The man looked up, and I was impressed to see there was still defiance in his eyes.
“Anything?” I asked the guards.
They shrugged. “Not much. He told us who sent him.”
“Pagan,” I said, dismissively. I already knew who sent him. It was the only person who would have sent him. I faced the assassin with a smirk. “Why did you give that up so easily?”
The assassin gave an awkward shrug. “You already knew who sent me.”
I nodded. “Fair enough. You know what I want to know then?”
The man nodded painfully. “Where Pagan is and how I got into your room.”
“More specifically, who allowed you into my room,” I clarified. “Let us not pretend you managed it without help.”
The assassin smiled, which looked like it hurt. “As I’ve been trying to tell your men; I had help, but not from anyone here. At least not in the way you mean. You don’t have a traitor, Duine, just a lot of incompetent men. And Pagan has powerful magic on his side.”
That was not impossible, but it was also what you’d say if you were trying to protect someone. Infuriating really.
“Very well,” I took a little circuit around the man. “I’m going to offer you a generous deal; just answer one of my questions and no more torture for you.”
“I already answered one of them.”
“Not the one I want an answer to.”
“Then what is your question?”
I took the steps that separated us and got right into the man’s face. “Tell me where I can find Pagan.” I knelt down beside him, my face inches from his.
“I can’t do that.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Tell me where I can find him and perhaps I will let you live.”
The man met my gaze through blood-tinged eyes. “Do you know what I am, Duine?” I think it pleased him to call me that rather than ‘High Mage’; to call me the name others had given me rather than the title I had awarded myself.
“I know what you call yourself.”
“I am a warlock of the Templar. Death holds no fear for me. Death is but a door to another realm.”
I punched him in his gut and was pleased to see him gasp. “There are no warlocks. You are a mage and that makes you subject to me.”
“I am a warlo…” Another punch, this time to his face, cut him off.
“There are no warlocks,” I repeated. “And no witches either. Just the Mages of the King’s Alliance, trying to keep order in a disordered world. And threats to that order—threats such as you and your friend—will be terminated without prejudice.”
The man said nothing.
I sighed. “You say that you have no fear of death and I believe you. But I don’t actually want you dead. Why? Because dead men don’t talk. Except in a few very specific circumstances. We can keep you alive a long time and, to you, it will seem like a whole lot longer. But, in the end, you will talk. In the end, everyone talks.”
He was tough. But just for a split second, I saw a flicker of doubt. He knew I was right. Perhaps he’d even been on the other side of a conversation such as this one. Regardless, he knew as well as I did that in the end, everyone talked.
“Try looking at it this way,” I suggested, kindly. “How sure are you that I’m in the wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “The Underworld is gone. Those old alliances are broken. The vampires and werewolves as well as the other lycanthropes, the Fae and witches, all those who lived in peace together under…” I paused. Who had they lived in peace under? The question brought a frustrating blank, but I moved on. “… who lived together in peace, have all gone their separate ways. I can’t bring that peace back and nor can your Templars. I’m just trying to make the best of a bad situation.” I took a breath. “The King’s Alliance is the closest we have to organization now, and only in organization can we regain any type of peace. If people fight against me then… well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking the eggs.” I shrugged. “Someone must rule or there will be chaos, and neither of us wants chaos. So the choice is yours; peace and rest, or chaos and pain.”
TWO
EMMA
My phone buzzed somewhere beneath the mess of sheets and unfolded laundry on my bed. I felt around for it, eyes closed. Crisp Salem air poured in through the open window.
“There you are,” I looped my fingers around the chipped black case.
I pulled the phone up and held it in front of my face. 6:57 AM.
“What the hell?”
I dropped the phone. It hit me squarely in the nose, and not gently. Yep, it was going to be one of those days.
I kicked my sheets to the floor, and the comforter. My uniform was in there somewhere... Dropping to my knees, I dug through the heap. I spotted a flash of grey amid the green and white and pulled my uniform pants out of the pile. The “crisp white shirt” the handbook mandated was balled up in the left leg. Shaking it down the length of the pants, I got it loose.
And promptly banged my knuckles into the two-drawer dresser by my bed.
Pros and cons of magic drawers: pro, they can hold a metric ton of stuff; con, they’re as hard as freaking diamonds. My knuckles were red and raw.
How many times am I going to hurt myself this morning? And I’m running late for my first class. Ugh.
I sat on the floor and slipped my pants on, one-handed. The shirt’s buttoned collar caught on my ear, but I managed to yank it over my head. Feeling the dry fizzle of static electricity, I looked in the mirror. Ten quintillion long blond lines poked out of me like quills. And the three-quarter-length sleeves were wrinkled to hell and back.
Okay, okay, sweater vest, sweater vest, where’s the sweater vest?
There, hanging from the top of my wardrobe. I pulled on it until it came down.
Something hit the floor with it and I heard the unmistakeable muted clink of breaking glass.
I pulled the sweater vest over my shirt and bent to examine the damage.
“Dammit,” I said as I realized what had broken. It was the only framed picture I kept in my dorm. One of my parents holding me when I was a baby. It had that hazy, polaroid quality to it, but mom’s eyes were blue as anything. Mine were supposedly the same color, but they’d gone kind of red with the flash.
Mom’s blond hair was pulled to one side, curling gracefully down past her shoulders. I imagined her eyes to be the bluest in the world. And her smile was definitely the sweetest.
She sat in a plush armchair in front of a sitting room fireplace, red brick with the mortar sticking out. Dad stood to her right side, looking every inch the handsome and dignified man he was. His smile was so broad—from ear to ear.
He looked so different in this picture—so carefree and so… happy. He hadn’t smiled like that in as long as I could remember.
I touched a shard of the broken glass, moving it out of mom’s face. I could almost remember her. A hand on my hair, maybe, or a laugh like bell chimes. A whisper of a song I’d long ago forgotten.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I remembered the time.
Shit.
I left the picture on the floor. I’d have to clean up the glass later. After class.