City of Magic (Happily Ever Afterlife Book 1)

by Patricia Thomas

  Grayson turned away, giving me my first real view of his back. Both his jacket and shirt were burned away, and red, angry skin stared back at me.

  "God," I said, mostly under my breath. "Are you okay?" I hoped to myself he had some supernatural healing ability, but the wound didn't seem to be getting any better, no matter how long I looked at it.

  "Thanks to you I am," Grayson said as he turned back around. We both looked down toward my stomach at the same time. My shirt hung around my midsection in a few tattered scraps, but the burns themselves were far less severe than Grayson’s, though still red and angry. I’d have scars for the rest of my life, but at least I'd have more of my life to enjoy.

  "What do we do about these guys?" I asked, looking down at Jonathan and then the guy whose neck Grayson had broken. But as I turned to the third body, I couldn't find it. It had completely disappeared.

  I turned around frantically, trying to remember where he'd been lying when I'd fished the keys out of his pocket. But that spot was empty. "What the hell? I think maybe one of them got away." My heart thudded in my chest. I couldn't take another fight, not now. Not ever.

  But Grayson didn't look as alarmed as I felt. "It's okay, he's gone. The other two should disappear shortly, as soon as the After is ready to redeposit them back at the beginning of their journeys here."

  My pulse settled, but only a little. "Not Jonathan," I said. "He wasn't a character from a book. So, he doesn't have a before to go back to."

  "As with everything here, it depends. If I know Jonathan, and I'm not sure I do anymore, he'll have found a way to protect himself, since he was able to control where and when your bodies reappeared in the After. We'll have to wait and see what happens to his corpse."

  "No thanks," Marc said. "If it's all the same to you, I am done with this place. Never thought I'd say this, but I wouldn't mind getting back to the Archive, and back to my bed. At least, if you have someone there who can see about this bullet wound."

  "Doctor Maiz is on call for exactly this kind of thing, when we’re not ready to share recent events with the city of Sanctum. If it will help the Archive, she’ll come. But if you think I'm going to let you guys wander the city alone on your way back to the library, I wouldn't hold your breath. As soon as backup arrives, we will get out of here. But I'd much rather take a car then have to walk, if it's all the same to you."

  With perfect, almost paranormal timing, the front doors to the building swung open at once, revealing a white-haired girl, frantic and bow-wielding. "Hands up!" Eliza yelled the words, arrow already nocked and pointed straight for Marc. A second later, a look of surprise crossed her face. "Oh. I guess I missed the excitement."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Piling out of the van that had been sent for us, we returned to the Archive, exhausted and bloodied. Marc was still cradling his injured arm, and even Grayson walked a little slower, a bit more measured than I was used to seeing him walk.

  At least Grayson knew several passageways through the city that would get us from where Jonathan had been keeping me and Marc, on the very outskirts of the westernmost quarter of the town, and back to the Archive.

  Right as we reached the top of the stairs leading to the front door, my legs groaning in protest with every step, I felt a gentle tug at my wrist. I turned to see Grayson watching me, a strange mix of emotions across his features. Eliza and Marc continued inside, oblivious that the other half of their group had stopped.

  "What’s up?" I asked softly, trying to figure out what the Hand of the Archive could have to say to me that he didn’t want to say in front of the others.

  Grayson dropped my hand, but not my gaze. "I just… well… are you alright?"

  I didn’t answer right away, sure that the answer was obvious. I was a few notches down from alright. In fact, I was barely standing. But something in the way Grayson’s eyes stayed locked on mine suggested there was something more to his question. Something that I was far too tired to even try to understand.

  "I’ll be better once I have something to eat." Grayson’s mouth twitched a little at my answer, but he didn’t respond. And he didn’t head back inside. "Are you okay?"

  To my surprise, Grayson shook his head. Despite the damage he’d taken in his fight against Jonathan, it was still hard for me to see Grayson as anything other than indestructible. "Today, realizing you were missing--that was terrifying. And then seeing you lying on the floor, gun to your head… if I’d been even a few seconds late..."

  I reached over, taking Grayson’s hand in mine before I could talk myself out of it, and gave his callused fingers a gentle squeeze. "But you did get there. I owe you my life, probably a few times over now."

  "You don’t owe me anything."

  "Right," I said, still struggling to form a coherent thought. "Protecting people like me is kind of your job, right?"

  Grayson’s solemn expression finally faltered--only for a second. "I would have done the same no matter… I’m just glad I made it on time."

  "Me too."

  "But we should probably get you looked over. You’ve been through more than enough already."

  Something inside me wanted to stay out there on the steps with Grayson for a few moments longer, just holding his hand and enjoying the fact that I was still breathing, but the consequences of the previous day were waiting for me, and I wasn’t all that certain that I could stay standing for much longer.

  Once we entered the lobby, I didn't bother waiting for instructions. I sat on the nearest armchair and flopped my legs over one side, letting out a loud groan. Marc sat on the chair beside me.

  Eliza didn't bother going for a chair and instead star-fished out on the carpet. She had spent a solid hour running around and playing go-between once the rest of Grayson’s protectorate had arrived, too late to help, but thankfully more than willing to assist with the aftermath.

  Grayson had gone before I had even got to sit. I had to assume he had far more follow-up to deal with from all this than the rest of us. And that was saying something.

  One of the councilors was dead. Maybe not dead in the usual sense, but for all intents and purposes. And for all we knew, Jonathan was dead for good.

  But that was too much to hope for.

  For the first time since I arrived, the Archive closed their doors to patrons, only giving out a five-minute warning before closing and then kicking out anyone who was still inside. There weren’t many people to guide outside, but every single one of them gave our little group a strange look on their way out. We must've made quite the scene.

  I only stopped defiantly staring back at each of them--and any librarians who stopped to gawk--once Doctor Maiz arrived to see us to our rooms, bandaging Marc’s bullet wound right there in the lobby.

  But the real change came once Grayson returned to collect me and Marc. This time, no escort to the councilors' offices to be interrogated, instead Marissa and Joanna met us in the cafeteria. To my surprise the Eye of the Archive put out a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches in front of us as we sat down. A peace offering I was more than willing to accept.

  A second later, Devon appeared, unhindered and unescorted. Apparently, what happened that day was enough to get him off the hook, which probably hinted at just how much of our story Grayson had shared with both women.

  Too tired to care what anyone would think of me, I shoved half a sandwich in my mouth and chewed greedily until the bread had softened enough for me to swallow it down. It only took me two bites to finish before I moved on to my second serving, and a glance to my left showed me that Marc was keeping pace.

  The councilors all sat, no one bothering to interrupt us with questions as we ate our fill. I could tell Devon was less inclined to mind his own business, but the look of us must've been enough to have him keep his thoughts to himself for just a little bit longer.

  "Well," Joanna said once everyone had stopped eating and had regained a little of their focus. "The good news is that all your names have been cleared." S
he nodded in turn at Marc, Devon, and I. "Grayson has assured us that you had nothing to do with your arrival here, and that you were telling us the truth about your abilities before. And I am sorry to hear about what happened to you. It wasn't fair," she said finally. For the first time, I felt she was being entirely sincere, and finally seeing us as more than merely an inconvenience. Or a mystery.

  The question remaining, now that our mystery had been solved, was what was to be done with us?

  "That means you’ll let us go?" Marc asked right away.

  The three remaining councilors all shared a long look that strongly suggested that that wasn't something they’d discussed during their meeting together.

  "I don't know about that—" Joanna started to speak, but Grayson cut her off.

  "You were never prisoners. You never have been. We kept you here for your safety, not because you were under suspicion."

  Devon scoffed.

  "Yeah, that’s what I keep hearing," Marc said. "And yet, here we are."

  "There’s a lot to discuss," Joanna said. "But we’re including you in the conversation."

  "Well, there’s an idea," Devon said. "Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?"

  Rather than chiming in that I wholeheartedly agreed with him, I shot Devon a look that I hoped suggested that this wasn’t the best time to be antagonizing anyone. We still didn’t know what they had discussed while we weren’t around to hear it.

  "What I still can't figure out," Grayson said after chugging down an entire glass of water in one long gulp, "Is why either Jonathan, or the Literati, would have bothered hiring mercenaries to hide the evidence of what had happened, after the fact. It was to their benefit to keep you here, not to send you back to your original story."

  I blanched a little, suddenly nauseous but grateful that no one was looking at me. I hadn't even considered that the threat wasn’t over just because Jonathan was dead. He wouldn't have been the one to hire those mercenaries to attempt to get rid of anyone who had arrived here on the same day that I had.

  "Could be that the Literati were trying to cover up the mess he made in their name, after the fact?" Joanna said. While she had tied her black hair up in a messy knot at the top of her head, and she wasn't wearing any makeup, she still managed to look far more elegant than anyone else in the room. That said, her eyes did look a little more worn around the edges, like she hadn't had enough sleep in far too many nights.

  "Actually, that was me," Marissa said, her statement so matter-of-fact that it took me a few seconds to figure out what had just happened. Grayson must've gone through the same thought process that I had, because we all sat there in silence for a second before he jumped out of his seat, and slammed his fist down on the table in front of him.

  Marissa held up a hand. "You have nothing to fear from me now," Marissa said to me and my friends though she still directed her gaze at Grayson. "When reports of new arrivals started up around the city, I had to act at once. I knew there was no way that a change this big would occur naturally in the After, all at once. There had to be other forces behind it. And I can see now that I was right in my initial assumption. So, maybe, I acted a little hastily--but with good intentions."

  "Hastily," I said, my voice louder than I intended. "People died. Or…" I was too tired to make sense of the exact terminology. "We could have died."

  "Marissa, what the hell were you thinking?" I was a little surprised at the tone Grayson was taking with the woman who had once been his mentor, but I shared every ounce of his outrage.

  "I am the Heart of the Archive. It is my job to interpret its will, and I have been doing so for far longer than you've been alive. And, may I remind you, I was not wrong."

  Joanna put her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. "Marissa, a decision like this was not yours to make alone."

  "I had to act quickly! I had hoped I could do away with any evidence of what had happened, and then have time to get to the bottom of it before we were dealing with any consequences. Unfortunately, it didn't work out quite that cleanly."

  "Thank God for that," Devon said. I looked over at him to find his usually friendly and open expression, which had shifted to distinctly pouty recently, had morphed into something far darker. It was hard to judge exactly who Jonathan’s and Marissa's actions had hurt the most, but the way Devon had been treated right from when he’d showed his power, up until he’d been freed less than an hour before, would've been enough to make anyone angry. It was enough to piss me off on his behalf. My behalf.

  On Harper's behalf.

  "And can we assume that you are also responsible for wiping the memories of those same mercenaries after you were done with them?" Grayson said, snapping out the words.

  "The Order of Pheneus knew what they were getting into when they took the job. I paid very well to have them respond to the threat immediately. But after a couple of days, the leads dried up and I knew my chance of a complete erasure of the event was impossible. We already had these three in our care, and even I am not so heartless as to send them away after seeing their faces. After hearing their stories. And I'm glad now that my plan didn't work quite as well as I had intended, but my intentions were always to protect the Archive. You can't fault me for that."

  "I sure can," Marc said under his breath but at a volume that absolutely everyone could hear.

  I gave him what I thought was a sympathetic smile before he cleared his throat and continued. "So, we know that there won't be any other mercenaries coming for us," Marc said, talking slowly as if forming his opinions as they came out of his mouth. "Then, you have absolutely no justification to keep us here any longer. We’re as safe as anyone else in the city, and we have the right to make our own decisions."

  After a long moment, where I wasn't even sure what kind of response I was hoping for, Grayson spoke. "You're right, of course. You'll be free to go." He looked over at Marissa, challenging her rather than waiting for her approval.

  "I’ll do you one better," the older woman said. "Because like it or not, the city isn't set up to take on new arrivals like yourselves. You're going to need places to live, jobs. And we can help, with at least a little bit of that. Long enough to get you settled, to offer you some of what should have been yours by right."

  "But let me guess," Devon said, his tone matching Marc’s, "we're going to have to stay here a little longer to make that happen. Just a few more days where you can watch over us, and make plans for us without letting any one of us weigh in on our futures."

  "Only one day," Marissa said, "give us one day, and we’ll show you what is available, and you can decide whether you want to take it, or if you want to set off on your own. Either way, we'll make sure you're taken care of, at least for a while."

  Joanna chimed in. "But don't forget, just because you weren't brought here by the Archive after all, it doesn't mean that your presence isn't remarkable. There are still going to be people who want to control you."

  Devon and I shared a look. A lot of those people were right here in this room with us, in my opinion, but it was one I thought best not to share right then.

  "We'll manage," I said, too tired to muster up any real snark.

  "One day." Marc thought about it and finally agreed. "I'll stay here for one more day, but then I'm leaving."

  Devon and I nodded in agreement. I wasn't sure I was looking forward to the opportunity to be out on my own, but at least I could trust my own judgement far enough.

  "And, at least, now that we know you're not actually prosaic, you are fully capable of defending yourselves as well as any other citizen of the city."

  "One," I said, holding up a finger, "it's not like there aren't any prosaics in Sanctum. You just choose not to see them. And two," I raised another finger, "I still don't have any ability to speak of. I’m the same as I always was, except for this." I held up my wrist.

  "And we are still willing to do everything we can to help you find out what was done to you. Maybe it didn't work, maybe Jonatha
n's process wasn't a hundred percent effective. But you have a right to know either way."

  I shrugged, not wanting to commit to one thing or another until I’d had some rest and a chance to clear my head. I didn't think that Joanna's offer was entirely altruistic. She was as curious as everyone else in the Archive about what Jonathan had been able to do, whether or not she approved of his motives.

  "And now that you're willing to let me out of my cage," Devon said, "you'll be able to do more than poke and prod me in hopes of figuring out what it is I can do."

  "I have a theory about that," Grayson said. "I was the closest magical person to you when your powers first manifested, and it can't be a coincidence that you used the same ability I was born with. While I'm sure there are other people with similar magics to what I inherited from my father, it's just too strange."

  "You think I copied your power?"

  Grayson nodded. "Whether permanently or not, I don't know. And it's entirely possible that you will be able to do the same to other people you meet, mimicking their powers if they’re close enough to you. But at least for now, we have a theory to work with."

  Even Marissa looked a little impressed. "If that's the case, you may end up becoming far more powerful than the majority of people here who inherited, or were given their abilities in a more natural way."

  Devon didn't answer, but even I could see that he looked a little smug.

  "What about me?" Marc wanted his turn. "Was I copying someone else’s ability whenever I could sense someone lying?"

  Marissa shook her head. "Since you’ve done it more than once, that’s doubtful. From what you’ve told us, Jonathan’s experimentation would have a different result every time."