Felix felt the ground drop out from beneath him.
Nonwielders using magic?
For a moment, he was left off balance, unsteady. Then anger kicked in. White hot and all-encompassing.
Memories he’d worked so hard to suppress threatened to break back through, slamming against his walls in vivid flashes. Elise’s execution, his darkened leg, black eyes and bitter insults and bites hard enough to break skin. He knew exactly the sort of atrocities nonwielders were capable of, especially the nobility, so why was he so surprised by this one?
Felix threw her a contemptuous look. “You’re stealing magic?”
The accusation made her recoil, the smile wiped from her face in an instant.
“I’m sorry?” she snapped bitterly, pushing back her shoulders and lifting her chin. “I am doing nothing of the sort. I’ve never used it. And anyway, it’s just for fun. Nobody’sstealinganything. Angela’s father paid good money for that elixir.”
“Where did he buy it?”
“Oh, Felix.” Sarah pinched her lips, her head cocked to one side. “I don’t think you can afford—”
“Where?” he snarled.
Her expression turned venomous, the thing he’d witnessed in glimpses finally surfacing. Her next words came out low and soaked in anger. “You forget yourself, Felix Connolly. You do not speak to me that way. I am above you, and I can make your life miserable. You’d do well to remember your place.”
The last three words hit Felix like a slap, and he clamped his jaw shut as they reverberated through his entire body.
Easy, Felix. Head down, don’t push.
This was too important, and he’d ruin any chance of getting the information they needed if he couldn’t control his temper.
He drew in a breath and settled his practiced manners back in place, even though it made him want to vomit all over her pretty shoes.
“Please, Lady Farrows,” he said, head bowed, “it is of the utmost importance that I find out where your friends are buying these elixirs.”
He expected her to make him grovel for forgiveness. It wouldn’t have been the first time one of them had.
Instead, she let out a huff, still looking utterly offended, and answered, “The Gilded Mortar on 5th Street.”
Felix spun on his heel and left without another word, relieved when he found August waiting nearby, watching with his usual frown. He didn’t want to do this alone.
“What—” August started to ask, but Felix stormed past. His control was fracturing, and he couldn’t breathe. He needed to get away from the crowds.
Despite the uneven cobblestones jarring his leg and threatening his balance, Felix didn’t slow until the din of the night market had faded enough to hear his own thoughts.
At the mouth of a dark alley, Felix slammed to a stop. August watched his shoulders heave with a single deep breath before he froze, posture rigid, the air around him crackling like a storm.
He was still angry.August couldn’t blame him. Keeping secrets when all of Felix’s were laid bare felt like betrayal. The lies sat in his chest like stone, a constant reminder that whatever this was between them, it could never be real.
He risked a glance at the anchored that had been shadowing them since the square. Its face rippled from a boy with heavy-lidded eyes to a smooth black void and back again, its neck bent at an impossible, sickening angle.
No, he couldn’t tell Felix. Not about the anchored. Not about his other life.
But he had to saysomething.
“Felix,” he started, but when Felix turned to face him, the words caught in his throat. He didn’t look angry at all. He looked haunted.
“They hate our magicsomuch,” he muttered, each word strained as he pressed his palms against his eyes. “Theykillus for using it. But they pay to have it for themselves.”
August frowned, struggling to catch up. “Paying? For magic?”
“Someone is making elixirs that…” Felix sagged against the wall, sliding down until he sat slumped on the cobblestones, hands falling limp in his lap.
