by Tracy Deonn
“Dude!” another boy shouts.
“Shut up,” snaps Selwyn. The wounded boy struggles in Selwyn’s grip, but Selwyn holds him down without effort, without even looking. Selwyn’s gaze hasn’t left the flickering thing moving above their heads. After several pained breaths the boy releases a low moan. “The rest of you, over here with him.” The other three boys exchange glances in silent debate. “Now!” he barks, and they scurry together on hands and knees to sit next to their injured friend.
In that second, I realize I have a choice. I can go find Alice and Charlotte. Alice will be worried sick. I can leave, like Selwyn told me to. I can put my wall up again, this time against whatever is happening here with these kids I don’t know from a school I’ve barely started. I can hide my curiosity, just like After-Bree, just like my grief. Or I can stay. If this isn’t just a trick of grief, then what is it? Sweat streams down my forehead, stings my eyes. I bite my lip, weighing my options.
“As soon as I get them out of the way, it’s going to bolt,” Selwyn cautions.
“You don’t say?” Tor says dryly.
“Snark later. Hunt now.” Hunt? My breaths quicken.
“Pot, kettle, black…,” Tor huffs, but reaches over her shoulder for something I can’t see.
Any choice I had evaporates when silver smoke appears from nowhere. It writhes and coalesces around Selwyn like a living thing, wrapping his arms and chest, blurring his body. His amber eyes gleam—actually gleam—like dual suns, and the ends of his dark hair curl upward, topped by bright flames of blue and white. The fingers on his free hand flex and contort at his sides, as if they’re pulling and churning the air itself. Impossibly, he is both more terrifying and more beautiful than before.
Silver smoke materializes and surrounds the boys. They don’t even blink—because they can’t see it. But I can. And so can Selwyn and Tor.
When Tor takes a step back, I finally see what she’s holding: a dark metal rod curved in an arc. A downward snap and it extends—into a bow. A goddamn bow.
At the sight of her weapon, the taut football players shout and scatter like crabs.
Ignoring them, Tor pulls hard to extract a silver bowstring from one end. Strings the weapon with practiced fingers. Tests the tension. The girl I’d called prissy draws an arrow from a hidden quiver between her shoulder blades and nocks it without looking. Takes a breath—and in one powerful motion, pulls the bow up and the arrow back to her ear.
One of the players points a shaking finger. “What—”
“Where do you want it?” Tor asks, as if the boy had never spoken. Cords of muscle strain at her bicep, in her forearm.
Selwyn tilts his head, assessing the creature. “In the wing.”
Tor aims; the string tightens. “On your signal.”
A beat.
“Now!”
Three things happen in quick succession:
Tor’s arrow flies.
Selwyn swings toward the boys, spreading his arms wide and murmuring words I can’t hear.
And the boys stand up. They march around the campfire in a line and walk in my direction.
Tor’s arrow has pierced the shimmering mass. For a split second, I see wings in the campfire smoke. Claws. A thud—and it’s writhing on the ground, scattering leaves and dirt, half the arrow sticking up. Whatever it is, it’s not much bigger than a possum. But just as angry as one. I shudder. A possum, with wings.
The football players reach me, and I duck out of sight as they pass. My blood runs cold when I see their expressions: mouths slack, eyes unfocused. They move as if drugged.
Is that how I’d looked?
A screech splits the air, yanking my attention back to Selwyn and Tor. A hiss. A voice like metal scraping across glass. “Merlin…”
I blink in confusion. Merlin as in King Arthur?
Selwyn advances on the flickering creature twitching from Tor’s arrow. Five needle-thin points of light appear at the fingertips of his extended hand. He snaps his wrist, and the light spears fly into the ground. The creature screams; Selwyn’s pinned it in place like a butterfly to a board. His low chuckle makes me shiver. “Not just any Merlin.”
The creature hisses again in pained rage. “A Kingsmage!”
A feral grin spreads across Selwyn’s face. “That’s better.” My heart skips. Mage. Magic.
“It’s just a small one, Sel.” Tor pouts, another arrow already nocked in her bow.
“Doesn’t matter how small it is,” Selwyn—Sel—objects. “It shouldn’t be here.”
The thing struggles against its restraints. A flapping sound.
Sel clucks his tongue. “Why are you here, little isel?”
He says “isel” with a long “e” on the first syllable—and a derisive sneer.
“Nosy Legendborn!” The isel makes a sniffing sound. “Nosy trai—” Sel stomps down on its wing. Hard. The creature screeches.
“Enough about us. Why are you here?”
“Feeding!”
Sel rolls his eyes. “Yes, we saw that. Found yourself a spark of aggression and blew on it until it became a feast. So intent on gorging yourself you didn’t even see us when we were right beneath you. But so far away from campus? You’re a weak, miserable thing. Barely corporeal. Surely it’d be easier to feed there, closer to your Gate?”
A grating, rhythmic sound comes from the ground where the isel lies trapped. It takes a moment for me to recognize the sound as laughter. Sel hears it too; his lips curl back.
“Something funny?”
“Yesss,” the isel crows. “Very funnnnny…”
“Spit it out. We don’t have all night,” Sel warns. “Or should I say you don’t have all night? You’re going to die here—or did you miss that, too?”
“Not myyyyy Gate,” it rasps.
Sel’s jaw clenches. “What do you mean, not your Gate?”
The creature laughs again, the sound atonal and wrong. Sel’s eyes flick to Tor. Still aiming at the isel, she shakes her head, shrugs. Neither one of them knows what it means. “Not my Gate. Not my Gate—”
Without warning, Sel clenches his hand into a tight fist in one hard motion. The glowing pins draw together. There’s a quick flash of light and a bone-shaking scream, and the creature’s flickering shape explodes into green dust.
My feet are glued to the earth. They’re going to find me, I think, because I’m too terrified to run.
“There could be more.” Tor pulls her bow to rest. Sel’s head lowers in thought. “Sel?” Silence. “Did you hear me?”
His eyes cut to hers. “I heard you.”
“Well, we huntin’ or not, Kingsmage?” she huffs.
He turns to face the woods opposite my hiding place, tension radiating across his back and shoulders. He comes to a decision. “We’re hunting.” He mutters a word I don’t understand, and the silver smoke from before returns, swirling around the campfire until the flames die, sending the clearing into darkness. “Move out.”
I hold my breath, but Tor and Sel don’t turn my way. Instead, they step into the section of the woods he’d been scrutinizing. I wait until I hear their voices recede. Even without the fear of what they’d do if they found me, it takes that long to get my trembling limbs under control. Finally, they’re gone.
A beat of silence, two, and the crickets begin singing again. I hadn’t realized they’d stopped.
From a limb overhead, a bird releases a quiet, uncertain chirp. I exhale in kinship. I’m pretty sure I know how they feel: the isel was an impossible monster that somehow fed off humans, but Selwyn is something else… something worse.
Every living thing in the forest had hidden itself from him.
I stand there one more beat, still frozen, and then I run. I run as fast as I can through the shadows and don’t look back.
3
WHEN I BURST through the trees, I slow down, all thoughts of the impossible disappearing.
Lights flash blue and red against the night sky, and dread, heavy and s
our, fills my stomach. A Durham County Sheriff patrol car has pulled into the lot, and my friends are standing beside it talking to a deputy holding a notepad.
Charlotte and the deputy both notice me approach. The deputy, a white man in his forties, flicks his notebook closed and puts a hand on his hip, as if to remind me there’s no use in running away. The holstered gun on his other hip doesn’t go unnoticed.
Alice is tucked behind them, a quiet shadow with her head bowed. Her hair falls forward in a thick black curtain, hiding her face. The sight makes my heart ache.
When I reach the car, the deputy glances at Charlotte. “This your friend?” Charlotte nods, then continues rapidly explaining and apologizing.
I go to Alice and look her over. “You okay?” She doesn’t respond or look me in the eye. I reach for her shoulder, but she twists back, away from my fingers. “Alice—”
“Now that we’re all here…,” the deputy drawls. Aided by a long-suffering sigh, he strides around the driver’s side of his squad car—taking his sweet time on purpose, I’m positive—and leans on the hood. “Ms. Simpson, you’re free to go with a warning. The next time it’ll be a ticket. Ms. Chen and Ms.…?” He tips his head my way expectantly and raises a brow.
I swallow, my heart still racing. “Matthews.”
“Uh-huh.” He nods at the back seat of the squad car. “You’re both with me.”
* * *
Beside me, Alice’s hands shake in her lap. I glance at the squad car’s glowing blue digital clock. 10:32. We’ve been on the dark, empty back road to campus for eleven silent minutes. Neither of us has ever ridden in a police car. It smells like leather and gun oil and something sharp and minty. My eyes land on a round green-and-black tin of Classic Wintergreen–flavored Skoal in the cup holder between the front seats. Ugh. Beyond the metal mesh divider, a dusty laptop sits attached to the center console. Below it, there’s a pile of electrical equipment sprouting coiled wires and covered with dials and switches. The deputy, whose name tag says “Norris,” fiddles with the radio station until it hits the chorus of “Sweet Home Alabama” over the crackling speaker.
I’m sixteen. I pay attention. I listen to the stories from uncles, cousins—hell, my own father—about police run-ins and stops. I see the videos online. Sitting in this car and thinking about those images makes my heart pound. I don’t know if there’s a single Black person in this country who can say with 100 percent confidence that they feel safe with the police. Not after the past few years. Probably not ever. Maybe there are some, somewhere, but I sure as hell don’t know ’em.
Alice sits stiff as a board, gaze locked outside the window onto the endless wall of passing shadowed woods. In the front seat, Norris taps his thumbs on the wheel and mouths, “Lord, I’m coming home to you.”
“Alice,” I whisper. “Something happened—”
“Not talking to you.”
“Come on,” I hiss. “Back at the campfire, there was a—” God, I don’t know where to start. “It was the fight, I think—”
“Quit the chatter,” Deputy Norris orders. I catch his eyes in the mirror. He raises a brow as if to say, Say something. I dare you. I shutter my gaze and look away.
After a few minutes, Norris speaks up. “So, Carolina. My kid applied couple a years ago—he didn’t get in. Tough school to crack. Pricey, too.”
Neither one of us knows what to say to that.
“How’d y’all swing it?”
We both hesitate. Swing what? Getting accepted, or the cost? Alice answers first. “Scholarship.”
“How ’bout you, girlfriend?” Norris’s eyes find me in the mirror. “I’m guessin’ need-based?”
Alice stiffens, and my hackles raise. I’m not his girlfriend, and I’m not ashamed to have financial aid, but that’s not what he’s asking—“Affirmative action?” is written all over his knowing sneer.
“Merit,” I bite out through gritted teeth, even though it’s none of his business either way.
He chuckles. “Sure.”
I breathe through a surge of impotent rage. My fingers curl into my thighs, tensing with all of the things I can’t afford to say right now.
After a few minutes, the car slows. We’re still miles from campus and there’s no intersection or car in sight, just a straight two-lane road illuminated by the squad car’s headlights. Then I see why Norris is stopping. Two figures have emerged from the tree line on the other side of the road. As the squad car pulls closer, lights on full, the figures cover their eyes with raised hands. Norris rolls to a stop beside them, turns the volume down, and lowers his window. “Late to be out for a stroll.”
“Norris, is it?” The blood drains from my face at the sound of that voice.
Deputy Norris’s shoulders tense. “Kane.” His eyes slide to the left. “Morgan. Sorry about that. Didn’t recognize y’all.”
Alice leans against her own window to get a better look at who I know to be Selwyn and Tor. Nosy Legendborn.
“I noticed,” Sel says smoothly. He bends at the waist, and I direct my eyes straight ahead, face blank. In my peripheral vision I see his gaze linger on me for a moment, then move to Alice. His attention sets my nerves on fire. “Stragglers from the Quarry?”
“Yep,” Norris confirms. He hesitates, then clears his throat. “Anything to be concerned about there?”
Selwyn stands. “Not anymore.”
“Glad to hear it.” Norris’s chuckle is tight. Nervous.
Norris knows. He knows.
“Is that all?” Sel asks dryly. If Norris is offended that he, a Durham County Sheriff’s deputy and full-grown man, is being as good as dismissed by a teenage boy, he doesn’t show it.
“Just taking these two back to campus.”
Sel is already walking down the road, his attention withdrawn. “On your way.”
On your way. Not a request. Not a suggestion. An order.
Any ounce of security I could have felt in this car is erased in three words. Whatever higher power Deputy Norris answers to, these two teenagers outrank him.
Norris salutes Tor before she follows Sel; then he shifts the car into drive to continue down the road toward UNC. After a minute, he turns the radio back up and hums under his breath. I gather my courage and twist, as subtly as possible, to peer out the rear windshield.
Tor and Sel are gone.
Beside me, Alice slumps back against the seat. I don’t attempt to talk to her again. If I didn’t know what to say before, then I definitely don’t now that I’ve seen the way law enforcement interacts with these so-called Legendborn. I spend the rest of the drive reviewing my earlier words to Alice and end up both relieved and terrified. Relieved, because I said nothing in Norris’s presence to indicate that I knew what really happened at the Quarry. Terrified, because I witnessed something that I was not meant to see, and if Selwyn Kane had wanted to do something about that, Deputy Norris would not have stopped him.
* * *
Three thoughts chase one another the entire ride to campus until they bleed into a single stream of words: Magic. Real. Here.
Norris drops us off in front of Old East, the historic building that houses Early College students. We take the stairs up to our dorm on the third floor in silence. Once inside, Alice changes into her pajamas and climbs into bed without saying good night. I find myself standing adrift in the middle of our floor.
On her side of the room, Alice has a row of framed photos of her brother and sisters and parents on vacation in Taiwan on the shelf above her desk. Her parents declared early on that they would pick her up from the dorms every Friday so that she could spend the weekend at home in Bentonville, but that didn’t stop her from decorating like she’d live here full-time. Earlier today, she’d hung a few rom-com movie posters on the wall and draped a six-foot string of Christmas lights over her bed.
On my side, there are no pictures. No posters. Nothing decorative at all, really. Back home, it hurt beyond tolerance to walk the halls of my childhood home and see
photos of my mother alive and smiling. I even hid her knickknacks. Any sign of her existence cut into my heart, so when it came time to move to Chapel Hill, I packed light. All I have here are a few plastic bins of books and stationery, a suitcase of clothes, my favorite sneakers, my laptop and phone, and a small box of toiletries.
After tonight, everything looks like an artifact from another world where magic doesn’t exist.
Real. Here.
Three other words join the thread: Merlin. Kingsmage. Legendborn.
I don’t expect to find sleep, but I climb into bed anyway, childhood imaginings colliding with the hellish reality I’d witnessed tonight. When I was little, I loved the idea of magic, the kind that lives in Percy Jackson and Charmed. Sometimes magic seemed like a tool that could make life easier. Something that could make the impossible possible.
But real magic includes creatures that feed on humans. A small voice inside me thinks that, if they hunt those creatures, the Legendborn must be good. They must be. But when the night slips into early morning, that voice grows quiet. By the time I fall asleep, my ears ring with echoes: that boy’s sharp cry of pain when Sel forced him to his knees; Dustin’s slurred mumble as he marched to the parking lot; and the isel’s scream when Sel destroyed it.
4
ALICE’S VOICE PULLS me awake.
“What is it?” I groan. Sleep threatens to drag me under, and I don’t want to fight it.
“Get up!” Alice stands fully dressed with her arms crossed and hip popped. “The dean of students’s office called. The dean wants to see us in fifteen minutes!”
My heart seizes in my chest and my thoughts fly. Selwyn. The creature. The ride home with Norris. Magic. It was all real. Wait—does the dean know too? Is he in cahoots with Selwyn and Tor, like the police? I swallow against a rush of panic. “Why?”
She fixes me with a pointed stare. “Why do you think?” It takes me a long minute to realize what she’s referring to—expulsion. Ours. In one motion, I’m upright and out of bed. Alice pivots on a heel and sweeps out the door, her face a mixture of anger and apprehension. “I’m heading over now. Don’t be late.” The door slams.