“Aw, sweetheart. Quite honestly? I don’t want to. This is how it has to be.”
“Oh, little brother,” imaginary Connor suddenly piped up. “You are so screwed. All because of this incompetent blonde.”
“Shut up,” he growled.
Julia poked him in the back with her gun. “Keep moving.”
He narrowed his eyes but kept shuffling forward until they reached the end of the hallway, which opened up to the backstage area. He was half expecting to see Markus waiting for him at their destination. It was his theater after all, his stage. His domain.
The stage lights were on. Farrell looked out at the audience, and the brightness blinded him. He shielded his eyes and scanned the stage, then looked out at the familiar sea of red seats.
No sign of Markus. No sign of Crys’s kid sister.
Suddenly, a memory of his Hawkspear initiation three years ago washed over him. Markus himself—an enigma, a god—had called a sixteen-year-old Farrell up in front of the whole society. Farrell, whose flesh was still free of any marks, agreed to abide by society rules. He swore to honor their code and keep the society’s secrets safe from the rest of the world—especially the details of what happened at their quarterly meetings.
Soon after Farrell had made these promises, Markus called a stranger to the stage. It became clear that Markus had brought this man to the stage to be tried for the crime of murdering a society member’s cousin and husband.
The jury of society members swiftly found him guilty, and just as swiftly Markus’s dagger found his heart.
Afterward, Markus had turned to Farrell and reemphasized the purpose of these criminal hearings: Hawkspear members had been called to perform the duty of ridding the world of evildoers and thus evil things. He then asked Farrell if he was still prepared to pledge his support, and Farrell had responded with a quiet but resolute yes.
Though he’d said yes almost immediately, he foggily remembered feeling a large measure of reluctance to join in the horror that he’d just witnessed.
But all of his doubt and fear faded as soon as Markus sliced the dagger through his skin to create his first mark.
“Crystal and Farrell,” echoed a voice from the audience. Farrell squinted again until he could just make out Damen Winter, the man who’d made that very dagger. “Welcome to my stage.”
“This isn’t your stage,” Farrell said, forcing himself to sound much stronger than he currently felt. “Where’s Markus?”
“Odd,” Damen eerily cooed. “I was going to ask you the very same question.”
Farrell tried very hard not to react, to make himself look as calm and collected as he possibly could. Was Damen no longer keeping Markus here? If not, where was he?
Suddenly, stumbling in from stage left was Angus, pushed along by one of Damen’s masked men. Angus glared at the man, then dusted off his sleeve.
“Hi, kids,” he said. “Hello again, Julia. What a fine gun you have there.”
“Angus Balthazar,” Damen said. “It’s certainly a pleasure to meet you.”
Angus frowned out at the audience, straining to see past the blinding lights. “From the little I’ve heard about you, I’m sure I’m quite pleased to meet you too. What can I tell you that might prevent my swift and untimely death?”
Farrell shot the thief a dark look. From the moment they’d met, Farrell could tell by Angus’s tacky, faux-sophisticated demeanor that he was an opportunist who’d sell out his own grandmother—or steal from someone else’s—to save his own neck.
“You got a plan, little brother?” not-Connor asked. “Or are you going to stand here like a victim in waiting? Then again, so many of Markus’s victims have lost their lives here on this stage. Why should you be any different?”
He’d thought he and Markus had been growing closer, that they were becoming friends, but all this time Markus had been grooming him to become the victim of the mysterious fourth mark.
Did you get one too, Connor? he wondered, but this time his imaginary brother chose to remain silent.
“Hold on to that thought, Mr. Balthazar,” Damen said. “I very well may need some information that only you can provide.”
“Please, call me Angus.”
“Very well, Angus. Now stop talking.”
Angus made a strange little squeaking sound. He kept opening his mouth, but no words came out.
Damen turned his hollow black eyes to Crys. “Crystal, how are you feeling?” he asked. “I know it’s been a difficult couple of days for you.”
She was trembling. Farrell was expecting her face to fill with fear at this sudden confrontation with Damen, but as his eyes adjusted to the glare of the bright stage lights, all he saw in her was fury.
“Let my sister and my mother go,” she said.
“Did you have a pleasant tour of the dressing rooms?” he said, ignoring her request completely. “Of course I noticed the moment you three snuck in. You were quite quiet little mice, but not nearly quiet enough.”
Crys frowned. “The Whisperer . . . that’s what Angus said some people are calling you, right? I didn’t understand that nickname before. What you did at the ball, it . . . it was the opposite of a whisper . . . when you killed those people . . .”
“I didn’t kill you,” he pointed out.
Angus squeaked again.
“But . . . but it’s you I’ve been hearing in my head. Whispering. At the ball and here too. I thought it was me, my own thoughts, my own voice in my head telling me what to do, what to believe. It was impossible to ignore.” She pressed her hands against her temples. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Damen smiled coldly, his mouth set in a grim line. “Have I really told you what to do? I didn’t tell you to kiss Farrell. Not specifically, at least. But all it took was a gentle nudge to make you take action. Imagine what I could make you do if I actually tried.”
Wait, Farrell thought. That kiss had been a result of Damen’s magical persuasion?
Of course it had been. Why should this come as even the slightest surprise? Crys would never have kissed him of her own free will.
He was surprised to find himself disappointed at the truth.
He forced himself to focus again on Damen, hate rising within him. He’d never felt loathing like he did for this creature—this monster who had appeared from nowhere to destroy everything that crossed his path.
He was far more powerful than Markus—that much was clear.
Farrell had to admit how truly frightening that fact was.
Markus, where the hell are you? he thought.
Crys stared at Damen, her expression a mix of shame and shock. Julia watched her watching him, her brow furrowed slightly but her expression otherwise blank. Crys blinked a few times, as if willing any distracting feelings away, and then stood up straighter.
“Do you do this with everyone you meet?” Crys asked. “Force them to do things because you’re just that terrible at face-to-face communication? And I thought Markus was evil.”
Damen laughed lightly. “Oh, you mortals. Always hearing only what you want to hear, believing what you want to believe. Watching you all is so fascinating . . . and so very tiresome. Now I’m going to repeat myself, and you see if you can listen carefully and understand this time. For some mortals—mortals like you, Crystal—no force is necessary to push them where I need them to go. When it comes to their basest desires, all mortals can be manipulated with only the quietest of whispers. Rarely does anyone even attempt to fight these kinds of suggestions. Crystal certainly didn’t, did she, Farrell?”
Again, he was rubbing the fake kiss in Farrell’s face. Damen seemed to know that would bother him, even before Farrell himself did.
“No,” Farrell replied, still fighting to appear calm. “She certainly didn’t. Best kiss I’ve had all week, so I guess I should thank you.”
“What are you?” Crys managed, her voice breaking.
Damen turned his icy gaze on Crys. “I’m the whisper in your ear encoura
ging you to take the first step. To be brave. To follow your heart and kiss the boy. Or to listen to your fear and run away and hide. Or to recognize a loss and give up, jump off the ledge.” Damen paused, turning back to Farrell now. He waited, just staring at him with that evil, grimacing grin that set Farrell’s chest on fire with dread. “Or even,” he finally continued, “to slit your wrists.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in.
But then they did. Farrell turned to ice.
“It was you,” Farrell said, his voice now raw and brittle. “You got into Connor’s head. You told him to kill himself.”
“Did I?” Damen’s tone was casual as he let his chilling question hang in the air. He just sat back and watched them, lurking like a black-eyed predator in the shadows of the auditorium.
Silence hung in the air as Farrell began to tremble with rage and a fresh, stomach-churning dose of grief.
Not-Connor remained quiet, offering no commentary.
“My—my great-grandmother committed suicide too,” Crys said, glancing at her mother, who stood stiff like a soldier on the stage. “She jumped off a building.”
“Pushed,” Julia said under her breath, shaking her head. “She was pushed by Markus.”
“Ah, yes, Rebecca Kendall,” Damen said. “She was such a single-minded woman. Always so determined to protect her family yet failing at every turn.”
Julia’s frown deepened. Crys tore her gaze from her mother’s to look accusingly at Damen. “So you just decided she should take her own life?” she asked.
Damen shrugged slightly. “She was already old, sick. She didn’t have much time left. In a way, I did her a favor.”
“Connor was young. He had his whole life in front of him,” Farrell growled. “I knew it. I knew my brother would never kill himself, no matter how bad things got.”
Not-Connor was silent inside Farrell’s head. It was the first time since he’d taken up residence there that he hadn’t piped in to comment on the topic of his own death.
“You look at me and you see a monster,” Damen said. “But your eyes deceive you. The real monster is the mutual friend Rebecca and Connor shared. Markus King. Markus needed Connor, so I took Connor away. Markus needed Jackie, but he lost her the moment Rebecca died and she was led to believe that Markus pushed her. And what a fool he’s been, completely unaware that I’ve been here the whole time. Watching. Waiting. Manipulating the world around him until it was the perfect time for me to come forward to destroy it completely.”
It took every last scrap of control for Farrell not to make a suicide leap into the audience and tear Damen into small, bloody pieces with his bare hands. He seethed, his body blazing with hatred for this dark creature.
“Did my great-grandmother’s death also have to do with you wanting the book too?” Crys asked. Farrell could tell she was fighting tears.
Damen frowned. In the loaded silence that followed Crys’s question, Farrell could tell that Damen had no idea what she was talking about.
Farrell went very still. He hoped that Crys would notice this too and know to close her mouth, not to say another word. Damen seemingly knew everything, was omnipotent, and could control the fate of this and any other world. But if he didn’t know about the Bronze Codex . . .
Maybe there was still hope.
He almost laughed. Hope. What a strange word to come to his mind. Until just now he’d thought that word had been dropped from his vocabulary altogether.
Maybe Crys felt that same hope: She didn’t say another word after Damen failed to acknowledge her question, and Farrell knew she noticed his confusion too. But now it was too silent in the theater.
“You know, the book?” he said. “The one that Rebecca Kendall owned for years and refused to sell to him? It needs to be translated from some ancient language and he’s still looking for where it went after all these years.”
“Markus and his books,” Damen said, shaking his head. “His first love.”
“Where is he?” Farrell demanded. Thanks to the bizarre bonding and visionary magic of his fourth mark, he knew Markus had been here earlier. “I know you’re keeping him here somewhere. Markus and Becca.”
Damen nodded shallowly, his eyes narrowing. “They were here.”
Crys gasped, and her gaze turned frantic. “Mom,” she turned to Julia, “what happened? Where’s Becca?”
Julia remained as still as a statue, her gaze resolutely forward, but her jaw was tight.
“It’s all right, Julia,” Damen said. “Tell your daughter what happened.”
“Yes, Damen.” Julia turned toward Farrell and Crys. “Earlier this morning, Damen placed Markus in a locked room, alone, with Becca.”
Crys let out a desperate gasp. “Oh God. Did he hurt Becca? Is she all right?”
“We don’t know. When we returned less than an hour later, the room was empty.”
Crys’s eyes widened. “They escaped.”
Julia shook her head. “Impossible. That room is impenetrable.”
“Which, as a Hawkspear Society member, Farrell should be well aware of,” Damen said. “So my question to you is: Where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” Farrell replied. “I honestly don’t.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth. I don’t know where they are. I suppose they did escape.” He paused, frowning at his own words. “No, they couldn’t have. If you’re talking about the prison room, it’s completely sealed: only one way in and only one way out.”
Farrell couldn’t believe his own words. Why had he answered so truthfully? And so quickly too?
It was Damen. He was using his magic to get him to tell to the truth.
“Did you know that when an immortal dies, he leaves no corpse?” Damen said, his voice an intrusion on Markus’s thoughts. “In death, an immortal’s body returns to the magic of which it’s composed.”
Farrell stared out at him, in denial of what Damen was suggesting.
“If Markus didn’t escape from that room,” the monster continued, “then my belief is that he is dead.”
Oh my God, Farrell thought.
The pain—that wrenching moment of pain in Angus’s car when he’d felt as if something vital was being torn from his very soul . . .
Markus . . .
“But what that theory doesn’t explain,” Damen continued, “is where young Becca is. Perhaps Becca has more magic within her than I suspected. What do you think, Crystal?”
Crys shook her head. “I don’t think so. She would have told me.”
Damen was using his magical influence on her too. He was drawing the truth from both of their lips with barely any effort.
“You have a question for me, Crys,” Damen said. “Please, go ahead and ask it.”
“Did you kill my father?” she said immediately. And though there was no hesitation in her response time, she still choked out the words as if they caused her pain.
Farrell tensed.
“Your father also worked closely with Markus in the Hawkspear Society, didn’t he?” Damen went on.
“Yes,” Crys said quietly.
“How long has it been since you last saw him?”
“A week and a half.” She sniffled, and a tear slid down her cheek.
Panic building, Farrell darted his gaze around until it fell on Crys’s pink handbag, which she still held tightly to her side. Inside was the dagger.
Could a magical dagger affect a magical being?
He needed to say something, needed to diffuse this situation. To force this interrogation in a different direction.
But his mouth was too dry to speak.
“A week and a half, my goodness. We have a classic Hawkspear mystery on our hands, it would seem,” Damen said. “Perhaps Mr. Grayson can help us solve it. Farrell, do you know where Crys’s father is?”
“Yes,” Farrell answered automatically.
Damn it. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t allow Damen
to force him to say these things to Crys. Farrell was a powerful and important member of the society. He wasn’t a puppet. He wasn’t a victim.
He and he alone controlled his own fate.
She couldn’t ever know the truth of what he’d done—please, no.
“Ah! And where is he?” Damen taunted.
“He’s . . . nowhere,” Farrell said through gritted teeth, each word like a shard of glass slicing his throat. “He’s dead.”
Crys inhaled sharply as Farrell grappled to find some sort of foothold that could help him fight back against Damen’s influence.
“Did Markus kill him?” Damen asked.
Farrell tried to clamp his mouth shut, fighting to keep his tongue glued to its bottom. But it was useless. “N-no,” he spat out.
“Who did?”
No. No, no, no. Don’t say it. Fight this!
“I did.” The words were out before he even had a chance to stop them. They echoed loudly in his ears.
Standing next to her mother, Crys stared at him in shock, her pale blue eyes wide and glossy.
Farrell’s fists were clenched so tightly now that his short fingernails bit into his skin. He tried to focus on the pain, hoped it would clear his head enough to crawl his way out of this. But that was the problem. His head was already clear. Damen’s magic made Markus look like an ant wielding a grape stem and calling it a wand. He couldn’t remember a time with Markus when he didn’t have at least a chance to resist his power. But Damen . . . Damen didn’t give him a choice.
“Look at Crystal,” Damen said, his tone still humming in that constant flat monotone. “Tell her what happened. Tell her when you killed her father.”
As if at the mercy of a sadistic puppeteer, Farrell turned and met Crys’s stunned gaze.
“It was the night you and Becca escaped from here. Markus knew Daniel was a traitor. That’s an offense punishable by death.”
“No.” Crys’s eyes welled with tears. She started to sob, releasing her pain in heaving gasps.
He watched her, helpless, as a sudden wedge of pressure built up in his chest. It went deeper than the reach of his marks, past the darkness, and lodged there in his heart. He knew it wasn’t the effect of dredging up the memory of killing Daniel. It was the expression on Crys’s face as she finally learned the truth. Her sorrow found its way inside of him, burrowing into his soul so deeply that he knew it would be changed forever.