“They really don’t teach you much about us, do they?” Ezzo fixes me a pointed look. “Iron is one of the few exceptions, but only when it takes the form of something like a cuff or a cage—something that surrounds me without break—then it stops me phasing the same way it does you. Beyond that, it’s a pretty small list. I can interact with other Shades, my clothes, the ground . . . the same things you still interact with when you shimmer. Oh, and anything endowed with magic, so charms, talismans, scrys,” he says, showing me the crystal hanging around his neck. “That’s how I’ll find the others later. Until then, you don’t have to worry—Cemmy and Chase are very good at looking out for themselves.” There’s an edge to his voice that reeks of history.
“You don’t like them,” I say, and it isn’t a question.
“I have my reasons not to like them.”
“Even though they came to rescue you?” Twice in one day, no less; surely that should have bought them a little grace, perhaps an ounce of appreciation?
“It’s what they think I’m owed.” Ezzo’s tone sharpens to a blade. “I notice no one’s come to rescueyou.”
He sure has a way of getting under my skin, prying when I least expect it.
“You know what, I think I’m done talking now.” I turn to stare at the wall. I don’t need him to see just how hard those words have hit me, or how I’ve slowly been waking up to that reality all on my own. It’s been hours since I bid goodbye to my mother; longer still since Akari and I left the Academy and agreed to meet at one of her usual haunts. She should have gotten worried bells ago, and even if she got distracted, Killen’s threat from before we left the castle should have ensured that someone would realize I’m gone.
So then, why haven’t they found me?The thought is a cancer, spreading through every one of my cells, tissues, and bones. Akari would have spoken to the class master, who would have alerted my parents, who would have asked the future for help in bringing me home. Likewise, Killen had threatened to tell Professor Lyons, who would have done that same thing from the Academy, which would have yielded the same result. So either they haven’t raised the alarm yet or—
The future isn’t playing ball.I shiver, the prospect chilling me from head to toe. Is it possible that the damage I wrought on my magic extends to those who see around me? Or am I just being overly paranoid, assuming that theycan’tfind me, when they’ve simply not yet been asked to look? I mean, maybe Akari decided to do the searching herself instead of getting others involved? Or maybe Killen changed his mind about going to Professor Lyons—though I can’t imagine why given the way I left things . . . wouldn’t he have wanted to pay me back for that hurt? And for the love of all three Gods, is it too much to ask to contemplate the mess I made quietly, without this idiot Sapphire howling like a sullen ghost?
“Are the creepy wails really necessary?” I round on him with a vengeance, itching for a fight to distract from the questions I can’t control.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Ezzo says, slowly climbing to his feet. “But I think it’s coming from over there.” Inch by inch, he starts edging us towards the source, slow as the seasons and silent as a cunning fox. The wails stay faint at first, hopeless, broken, though as we delve deeper into the belly of the house, they intensify in grief and force.
“Didn’t you ask the future to send us somewhere we wouldn’t be found?” he hisses, keeping his voice low.
“Yes, I—” No, actually; what I chose to ask was: where will we not be found by the trackers? Which, in hindsight, wasn’t the best form of that question—it wastoospecific, left us vulnerable to other dangers. But the bigger mistake I made was continuing to treat my magic like absolutely nothing’s changed. I’m still following the old rules when the future’s playing an entirely new game.
“For your information, I asked it to keep us away from the trackers—and that is most definitelynota tracker.” The voice sounds far too young, for starters, far too timid and afraid. “Can you see what color Shade it is?”
“I’m trying,” Ezzo says, eyes frosted white behind the veil of his gift. “But the trail they’re leaving . . . it’s not like anything I’ve everseen. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was an echo. Like the kind a typic leaves.”
“That’s impossible.” A typic in the shadows isn’t an option that makes the list. They can’t phase, for one thing, nor can they survive the shadows long enough to fill a house with wails; they’d shatter instantly. Unlike Hues, they lack the magic to protect themselves with an In-Between, because they’re not an in-between, and their blood is anathema to the Gray. Their presence would, quite literally, destabilize the realm.
“I know it’s impossible.” Ezzo tenses as the voice pulls closer still. “But that’s what I see.”
“Well, then lookagain,” I urge, right before a stir from beyond the doorway makes that urging obsolete.
“By my colors, is that a—”
“Child,” I finish for him, the word exhaling like a sharp stitch. “It’s just a child.”
Though as the girl steps into the room proper, I realize there’s nojustabout it. I’d guess she’s five or six years old—if a day—dressed in grimy, threadbare rags, and thin to the point of emaciation. A child of the slums, most likely, born and raised on the streets. But it’s not the tragedy of her life that turns the air in my lungs to acid—it’s her face, the blood crying crimson tracks along her cheeks. This girl is cracked china, a porcelain doll splintering under the weight of too much heat. And there’s a wrongness about her, a festering rot that’s eating right through her skin, leaving it raw and blistered. Leaving the shadows in her wake as wilted as a starving leaf.
“Can you help me?” Up close, her voice is a fraying wire, feeble and weak. “I want to go home.”
“Look at her eyes, Raya.” Ezzo’s whisper is riddled with fear. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No, I haven’t.” And the sight sends my hand clambering for his.
A Shade’s magic presents as a spiked rim around the iris.
A rogue’s magic burns black every chalky white inch.
A Hue’s magic is invisible.
Whereas this girl’s eyes look as though the magic is slowly breaking them from within, a spitting blaze glowing red between the fractures.
“I don’t feel very good.” She reaches out for us, her fingers cracking piece by piece. “Please, will you help me? Can I go home now,please?”
Without rhyme or warning, the magic holding her together turns that last plea into a scream, rending her cracks wider—her pain shriller—until with one final, malicious growl, the shadows rush in and shatter her to bits, leaving nothing behind but a grotesque memory and a jagged red heap.
