liked the idea of her standing on the bow of a ship, the wind whipping through her short hair.
Maddix lost time in the daydreams, but it was better than drowning in his new, terrifying reality. He thought of Jayin and her ship until a sharp sound shook him out of his own head.
“Maddix Kell,” said a silky voice, and Maddix found himself looking at a tall, stately woman with inky black hair and a bloody smile.
He was in the Palace then. Maddix filed that information away. He’d spent enough time around sahir to recognize the way the air changed around them, and this one looked every inch an Ayrie pet.
“I have heard so much about you,” the witch said. Maddix fixed the witch with the coldest glare he could manage. Here, in chains, barefoot and bloody and huddled against the cell wall, he didn’t cut much of a striking figure.
“If you’re not feeling chatty, I’m sure something could be arranged. Perhaps I should make it a little cooler?”
Maddix bit his lip to keep from cursing and pointedly looked away. Any colder and he’d be hypothermic, and they needed him for something. Why else would they bother letting him live? They wouldn’t just let him freeze to death—
He hoped.
"If you don’t want to talk about yourself, how about we talk about Jayin?" Against his will, Maddix’s head snapped up and the witch smiled unpleasantly. "That got your attention. I’ve known your little friend for a long time, and frankly, I’m surprised she bothered with you. I always thought she was so much smarter than that." The smile grew and a dark pit churned in Maddix’s gut. "Then again, how clever can she be if she came back to Pavaal?"
“She’s here?” The words came out before he could stop them and the sahir smirked. It looked more natural on her face than the smile.
“In the capitol where she belongs. And do we have plans for her.”
Maddix was on his feet in an instant, flying towards the bars of the cell before the chain pulled taut and he went to his knees. .
The witch smiled, her blood-red lips twisting. “How sweet. The convict and the witch who helped us arrest him.”
“What are you talking about?” Maddix growled.
“She never told you?” the witch asked, smug. “Oh yes, our Jayin used to be quite the prize. I’m sure she told you what she did for us. She caught criminals. She caught you.”
The words were met with a hollow, cavernous silence. Maddix had never found out about the time between when the Dark witch let him go and his capture, only that it had been fast. He gained control of his body for an hour at most before the Guard came for him. But he never thought that the Palace had anything to do with it—in fact, he didn’t know that Ayrie had any part in chasing down criminals, besides employing the Guard.
Jayin had made it a point to avoid talking about the Palace except for the occasional scathing remark, but Maddix could’ve kicked himself for not realizing sooner. Of course she was sent after convicts; she could track people wherever they went. With all that staring him in the face, it was obvious, and he felt like a fool for not figuring it out on his own.
I always hoped they were wrong about you. Maddix had dismissed her remark as the natterings of a girl lucky to be alive. Their time at Old Aya’s seemed years away instead of months, but now it seemed strange that she would have thought about him at all before their fateful meeting in the sahirla’s compound. Why would an Ayrie witch bother herself with the goings on in the city unless she was directly involved?
Maddix waited for anger to rise up out of the sudden understanding, but it never came. Jayin hadn’t known him then, she hadn’t known his guilt or his innocence. She was just following orders just as he’d done so many times as a Guard. She gave him another chance at life when fate and the sahirla threw them together, a chance not to turn into a witchhunter. Whatever happened before then, he didn’t blame her for it.
“You’re never going to catch her,” Maddix said. His breath clouded on the icy stone. Jayin had survived the Palace, the Gull, Kaddah, and the sahirla. She wasn’t going to be taken by a self-important Ayrie witch.
“You’re wrong,” the woman said, serene and utterly sure. She knelt outside of the bars, her dress pooling around her. Sharp nails dug into his chin, forcing him to look her in the eye. “When I first made a deal with that witchhunter—Hale, I think his name was—I thought I would never be bothered by Jayin Ijaad again.”
Maddix wrenched himself away, forcing himself to stand despite the chain and the pain in his muscles. Rage burned hot in his blood and for the first time since Maddix woke up in the cell, he didn’t feel the cold.
“You set the hunters on her,” he snarled.
“Brilliant deduction,” the witch replied, looking more and more delighted the angrier Maddix became. He was playing right into her hands, Maddix knew that, but he’d never been good at controlling his temper. “That was the point; I wanted her dead. But you know, I think this is going to be much more fun.”
“You’ll never get her,” Maddix said and spat at her through the bars.
The witch staggered backward, the smug look sliding off of her face. Maddix smiled savagely but his moment of victory didn’t last. The witch wiped the blood and spit off of her chin, disgust written all over her harsh, beautiful features. Her sneer was replaced by naked, violent anger.
Maddix didn’t have any warning before his world dissolved into a haze of pain. The witch lit a fire under his skin, the flames searing his nerves and charring his bones. He was burning alive from the inside out. Someone was screaming and it took him a few moments to realize that it was his own voice echoing raggedly inside the walls.
He tried to fight through the pain and come back to himself, but as soon as he could gather his thoughts together, another wave of fire scorched through him and they scattered again. His leg was bent awkwardly beneath him where it was attached to the wall and his back arched as he convulsed.
Eventually, the pain stopped, but Maddix didn’t notice for a few long seconds, still shuddering from residual shocks. He curled in on himself as best he could manage, every breath feeling like it was splitting him open.
Lightning, the small part of him that remained rational whispered. Not fire, but lightning. Whatever the witch was doing to him, it was deadlier than any natural storm.
“We won’t have to get her,” the witch said, her voice hatefully soft, almost kind. “Because she’s going to come to us on her own.”
Leverage, Maddix thought, the realization taking him a beat too long. He wanted to say that she wouldn’t risk her freedom for him, that she wouldn’t be that stupid, but his voice was gone. The sahir had stolen it.
The witch reached through the bars, pressing her hand against Maddix’s sternum, and he cried out, trying to twist away from the pressure on his chest. It felt like his heart was going to give out as electricity licked up and down his ribs. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak. His bones felt like they were splintering, spearing his lungs.
“And if she doesn’t, well, then I’ll have my way with you, and believe me when I say that this was just a taste of what I have in store, dayri.” The witch removed her hand and Maddix gasped, his breath coming back to him in broken, ragged sobs. “Welcome to Ayrie Palace.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine:
Jayin
“Jayin.” For a moment the voice belonged to Maddix. Jayin blinked away her second sight, her eyes refocusing slowly. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said just a second too late to be genuine. Ravi didn’t push and a part of her wished that he would. She needed to talk to someone, but the witchlings were all too young and too scared. She couldn’t burden them with this. “Sorry. Just tired.”
&
nbsp; Jayin hadn’t slept since they found Maia two days ago. She rotated between the warehouse and her old apartment where Jayin had stashed the healer—none of the kids wanted to be around a sick witch, whether or not she was Jayin’s friend. Maia wasn’t doing well and between taking care of her and the witchlings, what was left of Jayin’s energy went towards blind, mindless panic.
Maddix was here, in Pavaal, and he’d been arrested.
Stars, Maddix, she thought desperately. Why are you even in Pavaal?
In Rahael’s memory, he said that he was going to the Isles or the colonies, as far away from the capitol as he could get. She couldn’t understand why he changed his plans or how Maia had ended up traveling with him. Maia, who couldn’t answer any of her questions because she’d been unconscious since they found her. Maia, who was doing worse than ever despite Jayin trying every trick she knew to stop the sickness from progressing.
It was a creeping, decaying thing, and Jayin felt the same magical reverberation every time she touched Maia’s aura. The kids called it soul sickness, and there wasn’t a cure.
“You need to get some sleep,” Ravi said. Jayin had same thing to him just a few days before. “Jay, I’m serious.”
“You’ve been serious a lot lately,” Jayin said, rubbing her eyes like she could force herself to be more alert. “You should smile more, it prevents wrinkles.”
“And you only make stupid jokes when you’re exhausted,” Ravi retorted, not amused. Jayin reached out and tapped his forehead.
“I can already see the crow’s feet. It’s a shame, you could’ve been so beautiful.”
“Jayin—”
“I can’t sleep,” she said, any hint of humor vanishing. “I can’t sleep until she wakes up. I can’t sleep until I know that no one is coming for us.”