I’m suddenly struck by just how uniform the darkness has become. How it’s lacking in form and texture. How there’s no caustic smell to the smoke and no irritants stinging my eyes.
Is this a glamour?I blink until the illusion begins to crack.
Breaking free of a Red’s compulsion might be close to impossible, but their glamours grow brittle the second you recognize them for what they are. Whoever wanted this Hue spared has somehow trapped the entire chamber inside this magical cloud of black, distracted us from the real threat.
But . . . why?
Whywould some rogue Shade want to save the Sapphire so badly they infiltrated the Academy? The most impenetrable building in Sarotuza? Better yet, how is it that I was able to shake off their glamour when no one else has?
Killen.The answer hits me all at once. Just a few hours ago, he’d used his color to rid me ofany and all Red, and that spell won’t dissipate for a few more hours still—if not days. He’s the reason that, through the crush of panicked bodies, I’m able to spot the rogue Shade approaching the Hue. Though—inexplicably—he seems no happier to see her than I am.
From my place in the gallery, I can’t make out the angry words they’re trading, but after a brief and terse exchange, the rogue starts fussing with the Sapphire’s chains, then when his cuffs snap open a minute later, they both flee towards the back of the court.
You should follow them. The idea whispers through my mind, bold and tempting. If I can stop these two illegal Shades from leaving, then maybe the Council will finally look past my inability to predict. Maybe this is how I buy myself a second reprieve.
“It’s a glamour, Kiri! The smoke isn’t real!” I say as I spring to my feet and take off after them. To my surprise, both the Hue and the rogue are running from the chamber instead of shimmering—which makes sense for him; he lacks the power to speed through the shadows, but whyshe’snot shimmering them to safety is anybody’s guess.As is why he wisps right through the wall but she takes the time to open the door.
Colors help me, is she trying to get caught?For a long moment, I’m too stunned to give chase. What kind of rogue doesn’t shed their physicality when it matters? How did such incompetence even manage to break into the Academy in the first place? Or incapacitate this entire hall?
Those are excellent questions for later.I, on the other hand, do shimmer, closing the space between us in a few fractured blinks.
“Hey you—stop! Stop right—”
“Don’t.”
The command jerks me to a halt a mere inch from the rogue Shade’s side, close enough that—if my arms were still working—I could reach out and grab her by the cowl. Close enough to see her eyes.
But that’s—it’s not possible. The breath catches in my lungs, the magic silencing my startled questions. Her irises aren’t burned black to the edge the way a rogue’s should be, and there’s no spiked rim, either, so she’s also not a Council Shade.
This girl is another Hue.
As is the guy that just wisped through the wall and spelled me immobile.Using a Red’s magic. I can still see the ghost of it flaming in his eyes.
“She’s cleared the way for us—let’s go,” he says, prompting the girl away.
I did no such thing. I want to yell at him, to make it perfectly clear that I would never work with him or his illegal friends. But his compulsion extends to my tongue, it seems, and before they both hurry after the Sapphire, he adds an additional caveat to his command.
“You will not tell anyone what you saw here,” he orders. And by the time my limbs unfreeze and Killen’s spell accelerates his will off me, the three of them are long gone.
CHAPTER 7
EZZO
It’s amazing how fast your luck can change, how in the space of a heartbeat, a clear sky can darken with a vicious storm. A second can mean the difference between life and death, happiness and misery, an execution or a reprieve.
Oblivion or an escape.
After three days of beatings in a lightless cell, I was aching to face the first and under no illusion of attempting the latter. Because what would have even been the point? All year, I’d been skirting the fire, courting the trackers’ attention in the hopes that they’d do their jobs well, end it for me. And besides, with my wrists chained to the dock and a whole gallery of Shades staring back at me hungrily, it would have been pointless to try. There was no getting out of that court chamber. I was going to die, today, at the Council’s hand, for a made-up crime that shouldn’t exist, and if that was to be my fate then the last thing I intended to do was show them fear.
So when they concluded my sham of a trial in less than a minute, I didn’t protest. And when they asked for my parting words, I didn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing my voice break. Instead, I’d picked a random Shade in the crowd—a pretty girl with hazel eyes, auburn hair, and a fine constellation of freckles dusting her ivory skin—and glared at her until she looked away, startled, as though my condemnation was the true injustice. It was supposed to be my final act of rebellion, a way to leave a lasting impression while the static charge of magic was building to a murder in Green.
Just like the one that took Eve.
It seemed fitting that I would meet the same death as she did.
Romantic almost.
A relief.
