He lights the way with a Levitating Flame, a small orb of fire floating at eye-level a few feet in front of him. In the direct light of it, his hair looks blonder, pale streaks of ash blond highlighted by his golden fire.
I move with my head down, hood drawn. Case shoves me, and my windbreaker skims the wall. I flinch to the right at the sound of my nylon jacket scraping against the stone. Out of principle, no one reports what they see in the tunnels. But I have history with a Dark Witch named Rye Cackrin to consider. He wants me dead for killing his Counterpart — and for the last time I came in contact with him, when I stabbed him with his own knife until Case was screaming in my ear for me to stop.Lee, are you trying to kill him?
That’s why I need to hide. I’m not afraid of Rye but I am afraid of what I’ll do to him.
Case and I go deeper into the tunnels. The walls get closertogether and the ceiling sinks lower. The place is damp. Generally cold. But the proximity of Case’s Flame heats the confined space to something almost balmy. My ears prick up at the sound of skittering rodents, just as I start imagining unnerving sensations of tails slithering across my skin. Not tails. Case’s hand. I grip his wrist, stopping him from spider-walking his fingers up my arm any farther.
“What? You don’t like rats?” Case shouts. “Good news for you is they’ll probably suffocate soon. My smoke’s not diffusing and it’s hot as fuck in here.” He brings his shoulder up to his nose and sniffs the sweater he took from my apartment, then frowns at the outcome. “Your sweater reeks,” he says, like it’s my fault.
“You’re hot?” I push him into a section of hollowed rock, pinning him with my chest. Briefly, I contemplate how badly I want to put my mouth on his. “Maybe next time don’t wear cashmere.”
“Uh. Lee?” he asks, his blue eyes pointing down to his arm, where my grip stays tight on him. Then he shrinks his Flame to a spark, which should help but doesn’t. I can’t let go. Or don’t want to. Not yet. “Hands have been on me for kind of a long time there.”
“And that’s where they’ll stay if you don’t shut your mouth,” I warn.
The Dark Witches might forget him immediately after hearing his voice, but if he draws them to us, and they see me — that’s something neither of our Goddess-given gifts can fix. Tonight, I’m not up for fighting a Dark Witch. I want to be in and out. We need to get this over with.
Case grins like that only makes him want to say more, so I let go of him, but not without shooting a look at that cavalier smile on his mouth to sayget rid of it.
After a few more minutes of walking, we pass the archway to a tight passage with a curved, rock ceiling. It’s not the way we needto go, but I catch the light of a blazing torch coming from a room over there and backtrack. I move close to the walls, stopping outside the chamber light pours out of. Case follows, completely out in the open.
Fifty or so Dark Witches are gathered in that room, so I stay and listen. Some witches live down here, like Seracia, the witch I’m here to visit, but their lives aren’t social ones. Catacomb Dark Witches move in shadows. They don’t gather. They shun covens.
“What are they doing?” Case whispers, and not quietly. As kids, he caused the most trouble and got away with all of it. His gift helped. So did the innocent facial features he’s since grown out of. Now he paints his nails black and has more tattoos than I do, including an entire backpiece vibrantly colored against the golden undertone of his white skin.
“Dunno,” I respond. “Let’s keep moving. And back off a bit. Your smell’s making me nauseous.”
“Refresh me,” Case hisses.
“Can’t. Already told you that.”
We head back down the long corridor, through thick rock walls and long stretches of darkness. When footsteps come our direction, I duck into hollows.Case, he finds small bones — rat femurs — and bangs them on the stone walls at random like he’s playing the drums. He’ll only do it louder if I say something, so I ignore it, trusting he’ll Flame anyone before they get close enough to identify me.
But no one does.
We come to the remote corner where Seracia’s booth is concealed behind a black velvet curtain. I set a border of metal wire in preparation, a magical perimeter that will alert me if any witch decides to cross it. Over Seracia’s head, the seven-foot-high ceiling is cracked in a deep cleft. Not far from here are unlit chambers jammed with stacked bones. No one, except for a fewselect Dark Witches, feels safe in the catacombs for long.
I’ve offered to make Seracia’s space more permanent — a nook in the stone, a false door, whatever she wants. She’s not interested. She doesn’t want to get attached to her surroundings, she says. As a black-market trader, she has to stay ready to flee at a moment’s notice.
Case extinguishes his Flame, no longer needing it in this space, which is warmly lit with wall-mounted torches and different-sized candles flickering in long rows on the floor.
Seracia’s a petite woman with medium-brown skin and long braids. I have no clue how old she is. She looks eighteen but knows everyone and everything. Except Case Hammond, who she’s met a dozen times but never remembers. He chooses when to turn it on and off, in full control of who he wants to remember him. And while I trust Seracia, I never let anyone know who I’m working with.
“The prince of Gnarlton returns,” she says by way of greeting, sweeping her braids over her thin shoulder as she gives me a once-over. Case and I sit at the pair of three-legged stools across from her. “Who’s your friend?”
Case answers with a wide grin. Sparks of mischief dance in his eyes, a devilish look that sends my mind drifting to the things he does with his tongue piercing. I shouldn’t be thinking about that. But it’s hard to steer my thoughts back to the right place after I’ve been around his elemental magic.
Case slaps his hand to my shoulder, really grinding his fingers in. “Welcome back, Prince,” he says with an impish grin.
Only Dark Witches call me this. They don’t like that I grew up in Gnarlton with privileges, and I don’t blame them. When Dark Witches were still banned from porting, I was free to come and go, entering places Dark Witches weren’t permitted. Odessa Hall, a few clubs in Hartik’s Hollow, brothels. They see Jaxan’s estate, Mortal’s Gate — the staff, acres, and chimneys — and theythink I grew up with everything handed to me on a silver platter. That every day wasn’t some sick test.
“Hey, Lee,” Case says, jolting me back to the present. “We’re in the middle of an important business transaction? How about you bother to stay awake for us?”
I glare at him, but he just so happens to be the only person that doesn’t affect. Case isn’t afraid of me, and I like it like that, frustrating as it can be.
He slides a pair of iron bracelets across the table. Magic suppressants. It’s the best way to treat magic withdrawals, but aside from this one set, there aren’t any in circulation. There isn’t a legal way to get them, because only an Allwitch can make them.
“Put them on consignment at Foxcross’s,” says Case. “Tell her the Truth-Teller will double any offer she gets.” He slides over a piece of parchment with the instructions, signed by a name that can’t be traced to either of us.
