Dark Light of Day

by Jill Archer

  “Ari Carmine,” he said, offering his hand. Peter waved it off, declining to take it.

  I knew Peter’s feathers were likely smoothed by Ari’s Hyrke surname but I didn’t want Peter getting any ideas that Ari was a friend.

  “Ari’s a Maegester-in-Training here, Peter.” I lowered my voice so that only the three of us could hear what I was saying. “Ari left a special present for me in my locker today—didn’t you, Ari?” I said, smiling up at him with syrupy sweetness and, I hoped, a murderous look in my eye. “And then he sent one of his minions to come talk to me.”

  “Sasha’s not one of my minions,” Ari snapped. “He told me he was your cousin. Wait—what present? I didn’t leave anything in your locker for you.”

  “Sasha as in Sasha de Rocca?” Peter asked, his tone both incredulous and angry, but Ari and I ignored him.

  “The evergreen,” I hissed. “That was low, Ari, even for you.”

  To his credit, Ari blanched. “I didn’t leave an evergreen in your locker. Is that… do you actually think…” He shook his head as if to clear it.

  “Let me get this straight, you left a plant in Noon’s locker? Why? How did you even… ?” Peter was slow to the party but he played catch-up fast. He realized in seconds what had taken me a day to figure out.

  Peter’s cloaking spell had never hidden me from Ari.

  “Who are you?” Ari asked Peter. “I haven’t seen you around. Are you a friend of Noon’s from home?”

  “Peter Aster,” Peter said. He stared at Ari with narrow, calculating eyes.

  Ari’s nonplussed look continued. “Aster… You’re an Angel?”

  “That’s right.”

  The two men sized each other up. Ari likely saw a thin, anemic looking academic while Peter likely saw a hulking, shabbily dressed demon beseecher.

  “I didn’t—wouldn’t—leave a plant in your locker, Noon,” Ari said finally, turning to me. “Come on, how would I even get it in there without killing it myself?”

  “Just stay away from me,” I said. Ari looked away. “Come on,” I said to Peter. “I just lost my appetite.”

  Peter stood up, looking grumpy. He tossed his napkin to the table. “Fine. I’ve got some more research to do and you still have to pack.”

  “Pack?” Ari said, his voice low and deep. I’d never been afraid of Ari, but just for a moment I could imagine what it must be like. “Where are you going, Noon? Did you forget our deal?”

  “What deal? We never had a deal.”

  “We had an understanding. You said you wouldn’t leave.”

  “Any understanding you think we had was broken when Sasha showed up at my locker today.”

  “Let’s talk outside,” Ari said, looking straight at me, ignoring Peter again. I shrugged and got up slowly. I didn’t want him to think I jumped at his command. Ari turned and made his way to the door. I followed, purposefully staying a few feet behind him. Peter trailed me, looking peevish.

  The entrance of Marduk’s fronted an alley. All of the other doors along the street were back doors to buildings already closed. Outside, it was cold and dark. One streetlamp glowed but it was some ways away. We climbed Marduk’s outer steps to street level, crossed the alley, and stood in front of another door, likely locked for the night. There was a small awning over the door that kept most of the falling snow off of us.

  “Where are you going?” Ari said, wasting no time in launching back into our interrupted conversation. “You can’t just skip class like that.”

  “There are more important things to worry about than class,” I said, refusing to look at him.

  “Like running away.”

  “I’m not running away.”

  “The hell you aren’t, Noon. Bryde’s Day is next week. You’re twenty-one. The only place for you right now is here,” Ari said, pointing at the ground beside him. “You know what you have to do.”

  Peter stood absolutely still. He was no longer peeved; he was livid. Out here, his face appeared translucent. His lips moved slightly, as if he was talking to himself, but I recognized what he was doing—getting ready to cast a spell.

  “If you leave, I’ll declare for you,” Ari said, forcing all of my attention back to him.

  “What?” I said, stunned. “But you can’t… I… We’re so close. I just need more time.”

  “You don’t have it.”

  “Give her until Bryde’s Day,” Peter said.

  “Why?” Ari said, his patience clearly wearing thin.

  “Why can’t you just leave her alone?” Peter said. Two angry spots of color appeared on his cheeks.

  “I can’t,” Ari said, looking surprised at his own admission.

  “All we’re asking for is a couple of days,” Peter said. “Pacta sunt serv—”

  Instantly, Ari waved his hand in a slicing motion across Peter’s throat. Peter made a strangled noise and grabbed his neck with both hands. He tried to talk but no words came out. He just stood there, his mouth opening and closing, his lips smacking and his tongue clicking, while his eyes grew wider and his face redder. Ari had leeched the oxygen from around Peter, making him breathless and, more importantly, speechless.

  “Stop!” I cried, shoving Ari. How had the situation deteriorated so quickly? Luckily, Ari did stop. He looked down at me and a little sliver of fear ran up my spine.

  “Set your spellcaster on me again, Noon, and I’ll rip the larynx right out of his throat.”

  I nodded, shaken by the exchange, not wanting to make things worse by continuing to argue.

  “Why do you need a couple of days?” Ari said. “What are you up to?”

  “Looking for something,” I said.

  “What? Come on, Noon. I don’t feel like dragging this story out of you. Give me a good reason not to go up to Seknecus’ door right now and write your name on The List.”

  “We’re looking for a spell.”

  “A spell?” Ari snorted and made an impatient motion with his hand. “What spell?”

  I was reluctant to reveal what we were doing because Peter might get into as much trouble as I would. I’d never really thought about it before, but what if we found the Reversal Spell and the demons killed Peter for casting it over me? The demons might view casting the spell in the same way they viewed not declaring—that we’d stolen a valuable asset from them. But it was clear that Ari wasn’t going anywhere until he got the full story. And after his stunt with Peter just a minute ago I knew he probably would declare for me if I didn’t tell him everything.

  “Peter thinks he might know where the Reversal Spell is.”

  Ari’s eyebrows shot up and he looked over at Peter with renewed interest. Peter, on the other hand, shot Ari a lethal look.

  “The Reversal Spell is a myth,” Ari said.

  “No, it’s not,” Peter said with exaggerated patience. He probably hadn’t forgiven Ari for the choking incident but he likely knew he’d brought it on himself by attempting to cast an unwanted spell over someone as powerful as Ari. Peter’s expression told me he hated Ari but that he wouldn’t do anything stupid like trying to cast another spell.

  “Then it’s a dangerous truth,” Ari said. “If the Reversal Spell exists—and that’s a big if—no one has cast it for thousands of years. Legend says it’s the biggest spell of all time. Regardless of whether you might be able to find it, do you really think you could cast it?” Ari spoke directly to Peter, all former antagonism gone. He spoke with a theoretical tone, as if discussing whether or not Professor Telford would repeat last year’s test questions.

  “Watch me, firestarter,” Peter said contemptuously. Ari glanced over at me to see my reaction to Peter’s insult. I didn’t give Ari the satisfaction of seeing me break ranks with Peter but I couldn’t help wondering if “firestarter” was how Peter viewed me as well.

  “Easy, spellcaster,” said Ari. “All I’m saying is that casting something that big shouldn’t be rushed into. Noon’s working with a pretty tight deadline. Do you really want
to risk botching the spell?”

  “I haven’t botched a spell since I was a kid,” Peter said viciously, clenching his fists.

  Ari shrugged. “Search for the spell. But leave Noon out of it.”

  “I’m doing it for her.”

  “Are you? Any Angel who locates and successfully casts the Reversal Spell could likely do anything he wanted, become dean of the Joshua School, maybe even head of the Divinity—”

  “Enough,” I said, cutting into the conversation and physically placing myself between the two men. I was tired of being talked about as if I weren’t standing right there. I had told Peter earlier tonight that if he hadn’t yet found the spell, I was going to declare. The only reason I’d started wavering again was his continued insistence that he could find it by Bryde’s Day. But I hadn’t thought about what casting the spell might mean for Peter. So what if Peter was hoping to cast the spell out of ambition? That didn’t make it any less dangerous for him.

  Peter must have sensed my commitment wavering because he grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

  “Noon, you’re a woman,” he said. “Don’t you want to have the power to create something instead of destroying it?” I shook my head. I did not want to have this conversation right now. But Peter misinterpreted my look as argument. “Don’t you want to hold life in your hands? To grow things, instead of killing them?

  “You’re a woman with waning magic for Luck’s sake!” he cried.

  I cringed. Peter had never spoken to me like this before. But his next words were even worse. “Without a spell to help you, you’ll never have a child. Never have a family. Is that what you want?”

  I stepped back as if struck. Suddenly what I wanted most was another cloaking spell to hide me. I wanted to run and run and never look back. Peter’s recitation of my deepest, most private fears, in front of Ari, someone I’d been more than mildly infatuated with, someone who likely viewed me as a repulsive mutant who was too cowardly to do what was necessary, undid me. Tears welled and I turned away, embarrassed, hating myself for being weak. But I didn’t have to be. If I declared and started learning how to control my magic, people would no doubt say all kinds of things about me. But weak wouldn’t be one of them.

  Chapter 7

  I left Ari and Peter. I have no idea what they said to each other after I left. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was taking charge of my destiny and stopping all these feelings. I refused to be weak or scared—for myself or anyone else—again. And the only way I could do that was to declare and accept what Luck had given me.

  I walked from the back alley where Marduk’s was to the front of Warenne. The administrative building was dark and the doors were locked. Frustrated, I jiggled the handle. In seconds, the doorknob became too hot for me to hold. I stared, half-horrified, half-satisfied, as it melted before my eyes. Hot dribbles of molten metal dripped down the front of the door. A few drops fell to the ground and sizzled, cooling into a small piece of charred metal. I stepped over it and pushed open the door.

  Waldron Seknecus’ office was on the third floor. Since he was the dean of demon affairs at St. Luck’s, he was the individual charged with rounding up that year’s current crop of potential Maegesters. To facilitate matters, Seknecus always kept a piece of paper pinned outside his office door. It was referred to simply as, “The List.” Any student with waning magic who entered the doors of St. Luck’s was obligated under demon law to put their name on The List.

  I walked quickly, took the steps three at a time, and arrived outside of Waldron Seknecus’ door breathless and shaking. There it was. The List. The thing I’d spent the last four weeks—well, really my entire life—avoiding. I stared at it long and hard. It was incredibly mundane for something with such a monumental purpose. For something that would turn my whole world upside down. A few black pen strokes spelling out five names on a piece of plain white paper. I couldn’t even use lack of a pen as an excuse. Some helpful person had conveniently tied one to a string and tacked it next to The List. Not wanting to stall any longer, I reached up to add my name, but my hand was shaking so badly I couldn’t write.

  I lowered my hand and it grazed something sharp sticking out of my pocket. The corner of Night’s letter. I’d forgotten all about it. I pulled it out to read. Night’s familiar script raced across the page.

  Noon—

  I made it to Maize, the Demeter Tribe’s southern outpost, with little incident. As you may have guessed, my appearance here—without any introduction—kicked up some dust. It’s mostly settled now. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my plans before I left. I wasn’t sure I’d really go through with it until I got here.

  Don’t wait to start your life, Noon. Peter may never find the Reversal Spell, and even if he did, who knows how it would work. Leave the believing to the Angels. Those in the Host have to do what we were born to do, as Luck would have it.

  I hope this reaches you before Bryde’s Day. You know what you need to do.

  Night

  I folded the letter back up and put it in my pocket. A feeling of acceptance, if not peace, came over me. I could do this. Before I could change my mind again, I scrawled my name across the bottom of The List.

  It was done.

  When I got back to my room, Fitz was pacing in front of the window and Ivy was sitting on her bed biting her nails.

  “Where have you been?” Ivy asked. She rushed over to me and gave me a great big hug, and then, just as quickly, she let go and shook me by the shoulders. “Seriously, where were you? There’s been another demon attack. And this one happened on St. Luck’s campus. We heard there’s going to be an announcement posted about it sometime tomorrow. Fitz and I were worried! We thought something might have happened to you when you didn’t show for dinner.”

  Her gaze swept over me as if she were searching for signs of an attack. Probably because of everything going on at that moment—my recent declaration, this new news that there’d been another attack, the fact that Ari had trampled my trust into the dust—Ivy and Fitz’s concern for my well-being almost made me feel like crying.

  “Noon, you’re not hurt, are you?” Fitz asked, leaping up from Ivy’s bed where he’d been sitting.

  I shook my head and motioned for him to sit back down.

  “Then what’s wrong? What happened to you?” Ivy asked, stepping back.

  “Tell me about the attack,” I said, ignoring Ivy’s questions. We’d get to my unwelcome news soon enough.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed facing Fitz. “What happened? Who was attacked? And when?”

  “We’re not sure yet who it was,” Ivy said. “But, about an hour ago, some second year Hyrkes heard screaming outside of Corpus Justica. They ran out to see what was going on and saw a woman dressed in a Mederi’s green traveling cloak engulfed—that was the word they used—by a dark mist. She was struggling against it, but, before they could reach her, the mist burst into a fireball and she was gone, mist and all.”

  Corpus Justica was across the street from the New Babylon train station. If the Mederi was wearing a traveling cloak, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think she may have been coming from there. I told Ivy and Fitz about Amaryllis Apatite’s disappearance and shared my worry that the events were somehow related. Unlike Sasha, they didn’t belittle my concerns.

  “You should tell Waldron,” Fitz said. I’d nearly forgotten that Fitz had grown up on the Seknecai estate. Of course he would be on a first name basis with our dean of demon affairs. I nodded and swallowed, getting suddenly quiet. Fitz and Ivy were too. I think they sensed my no-show at dinner was related to something important. And they were waiting for me to tell them what it was and where I’d been.

  I cleared my throat. “Speaking of Seknecus… I have to tell you something.”

  Luck, why was it so hard?

  I’d just declared to all of Halja. It shouldn’t matter what Ivy and Fitz thought of me. My whole life I’d been a loner. I’d had some Hyrke frie
nds at Gaillard, but those friendships had been surface only. No one had ever known who I really was. There was Peter. But our friendship was always strained by the fact that his mother hated me. It was only fear of my father that dissuaded Mrs. Aster from revealing my secret or publicly showing her antagonism toward me. So, here I was. Ready to tell the two people I’d spent almost every hour of every day with for the past four weeks, that I wasn’t really who I said I was. That I was really the product of some odd Host birth defect.

  “Actually, I just got back from Seknecus’ office. I… ah… put my name on the list outside his office door.”

  “You mean ‘The List’—the one for Maegesters?” Fitz asked, totally confused. “Why would you do that?”

  I bit my lip and felt my cheeks flush. My magic never heated up though. It stayed coiled inside me in a tight, little, easy to control ball. I wasn’t mad at Ivy and Fitz after all. I was afraid of them. Afraid of their judgment, or worse, their pity.

  “Because my name belongs on The List,” I said.

  “I don’t understand,” said Fitz. “You have to have magic to become a Maegester. And don’t you have to be a man?”

  I sighed. “Yeah. That’s how it usually works.”

  “Noon, what are you saying?” Ivy said. “That you’ve got magic and it’s waning, not waxing? How’s that possible?”

  I made a hopeless gesture. All I wanted to do was crawl under my covers and go to sleep. Pretend this day never happened. Wake up tomorrow and realize this whole day had been a nightmare.

  “I don’t know,” I finally said. “I don’t get it any more than you do. But I was born with waning magic and my brother, Night, was born with waxing magic. I don’t know why. I only know that’s how it is.”

  I remembered Ari’s words on the first day of the semester when he’d told me he knew. Why do you waste one second on what might have been? What is, is.

  Well, what was now, was that I was just about to lose the only two friends I had here. I realized that I should have told them the truth from the beginning. They still might have thought I was a freak, but at least they wouldn’t think I was a freak and a liar.