Link here to a general overview of the novel
Prologue, Chpt 1, Chpt 2, Chpt 3, Chpt 4, Chpt 5, Chpt 6, Chpt 7, Chpt 8, Chpt 9, Chpt 10, Chpt 11, Chpt 12, Chpt 13, Chpt 14, Chpt 15, Chpt 16, Chpt 17, Chpt 18, Chpt 19, Chpt 20, Chpt 21, Chpt 22, Chpt 23, Chpt 24, Chpt 25, Chpt 26, Chpt 27
Chapter Twenty-eight
Daav
I miss him. And so I dream.
First his head tipped back with his wide grin and mirthful laugh, his red hair pulled into a queue to expose the long line of his throat and the silver hawks swaying down from his ears. His body twists and bends and blurs as he becomes a sleek and gorgeous hawk himself. Perched on my arm I throw him skyward and he flys, only for him to then land on my forearm where his beak taps a light touch at my cheek. I throw him up a second time and still he soars in a tight circle to dive once again for a perch, this time on my shoulder. I’m desperate for him to fly away but instead he tilts his head at me and lets out a raspy call. I don’t know what he wants but I need him to fly.
And then we’re at a beach, he’s human again and we’re sitting on the sand next to one another at dusk. My fingers sift through the fine sand over and over, the tiny grains falling out of my grasp like the daylight slipping away around us. The moon is missing from the sky, and I know once the sun sets I won’t be able to see Sebastian anymore.
In the remnants of the day, Sebastan’s holding out a hand to me in offer and in his palm is the dark, prickly shape of his tumbleweed tangle, glinting in the approaching night with a dark glow. But when I reach out to take the shape it lightens and bends into the vibrant crystal of my own, then keeps changing and finally finishes in the shape of a pearlescent heart. He closes his palm around it and pulls it back to him.
Then he’s laughing again and bending over in the sand with the heart in his palm and I’m afraid he’ll drop it, but instead he starts to build a sand creation. I squat down next to him and help. It’s of a bridge, finely sculpted and quite modern, similar to one I remember seeing and had impressed me so much as a young child in Staltz. But the tide is coming in and I’m afraid it will wash the bridge away.
Instead the bridge enlarges and it lifts into the air and stretches across the sky full size, the sand of its cables and girders still in danger from the waves that are off in the horizon but approaching. Across the bridge at the far end from me is Sebastian, standing and calling to me, although I can’t hear his words. His hand is outstretched again, offering the heart. He starts to walk toward me and I yell at him to stop because the waves are coming and they are going to wash him and the bridge away.
But he’s smiling as he continues to walk, and around him vines begin to sprout out of the sand bridge, winding through the shape and solidifying the structure, knotting together to keep it whole. Now it’s a verdant green bridge and in the center of it grows a tree. More trees sprout, into and merging with the side structures, holding it upright. Along the cables and girders of this forest bridge small points of dark and light particles spark into life, twinkling across the structure.
Sebastian laughs and walks onward toward me from across the sky chasm. He raises up his arms as he approaches and turns into his hawk again, soaring above me when he reaches my side of the bridge. Then turns around and swoops back to land on the top branch of the tree at the center. I’m striding quickly toward it. Just at its base, I plant one foot against the trunk to steady myself and reach for the bottommost limb to begin to climb. Sebastian’s hand reaches down to pull me up, and in it he’s holding the pearlescent heart. It flares into brilliance and blinds me.
I falter, falling back.
Knocking wakes me.
Outside the window, a storm lashes wildly. The rain has a terrible beauty to it, beading the glass and streaking sideways across the surface to race off the edges, pushed by the wind. But beauty, even this kind, no longer belongs in my world, nor do I want it there.
I roll over in bed to watch the gale. I think it’s about daybreak, although the gray pallor outside makes it hard to tell. The gloom matches my mood after yesterday and the dream.
The wind batters the house as if its intent is to tear the thing apart in some vendetta. It’s loud enough I’m sure I won’t be getting back to sleep. Did I get even a bell’s worth? The dream must have been all at the end of that small time. There’s another hard rap on the door and I’m surprised I heard the first with the noise outside.
“Sebastian, Daav?” a female voice calls.
Colleen?
“What do you want?”
“Is Sebastian in there?”
The hollow place in my chest makes it hard to find words.
“No, he slept elsewhere,” I manage to call.
“Get up! We have a problem.”
Something ominous in her voice sends chills marching over my skin, enough to have me throwing on clothes and racing downstairs.
The rest of the Cohort and Mentors are stumbling down just after me. Isolde joins them. Everyone is there. Everyone but Sebastian.
“Where is he?” I demand, turning to Colleen who’s standing in front of the empty fireplace at the center of the living room. She’s scowling, almost a teeth gnashing expression with arms crossed and her foot tapping with impatience.
“Who?” Bethany asks, pushing her glasses up her nose, a dark blue silk robe tied over her nightwear.
Ravel and Nuée are the last down the stairs. He has a tee shirt on inside out, the outline of a musical note bleeding through the fabric.
Nuée is rubbing her eyes, yawning. “What’s going on?”
“Sebastian is missing,” Colleen says.
“Where is he?” I grit out one more time.
“I don’t know for certain.”
She looks almost guilty. No, no, no, whatever this is, it can’t happen. The whole point is to keep him safe.
“Well you know something if you’re waking us all up so early,” Pike says.
“Esther’s car is gone,” Colleen states. “I checked after I made arrangements for a second car to be delivered. We needed another.”
“He took my car? And in this storm?” Esther says with outrage.“ Is he coming back?”
“We haven’t yet heard where he’s gone,” I say, each word a careful effort. “Or why.”
Although I suspect I may be the reason.
“He didn’t say anything to you last night?” Colleen asks me.
“Only that he wanted me to do some experiments with joining our Verse. I declined. He was…unhappy with my answer.”
Colleen huffs. “He told me he’d speak to you.”
“My patience is about gone, Colleen. Just tell us.”
Her lips purse. “Right before we left Conclave Headquarters my sources passed a video message that had been sent for him. I played it for Seb when we arrived last night. It came from his biological parents who recognized him from the viral video and subsequent news coverage.”
“What!!??” That last comes out at top volume from me, since the answer is nothing I’ve imagined. He must have been elated having something amazing to share given how long he’s wanted to know about them. Instead of me listening to him, we fought.
“Are you saying he’s gone to find them?”
When did he leave? Had the storm started already?
“Yes, but that in itself is not the problem.”
Colleen continues on to describe the blackmail, the deal, and then plays us the video. The little boy. Tuck.
Verse twist it, he’s taking them on himself to go after his brother. Without backup. Without what they asked for. What is it he thinks he can do when he shows up without me?
I lurch toward her and stop short. Control, Daav. “Why didn’t you tell us?” I want to wring her neck, but fight not to do it.
Voices of shock carry through the room.
“I got the news just as the disaster hit at Headquarters and we had to get out of Bistral. And you do remember he was unconscious the first part and needed healing? And then the storm and hail? After that Seb deserved to hear about this first. He asked me not to say anything until he spoke with you. Silly me imagined he was actually going to do it.”
“We have to get to the Depot,” Nuée says.
“With what vehicle? We’re stuck here if he’s taken our remaining auto,” Ravel responds, folding Nuée into his arms for comfort.
Christopher glances over at Nuée and Ravel with a look of concern for his ward’s panic. “Even if we can get there, he may be long gone with the phone his parents left.”
“Colleen?” I say. “What other resources do you have?”
I’ll beg her if I have to.
“As I said, I made a call already for a car which is being delivered in the next several hours, but the weather is likely to delay it. I called again to speed up the process once I found Seb was gone and I’m still trying to have his parents’ electronic message traced even though the first attempt led nowhere.”
“We need to know. You have to track them down.” My feet move, I’m pacing toward the sliding doors to the outside, watching the waves, like walls of water, massive and choppy and crashing onto the beach. The storm must be far out at sea or the threat to the house would be worse, the waves higher. My hand presses the glass. My Angel loves the beach, storms and all. I spin back around. “Please, Colleen.” She stares at me, nods.
“I will try, Daav. I am trying, for his sake, for yours. For Tuck’s. I want you safe.”
And for the first time ever, I see the lost woman behind the stain of her soul. The one who’s not giving up her struggle to crawl out of the murky dim of the cave into daylight. I wonder what happened to pull her into the dark of the cave in the first place. It can’t just be Victor. I turn back toward the beach.
“He really thinks he can save that little boy?” Hanna asks, then answers her own question. “Of course he does.”
Isolde is at my side, her hand reaches for mine and I let her hold it. “We need a plan,” she says. “So we make one while we wait.”
I nod, rip my eyes from the sand and water. “Okay.” What else do I say? My fear is large enough to fill the entire room, the entire house, the ocean beyond it. I’m half dazed, and let her pull us back to the group.
Sebastian. Angel.
Colleen sighs, and claps her hands for attention. My eyes catch Frederick’s flinch.
“There’s more for me to share to help with the shitshow of how to deal with Harkness. Since we seem to be facing unending crisis, why not add to the mix.” She’s staring at me pointedly, seeming to steel herself for an additional battle. “I have information about him that you can find a way to use.”
“What are you talking about, Colleen?” Pike asks, although it sounds less like a question and more a demand.
I haven’t realized until the last several days how often Pike acts as leader in his Cohort, and how willingly the others let him. I think again that Pike’s changed since Victor’s death. Victor hadn’t been their leader, but he was something to them, and crowded out anyone else. They’ve lost three Cohort mates over the years, and even though they are all powerful members of the mage community, maybe it brings relief to abdicate control to someone willing to take it. Sebastian implies as much when he talks about why a person chooses submission.
Sebastian.
But I need to hear out Colleen in the torture of this wait, at minimum to keep me busy and from tearing out my hair. My fingers curl by my sides.
She glances toward Isolde as if watching for a reaction. “Victor believed Harkness had magic.”
Isolde’s eyes widen. “That’s not true.”
My sister’s kept my hand as she’s drawn me back to our gathering, but drops it now. She’s shaking her head in denial. Again, again.
Colleen continues on, ignoring the stiffened postures spreading through the room. “That he’s gone to great lengths to hide it, firmed his anti-mage stance and killed all others with the power.”
Isolde turns desperate eyes to me. This would change everything she’s known about her father.
The room sits in shocked silence, and then…uproar.
“Why didn’t Victor say something?” Pike demands. “With all of the years, all of the shit we lived through together?”
Esther’s face is storm clouds much like what’s outside. “This could have made all the difference!”
“He can’t have magic,” I insist. He’s willing to kill me if he’s the same as me? “It’s well known that both his father and he were born without. It died away after his grandfather’s generation.”
“Do you know your Staltzian history?” she asks. “Isolde, you’re the expert here, tell me if I’m wrong. Carl’s father was born without and started spouting hatred against magic and magic users as soon as he was old enough to understand he’d been cheated of his legacy. And Carl always wanted to please his father. Laws didn’t exist yet to put magic users to death, but their origins were born from jealousy and fear.”
Colleen’s Cohort begins shooting questions at her, challenging. They’re upset. Of course they are. This is huge. Yet she’s calm, collected in her responses. I don’t understand this woman, but right now I need her. The anger I expect to feel is missing.
“He has magic, but it’s weak,” Colleen answers. “Weaker than even the least among our mages, but it exists. And by the time Harkness instituted his genocide of young mages in his country, he was well and truly trapped in his lie.”
“You’re proposing that Harkness’s self-hatred, his attempt to please his father led him to the path of total rejection of magic, even his own?” Esther asks.
Christopher’s voice rises then, not even waiting for the answer, his frustration well roused. “You’ve known this for how long? How long ago did Victor share this secret?”
Colleen’s placid demeanor with a flare of amusement only pisses off others in the room more. “A while.”
“Didn’t you think you should tell the Conclave? Or your own Cohort?” Pike says.
“Victor decided we shouldn’t.”
“You did everything Victor wanted?”
“Pretty much.” She shrugs.
“Why?”
“You do remember what it was like to piss off Victor? And don’t tell me you ever pushed back at him either.”
None of them speak of their relationship with Victor, or their two Cohort mates who died before any of them took on wards of their own.
I absorb this information about Harkness and watch Isolde carefully, watch the shock, dismay, and recalculations move over her. And now I grab her hand, squeeze it. She lets me and I’m pathetically grateful for it.
Finally, I speak.
“Victor died months ago. If he terrorized you like he did everyone else to keep you quiet, why not come forward after he was gone?” It sounds accusatory, but really it’s not. Victor is not easily dismissed, even in death. I understand that well.
“Habit. A waiting game to see how the dust settled. Or maybe I wanted to see what happened on your birthday. No answer that will please you little Staltzian mage.” She sounds almost sad, or maybe just resigned. It’s hard to imagine true regret from her. “But what I offer now is the truth.”
“This assumes Victor was correct and there’s proof. Do you have it, or did Victor die with secrets even from you?” I ask. Still, if it’s true, I’m not sure this changes anything.
She blows out in frustration. “I don’t, but in this situation it’s the implication that we can reveal his secret that buys us power over him. You want other options besides using your Verse to save Orreance, here’s one.”
Wouldn’t Pasqua have uncovered this truth? Although, if even Isolde doesn’t know, Harkness must hide it well. Does my mother know? How can we trust this information? But Victor had something over Harkness to keep him in check all those years, and this would fit.
Sebastian needs to hear this, may have ideas. His mind always turns over information in creative ways. My gut twisting fear for him resurges. I hurt him so badly he’s willing to leave and face something terrible without me. The idiot, I’m trying to save him and he throws himself into the path of danger. Verse, but I hurt him that badly. The guilt eats into my bones like acid stripping away my strength.
Isolde squeezes our linked hands.
And then Hanna’s at my other side.“We can figure out what to do with this information later. Right now we need a plan to find Sebastian and be ready to go when the car arrives.” She wraps both hands around my arm, moves into me. “We’re going to save him, Daav. You’re not alone.”
It’s me and Hanna and my sister connected in a chain of touch. Then Nuée’s there, and she takes Isolde’s other hand. Ravel is behind her, his palms resting on her shoulders. Then Frederick, who approaches me to place his hand on my shoulder. “We’re here, man.” Bethany’s at his side, her palm on his upper arm.
The others nod around the room. Everyone looks a version of haggard and worried. Rundown and runover by yesterday’s events, and now this on top.
The wave in my dream may still be coming for that sand bridge to wash it away if I can’t find anything to hold it together. And my Angel’s standing in the middle of it. The squall outside feels like a portend.
Sebastian, please. Be safe. Please, Angel. I’m coming, just hold on.