by Jessica Gunn
“I-I didn’t receive any updates from the Fire Circle,” my mother said quickly as she stood. “So I assumed everything was okay, but—the cianza?”
I stepped toward her, though I had no intention of embracing my mother. Her worry wasn’t for show, but neither was it for me. She was concerned about magik and the cianza, the city as a whole. Never her daughter. Not like this.
“It’s fine,” I said. “At least, I think it’s fine. Jaffrin wanted us both off it anyway.”
My mother’s gaze left me and found Shawn, her eyes widening like she knew him. “It’s you.”
“Uh, hi?” Shawn asked.
My mother looked to me. “Jaffrin wasn’t kidding.”
“Jaffrin isn’t really a joker, mother,” I said.
“I’m Shawn. It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Blackwood.”
They shook hands and my mother froze, pulling his arm forward until his elbow was in view. And his scar. “You’re the Son.”
Shawn nodded. “I am.”
“See,” I said to him. “I told you I probably had that same damn birthmark. What’d you do, mother? Cut it off?”
She hesitated for a single moment, then looked at me. “The doctors at Fire Circle Headquarters removed it. To keep you hidden, before you accuse me of having other reasons.”
I chuckled and turned my attention toward the TV. It was too late for that. I already had all the ideas I’d ever need when it came to how much she and Jaffrin had controlled my life, even if they’d had the best intentions. Growing up much closer to the Hunter Circles than Shawn, it did make sense that they’d want to keep me safe. But in doing so, Jaffrin and my mother had created more questions than answers. And a ton more excuses.
“What happened at the cianza?” she asked.
“Kinder attacked,” I answered, watching the ticker at the bottom of the news report: Magnitude 5.5 earthquake shakes Boston. Some damage, no casualties. “The Fire Circle’s most-wanted criminal. Granted, we were hoping to lure her out.”
“Yeah,” Shawn said under his breath. “Just not directly on top of the damn cianza.”
“Our magik started to make the cianza tilt,” I said. “Giyano showing up along with our team and who-knows-how-many demons and magik-enabled Hunters in the area—it all added up. Then Kinder appeared and set off the entire cianza. We’re lucky it didn’t blow. The effects nearly knocked the both of us out.”
My mother came to my side. “What do you mean?”
“Fever and chills,” Shawn said.
“I basically passed out. I felt numb and wasn’t able to move,” I said. “I’ve never felt anything like it.” Not even when I’d taken dharska.
“You were very lucky,” my mother said, then paused. She placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed once before backpedaling away from me. “Why do you have dark magik in your aura?”
I turned to her. “Issues with a demon. I’m fine.” I didn’t want to see her reaction when I told her it was the same demon that’d killed my father and had nearly gotten me, too. She’d probably freak out as much as Shawn wanted to.
Possibly more than Ben would, if he’d ever found out.
My mother’s eyebrows rose. “It’s familiar, the magik.” She peered closer at me, eyes narrowing. “No.”
“Yes—” I cried out as my body spasmed and the world spun. “Shawn…”
I fell to the ground, landing hard on my knees. Pain splintered up my legs, then starburst from the spot on my chest where Giyano had pumped magik into me. As if it were a delayed response from moving away from the cianza. As if Giyano was here, hidden and invisible, slamming his magik into me all over again.
Shawn was by my side in the next second, brushing my hair out of the way to look at the mark. “It’s Giyano. He’s been feeding magik into her. He did something like that back at the cianza. It stopped the balance from tipping for a few moments.”
“Giyano?” The pain, the heartbreak in my mother’s voice, was like a physical blow. “What have you been doing so close to him? Does he know who you are?”
“Of course… he does…” I said weakly, my breath thinning out. Each gasp of air felt like cold had spread within me. The dark magik crept across my body. I looked down, watching the veins from my hand connect with the mark beneath my collar bone like black tendrils reaching outward. “It’s why he killed Dad.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed. I closed my own, both to filter the pain through other avenues and because I didn’t want to see the look on her face when she realized what had happened. My mother, as a Blackwood witch, saw auras, too. She knew. She knew with more certainty than even Nate with his ether-shaping abilities what had happened to me thanks to Giyano. And she knew me well enough to figure out I’d probably allowed it to happen.
“I wanted answers only he could give,” I told her. Shawn didn’t look surprised. In fact, his expression remained blank. This wasn’t his business and, anyway, he already knew about my seeing Giyano. “About Kinder and what her agenda might be. He’s been fixated on my magik, but I’m not sure why. I didn’t even see him go for me this time.”
“It happened fast,” Shawn said. “No one could have stopped him.”
“But why?” I asked. “What could he possibly have to gain from throwing his magik into me? I don’t even understand how it’s possible.” On this, maybe my mother would have an answer. She’d taught me everything I knew about magik, which was a lot more than most Fire Circle Hunters knew. “Giyano has elemental magik—fire. Mine is ether-based. It should have killed me.”
“Seems like it nearly does,” Shawn said under his breath. “Combined with the effects of the cianza, I’m surprised you got out of there alive.”
My mother’s lips pressed together. “I’m not sure how either of you survived, to be honest. Almost immediately after you were born, the Fire Circle paid us a visit. Jaffrin himself told us to move out of the city.”
“And yet somehow you both thought it was a good idea for me to join a team that operates inside the city? Least of all with Shawn once he was found? How does that make sense?”
My mother’s face remained expressionless.
My head spun in the silence between us. Every passing moment made my knees weaker until finally I had to brace myself against the arm of my mother’s couch.
Shawn was at my side instantly. “Krystin?”
I shook my head as my vision narrowed to a pinprick. “S-Something’s not right.” My veins burned, searing every inch of my body along them. Pain. Blinding pain.
The pain of two magik types warring inside me.
Shawn lowered me onto the couch, our hands brushing. The moment we touched, a bright white light flashed behind my eyes and a familiar warmth inside my chest and at the back of my mind thawed some of Giyano’s power from my system. I squeezed Shawn’s hand. Whatever was happening was coming from him, probably the Alzanian power and our shared destiny, and it was the only thing keeping me afloat.
“What is it?” Shawn asked. “What’s—?”
But the pain swelled in that hand, growing like a ball of white-hot energy like Ben made with lightning, then burst as my body shook into spasms and I blacked out.
Chapter 17
Ben
One hour. That was how long the meeting between the Ether Head Circle representatives and White Flame demons had been going on for. Jaffrin’s stance hadn’t relaxed even an inch the entire time, and I was pretty sure I was still holding the same breath that’d hitched upon White Flame’s arrival. You know. If a human holding their breath for an hour were possible, even with magik.
But at the one-hour mark—though it felt as though it’d been eons of tension-filled negotiations—Derek barged into the grand hall. He hurried down the stadium steps to the bottom of the amphitheater, keeping his footfalls light so they wouldn’t echo in the emptiness of the room.
Rachel looked over her shoulder, watching Derek descend, a pensive, worried expression on his face. “That doesn’t bode well.”
“No,” I said as Derek approached the speaker’s platform.
He and Jaffrin stepped off to the side, leaving the White Flame demons to glance at us. I tried to keep my expression neutral, but given what they were and what they stood for—who they’d sworn fealty to—they set me on edge. Maybe Cinead wasn’t his sister, but Aloysius’s whole family had caused mine enough issues by now. Never mind what Aloysius’s split from the Entity had done for the world as a whole.
Jaffrin and Derek exchanged quick, quiet words while White Flame looked on, staring at us with blank faces.
Finally, Jaffrin dismissed Derek and stepped back onto the platform. “Please excuse the interruption. It seems as though one of my top teams has run into a situation. I need to dismiss those in attendance.” Jaffrin looked at us briefly. “It’s Krystin.”
“The Daughter of Alzan?” the lead female White Flame demon asked. “What is wrong?”
Jaffrin, for the first time since the elite guard of Aloysius had entered the room, gave them a sharp look. With an even sharper tongue, he said, “That is none of your concern. Everything is being handled. Ben, please take your team and go upstairs. You are dismissed. Derek will fill you in and I will join you shortly.”
I swallowed hard, sweat slicking my brow. What’d happened to Krystin in the short time she and Shawn had been gone? She hadn’t looked good at the demon bar, but neither had he and the call wasn’t about him. At least he’d checked in with me once.
“Okay,” I said and practically jumped out of my chair, Rachel and Nate right behind me, and ran up the grand hall’s steps.
Derek stood outside of the door, a grave look on his face. “The healers are with her now, but I don’t know that there’s much they can do.”
My stomach dropped, my breath caught. “Healers?”
Derek nodded, then gestured toward the staircase at the other end of the hall. We followed him to it as he filled us in. “Her magik’s been twisted, much worse than the flare she was recorded to have a few weeks ago.”
“That wasn’t a true flare,” Nate said. “Her magik was tainted by an outside source. When the elemental magik combined with her ether-based power, her body revolted.”
Derek nodded as we proceeded up to the second floor to the quarantine chamber.
“That’s pretty much what the healers think happened tonight,” Derek continued. “I don’t know a lot about magik. They’ll fill you in. I need to be downstairs at the front desk in case anything else happens.”
“Are the local news stations still covering the earthquake?” Rachel asked.
Derek said, “Yes. And the other Circles are all calling. Their Leaders want to talk to Jaffrin, not realizing that the Ether Head Circle is still here.”
“They didn’t seem fazed by the news,” Nate said.
Derek shrugged. “That’s none of my business. I’m strictly the messenger. That’s my job. Now, go. I’ll be downstairs in case anything changes or you need to tell Jaffrin something before he’s done in there.”
Derek was gone without another word.
I rushed into the room ahead of Nate and Rachel and found Shawn on the outer side of the glass. Inside the chamber, Krystin lay on a cot with two healers standing above her, their hands hovering over her abdomen.
“How is she?” I asked Shawn.
He turned, his expression grave. “Giyano did something to her back at the demon bar. Pumped his magik into her or something. Her body shouldn’t be able to withstand it. She should be dead right now.”
Fear crept into my heart and strangled my throat. My lips moved, but no words came out as I stared past Shawn into the chamber where Krystin lay motionless. I’d only known her for a few weeks. Pretty much hated her for the first couple days. But now, after going after Shadow Crest together, I couldn’t imagine her not being a part of this team. I couldn’t imagine not having the feelings for her that I did.
“I don’t understand,” I said finally. “From day one, I’ve always been told ether and elemental don’t mix. Except with the Power. With Riley.”
“That’s supposed to be a universal truth,” Rachel added.
Shawn shook his head. “Thought so, too. Guess not.”
Nate shifted his weight from foot to foot. “There is a hypothesis that since there was no guarantee that both the Son and Daughter of Alzan would both have the same type of magik, that you two might be exempt because you share the same power.”
Shawn’s jaw clenched. “Even if that were true, it doesn’t explain why Giyano is doing this to Krystin. It seems like he has some sort of an interest in her wellbeing, as twisted as that is.”
“He did save her earlier tonight,” said Rachel. “Sort of. And he stepped in to help us save Riley back in Shadow Crest’s lair.”
Rage flashed red hot inside me. I slammed my fist on the glass, startling the healers inside the chamber. Too bad the action didn’t startle Krystin awake. “This is ridiculous. Giyano is a bastard and a traitor.”
“I think I know why he did it,” Nate said, looking at Krystin. “Tonight at least. And this isn’t the first time. He screwed with her magik before, remember? Her flare? And then he did it again in Shadow Crest’s lair. I felt her ether-magik darkening then. Now…” His eyes widened. “It’s bad. Even if it saved her life and the lives of everyone in Boston, it’s bad for her.”
My rage bubbled over, exploding like a geyser. “You knew?” I wheeled around on one foot. “Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Nate held up his hand. “First of all, she said it was a one-time thing, so I’d given her the benefit of the doubt. Obviously, that wasn’t the truth because for the demonic magik to have progressed this severely, tonight’s events at the cianza aside, she’s had to have seen Giyano more than once. Second, it’s not like you asked.”
“You went behind my back, behind the entire team’s back, to hide something important from me.”
Nate lifted an eyebrow. “You mean like how you went behind the team’s back to take on solo missions and not tell anyone until Rachel caught you red-handed?”
My teeth ground together painfully. “That’s different.”
“Is it?”
Rachel walked up to the glass, watching the healers work. To no avail, it seemed. “I have to agree with Nate. You should have said something to the rest of us.”
“Fine.”
I looked at Shawn again, noticing for the first time in the past few minutes that he was wearing a crystal around his neck. One like the crystal Krystin’s mother had used to bind Riley’s powers.
“How long has this been going on for?” I asked Shawn.
“She started having issues almost right away,” he said. “Krystin got better when we arrived at her mother’s house but declined shortly after.”
I pointed to the crystal around his neck. “Did her mother bind your powers?”
He looked down briefly, then up again. “I asked her to. I don’t need my magik to fight—I’ve spent enough time without it. Having us both near a cianza with the Alzanian magik, even if it’s dormant within me, doesn’t seem like a good idea either.”
“Won’t change who and what you are,” I said. “That’s why Krystin doesn’t go to the city’s center. Her magik’s dormant, too.”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Nate said. “I’m pretty sure I know what Giyano’s goal was tonight, and all the nights preceding this one where he forced his magik into her. And it’s the same reason Shawn’s okay. Or at least more okay than Krystin.”
“Than Kinder, too?” I asked. “Kinder also seemed unaffected by the cianza.”
“I think those with the Power don’t sway cianzas,” Nate said.
“Then what do you think about Giyano?”
Nate’s eyes hardened as he focused again on the healers. One had ether wrapped around their hands, a bright blue pulsing glow. Whatever they were doing didn’t appear to be working, and suddenly, I doubted there was anything that could save Krystin
after all. But if Giyano had protected her from that water wraith demon, from Lady Azar, and now from the cianza and Kinder, he couldn’t have been trying to kill her… right?
“I think,” Nate said as he put a hand on the glass. Ether formed around his hand, glowing a pale yellow. “I’m pretty sure Giyano was trying to balance out Krystin’s magik.”
Because that made sense. “What would that do?”
“Think about it. On her own, Krystin probably affects the balance on the cianza. That’s a given.”
“It’s why we removed her family from the city almost twenty-four years ago,” said Jaffrin, coming in from the hallway. “We were worried about her young magik being wild. Until the Blackwood witch side was bound or tamed during childhood, we couldn’t risk it.”
“And when she got older and closer to obtaining the Alzanian magik, you put her almost directly on top of the cianza?” I asked. “That doesn’t make sense, Jaffrin.”
His eyes narrowed on me. “It does considering the amount of protection that goes into keeping Cianza Boston balanced. The Fire Circle is based in Boston for a reason, Ben. Darkness has always used the city as a hub and so must we—to keep both they and the cianza in check. If we weren’t here, it’d tilt. And with Lady Azar and Shadow Crest taking an interest in both Riley and other operations in the city, adding Krystin to your team was a strategic decision.”
My stomach churned. “You knew?”
Jaffrin’s eyes met mine. “That Lady Azar was about to follow through with her plans? Yes. But we didn’t know her plans involved Riley. We didn’t know he had the Power.”
“But you knew she wanted to get to Alzan this whole time?” Rachel asked.
“It was the likeliest of scenarios, yes,” Jaffrin said as he focused his gaze on Krystin and the healers. “She wants the throne and to do that, she needs to oust Ammon. And since Ammon is the more stable of the twins, we’d prefer him over her if possible.”