You’re not being careful, Leland had said.The Echelons think you’re trying to undermine them.They’re not going to be nice to you.
Then I remembered what Sinora had said.She played the game.Pledging herself to the Echelon to the School of Dark Magic and telling him her gift. I assumed she meant Jaxan. Ashhad pledged herself to Jaxan.
Their words swirled around like a maelstrom, getting me more and more agitated about the position I was in. Bonded to a Blackburn or not, Jaxan had no right to be here, uninvited and unwelcome, palming through the newspaper while I’d been in the bath.
I squared my shoulders and locked my spine. I wasn’t going to cower from him. I wouldn’t just lie down. I would not allow him to make me feel that fear I felt in my nightmares.
He stepped on a small copper bead, making a loudcrunch, and rather than continue walking closer, he paused, the toe of his shoe jamming the bead back into the crack I’d dug it out of earlier. “Do you know,” he said in a manner meant to pique my interest, “I could control your every move with a single word. Tenacity will not outlast me, nor will you outwit me, Ember. I should tell you now my gift is command. That means I say something, you do it. It’s that simple.”
With a callous flick of his wrist, a tornado of smoke-gray shadows rippled out of him and shot through the house. In the wind, my hair flew in my face, loose wrappers ruffled, and thousands of copper beads scattered and rolled.
I struggled to breathe as a dark gust of shadows shot up my nostrils and raced out through my mouth. He could do it again, too, all night long if he wanted. Dark Witches didn’t have spell counts like light witches did.
The Shadowcurrent streaming out of him made a powerful jerk for the door, the wind of it slamming the door closed, and the bones of the house shook.
When his shadows died down after, I almost wished for them to return. For darkness to cloak his grim silhouette, now illuminated and leering at me in the dim, orange light of the table lanterns. He smiled slowly, the twisted slant of it summoning the sensation of bugs skittering across my skin.Unless that was a sign of something else — the onset of withdrawal. And my flask was missing.
He slid his misshapen fingernails inside the deep pockets of his dark, mid-length coat. Better there than shoved in my mouth, I thought, until I recalled a self-defense unit I’d taken in gym, and the lesson on what to do when an attacker’s hands are hidden. Assume they’re reaching for a gun. Run.
But there weren’t weapons in Everden.
Or there wasn’t supposed to be.
“Is there something I can help you with?” I asked, as reasonably as I could.
Slowly, Jaxan strolled to the tall bookcase behind me.
To keep myself calm, I looked for more similarities between Leland and his godfather. I looked in the places where Leland showed his conscience. His irises. Around the mouth. But all I saw was cruel, dark, irreversible heartlessness.
Jaxan’s eyes roved over a row of thick texts, ancient ones half crumbled to dust, their leather spines worn, their titles unintelligible. Plucking one from the shelf, he carelessly tossed it at the table. It landed with athudso forceful, the coin jumped from the impact.
I swatted a hand through the air, coughing and struggling to diffuse the spreading cloud of thick dust. Bored of how long it was taking for the air to clear, Jaxan flicked his Shadowcurrent through the cloudy air, blowing the dust away in one, quick sweep.
“I see you’ve brushed up the mess,” he said, turning his nose down at where I’d angled the dustpan against the wall, next to the letterbox’s remains. “Henly, isn’t it?”
Begrudgingly, I lifted my chin in confirmation.
“Henly and Helen,” he laughed. “I’ve always found that humorous. Does it trouble you you can no longer write to him?”
I clenched my fists in the lengths of Leland’s extra-longsweatshirt sleeves. Ash played the game. Ash survived. Ash made it to Alchemia when she could’ve ended up like Sabrina. I wanted to pick up the text and throw it at him, but I knew what would happen if I did. I needed to be like Ash. I needed to be smart.
“I live here now,” I said carefully. “I knew staying in touch with him would be hard.”
Jaxan batted a hanging bunch of lavender as he pushed his way into the kitchen. “It killed me, you know, seeing an artifact destroyed like that,” he said as he scoured a spice rack.
In my head, I swore at him.To see it destroyed? You’re the one who destroyed it!
“But I had my reasons.” He abandoned the spice rack and paced back to the kitchen table. “I wanted to make a Dark Deal with you, but considering you don’t want to be here” — he plucked a reeded glass vase off a shelving unit, inspected it, then gingerly set it down on the empty space where the letterbox used to sit — “I had a hard time thinking of a bargain you might be interested in. Then I remembered Henly. Would you like me to deliver a last letter to him?”
Flames licked at my skin. There was nothing I wanted from Jaxan. No Dark Deal I would make with him. But I knew it was necessary topretend, to keep asking questions, to find out whathewanted. It was what Ash would’ve done.
“So you would send a letter for me,” I confirmed, “and what would I have to do in return?”
“Work with me,” Jaxan said pleasantly. “Like Leland does. Like your sister did.” Hands behind his back, he peered into her bedroom. “I’ll even sweeten it. I’ll tell you why they stopped speaking to you. I assume you’ve wondered that?”
“I used to,” I replied in a measured tone.
He tipped his head to one side, considering me. “The Echelons like to have a common enemy. Something troubling for therealm to unite around. I grow tired of it being Dark Witches.” He tipped his head to the other side. “Allwitches, they’re too remote to pose any real threat. For now. But you, a human girl who dares to claim as many schools of magic as the Goddess has. You see how that’s a problem, don’t you?”
