Farrell watched him with growing dismay. Who was this broken man across from him? He was nothing like the powerful, enigmatic, and ruthless leader he’d come to know over the last three years.
“She could have helped me, you know,” Markus continued. “She had the book. But she thinks I killed her family—her grandmother, her parents. I always thought she’d come back to me, but it’s been years and—nothing. Not a word until last week, when Jackie came back into my life to tell me she hated me, that I shouldn’t come anywhere near her or her family. But I need to see her. So I invited her to the masquerade ball.”
Farrell grimaced, then quickly recomposed himself. What was Markus thinking? He tried to hide his surprise, however, and instead chose to focus on how much he was dreading the upcoming masquerade ball, an annual charity event organized by a group of women, including his mother, from the society. Tickets were expensive and almost impossible to get, snapped up immediately by Toronto’s elite, which baffled Farrell, considering how deadly boring the ball always was.
Markus went on. “It would have been the perfect place for us to speak—both public and anonymous. I need her to give me a chance to mend our mistakes and clear up all the misunderstandings that occurred between us in the past.”
“Would have been the perfect place?” Farrell said. “I assume she declined the invitation then?”
“She might change her mind.”
“You really think so?”
The waitress returned with the ginger ale and fresh vodka for Farrell.
Markus waited for her to depart before responding. “If there’s one thing she knows about me it’s that I’m not a fool. I’ve now seen my daughter in the flesh. I know Becca is mine.”
“And . . . you want to . . . be a father to her?”
There was that haunted laugh again, raising the hair on Farrell’s arms.
“Jackie knows that that girl is as valuable to me as the Codex is. The magic that lies dormant within her . . . it’s magic I can use. That I can take.”
“And that would help you survive.”
“Yes.”
Was this really happening? Was this man—this immortal—really admitting all of this to him?
“Well, look at that,” Connor whispered. “Seems like there’s no one else in this world that he trusts. Only you. You can use that to your advantage. If you help him, listen to him, be there for him, he’ll give you anything you want. If he can take magic from someone else, maybe he can give it away too. To you.”
Yes, Farrell liked the idea of that very much. He wanted whatever he could get to make himself more powerful.
“So what’s the plan?” Farrell asked. “What are the odds she’ll come to the ball?”
“Knowing Jackie as I do, I believe the odds are high,” Markus said, and Farrell responded with a furrowed brow. “A chance to see me, face to face, in public, where she can hide behind a mask and have her say without any repercussions? It’s an opportunity she’d be a fool to pass up.” He was silent for a moment. “I need you there.”
Well, there goes my chance at backing out of this thing at the last minute, Farrell thought. “Of course I’ll back you up in case she tries something.”
“No, that’s not why I need you there. If I’m preoccupied with Jackie, I’ll need you to watch everyone else. I believe we have a traitor in our ranks. Someone—possibly even a member of my circle—who wishes to destroy the Hawkspear Society from the inside. If Daniel was a turncoat, there could be others. Will you help me find this traitor?”
Farrell found that he was suddenly speechless.
It was Adam who was the traitor. Adam, who was unaffected by the Hawkspear marks. Adam, who had already defied Markus and helped Daniel. Adam, who was too young and stupid to realize where his actions could lead.
“It would help if I knew who else was in the circle,” Farrell finally said. “Are you ever going to tell me who the others are? There are three others, right?”
“No, only two now. And I will tell you, just not yet. I want you to watch everyone with unbiased eyes and report back to me what you see, if anything. You will do this?”
“Of course I will,” Farrell said immediately.
“Good.” Markus pushed his glass away. “Now let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“I need to spill blood tonight.”
“You . . . need to?” asked Farrell, this time certain that he was unable to hide the surprise he felt.
Markus regarded him calmly. “Spilling blood brings about blood magic. Blood magic gives me enough strength to make it through another night, another week, another month.”
“How often do you do this?”
“Whenever I feel the need.”
Farrell practically heard the click of a large piece of a very complex puzzle settling into place. “So this is the real reason why we hold executions at the society?”
Four times a year, Markus brought a criminal to trial at the society. A jury of Hawkspear members would sentence death by execution upon the guilty citizen, and Markus would stab them in the heart with his golden dagger. A swift death, followed by a wave of rapturous magic that swept over the entire society. Addictive magic.
“No, that’s not the reason. You know very well why we host the executions.” With that, Markus stood up to go. “Come on now. We have work to do.”
The two left the bar and walked out into the nighttime streets of Toronto. Farrell wasn’t sure what to think about learning Markus’s secret to permanent life, but he wasn’t about to argue or ask questions. Not when they were on the hunt for Markus’s next victim.
“There.” Markus nodded at a man twenty feet ahead of them on the sidewalk. “He’s a killer, walking among innocents, seeking another victim.”
“Him?” Farrell asked in a whisper. “How do you know? We can’t even see his face.”
“I can sense it. I can feel the evil emanating from his very soul.”
Farrell considered this for a moment. “I killed someone. What’s emanating from my soul?”
Markus cast him a sidelong look. “Loyalty belonging to someone I can trust to do what needs to be done for the good of the world, even if it is distasteful. The certainty I feel about your loyalty is unlike anything I’ve encountered since Jonathan was alive.”
Jonathan Kendall—Crys and Becca’s great-grandfather and the cofounder of the Hawkspear Society. It was the most meaningful compliment Farrell had ever been paid.
He narrowed his gaze at their target. “What do you need me to do?”
“For now, just keep following him. We need to get him somewhere private.”
They trailed the man down that same central road for fifteen minutes, until he stopped at the intersection of a small street. He turned left, and Markus and Farrell followed, finding themselves on a dark, narrow road, vacant except for the three of them.
Markus nodded at Farrell. “Go. Hold him in place. My strength—it won’t be enough tonight without help.”
Without a single question or thought, Farrell quickened his steps. He caught up and started walking next to the man, who looked up at him with a frown.
“Nice evening,” Farrell said.
“I suppo—”
Farrell grabbed the man’s arm. He wrenched it behind his back, and the man yelped out in pain. Quickly, without much effort at all, Farrell had both of his arms pinned securely.
“What the hell are you doing?” the man cried out.
“Shut up,” Farrell growled. “You know you deserve this. You know what you’ve done.”
“What have I done? I haven’t done anything! Do you want my wallet? My phone? You can have them—anything!”
A shadow crossed over them as Markus approached. He drew the golden dagger from beneath his coat. The man struggled even more at the sight of it, but Farrell easily held him in place.
“You are guilty of murder,” Markus told him flatly. “And so I must sentence you to death. This world will be a b
etter place without you in it.”
“What? What are you talking about? Murder? I haven’t murdered—”
Markus plunged the dagger into the man’s chest. His body went rigid, pushing back against Farrell, but without another word, not one more useless plea or argument, he slid down to the sidewalk.
And instantly, a wash of golden power hit Farrell with the force of a tsunami.
Pure pleasure flowed into him and saturated every limb, every cell of his body. So this was what it was like when he didn’t have to share it with two hundred other people.
“Do you feel it?” Markus asked.
“Yes.” Farrell had felt this magic before, but not until tonight had it made him feel like a god.
The wave of power began to fade, and Farrell gasped for breath. He shook his head and tried to focus on Markus. “Do you feel any better now?”
Markus looked down grimly at the man’s dead body. “No. It’s not enough anymore. I’m not strong enough to face Jackie, to do what needs to be done to acquire the Codex—permanently this time. And the girl . . .”
If Markus failed, if he died, all of this would be over. Half of Farrell was concerned for Markus’s fate—and the fate of the world he wanted to help. But the other half was concerned purely for his own future, which was now tied up with Markus’s. The stronger Markus was, the stronger Farrell would be.
“What can I do?” he asked.
Markus looked up from the corpse. They’d need to dispose of it quickly, Farrell thought. “There is something,” Markus said. “Something I’ve never tried before.”
“Tell me.”
“To gain my daughter’s dormant magic, I will need to give her a very special mark. But all of life is composed of magic—elemental magic. You have some of this magic within you to share, especially now that you are so strong.”
Farrell blinked, trying to sort all of this out in his mind. “So . . . you can give me another mark—a mark that lets me share my strength with you?”
“Yes. I would understand if you weren’t willing. This could take a toll on you.”
Farrell almost laughed aloud. “I have you and that dagger to thank for the strength I have. Of course I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help you.” Without another word, Farrell undid the button at his left cuff and pulled up his shirtsleeve to bare his arm.
Markus’s jaw was tense as he took the golden blade and wiped the man’s blood on a handkerchief. “I knew you were the one, Farrell. The one who could truly help me. Thank you for this.”
Farrell gritted his teeth as the tip of the blade sank into his flesh, still sensitive from the last time. He watched Markus carve the symbol, which was much more intricate than the previous ones. It was composed of loops and wavy lines, almost as if Markus were writing words in script, but it was in a language Farrell had ever seen before.
“The language from the Codex,” Connor offered in his mind.
Yes, that was it. That’s what Markus was etching into his arm—a language of magic, whose twists and turns were far more painful than even the most complex tattoo. He watched his blood drip to the ground, forming black puddles in the moonlight, and the pain was so strong and the mark so intricate that he thought Markus would never finish.
Finally, though, Markus was finished. He looked up, his forehead shining with perspiration and his hands smeared with Farrell’s blood. “Yes,” he said, looking at the finished mark. “I think that will do it.”
Farrell watched through a veil of pain as the foreign words etched into his arm began to glow with a golden light that seemed to come from within him. Markus reached over and covered Farrell’s forearm with both of his hands and, shuddering with the effort, summoned the little magic he had left to heal the wound.
When it was done, Farrell wiped the blood away, surprised to see that he could still plainly see the words—lightly, as if they were a scar from a years-old wound.
Markus looked exhausted and disappointed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s the best I could do.”
“It’s fine.” Farrell closed his eyes. He stood still and silent, trying to sense whether anything had changed within him, but he felt the same as before—strong, awake, alive.
Farrell opened his eyes to find Markus looking at him in a dead-on stare. His eyes appeared to glow softly, golden. “You will be greatly rewarded for this, I promise you,” he said.
Farrell was counting on it.
Chapter 9
MADDOX
After the beheading, Maddox couldn’t shake the strange feeling that someone was watching him. The feeling was fleeting, only lasting a moment or two, but long enough to notice the hawk that had come down to land in the center of the crowd in the palace square and that then took flight again the second he’d glanced at it.
Was it the hawk he felt watching him?
Perhaps Valoria was right: Listening to too many fantastical tales did numb the mortal mind. Such ludicrous theories as being watched by a hawk were the work of an overactive imagination.
But was it ludicrous? As soon as the hawk left, whispers of the name Becca began to stir in Maddox’s mind. Still, this kind of thing had been happening a lot lately, anytime he witnessed something that reminded him of his friend. Becca would have hated to witness this execution. In fact, she’d once told him that she hated everything about Mytica . . . except for Maddox himself.
She’d liked him when he hadn’t liked himself. She’d believed in him when he’d doubted every decision he made. She’d quickly become the best friend he’d ever had.
“And what would you suggest?” Barnabas asked Camilla. “Should we go ahead and demand information from a severed head?”
“Yes,” Maddox said, suddenly drawn out of his memories of the spirit girl. “I think that’s exactly what we should do.”
Both Barnabas and Camilla shot him a startled look, as if they’d forgotten he was even there.
“The head doesn’t look very receptive to such a suggestion,” Camilla said gently, placing a hand on Maddox’s shoulder. She turned to Barnabas. “Perhaps we should leave and find ourselves a nice meal somewhere.”
“I’m a necromancer,” Maddox explained. “I vividly recall raising skeletons from their graves not so long ago.”
“That’s true,” Barnabas replied, studying him with a serious look. “Do you believe you could use that kind of magic on purpose, not by accident?”
“I’m not sure,” he said honestly. “But I could try.”
Barnabas looked up at the crowd around them, then drew Maddox and Camilla off to the side of the square, away from the ears of any curious passersby. “Even if you did raise those dead, all you rose were a bunch of shuffling, mindless corpses who didn’t seem very open to conversations about revolutionary actions.”
“Those corpses had all been long dead,” Camilla said. “Some of them for centuries, I’m sure. The scribe only just died. He’s still”—she grimaced—“fresh. That could make all the difference.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Don’t discount the potential of this without careful consideration,” Camilla said. Her lopsided eyes were narrowed and curious. “I know you’re afraid that if he goes too far, dark magic will consume him. But he’s strong and capable. He’s already shown us that. And if this doesn’t work, we’re no worse off than we are now. At the very least, it will be a great test of what is and isn’t possible.”
Barnabas’s expression grew tense. With a furrowed brow, he studied Maddox for so long it seemed as if the man might never speak again.
“If you really won’t agree to this,” Camilla said, “then there’s always my plan.”
“Not a chance,” Barnabas said through gritted teeth.
“What plan?” Maddox asked.
Camilla raised a patchy eyebrow. “To go to the South and seek audience with Cleiona. Her infamous hatred for Valoria could prove useful to us.”
“You said her name,” Maddox pointed out.
?
??Yes, and perhaps she’ll hear me and agree to help. Save ourselves a trip to the South.”
“No,” Barnabas said firmly. “As much as I despise Valoria, you’ll never get me to agree to beg that other one. Not for anything. Ever. Those two are equally vile and equally in need of being destroyed.”
“Well then.” The witch spread her hands. “It seems you have limited choices, doesn’t it?”
Barnabas fell silent again, face reddening and jaw clenched. “Very well, Maddox,” he said finally. “You can try to coax answers out of the head. But the moment I feel it’s too much, that it’s getting too dark, you will stop. Do you hear me?”
Maddox just looked at him, barely repressing a smile.
“What?” Barnabas demanded.
“You sound a little like a . . . a parent. If I were anyone else, would you be so protective?”
Barnabas grimaced and then swore under his breath. “I do, don’t I? Telling you what to do and what not to do. My apologies.”
“No, it’s fine. I just meant . . .” What had he meant? He hadn’t expected Barnabas to suddenly take on a fatherly role; it was coming as quite a surprise. “It’s fine,” he said. “This time, I suppose.”
“This”—Camilla clasped both of their arms, grinning widely—“is adorable. Shall we all embrace?”
Barnabas shot her a dry look. “Not when we have to find a way to steal a freshly severed head in front of a large crowd.”
Camilla winked. “I can help with that.”
• • •
They waited until night had fallen like a dark blanket over the kingdom. The first part of Camilla’s plan to steal the head was for Barnabas to cause a distraction that would draw the attention of the guards and any citizens milling about at that late hour. As soon as it was time, Barnabas set off for the square just in front of the palace, playing the part of a dangerously drunk reveler on the verge of causing great destruction. Just as Camilla had promised, a group of guards heard his racket and rushed over to investigate. While they were preoccupied with Barnabas, Camilla summoned a gust of wind that, miraculously, was strong enough to dislodge the scribe’s head from the spike. Off it flew, and landed directly into the canvas sack that Maddox was waiting with below.