I twist my hands into knots and think about my parents. They have to be out there by now. I’m going to walk out there and they’re going to be in the front row smiling. I open my eyes. Four walls. They’re closing in on me. They’re suffocating me. I have to get out.
“Faye Middleton?” The door opens and air rushes in. I draw sharply on it as the cheering continues. Another novice and her new partner walk off stage. It’s the girl with black hair. She’s coyly looking at him from under her lashes. He looks pissed.
Nathaniel guides me forward, and I want to yank my arm from him. I want to tell him I left my courage back in that cubicle, but I don’t. I can’t. My lips are glued shut by fear. My knees have turned into two extremities of doubt, and I know I’m going to fall. I’m going to forget how to speak.
Steel blue eyes find mine from across the stage. Elder Maddock. He bows ever so slightly in my direction, his eyes seeking past my outer appearance. I wonder if he knows who I am. He has to. I stop right before him and feel like a bird trapped in a cage. I can’t escape the thousands of eyes studying me. I can’t escape the hundreds of assumptions building me into something I’m not.
“Faye Middleton,” he says, his voice eager and curious. There’s a friendly lightness in his voice I don’t expect, a sound that makes me feel safe and comfortable under his gaze. He has thick, golden brown hair combed neatly over to the side and back, showing off the squared planes of his face. He looks much younger than he should, but older than my father. “Are you ready to begin?”
I turn to the crowd and scan desperately for my parents. Eyes. There are so many eyes. Too many. They form together, creating an awful monster that wants to swallow me whole. I can’t find them. The eyes have hidden them from me. I’m all alone. I try to swallow, but my mouth is so dry. I bite the inside of my cheek, curbing the need to release tears.
The Witch standing next to him says, “Faye, he asked you a question.”
I take in a tight breath and force myself to look away and back at Maddock. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, my stomach twisting a little tighter.
He pretends not to notice the panic I’m sure my face is masked in and offers me the kindest, most patient smile. “Everyone is nervous on the day of the Culling,” he says knowingly. “I was a wreck the day of mine.”
Polite laughter comes from the audience, and I feel myself relax just enough so that I can breathe again.
He offers me a small wink…a knowing sort of wink, and says, “Your parents will be proud.” He says these words carefully, evenly, and I know he’s trying to tell me something. They’re okay? He’s aware of who I am. “So are you ready to begin?”
I want to beg him to tell me where my parents are. Every second in his presence unravels me strand by strand, tearing away my ability to stand upright, but somehow, my head functions for me and nods at him.
“Let’s start with the quartz then, shall we?” he says slowly, softly. “Let’s see just what you are.” He gestures for me to come close, and then lifts a large, oblong, pink quartz set inside a golden dish shaped like two hands from the podium. Under the poor lighting, I swear I see a constellation floating in the center.
He lifts it up and holds it out. I wrap my hands around the cool quartz and bring it to my chest while still staring at the swirling constellation through the rosy color. His Witch steps up to me and holds her hands over the quartz, spelling it to life. At any moment, I’ll know for sure what I am. My fate will be sealed, and I’ll have done it without the support of my parents, but moments tick by like tiny bombs exploding, and nothing happens.
“It’s okay,” Maddock eases, tilting his head slightly.
Murmurs break out over the crowd, and I want to shrivel up into an invisible, impenetrable shell.
He shifts a little in his stance, looks out at the crowd and offers an encouraging smile, and then looks back at me. “It doesn’t always work right away,” he says surely. “Not until you clear your mind and allow it to connect with you. Once it does, I’ll read the quartz for you. Please, clear your mind.” I find his eyes, and in them is enough strength and encouragement to carry me through a lifetime, like he’s pulled my parents through him, giving me exactly what I need.
I close my eyes, pushing the thought of everyone in the room far away from me. This is it. It has to tell me I’m one of them, that I’m not a Defect. I don’t want to be a Defect. I can’t be a Defect. Maybe if I believe this enough, the quartz will grant me this. I feel power inside of the quartz begin to take hold within the palms of my shaky hands. My eyes open. The quartz fills with an effulgent light, illuminating the room. I can’t stop the ray of hope that ignites within me and gives flight to my heart.
It’s working. The crystal is working.
Maddock’s head tilts down to the quartz. I follow his gaze. All at once, the constellation disappears and a lightning storm begins. Bolts of bright lightning strike within swirling gray clouds; the sign of the Hunter. I think my smile could reach the moon. But just when I think the decision has been made, the clouds part and reveal a mossy forest. Trees shoot up to the clouds where a moon rests; the sign of the Witch.
Maddock’s eyes jerk up to mine and then back to the quartz. A small, almost unperceivable frown appears on his lips. “I can’t get a good read,” he says over his shoulder to his Witch. Something in his tone alarms my internal warning system. “It’s flipping between the two.” The clouds morph into a calm forest, and then back again.
I look up at Maddock as I hold my breath and search his face for a sign. Most of his features are placid, unreadable, but as the images continue to waver, there’s a slight bit of disbelief that tips the edges of his brow ever so slightly. “This wasn’t…it isn’t possible.”
Lightning strikes inside the quartz, splitting trees in half. The scent of charred wood lifts from the quartz and surrounds us. The scenes merge together, and then a blast of light explodes out from the quartz and fills the room. The lights in the auditorium dim and flicker on and off. I can feel the electricity entering my body, filling me with infinite power.
Maddock’s eyes dart over to the crowd. I peer around him and witness the onlookers as they dip down, tucking themselves away from the unknown. Maddock’s mouth parts and then shuts, and then he looks back at me, questioningly.
I gaze around frantically as fire-hot electricity tingles in my fingertips. It slowly makes its way up my arm and into my heart like a dam breaking open. It washes over me, awakening what was always there. My forearm begins to burn under my long sleeve shirt. I want to let go of the quartz, but I can’t. My hands are glued by magic. The room is spinning with hysteria.
“Clara, unspell the quartz! NOW!” Maddock shouts as people start to rise out of their seats under the flickering lights. Sparks rain down on them. Cries of fear and confusion lift in the air and wrap around me.
“What’s happening,” I ask as I try to let go of the quartz. It won’t stop. The room blackens, and then screams pierce the air. Light from the quartz pours over the stage and builds with every second that passes. Everyone stops and stares, watching as only I am illuminated before them.
“Clara!” Maddock shouts again, sharply. He looks past me and nods once. Someone comes up behind me. Strong arms wrap around me. I want to scream, but I don’t. I want to fight, but I can’t. I can’t move. I can’t even blink. My whole body begins to shake as Clara’s hands hover over the quartz. I can feel her magic trying to shut it off, but it won’t. It continues to pulse with power until, finally, the quartz starts cracking in half. Pure, unfiltered light bleeds out of the center.
“She’s going to break the quartz. We have to pull her off.” He looks to whoever is holding me and nods with command. The arms around me tighten, crushing me against a thick wall of chest and heat and strength. Maddock wraps his strong hands around the stone and bits of crackling lightning spark down his arms and onto his hands.
In one blink, I’m yanked backwards and the quartz is pulled free from my hands
just before it cracks in two. The light ceases from inside the quartz, and, at the same time, the overhead lights flicker back on throughout the auditorium, returning the borrowed electricity.
I think I’m having a heart attack. I think my lungs have permanently deflated. I know my brain has forgotten how to work…too clogged with shock and fright and all the things you think linger behind your closet door at night.
“Get her off the stage!” Maddock shouts at whoever holds me. He’s moving the quartz, hiding it under a black piece of cloth. His hair’s in disarray as he frantically takes the mic. “There seems to be a malfunction with the crystal.” His lie rolls out like a red carpet waiting for me to strut down.
Questioning eyes and words and thoughts are like tiny daggers slicing and nicking my humiliation-blotched skin.
He covers the mic and turns back to the man holding me and whispers, “Take her to my office. Wait there.”
I’m spun around, hauled up into the air like a sac of cotton, and slung over a man’s shoulder before I even know what’s happening. Two strong, sturdy feet walk me off the side of the stage with careful, calculated steps. I don’t fight back. I don’t need to because it will do me no good, not against a trained Night Watchman.
I think about crying or laughing or screaming…anything to release the overwhelming panic dancing circles in my stomach.
As I’m lugged off the stage, one sobering thought forms in my mind. I never thought my life would begin with pandemonium but, then again, that’s not something you plan for. Graduating Columbia, falling in love, and finding peace amongst the pain of being shunned… those are the things I had accepted for my future, a life fulfilled as a Defect, a life that was ordinary, safe, and unremarkable, but I’m none of those things. I never had been, at least, not truly.
And I’m probably going to pay for it.
THE SIDE DOOR TO THE auditorium kicks open and I’m dunked into a warm bath of golden light. I’m cleansed from head to toe of every speculation, every lie, every moment stolen by the hands of fear. I’m a being of unresolved questions, submerged inside of truth, and swallowed by a painful realization. I’ve lost everything I’ve ever known in return for a life I’ve always dreamed of.
And for some reason, a reason I’ve yet to come to terms with, I’m upside down.
“Can you please put me down now?” I strain to ask from over the shoulder of the man carrying me. I think all of my blood has accumulated in my brain, and I’m afraid if he takes another jarring step, I’ll lose the contents in my stomach. He stops and his shoulder jams deeper into my stomach, shoving what little breath I have out.
“That all depends on you,” he says, his voice dark and deep, sounding full of secrets. “I’m not in the habit of aiding loose cannons, but if…”
“Loose cannons…”
He cuts me off as quickly as I had cut him off. “If you promise not to suck the energy from everything around you again, then I will. Can you do that?” He speaks flatly, distantly, like the world’s one big bubble of lies he’s waiting to burst.
I hate that I can’t see him. I hate that I’m having this conversation with a slab of concrete. I think he thinks I intentionally did something wrong in the auditorium, but thinking clearly is fast becoming a problem with the white spots dancing in my vision, so I grit my teeth and give him the answer he's looking for. “Yes.”
He sets me down, and my stomach does three somersaults until it’s back in its rightful place. My ribs feel like they’ve been pounded into. I open my mouth, ready to unleash every feeling about every wrong moment that’s transpired since this morning on him, but the words never come. They collide against my tongue, jamming one into the other.
Piercing green eyes hidden under thick lashes bore into me, seeing past every protective layer I’ve carefully constructed and every wall I’ve ever painstakingly built. His eyes. The ones filled with the same kind of deep-rooted fear that consumes me. His lips. The ones I think I could kiss into infinity. My gaze keeps going, grazing over his tight black shirt that hugs his sculpted chest. My nails dig into the palms of my hands as my heart gallops away from me. I know I’m openly staring. I’m openly staring and I can’t stop myself. Black jeans are formed around solid, lean muscle, each leg wrapped with multiple sheaths encasing daggers. I swallow and force my eyes to keep moving down to the green army boots with laces dragging off the sides. It’s then that I realize there’s a lethal air about him that’s undeniable; a dangerous predication of combatant skill I can’t fathom contending with.
I swallow my heart in fear that it will leap right out of my chest. Never before have I been so taken by someone in just one look, so stopped up. It just isn’t my style, at least it didn’t use to be.
I look up at his face in time to find his eyes roaming down the length of me and I can tell by the way they slightly widen that it’s the first time he’s actually looked at me, noticed me. He parts his lips, licks them, and then swallows once, twice, three times.
I’m every shade of red when his eyes snap to mine and he says, “You’re staring at me.” He’s somehow returned to himself, returned to his composure and state of control while I’m still stumbling to find mine.
I shake my head, trying to shake the fog away, trying to find the words to match his statement. A sensible answer or even a witty reply isn’t there because he has me so rattled. Instead, I fall back on a random fact that passes through my mind, the kind that always appears when I’m nervous. “Did you umm…know that stress heightens sexual attraction?” I palm my forehead the moment it slips out, wishing I could disappear.
He cocks his head to the side, looking at me oddly. For a brief moment, as fast as a shooting star, a smile unfolds on his lips, unleashing two perfect dimples. “Is that your way of saying you’re attracted to me?” he muses, his words followed by a short chuckle.
If mortification had a specific ‘look’ it would be the face I’m wearing. “I uh… I don’t know why I said that,” I sputter, desperately seeking a way out of the awkward statement. “I kind of ramble when I’m nervous. And state odd facts, not that you make me nervous. I mean, this whole situation makes me nervous.” I exhale and offer an awkward shrug. “You know?”
He nods ever so slightly as if he agrees with me, and I see a hint of a smile hidden behind the confident lines of his lips.
My face goes tight, as does every muscle in my body. I should carve the letter S for Stupid right onto my chest. “And now I look like a total idiot,” I trail off, shaking my head as I bite my lip and look away.
“Really though, what should you feel nervous about? If you think about it, you just watched a crowd full of highly trained Watchmen cower behind their seats because of a power outage.”
I look back at him. His brow quirks up and a smirk appears. There's a softness in his tone, an understanding that passes between us as he attempts to make me laugh away the embarrassment. I can feel my lips tilting to match his, and something breaks open inside of me. A ray of confidence filters out of its holding cell that's been buried deep inside my chest.
He shifts in his stance, like he’s uncomfortable with trying to relate to another human being, and tucks his smirk away. “I’m Jaxen. Jaxen Gramm.”
“Faye,” I breathe out, finding it hard to tear my eyes from his.
“Faye,” he says, testing…tasting my name. A glitch of a smile appears and disappears. Something flickers through his eyes, something like restraint and sobriety. “Come on,” he says, his voice closed off, suddenly cold. “Maddock wants you in his office.” He points to something behind me.
I turn and find we’re standing at the intersection of concrete paths that lead to twelve different four-story buildings surrounding a central courtyard. The sight is breathtaking, exhilarating, and slightly paralyzing. Blossoming trees with pink flowers kept pristine under the hands of the gardener’s magic are placed between buildings adorned with gargoyles perched on arched roofs. Large-paned windows take up the front of the build
ing, reflecting drifting clouds.
I’m so caught up with the beauty before me, I almost don’t realize Jaxen’s walking away from me. His footsteps are so quiet, so light. It’s like he walks on a cushion of air instead of the ground. I scramble after him, my eyes drinking in every detail they can as they try to find a piece of my parents within these walls. A gilded sign with the name of the building gleams in the sunlight. We’re heading for the Divine hall that sits in the middle of the grounds.
Sunshine spills into the arched tunnel that runs down the center of the building. As I walk behind Jaxen, I run my hand over the smooth stone, wondering if my parents had done the same thing. The further into the tunnel we get, the colder the stones feel under my fingertips. I pull my hand away when I see a door ahead of me, but Jaxen walks past it. There are several spread out on both sides of the tunnel all the way to the end. At the midway point of the tunnel, Jaxen stops at a set of large, medieval-like doors with polished brass strips that are hammered crisscross against a solid piece of what could be oak. Instead of a door knob, there are two metal rings.
Jaxen reaches out and tugs the door open, then steps aside for me to enter. He keeps his gaze a safe distance from mine, and I ignore the probing frown he wears while his narrowed eyes watch me walk by.
“This way,” Jaxen says, guiding me over old-world style area rugs in deep burgundy and champagne colors set in front of a massive fireplace. The interior is built from deep, rich wood that makes the atmosphere feel cozy. My eyes wander hungrily over the room under the high dark wooden beams supporting the ceiling. A painted portrait of each of the Divine hangs over the top of the fireplace, each with a nameplate underneath. I skim over the names. Wistar, Owen, Garrick, Cecilia, Alesteria…I freeze on the last name.
Mourdyn; the one who betrayed us all, the one who led the hunt against all Hunters, the one who caused the proclamation that changed how we use magic. The orange hue from the fire reflects off the bottom of his portrait, giving him a sinister feel. It’s like his dark eyes are watching me, waiting for me.