act. If one went by the images alone, you’d think he’d accomplished every spectacle by himself.
Foolish are the ones who believe anything great can be done alone.
“Weather storms onstage, floating sword fights, saving a burning boarding school?” She traced every headline, finally looking up. “You used your magic like that?”
He shrugged, though the school incident was one of his prouder moments. He traced the crisp papery surfaces, not old enough to yellow, but faded. It was a miracle Gastav had been able to send them from Tarcana so quickly. Even the manager at the post office long ago stopped dragging strange looks his way with his visits. No shipments of strange plants to fill an empty greenhouse this time, but a collection of his glory days immortalized in print. He’d never bothered to read them, barely recognized himself between the words.
Dread gusted through him as she reached the end of the table.
The last of the issues.
Daron hadn’t been able to look, immediately facing it down. His shoulders bunched at the sound of paper crinkling before she flipped it over. He forced himself to look at it from over her shoulder. The mirror he could never fully avoid.
A photograph dominated the center, of a closed coffin lined with flowers.
“Daring Deed Ends in Tragic Last Act.” No more than a shaky whisper as she read on in silence. It tormented him, watching her. Remembering the first time he’d read Lottie’s words, how the walls closed in on him like a prison.
Outside of Glorian, it was a story that followed him relentlessly. A promising young performer and his charming assistant, a talented pair who never failed to light up a show together. A true stage match, with a tragic end.
“You loved her, didn’t you?”
Kallia didn’t look up from the paper, studying every word. Daron fought back the hardness working up his throat. Not once did the papers ever name her, not even in this one.
It’s what she always wanted, Lottie insisted, and it only made Daron hate her more. Even the last story written about Eva had painted her as a lie.
“My sister.” A burning began at the back of his eyes. “Eva.”
He hadn’t spoken her name out loud to anyone in so long. No one would understand, no one would believe.
A hand came to rest softly on his back, circling slowly.
“I had no idea,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Daron.”
He looked up at the ceiling, fighting the urge to pull her to him. To bring those hands around his neck, to feel something more than darkness.
Would she believe him?
He squeezed the bridge of his nose, hoping to siphon the pressure racing to his skull. “It’s not true, Kallia.”
“What’s not?”
“Eva. She isn’t dead,” he said, swallowing hard. “She disappeared.”
43
Grief did funny things to people, Kallia knew, even if she’d never properly felt it. The death of Sire hadn’t fazed her. The loss of Mari came close, but realizing someone wasn’t real couldn’t be the same as losing someone who was. However many times Kallia mourned a friend, she might never know; Jack swept her grief away so diligently.
A small mercy, perhaps. But there was no puppeteer reigning over Demarco’s mind, no one to wipe the pain away before it festered into something worse.
“What do you mean?” Kallia did her best to keep her voice even. She glanced furtively toward the papers to make sure she hadn’t misread. The picture of the coffin adorned with flowers remained, framed with words and phrases in bold. Tragic. Fallen. Vanishment. Last act. Funeral.
“You don’t believe me.”
Something in Demarco’s expression fractured as he walked out from under her grasp to the other end of the table. Kallia’s hand hovered a moment too long before she let it fall to her side. “If you don’t explain fully, how can I?”
From the other end of the table, he shot her a look. Uncertain, dubious. She hated how someone had put that in his eyes—many people, it seemed.
Yet he must’ve caught something in her eyes, too, for he relented with a sigh. Exhaled, as if breathing for the first time in a while. “Eva’s my older sister by two years. Same as me, she’s a born magician. Always had a sharp eye for the stage, a brilliant mind to entertain an audience.” He spoke slowly, with care. “But women were not allowed to perform when we first started. It was … just the way things were.”
Kallia’s brow arched. “Were?”
He had the decency to look chagrined. “There’s still a long, long way