I was grateful for the clothes he’d brought. A simple black shirt, olive dress pants, matching black ballet flats.Gratefulbecause he’d shown up looking infinitely more polished than I did puttering around in his oversized sweatshirt. His soft knit tee was perfectly tailored to him, and his wristwatch looked expensive, making me think of a young college professor. There was something admirable in the way he exuded confidence. His unflinching stares. How he spoke, expecting you to listen.
“Are you listening to me?”
The severity in his tone pulled me out of my daze. I jerked my head up, Odessa Hall looming ahead as we crossed the wide, marble bridge butting up to the palace’s pavilions.
“No,” I admitted, mildly embarrassed. “I wasn’t. I was thinking about . . .” How the almond color of his shirt brought out the amber in his eyes. I cleared my throat. “What were you saying?”
With a vague look of disapproval, he dropped the conversation, instead occupying himself with monitoring the foot traffic on the bridge. For a Saturday, it was strangely full of commuters, everyone walking purposefully to and from the palace. Yet crowded as it was,ourway was clear. Everyone scattered for the edges of the balustrades at the first sight of Leland.
We walked through the gate into a vast courtyard, the white stone palace gleaming brilliantly in the afternoon sun. It was a stately building, long and symmetrical, five stories high and with an elegant shape to it. Everyone walking to and from it was in business attire. I spotted a few briefcases. Expensive handbags. And Leland’s backpack, though a different one. I eyed it suspiciously, wondering how many syringes he’d packed.
“Backpack’s not for you,” he said. He had a way of doing that. Not paying attention to me, tracking my every move. Answering thoughts I thought were private. “I bring it to Odessa Hall in case of an emergency. Because, as I was saying earlier” — he gave me a pointed look — “spells don’t work there. Not unless you’re an Echelon. No spells. No transmitters. No enchanted objects.” He gestured for my flask and sent it to his pocket realm for safekeeping. “And if you’re caught using your gift — ”
“I won’t,” I said, not needing him to finish the sentence.
“Good.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“We don’t like each other,” he stated.
“I thought that was obvious.”
He drew his eyebrows together. “Is it?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, Leland. You have to follow me around when you’d rather be anywhere else.”Probably withsomeone whose name starts with the letter V. “So yes. I’d say it feels obvious. Not to mention you’ve told me as much. But it’s fine. I’m done talking about it.”
He must’ve been done, too, or maybe he just had nothing to add, because he went back to rattling off facts about the palace. Its layout. How each Echelon had their own office that couldn’t be entered without permission. Why Dark Witches — aside from the Echelon Jaxan D’Oron — were banned from its premises. I tried to stop my mind wandering long enough to listen, but I was nervous, and mind wandering was what I was best at.
In the center of the courtyard, something he said caught my attention. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that you answer every question asked of you. Don’t do that in there. If we get separated, there’s not much I can do to help. Listen. Speak as little as possible. Your best bet? Pretend to be docile.”
I showed him my teeth.
Leland frowned. “Why are you doing that?”
“I’m smiling,” I said. “Docilely.”
“Just keep your mouth shut, Ember.”
We entered the palace through a great arched door, and my eyes widened at the endless stretch of hallway that led to a grand, carpeted staircase swooping up to the second level. There was so much white, light, and gold. Marble was everywhere, in the black-and-white diamond-patterned floor, the coffered ceiling, and the thick rails along the stairs. Blinding afternoon light flooded in through floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating gold leaf wainscoting on every wall. We turned a corner, entering another stunning hallway, where tiered chandeliers dripped with crystals and sent golden rays of light bouncing in every direction.
It was more wealth than I’d ever seen in one place, and if I’d cared at all about fitting in, I might’ve been embarrassed by the simplicity of my outfit. It was fine, professional, but nowhere nearthiselegance. Though Leland was dressed similarly, and despite him being far younger than any other witch scurrying through the halls,heunquestionably belonged.
I stopped thinking about how good he looked in his sweater when we came to a stop in front of what was architecturally a library — but . . . not for books. Through the doorway, I saw it was in the same baroque style as the rest of the palace, with similar ornately carved white-and-gold walls. It was a two-story room with shelves on both floors and a wrap-around gilded mezzanine.
Thousands upon thousands of neatly arranged glass bottles lined the shelves, all stopped with corks and full of thick, black liquid. I observed the tall man sitting at the desk in the center of the room and knew immediately what this was. The bottles were dark magic, the black sap from the dark magic tree, collected and stored for future Dark Witches to drink at Selection.
“Enter,” he called out in an icy tone. The Echelon Jaxan D’Oron.
Leland and I stepped forward, and the dark magic awakened. The black liquid inside the bottles crashed like waves against the glass, beating hard enough to rattle the shelves. With every vicious pulse and splash and pounce and throb, I thought for sure the glass bottles would crack open, and gallons of dark magic would spill out everywhere.
Miraculously, and what must have only been accomplished through the will of the creation magic that built this place, the shelves held. The only mild characteristic about the dark magic in that room was its smell, as clear and odorless as Leland’s spelltracks. Dark magic left no trace. One of a few reasons — I imagined — why light witches didn’t like it.
The instant Jaxan rose from his desk, cold fright swept through me. My palms went slick with the kind of horror I’d only ever felt in my dreams.
His fingernails extended like blades of jackknives. Pale-pink lips, a shade darker than his white skin, slanted and curled even when he wasn’t speaking. Apart from his horrific hands, appearances seemed to be important to him. His nearly black hair was slicked back in a style that somehow looked natural on him. His fine black suit was pressed and clean.
He circled me, looking me up and down, drawing closer and closer until I flinched backward.
