“Wait!” Kalyan calls after me.
I run to the fallen body and search for a heartbeat. His skin is still wet from sea salt and sweat, and under that is the faint flutter of his pulse. Not dead. I run a few spells, measuring if any of his internal organs have started to shut down. He’s not even comatose. Lucky? No, the other wizard knew how long to push the torture. Finally, my eyes refocus and I look at his face, recognize the gray beard. Every feature is all too familiar. I flinch and move away, off the pier and through the white smoke of Kalyan’s illusion veil.
“What’s wrong? How is he?” Kalyan asks as he follows me.
“I talked to that man two weeks ago.”
“You know him? Gods, I’m—”
“Not well. Don’t even know his name. He arrested the East Village firelight distributor, the man named Basu I told you about.”
I pace.Did this really just happen? Kalyan and I just happened to be under the pier when the Vencrin leader threatens our lives? Did he know we were there and this is all some sort of message? Are we currently in danger? I swept the pier before, didn’t I?
Kalyan breaks into my turbulent thoughts. “But he’s okay?”
“He’s going to be in a lot of pain when he wakes up, but I’ve never seen a torture spell with that much control. I didn’t realize one could command those spells like that. He should be fine.”
“And that’s bad?”
“No, that’s power. That’s practice…lots of practice.” Maybe that’s why I’m so shaken. The turmoil raging inside me stems from fear and guilt. Coincidence or not, for the first time I wasn’t in control. I hid and left a wizard to be tortured.
Kalyan stills. “You shouldn’t be on the streets alone anymore. You won’t be able to deal with the Vencrin and watch for their spies at the same time.”
“Well, I’m not giving up. After this”—I gesture to above—“I can’t stop.” I won’t let that happen again.
“I’m not telling you to.”
“Then what are you saying?” I demand.
“I’m saying, let me join you. They already think we’re partners.”
Relief floods me, but it’s more than that. I do need someone to watch my back. And I’m also happy that it’s him, that he is with me on this. I can’t let him know that, though. “Okay, then.”
“Really? You aren’t going to fight me on this?”
“You almost sound disappointed.”
“I was already formulating a whole speech to convince you.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t say it now. You don’t want to talk me out of it, right?” My sarcasm is a defense mechanism, but it’s never been so evident. I’m transparent.
Kalyan chuckles and picks up the bag of firelight closest to him. “In three days we’ll start planning.”
“What?”
“You want to start as soon as possible, right? Well, in three days you’ll be delivering the rest of the firelight.”
“Yes, for Adraa…” I trail off. Just saying my real name shaves off a piece of our shared intimacy and refocuses it. What are we doing? What am I allowing him to do?
“Of course.” He nods, confident. “For Adraa.”
In three days I’ll also be introducing myself to Jatin. Before we can ever train together he’ll know who I am. And once Kalyan learns this, will he still want to be my partner? To risk his life?
“I’ll see you then.” I hope he can’t hear the dejection in my voice. But I can and it bathes my mind in confusion.
For the next three days I search for Basu. Partly to make sure he is okay, partly to wrest any other details from him. But he’s gone. The only report left with his name on it confirms he headed for Agsa and was escorted all the way to the border. Which makes sense—that’s what my father told me, too. The gray-haired guard, on the other hand? He’s disappeared. When I request a report on everyone currently employed, Hiren’s father, one of the five rajas of Belwar who help run the Dome Guard, tells me not one profile matches that description. Even the report with Basu’s infraction and truth-spelling case contains no name of the commanding guard who took him in. Saves him a lot of paperwork, my blood.
So I’m left with nothing but threats chiming in my head, Maharaja Naupure still gone, and Jatin Naupure expecting me at the ice door in a few hours.
