In the Mouth of the Wolf

by Nicole Maggi

Without a word, I handed it to him. Whether he was ready to see it or not didn’t matter anymore; he needed to see it, to know the truth. I watched his face as he read it. First, his eyes narrowed; then they widened. His breath came in short, loud puffs. He jerked his head up to look at me. “Where did you get this?”

  “I can’t tell you that. But it’s legit. I swear.”

  “I know it’s legit. There are details in here that no one else could know.” Jonah slid his hand from mine and slammed it against the folder, creating a puncture in the middle of the green expanse. “God, how fucking stupid am I? You even saw it. Remember?” He hauled himself to his feet and strode in a wide circle around me. “The night you—found out about me. You said you thought they caused the crash to make me join. And I said no way.” He shook the folder above his head. “And here’s proof. You could see it, and I couldn’t.”

  My heart twisted for him. “Sometimes when you’re on the outside of things, you can see more clearly than when you’re on the inside,” I murmured. I wished I could make the truth easier for him to swallow, but he had to taste its bitterness for himself.

  Jonah dropped back onto the rug next to me. “They crippled an innocent girl for life, just to get me to join.” He threw the folder. It rippled for a moment before floating down outside the small pool of light that contained just the two of us. “God, what have I done?” He bent forward until his elbows were on the floor, his face buried in his hands.

  “Jonah.” I put my hands on either side of his head and drew him up. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t know. You were manipulated. You can’t blame yourself.”

  His eyes were full of anguish. My hands shook as I wove my fingers into his hair. “Maybe not for that,” he whispered. “But everything that came after. Mr. Foster . . . God, even the bus crash that almost killed you . . . That’s all my fault.”

  “You weren’t there,” I protested. “At the crash, or when Mr. Foster died. It’s not your fault.”

  “But I made them stronger.” His voice broke. “When I joined, they became a complete Clan again.”

  “If you hadn’t joined, they would’ve found someone else. And everything would’ve happened anyway.”

  “But maybe it would’ve taken them longer. Maybe—”

  “Jonah.” I put my fingers over his lips, trying to ignore the shiver that ran down my spine. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters now is what you do going forward.”

  He grabbed my hand and pressed his lips to my palm. It was like a fiery brand, imprinting my skin. Breathing hard, he said, “I want out. I want out of the Malandanti.” His face softened. “Will you help me?”

  In the weeks since I had learned Jonah was the Malandanti Panther, I hadn’t let myself think about what if. Deep down, I knew this was my truest wish, that Jonah would leave the Malandanti. But I didn’t allow myself to think it could ever come true. Now it had. I felt as though I held a precious glass bubble in my hand, and one false move would make it shatter. I slid closer to him and touched his cheek. “Of course I will help you. Whatever the cost.”

  We were so close to each other now that our breath mingled. I slipped my arm around the back of his neck and inched toward him. His face blocked out all the shadows of the room. When his lips finally met mine, there was only light.

  It was as if we had been lost in a desert for days without food or water and had just found an oasis. With one urgent tug, he pulled me onto his lap. I poured myself into him and wrapped my legs around his waist, his hands like fire on my skin beneath my sweater. His lips moved to my throat, and I moaned, tilting backward but held fast by his strength.

  “Alessia,” he whispered against my skin. My pulse below his mouth quickened. “I love you. I love you so much.”

  I trailed feather-light kisses along his brow until I reached his ear. “I love you too,” I said, so quietly the only way I knew he heard me was from the way his hands tightened on me.

  In a graceful arc, we fell backward onto the rug. He pressed the length of his body into mine, and I arched up into him, wanting more than I knew I should give. I lost myself in him for one sweet, beautiful moment longer. With an awful, ragged breath, I pulled myself away from him. “We can’t. Not tonight.”

  “I know.” He held me, his hands gentle. “But a guy can dream.”

  I laughed and sat up. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the black ceiling. I eased down until we lay side by side, looking up into the nothingness. In the darkness, I found his hand. In the quiet, all I heard was our breath. I wanted to stay there forever, inside our precious glass bubble. I knew the moment we left this basement, it would break.

  “Is there another way out of this room?” Jonah asked.

  I looked at him. “Yeah, through the upstairs. Why?”

  He turned his head toward me. “In case there’s someone watching the basement entrance. One or both of us could’ve been followed.”

  The glass was already splintering. As happy as I was in that moment, as glorious as it was that Jonah wanted out of the Malandanti, the cold, stark facts lay bare before me. He wasn’t out yet. We could not be seen together. If it got back to Heath, I would be dead in the figurative sense. If it got back to Pratt, Jonah would be dead in the literal sense.

  We lay there for a long time, letting the quiet speak for us. When at last we left—he through the back door, I through the front—the night was still full and black. But there was one tiny piece of light on my horizon. Because even though I’d been through every scrap of paper we’d stolen from the Guild, there were books I hadn’t read, books made out of bark and leaves in ancient languages that I couldn’t read. And I was sure—not because I knew, but because there had to be—that in one of those books was the way to set a Malandante free.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  In Which I Get Bitch-Slapped

  Bree

  Nerina was pissed.

  She stepped over the shattered remains of her espresso cup and stalked toward me, her stiletto heels rapping on the floor. “What did you do?” she repeated in a hiss.

  Shit. I fought the urge to turn tail and run. “I unlocked that book you gave me. You told me to work with it—”

  “I told you to study it, not use it.” She seized my arm, her fingers digging deep into my flesh.

  “Ow! Hang on—”

  “You stupid girl! How many people saw you?” She shook me, her face less than an inch from mine. Okay, so apparently Nerina had a bad side, and now I was on it.

  “Nobody saw me,” I said through gritted teeth. I tried to pull my arm away, but damn, girlfriend obviously worked out. “Well, maybe a few people, but I took care of that—”

  “You took care of it?” She dragged me into the living area and threw me into a chair. She slammed her hands down onto the arms of the chair on either side of me so I couldn’t get up. Not that I was going to try to get up. She was that mad. Her eyes looked as if they were going to spit fire and melt off my face. “In my four and a half centuries, my gut instinct has been wrong once, Bree. Once. And my gut told me you are our next mage. My gut told me to trust you. Was my gut wrong for the second time in almost five hundred years, Bree? Was it? Did I choose the wrong mage?” She leaned in. “Did I?”

  Oh, my God, she was playing the I’m-disappointed-in-you card. Coming from my parents, it had never worked on me, but Nerina had had four hundred fifty freaking years to perfect it. I felt about as big as an ant. “N-no,” I whispered.

  “Then I must be a terrible teacher. Because I thought I made it clear that the magic is never to be used for fun, for sport, for personal gain, or in a random manner. Did I say that? Or did I imagine telling you that?”

  Um, no. She hadn’t imagined that. I had just kinda sorta conveniently forgotten about that little instruction. I remembered the way the magic had taken hold of me, with such a firm, sudden grip. There was no way I could’ve remembered Nerina’s instructions at a time like that. “It just happened. The power . . . took over me. I couldn�
��t help it . . .”

  “You could help it.” Nerina balanced herself in a squat in front of me. She was like a goddamn yoga master. That’s probably all she did here alone in this dungeon—practice yoga in four-inch heels and tight pencil skirts. She pointed a long forefinger at me. “That magic was not controlling you. You controlled that magic wholly, and you know it. You chose to use it in the way you did.” She arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps there is more Malandanti in you than I thought.”

  Cheap shot. I crossed my arms. “I would never use magic to kill people.”

  “Do you know who the original Malandanti were?” she asked, ignoring me.

  I shook my head.

  Her nostrils flared. “The original Malandanti were Benandanti, Bree. They wanted to use the magic to control people, to manipulate them into doing their bidding. Their fellow Benandanti disapproved and exiled them. So they went rogue.” She searched my face, her eyes piercing every inch of my skin. “At this moment, you are no better than they were.”

  Dammit, she was right. I thought about how drunk I’d felt, making that bitchy cheerleader break up with her boyfriend for no reason. Making Josh humiliate himself. And for what? Petty revenge. I slumped back into the chair. I wasn’t any different from the Rabbit. I deserved her wrath. “So what are you gonna do to me?”

  Nerina gave a satisfied nod before she stood and walked to the couch. She settled herself on the edge and crossed her legs. “Well, I was going to take you to the Waterfall tonight to test you out with the Clan, but you are clearly not ready for that.” She eyed me up and down. “We obviously have more work to do. You need to learn the fine art of subtlety, my dear.”

  I sat up a little. “You’re not going to punish me?”

  “What good would that do? Besides, we haven’t the time. The Malandanti will attack the Waterfall any day now in retaliation for our winning back Pakistan and the Redwoods. You need to be ready for that.” She rose and came to stand over me again. “But if I ever see you using magic for your own personal fulfillment—a fulfillment I find rather twisted, I might add—be assured you will be punished. And not by me. By the Concilio. We have rules, Bree, and you broke half a dozen of them today.”

  I picked at a nonexistent tear in the chair. “Sorry.”

  “Well.” A faint smiled cracked across Nerina’s lips. “She is capable of apologizing.”

  I snorted. Then I looked up at her. “How did you know? That I’d used the magic?”

  “Oh, please. It seeps from every pore in your body. Anyone who has used the magic before can sense it. I would have been able to smell it a mile away had I been aboveground.” She tilted her head. “Can you still feel the magic?”

  I held up a hand in front of my face. Wisps of green light still shone around my skin, but they were faint now. “A little.”

  “Give me the book back, please.”

  I dug into my bag and handed it to her.

  “I’m assuming the people you used it on won’t be bothering us?” she asked as she set the book down on the coffee table.

  “You mean, did they have any idea? I doubt it. I mean, unless you think my pervy study hall teacher is a Malandante.”

  “He could be, Bree,” Nerina snapped. “That’s the whole point of not using the magic—how you say—will-nill?”

  “Willy-nilly,” I muttered.

  “Esattamento. Willy-nilly. You never know whom you are using it on.” She picked up another book whose pages were made of soft green leaves. “But I am assuming you did not use it on anyone you knew to be a Malandante? Or a Benandante?”

  Craaaap. I squirmed a little.

  The movement was not lost on Nerina. “Bree . . .”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even mean to do it. I just said something, and he took it as an order, and then I kinda—I don’t know—nudged it along, I guess.”

  “Nudged what along?”

  “It is so not a big deal.”

  “Bree.”

  “Okay, okay.” I blew a strand of loose hair off my face. “I kinda told Jonah and Alessia that they should figure out whatever is going on between them.”

  Nerina pressed her palms to her temples and dropped back onto the couch. “They cannot be together. Ever. I thought she was finally getting over him.”

  Seriously? I made a face at her. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but Alessia is not in any way, shape, or form over Jonah. And he’s not over her. Those two are moon-faced idiots when it comes to each other.” I shrugged. “Maybe I helped them finally cut the cord.”

  Nerina jabbed a finger at me. “I certainly hope that’s what’s become of your little prank. Because you’ve pushed them closer together—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. You’ll sic the Concilio on me.” I stood up. “Look, we can’t do anything about it now, so let’s just see how it plays out, okay? And now I’d like to get to work. Apparently, I have some subtlety to learn.”

  “Not just subtlety,” Nerina said, getting to her feet. She click-clacked to the stairs and grabbed her fur-trimmed coat from the coat rack. “Control. You need to learn control.” She poured herself into the coat like a Slinky and whirled to face me. “Because every time you lose control like that, every time you use the magic for yourself and not for others, the magic corrupts you.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “Excuse me?”

  Nerina’s eyes glinted. “Yes, dear. The magic will corrupt you, if you let it. That is what happened to the original Malandanti.” She started up the stairs, her voice floating back to me. “It is my job to see that does not happen to you.”

  I wanted to hate Nerina. I really did. But every time I thought I hated her, she would do something like pour me a cup full of rich dark espresso from her thermos and hand me gourmet biscotti. It wasn’t Lidia’s biscotti, but it was close. She dusted off two tree stumps, and we sat side by side drinking our coffee in the moonlight. It was like something out of a Bertolucci film. While we sipped, she told me stories about the Concilio in Friuli. “The last time we had a mage was two hundred years ago,” she said. “Gemma. She was very powerful.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked. The coffee was so good it made up for the last three hours of torture Nerina had put me through. But we had cracked another book, and I had added another skill to my résumé. I was pretty sure I’d redeemed myself after the whole magic-for-personal-gain incident the other day.

  “She was killed in battle,” Nerina said softly. Her gaze met mine. “Every mage we have ever had has died in battle.”

  Okay, now I hated her again. I tossed the remains of my biscotti on the ground. “Really? Why would you tell me that? Why not just lie?”

  “I don’t believe in outright lying to make someone else comfortable. The truth is always better, no matter how hard.” Nerina flicked an imaginary crumb off her coat. “Being a mage is not for the faint of heart.”

  “Hey, I’ve been accused of a lot in my young life but never of being faint of heart.” I crossed my arms and curled my lip at her. “I spied on my own father. I broke into the Guild. And I agreed to be a mage even though it meant going up against my own twin. What about any of that reads as faint of heart?”

  “You don’t need to point out your attributes to me.” Nerina rose in a long, fluid motion and walked in circles around me. “But before I waste any more time training you, I need you to know exactly what you are getting into. You were not born into the Benandanti, not like me or Alessia or Heath. You were recruited by the Malandanti and, though you refused, they are still the side that chose you, not us.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “But I chose you.”

  Nerina held a finger up to quiet me. “This is the moment when you need to make the same commitment that a Benandante makes when he is called. That you will lay down your life in the line of duty. That the Clan comes before all else.”

  “I told you I would choose Jonah first.”

  “And I will mak
e that concession for you.” She stopped right in front of me, her dark gaze fixed on my face. “But can you make that commitment to me? To the Benandanti?”

  For once, I kept my mouth shut and really thought about that. Could I? I thought about how miserable Alessia was, the Benandanti ruining her life. Did I want that? What did I care if the Guild built a hydroelectric power plant in Twin Willows? As soon as it was done, we’d be off to a new town anyway. I chewed my lip. Nerina’s eyes were still on me, but I ignored her. What she was asking was between me and myself alone. If the Benandanti brought down the Guild, what would that mean for my family? Would it send my mother into a deeper depression? Would it make my dad even more of an asshole? Or . . . maybe it would change everything for the better. The possibility of that was like touching a bruise that hadn’t quite healed. Better to leave it alone, in case it never happened.

  And then there was Jonah. That wound would never mend, no matter what I did. If the Benandanti were ruining Alessia’s life, the Malandanti were destroying Jonah’s. Not just his life but him. I could see him crumbling before my eyes, like in one of those rapid-aging commercials on TV.

  Nerina was right; I wasn’t born into this. This wasn’t my fight. But too many forces around me—my father, my brother—had made it mine. My father . . . He could go to hell for all I cared. But my brother . . . I lifted my gaze to Nerina’s. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I can.”

  She nodded once. “Good. Now you are ready.”

  “For what?”

  “To meet the Clan.”

  I opened my mouth to ask how that was going to happen—weren’t they all animals?—but before I could say anything, a ghostly blue light filled the little clearing where we had been working. Nerina dropped to the ground. I stumbled back. The light hurt my eyes. But just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. I blinked, spots clearing from my vision.

  Nerina lay on the ground and a . . . a . . . creature stood next to her. “What the . . .” I breathed. The thing looked like a lioness but had wings like an eagle’s. It was not real . . . “Nerina?” I whispered.