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My breath trembles as I suck it in, my vision blurring. I summon a new glass of scotch and rest my forehead on the crystal, but there’s no ice cube to cool the heat that burns across my skin. Alasdair is Astoria’s creation. All she had to do was not feed her curse for seven years. All she had to do was pay the cost of such dark magic.
All she had to do was not curse us all to this hell, and none of us would be in this mess.
The urge to throw this glass hits me hard, but I sip it instead. Magic vibrates the air from an incoming delivery, and I bolt upright, heart pounding, but the humans’ morning newspaper appears neatly in the tray on the corner of my father’s desk. It’s dawn. My father should’ve arrived by now. But he hasn’t.
My stomach spasms, sweat erupting over me, and I throw myself over the wastebin beside the desk just in time to throw up all the alcohol I drank. It burns worse coming up than when it went down.
I spit to clear my mouth, and the metal bin vibrates with a gentle thrum of magic when the estate empties it. I fumble the desk drawer and yank it open too roughly. The contents rattle, and I drag myself to kneeling as I hunt through it. There, hidden in the back, are little vials of the blue calming draft that my father hid there after my mother left.
The glass dropper rattles against the vial when I yank it free. I swallow rhythmically, keeping down any additional sickness, and carefully place two sickly sweet drops of potion on my tongue.
The effects are instantaneous. The sickness washes away from me, and my limbs grow steady. I place the potion back into the drawer and slam it shut before retaking my seat.
But a flicker of rage attempts to push through the calming draft.
Finding a way to exorcise Alasdair from my mind needs to become a priority. His magic’s hold on me is unusual, and I have no way of knowing how long I have before I lose track of what thoughts are my own and which are his poison.
Surely somewhere in this massive estate with all its riches and secrets there must be a grimoire explaining magic that alters the mind.
Even if I’ve never heard of such a type of magic before… except when it comes to corruption.
If Alasdair has corrupted me, I’m going to drag him down into the dark recesses of the Weave. I swear upon the Tapestry, I will find a way to take that bastard with me even if I have to make a deal with a demon to do it.
With that grim thought, I flick my fingers towards the Havenport Herald. My magic drags the paper over to sit before me on the desk and unfolds it to smooth it out on the ink blotter. I skim the headlines, half expecting to see “PROMINENT WEAVER COUNCIL MEMBER FOUND BRUTALLY MURDERED IN LOCAL BOOKSHOP” plastered across the front.
What I find instead has me sitting up and turning the chair towards the desk. The paper crinkles when I slide it closer.
NEW LAW ENACTED! GUILDLESS MAGICIANS NOW ILLEGAL WITHIN DELORNIA
Following the Magistrate’s shutdown of the illegal grimoire smuggling ring run by rogue weaver Aster Rosemont and Guildless magician Lucas Flint, Prime Minister Forbes has declared all Guildless magicians unlawful within all Delornian territories. Guildless magicians must either surrender to their guilds for registration or forfeit their magical tokens for safe transport back to the capital, where the Amur Guild has been declared safe-keepers of all unassigned tokens.
“The Amur Guild is the oldest and largest [Magicians’] Guild within Delornia,” reports Prime Minister Forbes. “They have worked tirelessly with the Magical Magistrate to ensure peace and have proven qualified to spearhead this endeavor to keep our country safe from lawless magical users.”
With the announcement, Prime Minister Forbes has named the Amur Guild Leader Dimitar Reagath the newly created High Guild Commander, under which he will oversee all other Guild Leaders to ensure that they follow Magistrate law. As High Guild Commander, Reagath can bring other leaders to trial as well as dismantle any Guild that threatens the safety of the country.
The Magistrate released this official statement: “Reagath will be instrumental in bringing magic users to heel and neutralizing the dangerous grimoires imprisoned within Peripetia Bookshop. Until the shop is cleared, Third Street will remain closed.”
No timeline for reopening was given, only that the grimoires are safely imprisoned while the Amur Guild gathers reinforcements in the upcoming days from other surrounding magician guilds.
I don’t bother reading more. Dimitar’s smug face shaking hands with the Prime Minister has my lip curling. Lucas’ quiet confession about why he left the Guild rings in my ears, and frost crawls up the sides of my glass in tendrils from my fingertips. Lucas was right. That snake wasted no time in taking advantage of the fear and chaos to gain more power. Now he’s bringing in reinforcements and collecting tokens.
Those terrified humans are too eager to give a man like Dimitar all that power with no thought of the future. It’s only a matter of time before the humans complete their army and come to purge the forest of weavers. Our civil war will only weaken us, and with Dimitar surging in power and numbers, he will overtake us. Then when he’s done, he’ll turn on the humans, which is exactly what they deserve for being so shortsighted.
My glass clicks down, and I scrub my face. Atticus will use this news to his advantage. He will argue for unity to face the threat of the humans. And with my father dead…
Cool sweat clings to me as the weight of all that is collapsing suffocates me. The civil war could be over, and I wouldn’t know until Atticus arrives to execute me for treason. The silence after my letters is horrifying. There is a very real possibility that it’s not only my father who Alasdair killed, but all the weavers that were with him. Or worse, our former allies betrayed my father to save themselves. Which means they could be heading here to gift me to Atticus.
Ice drips from the wall, my breath clouding before me. The tumbler reflects blue from my eyes.
Alasdair might’ve infected my mind, but he did me a favor. He showed me the weakness in the estate’s defenses. I don’t have much time to retrieve the signet ring from my father’s body and claim my birthright. Dimitar is already gathering reinforcements to storm the bookshop. The power any of those magicians will receive from communing with a grimoire is horrifying, but it’s overshadowed by the dread of them discovering my father’s body. I can’t permit my father to become a ghost if they improperly burn his body. It is my duty as his son to ensure he passes to the Weave.
I drum my fingers, eyes narrowing. Recovering my father from the bookshop basement is our first priority. Lucas will loathe this plan. He already struggles with believing Astoria is truly safe with Jinx in the Weave. Unfortunately, I need his assistance to get to the basement. Astoria is crafty, and I’m not a ward breaker. Besides, I’m sure the grimoires running loose will be hell to battle through alone.
I’ll need to carefully present this plan to make sure Lucas agrees to go along with it. After all, the power I will inherit from my father could make all the difference in our fight to save Astoria. Both Lucas and I have faced Alasdair and lost. Ensuring the next encounter ends in our success is the only way to free the woman we love.
Lucas should rest and heal for another few days, but we no longer have the luxury of waiting much longer. I’ll have to assess him after his next round of treatment.
Then, we’ll save Astoria and free us of Alasdair’s influence. If anyone can carve Alasdair out of my heart and mind, it is my vicious beloved. She just needs to hold on until then.
