She picked it up, a twinge in her chest. Her father had looked so happy. But present-day Matthias was staring at his palms, as if reading his past misfortunes.
“Like you, I was a late bloomer to magic, and I only enrolled in the Academy when I was fifteen,” he said. “Your grandparents knew nothing about that world, but I was curious, to put it mildly. Xingshan sounded like a place where I could be free to be myself.” His smile was bittersweet. “It was, and I enjoyed my time there.”
Rui bit her tongue, afraid to ask the most important question of all.
Her father removed his glasses. “I suppose you want to know why I’m unable to channel now.” The ghosts of his past were shadows on his face, and he took a long sip of his soda before he spoke again. “Song Liming and I grew close. We were able to do magic that was beyond our peers and much more advanced than our age and training. We had talent, lots of it. But we wanted more. We tried to level up our magic, and one day, an experiment went wrong. There was an... accident.” Her father’s voice shook. “Someone died. Someone who appeared at the wrong place and time unexpectedly—we couldn’t save him. The Academy hushed it up in public, but they had to report it to the Guild. Liming got off because he was Song Wei’s son, but my parents had no such influence. The Guild was already watching me for other reasons—talent is power, and power is always feared. In the end, theCouncil ruled that I was the chief instigator and to punish me, they took away my ability to do magic.”
The table creaked as Rui surged forward, brimming with anger and shock. “They took away— How could they? What did they do?”
Her father pulled down the collar of his T-shirt, showing her the half-inch row of small vertical scars at the base of his neck. They had healed; the silvery-white skin pulled taut. Rui had seen them before, but she’d never thought much about them as a kid. But there was something distinct about those scars that troubled her now. Had she seen something similar on someone else?
“There’s an ancient forbidden technique that few know exists,” her father said. “Although I went through the process, I know little of how it works. All I know is that it did something to my spirit core and affected my spiritual energy. By the end of the ordeal, I couldn’t use magic anymore.”
Rui herself had lost her magic once. She had felt hollow, an empty shell of a person.
Matthias Lin wasstillthat empty shell.
“If it’s a forbidden technique, how could they use it?” she demanded.
Her father stared at her, his eyes hard. “You know why, don’t you?”
Rui fought the urge to smash her soda bottle against the wall. The Guild and their Council wouldn’t hesitate to protect themselves, even at the expense of their own. They had carved a righteous image for themselves, and they sought to protect that through any means.One rule for you and another for me.Like Song Wei, they were hypocrites. All of them.
“They thought you were a danger to them,” she said, “a danger to their reputation.”
“The Guild protects itself. It’s their way of survival.” There was no judgment in her father’s tone as he polished the lenses of his glasses with the hem of his T-shirt and put them back on. The act seemed to settle him. All the pain Rui had witnessed was carefully hidden away again.
Butshewas still fuming. “Don’t you want to expose them for what they did to you?”
Her father shook his head slowly. “What good would come of it? Someone died because of me, and I was punished for it. Rightfully so.”
Rui gripped her soda bottle, resisting the urge to throw it at the wall. “It was an accident. Song Liming wasn’t punished—hedidn’t have to lose his magic. How is that fair? How is that right?”
“I’m under no illusion that it couldn’t have been handled differently,” her father said. “But it’s done, and I’ve moved on.”
Rui slumped back. She didn’t quite understand why her father had let this go, but she had to accept that it was his decision. “Did Mama know?” she said, voice barely audible. She wasn’t sure how she’d feel if her mother had lied about her father’s past to her too.
“I never told her I spent time at the Academy,” he said. “My parents thought I’d made the decision to leave, and since I went back to my old path of studying medicine, they didn’t question it. I picked up the pieces of my old life, and that was that.” Her father reached over and squeezed her hand. “The only thing you need to know is that I would not trade your mother or you for my magic and the life I could’ve had as an Exorcist. Don’t take on anger and regret I don’t feel. It isn’t yours to bear.”
Her father’s smile was the one Rui remembered he wore whenever her mother was near him.
“I know the guilt that’s still in your heart, Rui,” he said softly. “But I also know that your mother protected you because she loved you. Her life and her sacrifice... it is a gift you should use wisely.”
The neighborhood playground was quiet. One of the streetlamps flickered off and on, and the rest were dim. Probably because the city council spent more time keeping up the wealthier neighborhoods than the shabbier area her father rented in. Her belly full of good food, Rui climbed up the ladder. She was almost too large for the slide, but she sat on the top anyway, legs stuck out in front of her.
She and her father had looked over old family photos after dinner, reminiscing about the happier times they’d spent together when her mother was alive. She couldn’t remember the last time they had laughed so much. It was a nice way to end the night, and she had to force herself to leave, giving the excuse that she had to report back to campus.
You’re not seriously considering Madam Meng’s ritual, are you?
The situation with the rogue talisman was worsening, and she held the key to a possible solution. But what if something went wrong during the ritual? What if the bridge tookallher treasured memories? Would she forget her family? Would she even remember tonight?
The clouds hovering in the night sky were tinged with an eerie purple. A storm was coming, in more ways than one.Rui sighed. Who was she kidding? Love was stupid, and so was she. It didn’t matter what Ash or anyone else said. Her decision had been clear the moment she knew there was a minuscule chance of bringing Zizi back from the underworld. And if she could save her city at the same time? The choice was easy.
“So be it,” she said. The wind carried away her words.
She tapped the first number on her speed dial. She had promised to share everything, and she needed someone to remember if she forgot.
The line connected, and she took a deep breath. “Guess what, Ada? I’m going to Hell.”
