The Sorcerer Heir (Heir Chronicles)

by Cinda Williams Chima

  “No, really,” Jonah persisted. “What happened?” Then he noticed that the floor around Kenzie’s bed was charred black. “Did you have an accident or something?”

  “I just fell,” Kenzie said. “No big deal.” He looked sideways at Jonah to see how that was being received. “You didn’t like the more interesting story.”

  “Does Gabriel know?” Jonah asked. “Or Natalie?”

  “Look, the aides picked me up and dusted me off, and I talked them out of reporting it. Every time it happens, they start talking restraints and side rails and all that. Or they have a conference, and decide to send me back to the torture chamber and build up my muscle strength so I bounce next time.” He sighed. “What’s the point?”

  Now Jonah noticed that Kenzie’s eyes seemed sunken into his skull. They were murky with fatigue, like windows coated in dust. His collarbone stood out, the flesh melted away, so he had the look of a refugee in one of those disaster photos.

  “You’ve lost weight,” Jonah said, almost accusingly.

  “Do you really think so?” Kenzie made a sour face. “I’m on a new diet plan—I throw up everything I eat.”

  “What? Why haven’t you told me?” Jonah reached for the cake. “Maybe this isn’t such a—”

  Kenzie jerked the cake back, out of danger. “It still tastes good going down,” he said.

  “What was your last weight?” Rolling to the foot of Kenzie’s bed, Jonah woke his chart and brought up his vitals.

  “Have you not heard of patient confidentiality?” Kenzie muttered.

  Jonah scanned his weights. “These all look good,” he said, frowning. “And your blood work’s—” He looked up at his brother in time to catch the guilt flickering across his face. Understanding dawned. “You’ve hacked the system,” he said. “Haven’t you?”

  “What happens in Safe Harbor stays in Safe Harbor,” Kenzie said. “Kenzie Kinlock is looking good.”

  “Kenzie. If you’re...losing ground, we need to do something.”

  “We? It’s not like I’m on the team. I’m just the tackling dummy, getting hit over and over again. I’m on maximum everything, and I’ve been through every one of Gabriel’s experimental interventions. I’m the go-to person for clinical trials, because I have nothing to lose and nowhere else to go.”

  And for the first time, Jonah caught a note of discouragement in his brother’s voice. Even Harry caught it, because a new screen appeared—it was WHINING with a slash across it.

  “How can I help?” Jonah said simply.

  “Promise me something.”

  Jonah knew better than to say Anything. So he said, “Promise you what?”

  “I don’t want to go to Safe Passage,” Kenzie said.

  “Nobody’s said anything about Safe Passage,” Jonah growled. “Stop talking like that.”

  “Will you shut up and listen to me?” Kenzie paused, and when Jonah said nothing, continued. “I’ve looked at the aggregate clinical data, and I’ve looked at my own data, and I have a much more accurate idea than you do about who goes to Safe Passage, all right?”

  Jonah met his brother’s eyes. “I’m sure you do. So?”

  “I’m not going to put you through that,” Kenzie said.

  “Through what?”

  “Do you really think you can keep anything secret from me? Any digital bit at the Anchorage is at my beck and call. I know what your role is there. I’m not going to have you free me or riff me or help me on to heaven. I don’t care what Gabriel calls it. You have been through enough shit already.”

  “You know what happens when a savant dies,” Jonah said. “I’m not going to have you turn into a zombie.”

  “Listen to yourself. You won’t have it? What about what I want? Do I get a vote?”

  “But...you can’t imagine what that means,” Jonah said.

  “Oh, yes, I can,” Kenzie said. “I have a very good imagination—everyone says so. At least I won’t be stuck in one place. And, at least now and then, I might inhabit a body that works.”

  “Kenzie? It’s Jonah.”

  It was the day after the night of the ice cream cake.

  Jonah heard furtive movement through the door. “What are you doing here at this time of day?” Kenzie sounded both annoyed and suspicious.

  “I’m visiting outside of the box,” Jonah said, glancing at Natalie. “Open up.”

  “Harry. Display corridor view.” A moment of silence, then, “Why is Natalie with you?”

  Jonah was stumped for a moment, then pointed to the tiny camera mounted over the door. Kenzie had the hallway under video surveillance.

  “We want to talk to you.”

  “I’m busy right now,” Kenzie said.

  “Busy doing what?”

  “Taking a dump.”

  “No, you’re not,” Jonah said. “But, just in case you are, get ready for company.”

  Kenzie was totally uncooperative, glaring daggers at Jonah for his betrayal and shorting out every instrument Natalie brought near him, including the bed scale. He gave evasive, smartass answers to all her questions. She finally dug up an old blood pressure cuff that inflated manually, checked his pulse by gripping his wrist, and examined his Weirstone with an ancient and totally non-digital silver cone inscribed with runes. She took notes with pen and paper.

  Kenzie fell asleep before she was finished writing. It was apparent he’d been working hard to keep his body under tight control. Now his thin body was racked with continual tremors, like the engine inside him was badly out of tune. His skin swarmed with blue flame. Jonah brushed his hair off his damp forehead, feeling the sting of power.

  “Well?” Jonah asked, when Natalie looked up from her notes. “What can we do? What’s the next step?”

  Natalie cleared her throat. “The antiseizure therapies are pretty much maximized. I’m worried that if we go with a higher dosage, it may compromise his breathing. We can try some interventions to control the nausea and make him more comfortable. That might help with his hydration status.”

  “What about his nutrition? I can tell he’s lost a lot of weight. If you build him back up, it might help him fight this thing off.”

  “Well”—Natalie’s eyes were troubled—“we could start a tube feeding, but it depends on what he wants—how aggressive we want to be.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Jonah flared. “He has value, Nat. Of course we want to be aggressive.”

  “Jonah.” Natalie put her hand on his arm. “No one is saying that Kenzie doesn’t have value. But his Weirstone is failing. The poison is destroying what little functionality it has left.”

  Jonah recalled what Kenzie had said about the aggregate data. I have a much more accurate idea than you do about who goes to Safe Passage, all right?

  “Let’s take it out, then,” Jonah suggested. “The Anaweir do perfectly well without stones.”

  “He’s Weirflesh,” Natalie said. “You know he can’t survive without a stone.”

  And Jonah did know that. “It’s unfair,” he said. “Kenzie’s gift has never done him any good—just destroyed his quality of life. It’s his mind and his wit and that snarky sense of humor that— Can’t we do a—a transplant or something? Replace his stone with a healthy one?”

  “Even if we could find a healthy stone, there’s no guarantee the toxin wouldn’t destroy that one, too.”

  “Maybe, but it would buy him some time,” Jonah said. “Time for me to figure out how to fix this.”

  “Jonah. You can’t fix this, given what we know now. If I could fix Kenzie, I would, and so would Gabriel.” She paused, and because she believed in being honest, said, “It’s time to consider moving him to Safe Passage.”

  “No.” Jonah shook his head. “He told me—he doesn’t want that.”

  “How did he...” Natalie began, but then deci
ded not to ask that question. “What do you mean, he doesn’t want that? Because it means we’re coming to the end of this journey?”

  “Don’t ply me with hospice-speech,” Jonah snapped. “And don’t call it a journey, like it’s just part of the great mandala of life. There’s nothing natural about a fifteen-year-old dying.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Tears streamed down Natalie’s face. “Do you think I want to give up? But all the choices are bad. Do you really want Kenzie wandering the streets, looking for a corpse to claim?”

  “I’m just saying that I’m not ready to throw him under the bus,” Jonah said. “Whatever we do, it should be what Kenzie wants, not whatever suits us.”

  Jonah knew he was being totally unfair, that Natalie had been fighting this discouraging battle longer than anyone but Gabriel, with no complaints. It was her example that had persuaded him to cooperate with the Safe Passage program, to cut off the spigot of shades so this terrible job might be done before the last of the shadeslayers went down.

  “I’m sorry, Nat,” Jonah said. “It’s all unfair, but there’s no reason for me to come down on you. I know you love Kenzie, and you’re looking out for him.”

  “Well,” Natalie said, looking over her scribbled notes, “I don’t think the situation is so dire that we have to decide it now. We’ll do what we can to help with the symptoms and try to hold the line against further decline. Now, let’s let him rest, all right?”

  She crossed to the door, opened it, then turned back toward Jonah to fire a parting shot. “Just think this over,” she said. “If Kenzie says he doesn’t want Safe Passage, ask yourself—is he looking out for himself, or is he looking out for you?”

  Back in his room, Jonah unlocked his armory, swinging the doors wide, displaying an array of cutting weapons and shivs. His fingers found a catch by the hinge, and he swung open a smaller, inner cabinet. Entering the combination code into the lock, he opened the compartment and pulled out the bottle of blood magic Brendan Wu had given him. It was warm to the touch and somehow full of promises.

  It could be anything, Jonah thought. It could be a deadly poison. Strategically, it might benefit Lilith to add Kenzie to her shade army. But Kenzie and Brendan had always been close. Jonah couldn’t imagine Brendan cooperating with such a scheme. If he knew about it.

  But if Jonah gave it to Kenzie, and it hurt his brother in any way, Jonah’d never forgive himself.

  Cautiously, carefully, he worked free the silver stopper, prying it out without damaging it. Lowering his nose to the bottle, he took a whiff.

  Energy rocketed through him, penetrating all the way to his core, then rising in him like tree sap in the spring, extending into his fingers and toes. His skin tingled, every nerve alert.

  This must be what snorting a line of cocaine is like, Jonah thought.

  Taking a deep breath, he raised the bottle to his lips and sipped.

  Well-being gushed through him. Aches and pains and discomforts he wasn’t even aware of faded away. His wrist had bothered him for three years ever since he took an awkward fall off a building. Now he tested it: no sign of trouble at all. It was as if somebody had been poking him in the eye and stopped. It wasn’t that he was high—he was just so extraordinarily right, so totally in synch that it couldn’t help lifting his spirits. It was like he’d been detoxified.

  He waited. Tried to distract himself by running through some lyrics he was working on. The sense of wellness persisted.

  Finally, reluctantly, Jonah recorked the bottle and returned it to the cabinet and shut the door. If he were still alive tomorrow—if he hadn’t grown horns or developed scales or murdered anybody he wasn’t supposed to murder—maybe he would see if Kenzie was willing to give it a try.

  Kenzie worked harder at being asleep than anyone Jonah had ever seen—twitching, moaning, twisting his bedsheets into knots. His breathing was wet and irregular. He couldn’t be getting much rest.

  Worse, even in sleep, Jonah could feel Kenzie’s pain, a white-hot burning that left him faintly nauseous. It made it hard for him to be in the same room with his brother.

  Still, it wasn’t easy to wake him up. Jonah felt bad about doing it, but he had to have this conversation sooner rather than later.

  “Kenzie?” he said softly. And then, “Kenzie!”

  Finally, he reached out and shook him.

  Kenzie grimaced, and his bluish eyelids twitched. “Is there something about my being asleep that’s annoying to you?” he said without opening his eyes.

  “I’ve got a present for you from Brendan Wu.”

  Kenzie frowned. “Dead Brendan Wu?”

  “Undead Brendan Wu,” Jonah said.

  Kenzie finally opened his eyes. “You saw him?”

  Jonah nodded.

  Kenzie’s pain-dulled eyes showed a spark of interest. His hands moved restlessly on his coverlet. “Recently?”

  “He seems to be Lilith’s right-hand person.” He extended the bottle toward Kenzie. “He wanted you to have this.”

  Kenzie eyed the bottle suspiciously. “What the hell is that? Looks like a beet-juice milk shake in a genie bottle.”

  “It’s just—it’s something that might be worth trying.”

  “Stipulated, Counselor.” Kenzie squinted at the bottle in Jonah’s hand. “But if you want me to drink it, you’re going to have to tell me what it is.”

  “It’s blood magic,” Jonah said, meeting Kenzie’s gaze directly.

  Kenzie’s eyes widened fractionally. “You mean, like—like—”

  “Yes,” Jonah said. “Like what shades are using to preserve their borrowed bodies.”

  “The stuff that’s released when the gifted are murdered.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the idea is that it might work on me.”

  “That’s the idea, yes.”

  “But I’m not dead yet.”

  “No.”

  “In other words, why wait for me to die to try and bring me back to life?”

  “Basically.”

  Kenzie closed his eyes. “No. Not interested.”

  “Kenzie.”

  “You don’t even know what that shit is. It might turn me into a lizard.”

  “I already tried it on myself,” Jonah said. “It was...” He blew out a quick breath. “I think it might really help.”

  “That’s messed up, Jonah, and you know it. You are not my taster. Keep taking risks, and we can have a double funeral. Together in life, together forever in death.” Kenzie opened his eyes. “I want my own grave. Not sharing.”

  “Please, Kenzie.”

  Kenzie said nothing, just rolled onto his side, his back to Jonah, and pretended to snore.

  Jonah spoke to Kenzie’s back. “Look, I know we’re on shaky moral ground, here, but throwing it out isn’t going to bring anyone back to life. We might as well use it.”

  For what seemed like forever, Kenzie didn’t say anything at all. Then he rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Don’t you get it? What if it works? What then?”

  Jonah wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. “We...celebrate?”

  “Sooner or later, we’ll need more. How do you intend to go about getting it? Have you ever heard the term slippery slope?”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t worry about.”

  “Don’t you get it?” Jonah grabbed a fistful of Kenzie’s T-shirt. “I’m trying to save you.”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t get it,” Kenzie said. “This time, I’m trying to save you. Has it occurred to you that this”—he pointed at the bottle—“that this is a trap Lilith and Brendan have laid for you? What was it Brendan wanted you to do on the bridge? He wanted you to help him kill gifted preschoolers in order to extract blood magic.”

&nb
sp; “If you’re trying to save my soul, you’re a little late,” Jonah said. “I’m an assassin. I’ve lost count of the kills I’ve made, and most of those shades were innocent. I destroy everything I touch. There’s nothing here, Kenzie, nothing worth saving.”

  Kenzie’s cheeks were wet. “I disagree,” he whispered, swallowing hard, grinding the heels of his hands against his face.

  “At least some wizards and some mainliners are guilty,” Jonah said. “The only part of me that’s worth saving is the part that loves you. Please, Kenzie, let me buy some time at least. That’s all I ask. I’m going to meet with Lilith and see if there’s—if there’s anything we’ve overlooked. I wish I could let you go, but I just...can’t. Not when everything else is going to hell.” It took everything Jonah had to keep from smacking his brother down with persuasion and pouring the potion down his throat.

  Kenzie shuddered, as if watching his brother beg made him uncomfortable. “What if I drink this and keel over dead? What then?”

  I’ll kill Brendan Wu, Jonah thought. What he said was, “At least you’ll be out of your misery. It’s pretty hard to take, tell you the truth.”

  “Give it here, then.” Kenzie stuck out his hand, but it trembled so badly that Jonah didn’t want to risk his spilling it. Plus it was entirely possible that Kenzie would dump it out on purpose to end the argument.

  “Here,” Jonah said. “Let me help.” Pulling the stopper from the bottle, he closed Kenzie’s hands around it, his own guiding the bottle to Kenzie’s lips. Kenzie tilted his head back and drank, throat jumping, continuing until the bottle was empty. He even licked the residue off his lips.

  Jonah set the bottle on the side table. It retained a pearly luminescence.

  “Well?” Jonah watched his brother warily for any signs of a reaction. “What do you think?”

  Kenzie ran his tongue over his teeth. “Flamboyant yet unctuous, a bit chewy yet flabby, with notes of oak and old cigar boxes.” He paused. “Distinct aftertaste of barnyard, yet still callipygian.”