“Leland, leave us.” Jaxan flicked his wrist, his long nails clacking together with the dismissal. “You’re disturbing my magic.”Hismagic, said as if the dark magic stored here wasn’t Everden’s but all for him.
“I’ll wait by the stairway,” Leland said. He didn’t look at me. Just gave a subtle dip of his head, pointed at Jaxan.
The dark magic calmed as soon as he left, and it suddenly hit me how much safer I’d felt beside him. I tried to remember what he’d said.Listen, don’t speak?Behave docilely?
I felt Jaxan’s warm breath on my cheek and flinched again. “You’re very unlike her,” he said. “Not even the small Blackburn mouth I assumed every one of you had. You see — ” His gaze lifted to the mural overhead.
I followed it, all the way up to the painted ceiling depicted in a royal style, like for cherubs in a heavenscape — only there weren’t any cherubs in it. Jaxan was painted alongside Helen and Ash. Aglow. Reverent. Posed for what appeared to be a glorified family portrait. Helen’s porcelain skin and brown hair; her cheekbones sharper than a knife. Ash, Helen’s spitting image, having inherited the same severe eyes and downturned lips that never smiled.
I couldn’t help the question. “You’re . . . together? You andHelen?”
“Why else would I paint her on my ceiling?”
“I don’t know. I just . . .”How?How Helen had gone from my dad — and all of his transparency — to Jaxan was incomprehensible. Or would’ve been. If I hadn’t known being with Dad was only an experiment.
Jaxan continued admiring the mural as I went back to vacantly staring at bottles.
“Completed yesterday,” he said fondly. “Without magic, of course. Creators need to be kept busy. Irritable beings when they’re not making the world better, but . . .” He waved a hand. “I’m sure you’re catching on.”
I made the effort to nod politely, not understanding at all.
“Ah. Just there.” Jaxan pointed at the image of my mother. “In the set of the shoulders. The burden they carry.” He dropped his gaze and stared at me for an uncomfortably long minute. “But youaredifferent. A summer-looking child with so dark a cloud over her. Who do you get your eyes from?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” My voice was full of fear as Jaxan made another turn around where I stood. I stepped back, instinctively, trying to point my ears away from the sound of him walking.
“You flinch when I walk,” he observed. “Why? Has someone made you familiar with me?”
The truth was written on my face. I knew his walk, its imminence. Not until today had I known it was Jaxan’s walk echoing in my dreams. But I knew now. I knew it was my nightmare.
“Not someone,” I said quietly. “But yes. I’m familiar.”
“Oh?” Jaxan slanted his head to the side. “How so?”
Not sure I was doing the right thing, but not willing to break the vow I’d made to answer every question I was asked, I parted my lips and told him about the dream. I told him how I lay paralyzed in the dark with the sense something bad was aboutto happen. About the slow, crunching footsteps heading toward me. How their cadence, their deliberateness, were distinctly Jaxan.
Then I explained the texts Helen sent to the human realm, how I became familiar with him throughThe Least Disagreeable Dark WitchandThe Evolution of Dark Magic.
At that, Jaxan’s eyes flashed. “A fan of my work?”
No, not quite. But only because I wasn’t a fan of anything related to Everden.
“I’m equally a fan of all the Echelons,” I said strategically, my head low, my eyes pointed at a bottom row of dark magic a few inches off the floor. The bottles were so still with Leland gone. I wondered if they riled for every light witch or if it was specifically something about him.
“Cruel, isn’t it?” Jaxan asked, joining me in looking at them. “Such a big decision. Such a tender age.”
I dug my fingernails into my palms, struck with the sudden urge to send the row of bottles crashing, to smash them to bits, stomp on broken glass until the shards were salt-grain small, until the black ooze thinned and skimmed the polished marble floor like dirty mop water.
I breathed jaggedly, each breath something I had to forcibly push out.
My blood climbed to a boil. Scores of red lines were scratched into my arms, and I had no memory of scratching them. The moonale had worn off, and I was officially in withdrawal.
Focus, I told myself, flexing my fingers.Focus.This isn’t docile.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Ember Blackburn.”
Somehow, I found that hard to believe.
“I’ve been made aware of the business at the Circle of Seven this morning. I invited you here because I want you to join my school. Be a Dark Witch.” His arms went wide in admiration of the dark magic surrounding us. “What do you think?”
