I swallowed the knot in my throat. I wasn’t that little girl anymore. And that man, the man he used to be, was dead. Dead right there across the room from me, waiting patiently for me to take the next step forward. Waiting like he believed in me. Believed I was strong enough to do this, to bring Zayvion’s soul home.
I took the next step. “Don’t call me Angel.” Because I couldn’t love him. Couldn’t hope for him to be my real father, my living father.
Stone walked with me, his head pushed up beneath my hand, his wing draped against my shoulder. We crossed the room, my footsteps muffled. It felt like I had cotton stuffed in my ears. A bell-tone ring echoed back from the walls, and from the floor beneath my feet. Pure and rolling like a chorus of angels, each tone rode the next, familiar, lovely, haunting, and made me ache to hear the next note.
I was halfway across the room before I realized I hadn’t been paying any attention to where I was going.
Hypnotic, that song. Soothing, this place.
And the last thing I needed was to be distracted in death. To keep my head clear, I recited my mantra and took slow, even breaths. The air was a little easier to breathe in here. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.
“In there,” New Dad said.
We stood in front of an archway carved in flowered reliefs of gilded steel blue and metallic roses. As I watched, the flowers budded, blossomed into open blooms, then dropped their petals one by one to where another flower budded, and blossomed again in a tranquil cycle.
I lost track of where I was headed again. That was not good. I needed to pay attention. Needed to walk through this place and find Zay.
I bit the inside of my cheek. And I mean bit hard. I didn’t feel a thing. Huh.
Both dads were watching me. “Look inside,” Old Dad said.
I peered into the room and caught my breath. Zayvion was in there, seven feet tall, the black flame a hazy flicker over his glyph-marked skin. He stood in the center of the room, surrounded by Hungers. He had chains on his neck, waist, hands, and feet.
The glyphs worked into his skin were no longer silver but ash black. Threads of smoke spun off of him in colored threads, streams of magic that poured into the Hungers’ mouths, filling the ribbons of magic around their bodies until those ribbons brightened and tightened like candy-colored bandages.
“Take this thing off me.” I held my wrist out. I didn’t care if all Dad planned to do was stand here and stare at Zayvion while the beasts ate at his magic.
I still had a katana, and I aimed to use it.
“Has it done any good?” Old Dad asked.
New Dad answered. “Some. There is still too little light magic. He is the guardian of the gates, but his connection to life is too tenuous. They can’t pull enough magic through him. He’s burning out.”
I didn’t know what they were talking about, but it didn’t sound good.
“Break this,” I said again.
Three of the Hungers in the other room whimpered, then moved slowly and heavily, as if bearing a huge weight. The ribbons wrapped around them were glossy and fat with magic—magic they had taken from Zayvion.
He wasn’t burning out; he was being devoured.
Three more Hungers stepped up to take their place, entering from a wide door on the other side of the room. Ten beasts surrounded him, mouths hinged open to drink down the magic.
Old Dad was suddenly in front of me.
“. . . Allison, hear me.” He squeezed my shoulder.
I hadn’t even seen him move.
I blinked. Got the prerequisite frown. But no anger this time. He placed his fingertips under my chin, tipped my face, and gazed into my eyes like a doctor checking to see if I had a concussion.
“She’s drifting.”
New Dad moved past us both and into the room with Zayvion and the beasts. “Now. It must be now.”
“You are here to save Zayvion’s soul,” Old Dad said like maybe I had forgotten that already. “You are here to take it back with you into life so he may live. So that you may live. You must keep your hand on the Animate or myself to breathe. Do you understand me?”
“I understand that if I have to stand here while you tell me things I already know, I’m going to shove this Influence up your nose.” I made a fist, to make my point clear.
He smiled. “That’s my girl.”
Then he stepped away and Stone was there, his big warm shoulder against my knee and thigh, his wing up on my back, his head under my left hand.
Right. I had to hold on to him. I remembered that. And I had to go save Zay. I remembered that too.
Old Dad walked into the room where New Dad drew something in the air—a glyph? He held something in his other hand. I couldn’t see since his back was turned to me. Whatever it was, that motion was a signal to the Hungers. They all backed away from Zayvion and lumbered toward the open door on the other side of the room.
Stone stepped forward.
Right. I was supposed to be walking.
I got busy doing that—walking—and pretty soon I was in the room. The ceiling was lower in here. It was warmer in here. I could breathe a little more here. And Zayvion was here. Things were finally looking up.
As soon as I was a few steps into the room, I could feel Zayvion’s presence. Then I didn’t need anything to remind me to walk. I ran.
I knew where I had to be. Knew where I belonged. With him. Even here. Even in death. Maybe especially here.
He stood in deep meditation, eyes closed, hands held low, palms up as if he were receiving, not giving away all of his magic. A glyph on the floor pulsed beneath his feet in rhythm to his heartbeat. The chains around his neck, waist, wrists, and feet anchored into the glyph and were made of the same blue-white substance of the walls.
How could I wake him, free him? The black flames that wrapped his body didn’t give off any heat; the glyphs against his skin were concrete gray. If it hadn’t been for the slow pulse of the glyph beneath his feet, I wouldn’t have thought he was inside that silent, silent shell.
I pressed my fingertips against his bare chest, my palm over the fire of his heart. “Hey, lover,” I breathed.
His emotions, his thoughts, filled me and I inhaled, wanting to make room for more of him, all of him.
Allie, he exhaled through my mind. I couldn’t find you. Relief and fear. Then, anger. You didn’t follow. Tell me you didn’t follow me into death. Tell me you’re alive.
“I’m alive,” I said out loud. I remembered what New Dad had said about Leander and Isabelle getting too close and being unable to draw apart. Zayvion and I were Soul Complements too. If I started talking in his head, I might lose track of myself. I couldn’t do that. I was counting on me to get us home.
But sweet hells, I wanted to lose myself in him.
It isn’t safe, he said. I told you not to come, not to find me. I told you not to risk yourself. Then, almost in a panic, You promised me you wouldn’t be a hero.
He was frightened. Angry. Tied down. Stuck. Dead. And I had thrown myself into the grave after him.
Yeah, well, maybe. But I’d been smart enough to bring a shovel and a ladder with me before I jumped in.
I pulled my hand away, breaking our connection. I didn’t have enough brain to think my own thoughts, much less listen to his and deal with our combined fears. I was beyond tired and wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep. I didn’t think I was going to last much longer in death.
We had to leave. Together. Now.
“How do I free him?”
“A Release, or Compulsion,” Old Dad said. “You will need to find a vessel for him to inhabit. He cannot walk through the gate back into life in this form.”
“What? Why? He came through the gate in this form without a vessel.”
“Every living thing can pass into death. It’s a door that swings one way.”
“Hungers and other creatures come through gates into life all the time.”
“The Hungers cross thro
ugh but exist only briefly in life without magic to feed on and sustain them. When magic is gone, they are spirit form again. But a soul. . . . ” He paused. “A soul is a very different matter. Once a soul crosses into death, it can never return to life. Always, the body follows into death.”
“Not always,” New Dad said.
Old Dad looked annoyed that he had brought that up. “True. There are exceptions. Rare circumstances. But Zayvion is not one of those exceptions. His soul will slip through your fingers and fall back into death before you can rejoin his soul to body—if you can rejoin his soul to body. That will take a mastery of Life and Death magic, which you do not possess.”
“Won’t you be surprised when I do it anyway?”
“Allie,” New Dad said, “Zayvion carries the glyphs of light and dark magic on his soul. It is one of the prices of being a guardian of the gates and using both light and dark magic. It marks his soul. And that which gives him strength in life chains him in death.”
“You said if I opened a gate, he could go back.”
“I never promised it would be easy. The glyphs have taken root in death now,” Old Dad said.
He was right. The ashy glyphs trailed down his body, long tendrils of silver and gray smoke that sank like the chains into the floor.
He was trapped here. Those chains on his ankles, wrists, waist, and neck weren’t just magic—they were the magic burned into his soul.
No. Hells no. I knew how to break a chain. I was good at destroying things. And if Zayvion and I were really Soul Complements, then I was the perfect person to bring his soul home.
I reached for the katana over my shoulder.
“Do not draw the sword,” Old Dad and New Dad said.
“If you won’t break him free, I’ll do it.” Only problem? I couldn’t pull the sword. I was still under their Influence.
“Without a vessel, you will kill him.”
“Bullshit.”
“You might free his soul here in death.” Old Dad’s voice rose. “But it will not survive returning to life. How many times must I say the same thing before you listen to me?”
Stone growled. And I knew why.
A man, easily eight feet tall, strode through the doorway and into the room with us. He carried himself with an air of command, and though he wore slacks and a button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves, he really looked like the type who would be comfortable wearing a military uniform. His hair was short and black, his eyes iceberg blue in a face that might have been handsome if he hadn’t looked so worn and sad.
The sadness surprised me. I had seen him only once before, when I was being tested as Zayvion’s Soul Complement. He had been furious then. It was Mikhail. The man who used to be the head of the Authority before he tampered too much with dark magic and broke the rules. Before he had been killed and Sedra had taken his place as the head of the Authority.
Mikhail was the man who opened a gate in the middle of Zay’s and my test and tried to kill all the magic users gathered, Sedra included. If Cody Miller, the broken-minded savant who pulled magic through me and gave me the marks on my body, hadn’t jumped into the gate between life and death and sealed it, Mikhail and the Hungers at his command would have succeeded in killing us all.
He was not a man to fuck around with.
I pulled on the sword, but my muscles refused to respond. The dads had told me I couldn’t use it. Well, that wasn’t the only weapon I carried. I let go of the katana and drew the blood blade on my belt instead.
Problem One: I could wield it only at close range.
Problem Two: I could not let go of Stone’s head and breathe at the same time.
Problem Three: I was in a very bad mood and felt the need to be killing something real quick if someone didn’t get the hell out of my way and kick open a gate to life that I could drag Zayvion through.
“The blood blade will do you no good here,” Mikhail said. His voice vibrated like a low bell through the walls and floor.
“Let’s try it and find out,” I said.
Mikhail looked at my dad—Old Dad. “Is this your daughter, Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. As you said, she is rare. She carries magic in her body, and such magic in her soul. You have done well to bring her to me.”
What? No. Hell, no.
“Then our agreement stands?” Old Dad asked.
“If she relinquishes her power to me.”
They were in cahoots. All this time, my dad was on the bad guy’s side. It shouldn’t surprise me, but damn it, I thought there was a sliver of decency somewhere in his dark, calculating soul. I thought there was some good in him that made my newest stepmom, Violet, love him, grieve for him, have a baby for him.
But Violet was wrong and I was right. My dad was a lying rat bastard.
Old Dad walked forward and grasped Mikhail’s hand in his own. It wasn’t quite a handshake. It was more of a passing of something between them. Mikhail nodded. Old Dad stepped back.
Even though I was in a room full of things that could eat me, kill me, betray me, Stone, who usually had his hackles up in every dangerous situation, had been silent. Maybe I wasn’t in as much danger as I thought I was.
Or maybe I shouldn’t rely on a rock for my warning system.
“What power?” I finally asked. Just holding the blade was making me tired.
“Magic always demands a price.” Mikhail’s words thrummed through the room again. “This you know.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That,” I said, “any idiot knows.”
My dad, Old Dad, shook his head and refused to make eye contact. Like I’d used the wrong spoon at a dinner with an important business client. He had something riding on this. Something important to him.
“For the right price,” Mikhail went on with a little less thrum and a little more boom, “I will allow you to leave this realm of death, with the guardian’s soul. I will open the doorway for you. Near enough the guardian’s body that you may return his soul.”
Why did I feel like I was making a deal with the devil?
Oh, right. Because I was.
“What’s the price?”
“You will give up to me, willingly, the magic you hold within you.”
I did not like that idea. Not at all. But carrying magic in my body was a new thing for me. I’d always had a small magic in me, just a candle-flame’s worth in my soul that I could use for maybe one spell. Cody Miller had pulled more magic into me when he was dying and created lines and paths and channels so that magic filled me—sometimes too much. It might be a good thing not to have to worry about burning down the city every time I cast a spell.
“The magic in my body?” I asked, just to make sure I knew what kind of deal we were making.
“No,” he said. “Not the magic in your body. I want the small magic in your soul.”
Chapter Four
Mikhail folded his hands. He didn’t seem angry. He seemed resigned, as if he had seen too much pain and knew there would always be more pain to see.
He did not look like a world-crushing, magic-hungry maniac.
Then again, he was the first world-crushing, magic-hungry maniac I’d met.
“You can’t take my small magic from me. It’s mine. It’s always been mine.” It felt like my nightmare was having nightmares. Dad had stuck his hands in me and messed with my small magic already today. I never wanted to feel that again.
“That is true. I cannot take it from you. But you can give it to me. Willingly.”
Yeah, give him my magic so he could break open the gates between life and death again and do what? Unleash those holy terrors upon my city and friends. He would use my magic to kill and destroy. I couldn’t let him do that.
“No. A million times no.” I wasn’t going to put the entire world in danger.
Dad closed his eyes. “There are moments when I regret I allowed you to slip my control.”
“If I have to pay a price, that’s fine,” I said. “Ask for som
ething else. I’ll give you a two-for-one deal on my dad’s soul.”
“There is nothing else I want. If you wish to take the guardian’s soul back to life, if you want to live, you will give me the magic in your soul. It is the only way you will leave this realm.”
“No deal.” I reached out for Zayvion again, my hand and blood dagger against his chest.
Want to help me out with this? I thought. My heart was racing. As soon as I touched him, his fear mixed with mine and only made things worse.
Don’t sacrifice yourself, he said. Don’t give him your magic. Negotiate to open a gate and go home. I’ll return to you.
You’re chained down. They have you trapped, Zay. You can’t get out of this. They’re drinking you dry. I couldn’t say any more, couldn’t tell him he was dying in death. But I knew he felt my fear.
He was quiet for a moment, sorting our fear, weighing our chances. Then, calmly, Leave me here, Allie. I am already dead. You can still live.
Great. Zay had turned martyr on me. Not helpful.
I didn’t know what to do. I truly, truly didn’t.
“I know you don’t trust me,” New Dad said. “And probably don’t like me since you just tried to sell my soul. But let me say this: I don’t want you to stay here. I’ve worked very hard. . . . ” He glanced over at Old Dad. “I’ve worked very hard for a long time to make sure you would be safe if this day ever came. I never wanted this to happen, but life and death rarely go according to plan. This is the only way you can take Zayvion with you. To return to life you’ll need to relinquish magic, Angel. This is the best I could do for you.”
“Don’t call me Angel. You haven’t done anything for me. It’s all been for you. You traded my magic without asking me. It’s not yours—it’s never been yours. And you expect me to honor your deal?”
“Yes. If you want to save Zayvion.”
“I can’t,” I said. “If I give my magic away, what do you think Mikhail will do with it? Destroy the world? I can’t pay that price. I can’t make everyone else suffer so I can have Zay.” I was angry and horrified that no one understood what was really going on here. They were making me choose between saving Zayvion and saving the world. I couldn’t make that choice. I shouldn’t put my love—my desperation—for Zay over the good of the whole world, and yet I wanted him alive with me so badly it hurt.