Not since the night everything went wrong during his last performance on stage. The night his powers deserted him.
Until tonight.
For hours, Daron sat before the roaring fire without feeling its warmth. Until the light died in the hearth, as it faded from his palms.
ACT III
ENTER THE LOVERS:
THOSE ROSES ENTWINED AMONG TWISTED THORNS
The master watched the girl descend from the ceiling in a large birdcage forged from rose-gold bars and crystal tassels.
A new act, though not like his guests noticed the difference.
Hell, they couldn’t even tell a magician from an illusion cast by one.
Once the gilded cage had lowered to the ground, the masked girl within waltzed out. Short silver-white hair, with smiling pink lips and a petite frame. By morning, she’d dissolve back into nothing and emerge only when summoned.
If only all magic could be so easy.
The master had known things would grow worse in that cursed city, and nobody had heeded the warnings. The show was not the only thing that could go wrong the longer they remained behind its gates.
The fools were trapped. Like wild game too tempted by the bait. Once you spent enough time in a city like that, it was rarely likely to let you out. Starving beasts never indulged their prey with mercy. Not until they had their fill.
There was only so much time left before they dug their claws into her.
He could feel them, even from here. Beckoning him to come, to listen and follow. Each time he visited, their calls grew louder. Not screams. Whispers to lure, saying all the right words.
He couldn’t listen to them again. She’d gone to them, despite all she had here.
She’d made her choice, and now nothing could help her.
Not even him.
27
“What do you mean we can’t leave the city?”
Hostility burned among the gathered group at the Alastor Place. Daron almost declined joining the emergency summons to the theater that morning. When he awoke that morning, his throat grated like sandpaper. His mind throbbed, too weighed down from every glass he’d thrown back.
His mind was not so heavy anymore.
“We’d had enough of this. Everything’s been pure disaster from the start,” Robere declared, rising from his seat with a prim nod. “I’m not being paid nearly enough to entertain it for another night. So I packed up. And Eduar offered to join.”
Erasmus scoffed. “You both decided to take the coward’s exit and jump ship?”
“A sinking ship.”
“Call it what you will.” The proprietor folded his hands. “But alas, your little failed escape into the night did bring to our attention our very … odd situation.”
“Odd?” Judge Bouquet bellowed. “The gates have vanished. We can’t bloody leave the city.”
Daron focused on breathing evenly, trying to keep his head while everyone around him lost theirs. He hadn’t tried leaving, as the others had done. Once they heard of the vanished gate, everyone laughed. But each contestant and judge who had approached the wall since found nothing. No gate, no way out. If they tried scaling the walls, there was nothing but the Dire Woods to take them—and nobody wanted to test the mercy of that possibility. Others could enter and exit as they pleased, for carriages still regularly roamed down the streets to and from the entry path. However, the show’s players found only a cleanly paved wall. Their eyes alone, veiled with this madness.
The tension was palpable in the room, the reactions ranging from quiet alarm to violent pacing. The vastness of the Alastor Place had shrunken to a cage. And the birds within squawked loudly, nipping at every person’s last word as if fighting for the last seed in the feeder.
Surprisingly, Kallia remained quiet in her seat. Just as she had when he’d left his room earlier that morning. After receiving the urgent summons, it was hardly a shock when her door opened right after his. No Aaros in tow, for it was a closed meeting. What shocked him most were the bruise-like shadows under her eyes, the puffy redness of them marked with exhaustion.
“Zarose, what happened?”
Daron wished he could take it back the instant she bristled. “Rough performance night. What’s your excuse?”
The bags under his eyes took on even more weight as she grumpily pushed past him; her gait slow, measured. The magic she had exerted had taken a toll. And no matter how much Erasmus spent on miracle creams and ointments for his star, her back couldn’t have healed that quickly.
It could’ve been worse, the proprietor had remarked all night, drunkenly patting