by Eden Reign
Jackson caught his father’s jacket, but Henry snapped an ember at him, a worm of fire uncoiling, so small it seemed harmless. It struck Jackson on his bare chest, the coat long since burned to shreds. It stung like an insect’s bite, or a cat’s scratch, tiny and innocuous. And yet it burrowed into Jackson’s skin like a voracious chigger.
Henry turned his face toward the spinning bomb that still hovered beneath the chandelier. It had been gathering power and compressing far too long.
“Lige?” Jackson coiled his own lash from the Wells and cracked it over his father, striving to keep him away from his struggling friend.
Henry blocked the lash with his own, and cords of fire tangled in the air. “Someday everyone will find out what you really are, Jackson. A filthy, faithless vermin.”
“Lige, can you diffuse the bomb?” Jackson yelled, his arm shaking against the strain of his father’s fire-lash tugging on his. At this point it was dangerous for all of them if they let the bomb continue to boil.
“I’m trying,” Lige said, his eyes blurred but darting frantically in their sockets. “Give me a moment—”
“You weak, watery halfwit.” Henry threw another glowing ember directly at the roiling ball of water.
“No! Father!” Jackson shouted, but Henry Coal and everything else vanished as reality exploded.
Jackson stood before his open bedroom windows at Coalhaven with the curtains billowing over his arms, his eyes closed, his mind wholly absorbed in the vivid nightmare. In his sleep, he lifted his arm with a mechanical jerk and threw one final spark, as he had that afternoon in the Headquarters, hoping to stave off his father’s disaster.
The spark struck one of the drapes, and flames licked the white fabric greedily.
In the dream and outside of it, the world burned.
Chapter 14
Manda
Manda's dreams turned from drab nonsense into dark, terror-stricken nightmares. She ran from something, but she didn't know what. The dream darkness pursued her, threatening to swallow her, and her feet wouldn’t flee any faster. It gained, a relentless, pounding force. A cry ripped through the darkness, and the voice was one she recognized.
Jackson!
She turned around, soundlessly screaming his name, but he wasn’t there. Only gaping blackness and the stench of death. Death, ash, and—and smoke.
Manda sat bolt upright in bed, the night’s inky darkness curling around her. Moonlight streamed through her open windows, painting white squares on the carpet. Her damask curtains hung from the four corners of her bed, waving in the gentle night breeze.
One thing had transferred from her dream to her reality.
Smoke.
Manda sniffed, pushing back the sheets and stepping onto the rug, her bare feet making no sound as she tiptoed to the door.
When she cracked it open, the balcony stretched before her. On her left, the railing overlooked the great room of the house, and farther ahead, the stairs curved downward to meet the ground floor foyer. To the right, another flight of stairs rose to the third floor, blanketed in smoke. Manda snatched her robe from off its peg and wrapped it around herself. She crept out of her bedroom, nearly choking. She hurried toward the steps, terror circling in her stomach. Orange light flickered beneath the door at the top, sending Manda on winged feet through the smoke and up to the head of the stairs.
Beyond the door, the sound she dreaded struck fear in her heart: the crackling hiss of fire enveloping the room.
“Master Coal!”
Manda touched the doorknob, but the metal was blazing hot, singeing her fingertips.
“Master Coal, wake up!”
Manda balled her robe in her hand and used it to turn the knob. The door swung open to a terrifying sight.
The walls on the west side of the room burned, the fire gnawing the plaster like a ravenous monster. An inferno twisted out one of the shattered gable windows, leaping into the night sky. The bed burned as well, its form scarcely visible among the writhing flames, and Manda stared at it, horrified lest she see Master Coal's body lying on it.
A groan sounded from her left, and Manda whirled.
Jackson lay on the floor, his nightshirt twisted around his torso, soaked with sweat, his breeches blackened with soot. Flames ate the edges of the carpet near him.
Manda glanced frantically around the room. “Master Coal, you must wake up!” The pitcher and the washbasin. It was the only water in the room.
Manda ran to the pitcher, raising it over her head and sloshing it down her entire body, soaking her hair, her robe and gown, and her flesh.
The water’s rivulets stilled instantly on her ready skin. Then they vibrated, collecting energy. Manda closed her eyes, concentrating on the feel of the water that washed in and through and around her, accumulating more from across the estate, pulling in a stream even from the sea to the east. She directed the tumbling, turgid, dense force into her hands, a swirling torrent of deep currents that came to her from all over the plantation like a gathering storm.
As she threw her arms outward, her water crashed in an enormous wave, hurtling across the room in all directions, splashing over Master Coal and against the writing desk, dislodging it from its place against the wall. The water poured over the bed and the washstand, slamming against the burning walls. The fire issued a deafening hiss as the life fizzled from it. With another pass, Manda swept the waves around the room in an enormous whirlpool, the water seeking every last flame and heated, smoking board, saturating it, filling each fiber of the room and its contents with moisture, until not a trace of fire remained—only the dull, dry taste of smoke and ash.
Beside her, Master Coal lay inert and half-conscious, still in whatever confused dream state she had found him.
“They’ll know,” he muttered, and his voice held naked pain and despair. “They’ll know.”
Manda allowed the waters to return to their natural places, letting them retract to their sources like a receding tide. The furniture, the rugs, the walls, and the drapes were still soaked, but the fire was out and the deluge gone. Deep mist settled in the bedroom, issuing out the window with the leftover smoke. Manda moved quickly to the other gable windows, opening them wide, before returning to kneel beside Master Coal. Both of them were drenched.
“Master Coal!”
She pushed him onto his back, sliding soaked tendrils from his face. “Master Coal, please wake up.” She lightly traced the v-scar beneath his eye, nearly a caress.
“They’ll know what you really are,” he repeated.
Manda froze, her fingertips on his cheek. What did he mean? Did he know what she really was? Had her magic revealed her? She thought he’d been insensate. Her heart slammed against her ribs, but she could not let her fear overset her. Master Coal needed her, even if he had learned what she really was.
His eyes opened, and his hand caught hers where it touched his skin. “Manda?” he croaked.
Manda gasped with relief. “I am here, Master Coal.”
He still looked dazed. “Is it truly Manda? Or an angel sent from the Wells to protect me?”
Manda smiled tentatively. “I am not of the Wells. Come, sit up. You will feel better once you are dry.” She tugged his arm, helping him to a sitting position.
He peered at the room. “What—I dreamed—why is everything wet?” He swiped a wet hand over his face before tapping the Wells and forming a firelight. He stood and righted a small wooden stand, placing the glowing orb on it before turning to face Manda. He touched the end of a dripping curl. “Merciful Rivers, Manda, you—you’re soaked.”
Manda nodded. “As are you, sir. You must get into dry clothes lest you catch a chill.”
Jackson scratched his head, staring around his room again in bewilderment. “What happened?”
“Your room was on fire, sir. I—threw some water on it.” Manda bit her lip.
Master Coal cocked an eyebrow and surveyed the drenched furnishings. “Indeed you did, Miss Rivers. You did not c
all the servants to help?” He stared in disbelief at his damaged room.
“They sleep in the servants’ quarters or have houses among the croppers’ village. There was no time.”
Master Coal slowly approached the bed, lifting the ruined covers, inspecting the blackened walls. Manda followed him, concerned that he was not yet well. He walked unsteadily, almost as if he were still dreaming.
He turned to the gabled window, staring out into the purple night through the panes Manda had thrown open. “I never thought—” His voice broke.
“Sir?” Manda asked, startled. She had never seen him so vulnerable. “Sir, can I help?”
“Help?” He turned to her. “Manda, you have helped. More than you know. And not only here ...”
Manda gazed at him. The moonlight cast its silver glow over his profile. Her pulse thundered in her ears. “Then I am glad, sir. I—I am glad the smoke awakened me.”
“You saved my life, and possibly Coalhaven.” He rubbed a hand across a wet jaw. “It seems I am in your debt.”
Manda’s cheeks grew fiery. “There is no debt, sir.”
He smiled briefly, bitterly, shaking his head. “There is a debt. A life saved is no small thing. There are so many I wish I could have saved.”
Manda didn’t know how to respond. His face was seamed with sadness. Her night rail was soaked, and the night air had begun to chill her. “I'll say good night, sir.” And yet she could not move. Face to face, they stood, held in thrall by each other’s gazes.
He said nothing, his dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
Chapter 15
Jackson
Jackson straightened against the wall, allowing Manda room to pass between him and the table. He did not want her to leave him alone in his burnt bedroom. She was like a fierce angel; her presence kept the magemark quiescent and his dreams inside his memory where they belonged. He feared he would go mad if she deserted him. “Good night, then,” he rasped, propriety overcoming his urge for solace, though his hands ached to take her slender shoulders and hold her as he had when they’d danced together in the drawing room.
She blinked at him as though his words surprised her. He could hardly make out the color of her eyes in the semi-darkness, but he knew their blue depths, he knew them well. How often he thought of her guileless gaze to pull him out of moments of despair.
“Good night, Master Coal.” She moved by him, but his good hand snagged her wrist, stilling her. He had difficulty drawing his next breath.
“Manda—” Could he call her that? She was always so formal and proper. He wished she would call him Jackson, just once.
She said nothing, but her eyes were lodestones, drawing him closer.
“You are leaving?”
Fierce currents heaved between them.
“The fire is out, Master Coal.”
The fire wasn’t out, not by any means. It had sparked weeks ago and raged inside him now as he drowned her wide-eyed gaze. She exuded life in this desolate scorched wilderness he had created. If she left him now, he’d be no more than the ash left in the wake of the fire. She was the only beacon lighting his darkness.
He knew every reason he must not reach for her, the magemark she must not see, the boundaries of convention and position that separated them, his war-damaged mind and body. Every reason on earth should keep them apart.
In this moment, none of it mattered. He needed her.
“Will you stay with me, Manda?” He barely believed he’d said the words.
The unseemly question hung, uncontested, for a long time. Jackson traced the slant of her eyes with his gaze, her high cheekbones, her delicate jaw. She was only inches away, and that space lessened though he had not commanded his body to move.
Her breath hitched. He spread his good hand across her cheek, burying his fingers in the curls he’d dreamed of touching.
A tiny sigh escaped her lips, and her head tilted back, as though she too, yearned for touch between them.
“Please, stay,” he whispered. “Don’t you feel--”
“I—cannot.” But she did not draw back. If anything, she moved closer to him, her fingers resting lightly on his back.
Her curls were as silky as he’d imagined. He massaged them gently between his fingers. “Manda—can you not see how much—no one has to know—if we both want this— who would care?”
“No one. That is,” she swallowed, “everyone. You are—a fullmage of the High Families, sir, and I am—I am—a governess. Whatever we may feel privately, people will judge us.”
“Do you think I care what society demands? Don’t you know who I am? Jackson Coal, Leveler rebel, despised by society. I care nothing for what small-minded bigots think.” He pulled her closer.
She tipped her head back in that languorous, inviting way again. At her throat, her pulse fluttered like hummingbird wings. “Please—” she gasped. She melted against him, her hands tightening on his arms.
He gradually lowered his head, pressing her against the burned out wall, focusing on those sweet crimson lips They would be velvet, as soft as absolution.
“We must not!” She pulled away, fleeing across the room, holding the wall for support. “I—I cannot stay with you, sir.” Her words fell like petals dropping from a faded bloom, leaving only the hard, dead bulb of his heart. “I’m sorry. Good night.”
She was gone, and he was alone. Whatever battle they had just fought, she had won.
Jackson stood staring out his burned bedroom window after she’d gone. He squeezed his eyes closed and opened them, several times. The stench of smoke lingered, one of the only cues that kept him firmly grounded in reality.
Had she been a dream, some new twist in the fit that had nearly taken his life? No. He knew her touch. It had been warm and full of life.
Jackson tore at his wet night-shirt and his breeches, angry and relieved that she had left. Had she not shown such good sense, he could not say what would have happened. Everything he desired? Everything that he knew could not, must not, transpire? He threw his clothing to the floor, running his hands down the front of his body. As though in response, the red-glowing magemark glided from his back to his front like a living creature, unfurling new fronds on his skin, forming an s-shape from his navel to the notch beneath his throat. The cursed thing thrived on his dreams, and it had reveled in the fire that had nearly taken his life. Jackson traced the burning paths it had left all over him.
How could he have allowed Manda so close when he had such an abomination living on his flesh? He must have been still half-crazed from the fire, to even consider making such advances.
“Jackson Coal, you are the worst sort of fool,” he said aloud, hoping that speaking the words would help them sink into his thick skull. “You are marked with a curse.” Magemarks were mysterious, unpredictable, and deadly—and Jackson did not yet understand how they worked. Could the mark burn another person? Was it catching, like the cholera that had killed his mother? He did not know. “No one can be allowed to see it. Not even Manda Rivers,” he added, though his wayward heart complained. He wanted her—Sacred Wells, how he wanted her.
And she’d wanted him. But not enough.
Jackson scowled and scratched at the magemark. If she had only stayed, he would have shown her the depth of his regard in any way he could—
She left you, dolt. Doubts hissed directly from the magemark to his head: She can see what you are—a filthy vermin. A killer. Marked. Why would she want you?
“How can you be so selfish?” he muttered aloud to shut off the voice in his head. “Your job is to protect her. She’s under your care. And what about Grey? As long as you have this mark etching your flesh, you are a danger to them both. Moreover, it seems the cursed thing wants to kill you sooner rather than later.” He shuddered. Merciful Rivers, what would have happened if Manda had not saved him and put out the fire? Not only he, but Grey, and Coalhaven itself, could have burned.
Because of the mark and the fits it induced, Jackson w
as a danger to everyone at Coalhaven. He leaned against the charred remains of the gable framing, ignoring the roughness as he slid down the wall in a clumpy shower of soaked ash. He bowed his head toward his knees and shoved his fingers into his damp hair.
A dark war raged inside him. He should take Wilcott Blazen up on his invitation to Blazenfields to gain access to the magemark cures Blazen was purported to have. But if he went, he would be leaving Grey and Manda unprotected. That cursed timepiece was still missing, and Jackson was certain it rested in Daniel Lake’s hands. If Daniel came to Coalhaven again while Jackson was gone …
He couldn’t leave.
But he had to—if he didn’t, the magemark would eventually kill him. If his mind deteriorated under the mark’s influence, he posed a threat to everyone around him, including Grey and Manda, as the fire he’d set accidentally tonight demonstrated. If he went to Blazenfields—only for a short while—he had a chance of defeating his demons for good.
He had to go. It was worth the risk. He’d leave Coalhaven in Mr. Stone’s competent hands.
“Tomorrow,” he said, aloud again, to reinforce it. “Tomorrow you will head to Blazenfields. You must cure the mark, whatever it takes. It is your only hope; it’s Grey’s future.” He could not say Manda’s name again. She’d left him, and the pain of her absence was a fresh brand on his already agonized soul. He swallowed the surge of misery that met this decision. The price Wilcott Blazen meant to extract in exchange for his magemark secrets was the Blazen daughter, a faceless spectre Jackson did not wish to know. He dropped his head back against the gable sill in despair.
Chapter 16
Manda
The morning after the fire, Manda emerged from troubled dreams to see the sun spreading its dappled design on her damask bedspread. She blinked at the rays, struggling to recollect all that had happened the night before.