The Fading Dusk

by Melissa Giorgio

  “Then why do you want to find Bantheir so badly?”

  Leonid’s face darkened. I held my breath, knowing we were at the point of no return. Turning back to the map, he pointed to the dot on the west side of Way. The first murder, the man who went for a drink and never came home.

  “This man was my mentor.” He glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyes glittering dangerously. “And I swore, the moment I saw his lifeless, broken body, that I would do everything in my power to find the one who did it, and I would make him pay.”

  “Oh…” I exhaled slowly. This was about revenge. No wonder Leonid was so bent on finding Bantheir. As much as I hated the thought of even thinking that Bantheir was the culprit, I understood where Leonid was coming from. “Your… mentor?”

  He came back to the desk and sat down slowly, as if weighed down by what he was telling me. “Yes. His name was Gerald, and until six months ago, he ran this prison. I was his second in command—when he died, I assumed leadership.” He lowered his voice, and I instinctively leaned in closer. “Gerald wasn’t just a soldier, Lark. Neither am I. We… We’re spies.” His eyes gleamed as he searched my face, imploring me to believe what he was saying.

  I sat there, stumped. There were a number of different things Leonid could have said, but I had to admit, being a spy wasn’t one of them. In fact, I almost wondered if he was pulling my leg. “Spies?” I asked skeptically. “Spies for whom?”

  Leonid’s gaze narrowed at my tone. “The government, of course.”

  “So you do work for Raynard!” I looked around frantically, as if I expected the man to pop out of the shadows and yell at me.

  “Not Raynard!” he snapped. “The councilors are a bunch of men and women who bought their seats, or inherited them from their parents! I’m talking about the person who is actually elected by the people—”

  “The president,” I interrupted, stunned. It made sense now; I knew he’d been interested in the case. He must have instructed Leonid to investigate it, causing him to cross paths with me in the process.

  He nodded. “Yes, exactly. The men and women in his service are his eyes and ears. We know the workings of Dusk, from the sparkling mansions to the seedy underbelly of the slums, and everything in between.” He gestured toward the map. “Gerald was still training me when he was killed. I knew he was working on a case, a very important one at that, but he hadn’t shared the details with me.” His mouth turned down in a frown, and I could see the frustration burning in his eyes. I could sympathize with that; if Gerald had told Leonid the details, maybe the six victims would still be alive.

  “Does the president know the details?”

  He let out a derisive snort. “The president and Gerald. Two of the most impossible men I’ve ever met.”

  I stared at Leonid.

  “What?” he asked, scowling.

  I busied myself with my cup, avoiding his gaze and taking a large sip of my now lukewarm tea. “Nothing!”

  He grunted, eyeing me strangely. “Getting information out of the president or Gerald is like trying to get you to cooperate with me.”

  “Excuse me!” I slammed my cup back down on the table, furious with myself for keeping quiet when I should have pointed out that no one was more impossible than Leonid himself. Then I noticed he was smirking at me, the corner of his mouth twitching, and I realized he was trying very hard to keep from laughing in my face.

  I really wanted to hear what his laughter sounded like.

  Face burning over that particular unbidden thought, I jumped to my feet and rushed over to the map, pretending to analyze it. “So, your mentor was researching something and was killed here,” I said, pointing to the dot. I moved my finger to Rise. “What about them? Or the couple last week? How are they connected?”

  I heard him rise from his seat so he could join me at the map. He was standing close—too close, in fact. I swore I could feel the heat burning from his body, or maybe it was just the heat I was throwing off from my flushed skin. Get a hold of yourself, Irina! How were we supposed to work together if I couldn’t keep my head on straight?

  I glanced over at him; he was staring at the map, his jaw tight. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t know how they’re connected, just that they are.”

  “Because of the markings and the slit throats?”

  Leonid shook his head. “No, more than that. I…” He hesitated, then turned to face me suddenly, startling me. “Don’t laugh.”

  “Laugh at what?” I wondered if he’d lost his mind.

  He placed a hand over his heart. “I get a feeling, right here. An instinct, I guess you could call it. It’s never been wrong. Never. As soon as we identified the man the witness had seen as Bantheir, I knew he was the man I’d been searching for.” His long fingers curled into fists. “The man who killed Gerald.”

  “And what else has this instinct of yours told you?” I asked, trying not to sound too skeptical and failing miserably.

  He glared at me, no doubt picking up on the skepticism with that instinct of his. “It told me to trust you. Have I made a mistake?”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Relax. I was just asking a question. It’s just… you really can’t decide someone is guilty because your heart told you so.”

  “Aren’t you doing the same thing?” he shot back. “Claiming Bantheir is innocent because you think so—”

  “It’s not the same thing!” I snapped. “I know the man! I grew up with him! He raised me, fed me, taught me how to read and write. He’s a good man, Leonid. He’s not a killer and I won’t stand here and listen to you insist that he is because your stupid heart is telling you so!” I turned toward the door, fully intent on marching out of there and straight to my cell, although I belatedly wondered if I would have to come back and ask Leonid to lock me in.

  “Lark, wait!” I hesitated, and that was enough for Leonid to barrel past me, blocking the door with his body. “Stop,” he said. “Just wait a moment, all right? I wasn’t—I didn’t bring you here so we could argue.”

  My eyes burned with unshed tears, my chest heaving as I struggled to catch my breath. Leonid was right. I was so sick of arguing and screaming and… I wanted to get along with him. We always seemed to head in that direction, and then something, anything, tried to tear everything we had worked so hard to obtain apart. I rubbed at my temple, feeling a headache coming on. Leonid trusted me, or else he never would have told me any of this. I needed to stop being so defensive all of the time. What was wrong with me? I’d never gone around screaming at people, but now I wanted to scratch someone’s eyes out if they said one single bad thing about Bantheir.

  Why was I changing? I started trembling. Was it because deep down, I thought Leonid was right about Bantheir?

  I felt a surge of nausea and teetered slightly. Before I knew what was happening, Leonid reached out and grabbed my elbow, stopping me from toppling over. His grip was firm but gentle; I could yank my arms away if I wanted to, but I didn’t. “Lark?”

  His handsome face was marred with concern—concern for me—and for some reason it made me feel slightly better. I let him help me sit back down but stopped him before he could dash out of the room to fetch me a fresh pot of tea. “Just tell me, Leonid, why you wanted me to hear all of this. What your true purpose is, I mean.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Leonid asked, raising a brow. “I’m asking you to become a spy.”

  LEONID LEFT ME TO MULL over that particular proposition while he went out into the hallway and ordered a fresh pot of tea. The man seemed to think tea was a cure-all for any bad situation; I only wished it were true.

  I didn’t know what to make of his offer. Me, a spy? I was a magician’s assistant! And I didn’t want that to change, because if it did, it meant—

  I winced as my stomach churned again. He’s innocent, I chanted to myself. Innocent, innocent, innocent.

  Leonid returned with the tea, eyeing me warily. After pouring us both a fresh cup, he se
ttled back in his chair and asked, “Well?”

  Steam rose from my cup in lazy swirls. “How do you expect me to do anything, trapped in here?”

  He winced. “Honestly, I was hoping you’d be out of prison by now, but the councilors and the president are adamant that you remain behind bars.”

  Even the president thought I was guilty? I wish I knew what I’d done to incite the wrath of so many people I’d never even met.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Leonid tapped a finger against his cup. “We’ll have to be cautious, but I’m certain we can sneak you out without anyone knowing.”

  I whipped my head to the map of Dusk, practically salivating at the thought of setting foot outdoors. Where would we go? Who cares? As long as I’m out of here.

  “You’d have to return to your cell, though,” he said, cutting through my barely repressed glee. I deflated, pouting at Leonid. “Don’t look at me like that. If you disappear, it’ll be my head on a stake.” Leonid got up again and walked over to the map. I joined him, tracing my hand over Dusk.

  “We have a couple of choices,” he said, touching each red dot in turn. “I’d like to take you to each crime scene, see if you notice anything my men have overlooked.”

  I felt a little nauseous. I knew the bodies were long gone, their spilled blood scrubbed away, but to stand in the spot where someone had been brutally killed? That horrifying thought made my skin crawl with unease. “What’s another choice?” I asked, my voice shaking slightly.

  “Well, if Vern can track down where those robbers came from, we could investigate them.”

  That only sounded slightly better. My cheek throbbed as I remembered that brute hitting me that night as he promised to do much, much worse.

  “No one will hurt you,” he said softly, somehow sensing my discomfort.

  Embarrassed, I avoided looking at him, instead focusing on the map. My eyes traveled to the dot in the slums. “Did you find anything else here when you went to investigate with Vernen?” I asked, pointing to it.

  “No.” Leonid sighed. “There were no witnesses, either, although I suspect even if anyone did see something, they wouldn’t share it with a soldier.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said, tracing lines between the dots with my pointer finger.

  “What doesn’t?”

  “When you first showed me the map, I thought these three formed a triangle.” I pointed to the two dots in Way, and the one in Rise. “But with the addition of this one,” I said, pointing to the slums, “it’s not a triangle anymore.”

  He stilled. “Lark…” His tone of voice was very strange, and I took a step back, afraid he was about to yell at me. To my utter astonishment, his face broke out into a broad grin. I almost fell over from shock. Who would have thought Captain Grimace was capable of smiling?

  “W-What did I do?” I asked, flustered. Leonid had always been handsome, but my earlier suspicions were correct: he was much more handsome when he smiled. I averted my eyes as heat rushed to my face. I really didn’t want him to see how he was affecting me as of late, especially when I didn’t understand it myself.

  “I knew I was right in trusting you! Why didn’t I see this?” Leonid rushed to his desk to grab a quill and a blank piece of paper. Coming back to the map, he leaned the paper against the wall and drew the four red dots. Then he proceeded to connect them, making a shape that looked—

  “What is that supposed to be?” I asked, glancing over his shoulder at the blob-like image he’d drawn.

  “It’s not right.” He crumpled the paper. Running back to his desk, he grabbed a fresh sheet and returned to the map. I was starting to feel exhausted just from watching him.

  After ten attempts—all of which littered the floor in crumpled balls—Leonid’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I guess that wasn’t it,” I said lamely.

  “No, it has to be. What am I doing wrong?” He was distracted, and there was a faraway look in his eye. I quietly backed away, resuming my seat once more.

  Five minutes later, he joined me, throwing himself into his chair. “I can’t see it.”

  “You’re looking too hard,” I suggested. “Maybe you need time to think about it?” I shrugged. “And so what if it makes a shape? Will that mean anything?”

  He pressed his lips together. “Yes, it will.”

  His instinct again. This time, I wisely kept quiet. I was starting to believe in it myself, despite my earlier disbelief.

  I lifted my arms over my head, stretching. “What now?” I asked with a yawn.

  “Huh?” Leonid looked up from another paper covered in scrawls, blinking as if he didn’t recognize me. “Oh. For now, we wait for some news. I’m hoping Vern will supply me with something about those men soon. It’s like you said, they’re an integral part of this. If we can find them before Ban—that is, before the killer strikes again, we may be able to prevent another murder.”

  “And what do I do until then?”

  Leonid stood, walked over to the bookshelf, picked up a huge stack of papers and dropped them in front of me with a loud bang. I gave him a funny look. “A bit of light reading,” he explained. “Something to occupy your time while you’re stuck in your cell.”

  “What I’ve always wanted. How did you know? Is it safe to bring these to my cell?”

  “Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. “I told you before, Lark, I trust my men. They would never hinder this case—or me—by stealing these papers.”

  I flipped through the pages. “And these are all the notes about the cases?”

  Leonid nodded. “Everything I’ve managed to compile, no matter how useless it may seem. The older notes are Gerald’s, the newer ones, mine.” He placed a hand on the top of the stack. “There has to be something in here, something that I’m missing.”

  I found it strange that Gerald, who was supposed to be Leonid’s teacher, hadn’t felt the need to share anything about the case before he was murdered. Unless he was afraid Leonid would be targeted too? A shiver crept up my spine. Maybe he’d thought keeping Leonid in the dark would keep him safe. But what would happen to Leonid, the further he dug for the truth? Would he be in danger as well?

  And the scariest question of all: Why was I suddenly so concerned with the surly captain’s well-being?

  WHEN I RETURNED TO MY cell, my eyes automatically went to Coreen’s cell, which was now empty. Leonid said she’d been released early; apparently rescuing me from Aden qualified as good behavior. I smiled wryly; I bet she hadn’t expected that to happen. I wondered how long it would be before she landed herself in trouble again.

  Settling on my bed with my back against the rough brick wall, I felt the silence pressing in on me. Only two other cells were occupied, and two guards I didn’t recognize framed the doorway. I imagined Leonid had severely punished the two that had been bribed when Aden—

  I stopped that thought before it could go any further.

  Leonid had presumably returned to his quarters to trace more shapes on papers, but I wished he hadn’t sent me back. I knew it wasn’t right to house a prisoner in his quarters, but after spending all morning speaking with him, I was lonely.

  My eyes dropped to the papers in my lap and I shook my head, chiding myself for my foolishness. So what if I was lonely? Leonid had recruited me for a reason; now I needed to prove myself.

  I started with Gerald’s notes, which, unfortunately, were transcribed in a tiny, dense script that made my headache pound about ten times harder than it already had been. His writing left much to be desired; I could see at once what Leonid meant about being left in the dark. Obviously Gerald kept most of the information in his head, which didn’t help us one bit. He also used a lot of abbreviations, but without a key, I had no idea what they meant. I tapped a finger to my chin, wondering if Leonid already knew and I was just wasting my time dwelling on it.

  It took me the rest of the day to read through Gerald’s report before it stopped suddenly, in midsentence, as if the man had just th
ought of something and dashed out of the room to investigate. Which is probably what happened, I thought glumly. How had Leonid felt, learning his mentor had been murdered? I tried to picture him crying but couldn’t. The fact that he’d smiled today was still something I couldn’t believe, and I’d seen it with my own two eyes. I’d thought he had only had two emotions—grumpy and surly—but he’d proven me wrong, much to my secret delight.

  What other surprises did Leonid have hidden deep inside him?

  I couldn’t wait to discover them.

  The next morning I expected to be greeted by Leonid, or at least escorted to his quarters, but besides being delivered breakfast by an unfamiliar soldier, I was left alone. Curling up on the bench, I flipped through the papers until I came to Leonid’s neat notes about the victims. Skipping over the gruesome details, I instead focused on their lives—who they were before they were brutally murdered. There was absolutely no connection. I was certain the husband and wife from Rise had never socialized with the married couple from Way. Same with the man from the slums—it was unlikely he’d ever have a chance to cross the river and head north. And of course, Gerald didn’t fit into the equation at all. His death had started the string of murders, but hadn’t he been killed because he’d gotten too close? I frowned. What was the connection? What did these seven people have in common?

  But why did they have to have anything in common? Maybe the killer just killed random people? Maybe, with the exception of Gerald, they were just people who happened to simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killer was using them for some sort of dark magic ritual, and it probably didn’t matter who he chose. It was probably the blood he needed for the spell—that’s why he was slitting their throats—which led me to my next question: What was the spell? What did he hope to accomplish? And why was dark magic back in the streets of Dusk? I shuddered. No wonder the president was trying to keep things quiet, having Leonid swear everyone to secrecy! And yet Leonid trusted me enough to share all of this with me.