The Darkest Magic (A Book of Spirits and Thieves)

by Morgan Rhodes

  “How positively romantic.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Al spoke up. “Young love always finds a way.”

  Maddox shot Barnabas a dark look. “You don’t believe a word Becca says, do you?”

  Barnabas’s face remained stony. “Frankly, I don’t believe that this Becca is the same Becca whose spirit you remember so clearly. She could be a witch, perhaps the witch who sent that gust of wind into the village, and maybe now she’s using the same air magic to look like someone you think you know.”

  “A common witch wouldn’t be able to summon air magic strong enough to change her appearance so drastically that she’d be able to fool someone up close,” Al commented. “This is a fact.”

  “You’re wrong,” Maddox said bluntly, ignoring Al. “Besides, I’m the one who could see Becca when she was here last. I’m the only one who knows what she looks like.”

  Why was Barnabas being so combative? This was the best thing that had happened to Maddox in . . . well, ever.

  But was it possibly the worst thing as well? Arguing with Barnabas now didn’t make him any less excited to see Becca, but it did make him see a simple, strange truth: Becca Hatcher shouldn’t be here. Not again, not like this. She was from an entirely different world—a different time altogether, perhaps—and all she’d wanted last time was to go home to her family. Why, after all that, would she return? And in such a . . . complete state?

  She wouldn’t.

  Well, not unless she had a very good reason.

  The gateway magic that allowed her to pass through these different worlds allegedly did strange things to time and space—and memory, it would seem. He had no idea how long she’d even been back in her world. For him, it had only been a fortnight. For her, it could have been anywhere from two seconds to two hundred years.

  But, aside from the clothing she wore, she looked exactly the same today as she did that fortnight ago. When she’d first been to Mytica, she’d worn blue trousers and a soft tunic the color of a rose. This silky black . . . garment—he truly couldn’t place it in the same category as any gown he’d ever seen before—was incredibly, shockingly revealing.

  But not necessarily in a bad way.

  “I hate to be the one to mention this,” Maddox said, clearing his throat nervously, “but I believe something may have happened during your travels. It seems you are in your . . . undergarments.”

  Becca winced, frowned in embarrassment, and looked down at herself. Instantly her serious expression faded, and she laughed. “This is a dress, silly! And a pretty fancy one for me. I definitely prefer jeans.”

  Jeans. Jeans. Perhaps that was the word for the style of tunic she’d worn last time?

  “Oh, of course,” he said, trying to hide his embarrassment. “It is pretty. But you will definitely need different clothing now that you—both your spirit and your body—are here.”

  “Wonderful,” Barnabas said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go find a dressmaker. We’ve nothing important to do at the moment, after all.”

  “What of continuing our journey to visit the southern goddess?” asked Al.

  Barnabas sighed with frustration. “Shut up, Al.”

  Al said something under his breath that Maddox didn’t catch, but it didn’t sound friendly.

  Becca looked at Maddox, her previously happy expression now only a memory. “Last time I was here, Barnabas didn’t hate me. Or at least that’s what I thought.”

  “I don’t hate you now either,” Barnabas said. “But do consider me extremely skeptical about the circumstances under which we met today.”

  “Of course you’re skeptical,” Maddox growled, annoyed at Barnabas’s tone. “When are you not? But whether you like it or not, she’s coming with us.”

  “By all means. She’ll be your responsibility.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  “Well, wasn’t that a riveting debate between father and son?” Liana said good-naturedly. “Now that that’s all settled, I’d like to volunteer my services to you, Becca, in helping you find some new clothing. Maddox is right: It would be best for you to fit in a little better around here.” Becca smiled gratefully, and then Liana turned to Barnabas. “It won’t take long. In fact, while we’re doing that, you can find us some horses and a wagon, and then we’ll meet up.”

  Barnabas grumbled but didn’t argue, and Maddox felt just as grateful to Liana as Becca seemed to be.

  They continued on, swiftly reaching the next village to the south. At the edge of the forest, Barnabas disappeared to search for means of transportation. Liana planned to go to the city center to find Becca a new gown.

  “I’d take you with me,” Liana said to Becca. “It would be lovely to learn more about you, after all . . . but I do worry about the reaction you’ll get in that . . . rather daring ensemble.”

  Becca laughed. “I understand completely. Thank you for doing this, Liana. It’s very nice of you.”

  Liana nodded and set off in the opposite direction that Barnabas had.

  Maddox remained behind with Becca. Alcander stayed too, so that Liana could have full use of her arms at the dressmaker’s.

  Maddox held the sack beneath his arm, keeping it open so that Al could breathe easily, as he stared at Becca.

  “What is it?” Becca said, twisting a piece of her hair. “You’re making me more nervous than I already am!”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe you’re really here.”

  “I know.” She furrowed her brow. “Me neither. I hate that I can’t remember what happened. It’s like when there’s a word on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t think of it, no matter how hard you try. It’s there—the memory, the reason I’m here—and I know it’s really important, but I . . . it’s just not coming to me.”

  A word on the tip of your tongue. Maddox quite liked that strange expression.

  “Was that the way it was last time? When you—your spirit—first arrived here in Mytica?”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean, when I was all of a sudden in the garden at that lord’s house—where I met you—I was seriously freaked out. And I knew exactly why. One second I was in my family’s bookstore and the next I was here, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was the book that did it.”

  “Seriously . . . freaked . . . out?” said Al. “She speaks in coded riddles! Are you able to decipher them, Maddox?”

  “I understand her meaning, yes.”

  “Loosen up this sack a bit more, young man. I want to see this creature with my own eyes.”

  Maddox shrugged and looked to Becca. “Would that be . . . o-kay with you?”

  She nodded.

  Maddox folded the edge of the canvas sack down so that Al was fully exposed from the mouth up.

  Becca’s face paled. “Um, hi there.”

  His eyes widened. “Oh yes. That’s better. She is beautiful.”

  “Very,” Maddox agreed, then felt a bolt of heat reach his cheeks.

  They’d been through so much together. Why did he revert to being so bashful around her?

  But it seemed that Becca either didn’t notice the embarrassing way he was acting or didn’t care. Instead, she just kept staring at Al and then at Maddox. “Wow. Maddox, I still can’t believe you did this with your magic.”

  “Well, don’t say too much about it to Barnabas,” he said. She looked at him curiously. “He’s absolutely certain that if I do something like this again, my soul will go dark. I’m not sure he’s right, but I have no way to know if he’s wrong.”

  “Well, he’s given his blessing for you to work your magic at least one more time,” Al said. “And then, once you’ve reunited me with my body and made me whole, you will never delve into such dark magic again.”

  “You really think you can do something like that?” Becca asked with surprise.

  “He can and he will!” Al replied before Maddox had a chance to sidestep the question. After all, Maddox still didn’t know if he could, let
alone whether he should, and the guilt was eating at him.

  Al had helped them find the princess. It hadn’t been his fault that Cassia chose to ruin everything with her unreasonable demands. Whether or not Al would be of further help in defeating Valoria, Maddox felt as if the scribe had already fulfilled his end of the bargain.

  The trouble that lay ahead was with Barnabas. Maddox knew that at no point did Barnabas have any intention of allowing Maddox to attempt to use his magic for this.

  Perhaps he’d try anyway.

  Suddenly, Becca reached out and touched Maddox’s arm. He jumped a little, surprised at her touch, and then met her blue eyes.

  “Thank you for believing me back there,” she said. “And for believing in me. Again.”

  He nodded. “Of course. I know it’s really you.”

  She raised her brows. “So you didn’t even want to quiz me? Ask me questions only I would know? I mean, it’s a shock for me too that I’m here fully this time, not just in spirit.”

  “I don’t need to quiz you.” Whatever that means, he thought. “I can look in your eyes and know it’s you.” He smiled at her. “I missed you a lot.”

  She leaned closer to him. “Me too.”

  All he could see then were her beautiful eyes, her soft lips . . .

  Al sneezed. Becca released her hold on Maddox’s arm.

  “Apologies!” the head exclaimed. “Just a bit of pollen, I think.”

  Stupid head. Maddox couldn’t say for sure that Becca had been about to kiss him, but he’d like to think it was a possibility.

  “Bless you,” Becca said.

  Al looked at her quizzically. “My goddess, child. Bless me? For such a trivial act as sneezing? What an odd thing to say!”

  Maddox flipped the top of the sack back over Al’s head and discreetly placed him on the ground.

  “Would you mind telling me more about your visions, Becca?” he said. “Like the one in the palace square—if you can remember.”

  She nodded, then paused. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. “I do remember! I remember another one now! Maybe it is like you said: The longer I’m here, the more I’ll remember. Okay, so the square outside Valoria’s palace was the second vision I had. The first one came to me as a dream. You were in some sort of tavern with Barnabas. No Al or Liana, but there was a woman. I’m pretty sure it was your mother . . .” As soon as she said it, the light in her eyes dimmed. She looked up at him nervously. “Oh, Maddox. I’m so sorry.”

  His breath caught in his chest. “You . . . saw that? My mother’s death?”

  Becca nodded, her eyes glossy.

  He nodded stiffly. “I loved her very much. I still love her. She’d only just found out that I knew the truth about Barnabas . . . about Eva . . .”

  “Wait . . . ,” she said, frowning. “Eva . . . something about Eva. I feel like—oh God, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I just interrupted when you were talking about your mother.”

  “It’s all right, you need to remember. It’s over now, and I’m doing the best I can,” Maddox paused, allowing a measure of fire to burn in his gaze. “But I wanted to kill him—Goran, the man who did it. I still want to.”

  She shook her head. “You’re not a killer.”

  “Perhaps that was true of me the last time you were here.”

  “No.” Becca touched his face, and he went very still, barely breathing. “You’re the same as before. Perhaps you’re a bit sadder, a bit more mature. I hear grief can do that to a person. But your heart is good, and nothing can change that.” She hesitated. “Besides, I’m sure Barnabas would be happy to kill that disgusting piece of garbage for you.”

  “You’re right, he is.”

  “Well, good. Better him than you.”

  He almost smiled. “What was it you remember about Eva?”

  Becca sighed. “I wish I knew. I just had a flash of something, but the whole memory isn’t coming back to me just yet—except for the vision I had of you at the palace.”

  “That’s the only one you remember?”

  She frowned. “I feel like there was another . . . or more than a couple, even. What was it? Oh!” Her eyes widened. “I remember watching you wash your clothes. In a river. And . . . it sounds crazy, but in that one”—her frown deepened—“I . . . I think I was a hawk.”

  “The hawk,” he said, his eyes widening. “Yes, I saw a hawk that day. I remember. Of course I do—she was beautiful, with dark blue eyes. I had the strangest feeling it was you, and I thought I was going mad!”

  She gasped. “Oh my God, I remember! Liana was there too. She was following you, and she had a knife! Maddox, she’s dangerous!” She stood up, alarmed, looking everywhere for a sign of Liana heading back to the edge of the forest.

  Maddox stood up and put his arm around her. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I know that part of the story too. She explained herself. It’s all right now.”

  She relaxed and sat back down with him. “Oh. Well, good.” She paused, looking exhausted. “I think that’s all I remember for now.”

  “That’s quite a bit.” Maddox wanted to tell her that he’d dreamed of her only last night, but the nightmare had been so disturbing that he didn’t want to conjure up the memory now, let alone share it with Becca. Luckily, that had only been a nightmare and not a vision.

  They turned and stood up at the sound of someone approaching, and Maddox smiled to see Barnabas striding toward them, two brown workhorses and a rickety wooden cart following behind. “This was the best I could do,” he said grumpily.

  Maddox snatched Al’s sack off the ground just in time to save it from being trod on by one of the horses. “Well, it looks perfect to me,” he said.

  Barnabas ignored him and turned directly to Becca, his hands on his hips, his eyes narrowed.

  “Where did you say you are from?” he asked—or, rather, demanded.

  She took a step back from him. “Uh . . .Toronto.”

  Barnabas scoffed, as if Becca had just told him she came from a land made entirely of sugar lumps and biscuits. “Why are you dressed in that strange frock?”

  “It’s not strange where I’m from. It’s the kind of thing people—girls and women—normally wear to . . . um . . .” She frowned. “Well, I don’t remember exactly why I’m wearing this. But in general, people wear something like this when they’re going out to dinner at a nice restaurant or to the theater.”

  “What is a . . . res-trawnt?” he snapped.

  “Uh, you’re asking me what a restaurant is? Okay . . . it’s like a . . . a tavern. A place where you sit, and people bring you food, and you pay for it?”

  “What’s your mother’s name?” Barnabas asked, not taking the restaurant discussion any further.

  “Julia. Julia Hatcher. Her maiden name was Kendall.”

  “Hmm.”

  Becca exchanged a worried look with Maddox.

  “Satisfied?” Maddox asked, annoyed now.

  “Not even close,” Barnabas replied. “She could be making everything up.”

  “How about this to make you absolutely, one hundred percent sure?” Becca said. “You’re Maddox’s father. You hooked up with an immortal named Eva.” She frowned again at the name, and Maddox wondered if she remembered something new, but then she went on. “I think you said you were eighteen at the time?”

  “Hooked up?” Barnabas repeated.

  Maddox shrugged. “This is how she speaks. How everyone speaks in her world, I assume.”

  “Hmm,” Barnabas said again.

  “I have more,” Becca said. “When the guards threw you in the dungeon with Maddox, they called you Crazy Barney. And you went along with it—you liked eating human bone marrow or something like that. Maddox was scared of you.”

  “I was not,” Maddox grumbled.

  “You told me to find the room in Valoria’s palace where the Bronze Codex—uh, that’s what we call the Book of the Immortals back home—was hidden.” Becca pointed at Maddox. “Valoria’s gigantic cobra killed his
abusive jerk of a stepdad, and then later, Barnabas, you killed the cobra. Valoria didn’t like that very much. He was her favorite pet.”

  Maddox smiled. “Are you going to say hmm again, Barnabas? Or are you finally satisfied?”

  “Hmm,” Barnabas said. Maddox rolled his eyes as his father’s hard gaze moved beyond Maddox’s shoulder and softened. “Ah, good—here comes Liana. We don’t know how much of a lead we have on Valoria and her army so let’s concentrate now on putting more space between us.”

  Liana approached, gown in hand. Becca jumped up and hugged her, clearly catching Liana off guard, but the witch smiled anyway and handed her the new garment.

  “Turn around, boys,” Liana said.

  Barnabas and Maddox turned their backs so Liana could help Becca change into the gown. “There,” Liana said.

  “You can turn around now,” Becca said.

  Maddox did so and his breath caught in his chest.

  The gown covered every inch of Becca’s legs—which was a bit disappointing, he had to admit—and though it wasn’t fancy, it made her look like a royal princess. The simple, elegant silhouette allowed her figure to be the focus of attention, and the soft-looking fabric was a shade of dark blue that matched her eyes almost exactly.

  “Is it okay?” she asked, pulling at the skirt.

  “More than o-kay,” he confirmed.

  By her smile, this was the right thing to say.

  “Ah—I almost forgot!” said Liana. She reached into the burlap sack that the gown had been wrapped in and pulled out a small parcel. “These are also for you, Becca.”

  Becca opened the parcel. Inside was a pair of shoes—a sensible brown leather pair, but nice all the same. Maddox thought Becca looked even more thrilled to see those than she had been to see the gown.

  “Oh my gosh—you have no idea how happy I am to see these!” she said, tearing off the torturous-looking shoes she’d worn with her old dress. “My feet were killing me in these things. Thank you, Liana!”

  “Yes,” Barnabas echoed, his gaze again drawn to the young witch—currently the only one in their group upon whom he looked without ire. “Much gratitude.”