“What did you mean when you told Chase your magic doesn’t work?” Ezzo tries again, subtly changing tack.
“You should get your hearing checked, half breed. My magic works fine.”
“See, I don’t think it does.” His head shakes as he calls my bluff. “My mother was an Indigo, remember? And she never had a vision like that. She never used them the way you did in the tavern, either. So . . . fluidly. So seamlesslyon the fly.”
“Maybe she wasn’t as good as I am.”
A muscle in his jaw twitches, the nerve I hit sharpening the hate in his eyes.
“No, if it was a matter of skill, you wouldn’t be sneaking around behind the trackers’ backs. If you’re seeing something they can’t, my guess is it’s because you’ve done something you shouldn’t. What I can’t figure out iswhy?”
Gods, of course he can’t. What could this Hue possibly know about following the rules or having to prove his power? The best he can hope for, on a good day, is not getting caught, and sooner or later, his luck is going to run out—probably sooner, given how much he likes to drink. And since he’s already embarrassed the Councilso thoroughly, when they do finally catch him, I doubt they’ll risk another trial.
The moment the trackers find Ezzo, they’ll kill him.
Put an end to our mutually fated path.
So anything I share should be safe . . .Perhaps I’ve been playing this all wrong. If Ezzo won’t live long enough to betray my secrets, then maybe instead of fighting him, I should be feeding his curiosity, using his thirst for answers to satisfy mine.
“Because I was failing, okay?” I drop my head to the wall and lace my voice with resentment, feigning a break in will. “I’m no good at communicating with the future the right way and they were going to bind my magic if I didn’t turn things around, so I asked a question that’s forbidden and now my visions are all messed up. Happy?”
“It’s a start,” he says, softening an inch. “Do you believe they’re real? These messed-up visions?”
“The ones I had in the tavern were—and before you ask, I don’t know why they were so specific when this one is so abstract. No one’s talked to the future like this in hundreds of years; I’m still trying to work it all out.” Though his Gold did just go and prove that fate-touched magic remains fate-touched even when it’s running through another’s blood, so I suppose I do know that now.
“Is that why you came looking for me at the Golden Stag?” Ezzo asks. “Because the vision showed you that we were somehow involved?”
“Yes.” I cringe at his poor choice of phrasing, adopting the truth he wants to hear in place of my true goal: claiming credit for his arrest. “It seemed like the best way to prove that I could still be a seer. That I haven’t broken my magic for good.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t put too much stock in the Council’s idea ofbroken.” This time, the edge to his words is directed at them instead of me. “They have a nasty habit of changing the rules when they feel like it.”
“Which means what, exactly?” If he’s going to make accusations, the least he can do is spell them clear.
“It means theylie. Especially about magic.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say—because it is. Because why would the Council lie about magic when they want us to use it? When they make their money off it? When it keeps us safe?
“Is it?” Ezzo raises an eyebrow. “Just think about it for a minute—think about everything they’ve ever told you about illegal half breeds like me. Aren’t you wondering how I’m sitting in front of you right now? Here? In the Gray?” He motions to the veil of shadows swirling around us. “Aren’t you wondering how I haven’t shattered yet?”
I have been wondering that, yes. Not since he chained me to this pipe—I’ve had more important things on my mind—but it did occur to me when the trackers first led him into the court chamber; I did wonder how he was able to maintain such a difficult spell despite being so beat-up.
“Are you saying youdon’tneed to cast an In-Between to survive here?” My disbelief drips with surprise. Because—hells, even the Council couldn’t maintain a conspiracy that contrived.
“No, I’m saying I’ve been casting one this whole time, so easily you didn’t notice.” He emphasizes that second part, the part that breaks with established fact. “It’s a myth that the Gray seeks to expel Hues, a lie the Council started telling when they decided to purge our kind. They knew that they could never fully eradicate us—Shades have been bedding typics since the beginning of time—so instead, they made it harder for us to survive, spent decades rewriting our history, spreading misinformation, and burning records until ta-da”—he snaps his fingers—“we were all suddenly learning a faulty version of the In-Between spell.”
“I’m sorry—burning records and tampering with spells?” I have to pick my jaw off the ground. “You do realize how utterly insane you sound?” And how utterly impossible that would be. For what he’s claiming to hold true, the Council would have had to mess with every scroll, book, and ledger from here to Isitar, corrupt the sanctity of every archive.
“More insane than banning a way of seeing the future?” Ezzo’s questions are growing increasingly sharp. “More insane than youseeing something the entire seers’ guild missed the second you decided to break bad?”
“Yes, that’s—” The objection dies on my tongue, my mother’s words bubbling up to contradict it.
There has been one documented case. Around four hundred years ago.
Right around the time the Council started purging Hues from the continent.
That can’t be a coincidence. As much as I hate to admit it, the timeline he’s alluding to fits, and it would explain how a similar catastrophe could have gone unnoticed by the guild last year.
“I’m not saying I believe you,” I hedge, considering my words with care. “But even if I did, your Gold—Chase—already has my magic, and the future showed him the exact same vision it showed me.” Give or take a few of the more sordid details. “There’s nothing else I can tell you.”
