Daron’s throat tightened under his unrelenting grip. Aaros didn’t know. Nobody could’ve overheard Kallia’s teacher, with the chaos that had overtaken the ballroom. And yet the guests of the party emerged, gathering around the empty mirror frames. All shaken, yet watching Daron as if he had something to answer for.
“Demarco!” Aaros shook him roughly. “Don’t just stand there, do something—”
“He can’t.”
Lottie stepped right through an empty frame, looking every bit as disheveled as the other guests. Her eyes were set on Daron, steely with quiet fury. Remembrance. “Isn’t that right?”
She’d known.
The truth was not as painful to his ears as he’d thought. Distantly he heard a wave of protests fly to his rescue—citing his career, his power, knocking out mirrors moments before from luminous blasts out of his hands.
His eyes fell to his palms, now absent of light, still warm from the power that came at him like a stranger. The magic, gone.
Kallia, gone.
Where are you?
Numbed to the pain, the shouting all around him, his gaze drew to the ground, so heavy he could barely lift it anymore. But his heart thumped a beat back to life, for in the scattered glass and rose petals, a note had been left among them.
One of Soul
EPILOGUE
The stage was empty, abandoned.
The perfect place for a meeting, the powerless magician reasoned, as he sat along the cold, wooden edge, overlooking the entire theater. Darkened as the day he first walked in. Empty seats and aisles, lights dead as the grief that clouded the whole city.
Along with a small spark of intrigue. A new sort of curiosity unfolded over the city, bringing many more visitors. All taken in by the tale of unfortunate accidents and injuries. In a way, the theatrical was still running. People came for front-row seats, and stayed for the next act. The next tragedy. And the mystery of the contestant who’d gone missing without a trace.
Still missing.
Sometimes he thought he could hear her in the silence, see her in reflections. Just within reach, until he blinked and found nothing there.
Only an illusion. A trick.
The powerless magician couldn’t tell them apart anymore, only knew that somehow, whatever it took, he had to find her.
The doors opened.
The others had arrived. An assistant who had the quick look of the streets about him, and a scowling circus entertainer whose ruby-red hair dominated the bleak air of the building.
“Why did you call us here, judge?” the assistant sighed.
“Seriously,” the entertainer snarled, stomping closer. Within punching distance. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go back to my tent and return with our lion. She hasn’t devoured a liar in a while.”
A month ago, he would’ve flinched. He would’ve skipped town to avoid any accusation. The truth. He’d been running from it for so long, he didn’t know what was true anymore. Only the lies spun over time into a far worse creature he could no longer live with.
“I know I have a lot to explain and even more to apologize for,” he confessed, wringing his hands to keep them from shaking. “I will do that. I will tell you everything.”
“And?” The assistant attempted to hide his disinterest. Failing. “What’s the catch?”
The entertainer’s jaw worked. “And why do you think we’d want to hear what you have to say?”
“Because the poor boy needs your help.”
The sharp-tongued journalist, the last to round them out, shut the doors behind her. Waltzing in, she took her pen down from her bound hair and wielded it like a blade, brandishing her notepad. “Please don’t say you’ve started without me,” she said. “How rude.”
The magician waited a moment, expecting the assistant and the entertainer to leave at her arrival. They didn’t have to help, they didn’t owe him anything. They could’ve left town just as easily, the moment the show was over.
Something rooted them all in place, regardless.
The journalist took it upon herself to occupy the first red velvet seat in the front row. She unfolded her spectacles, crossed her legs to prop her notepad by her knee. “No detail is too small, no theory too ridiculous—”
“This is ridiculous,” the entertainer spat. “We don’t need a headline, we need help.”
“You can’t solve anything unless you have all the details first. But if you have any other bright ideas, please. I’m all ears,” the journalist fired back, just as vicious. Neither the girl nor the assistant supplied anything more, quietly taking their seats without further complaint.
The magician had overseen theaters packed with hundreds, crowds of