Marked by Death (Necromancer #1) - Kaje Harper Page 0,18

break.”

Darien rolled his head on the sweater-pillow to watch as Silas stood smoothly and went to the desk, pulling a deep purple bag out from a bottom drawer. He shook a piece of white chalk into his palm and came back to crouch at Darien’s feet, beginning to scrawl something on the polished floor. Darien’s heart rate picked up. The dry rasp of the chalk on wood was the only sound.

No magic wand? No chanting and black robes? He realized Silas was right. The belittling comments came easily to his tongue, but he held them back. He did ask, “Can I speak?”

Silas paused in his writing. “Not after I close the wards, but you won’t want to. Do you have questions?”

A thousand. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Just lie still. You’ll fall asleep soon. Most people don’t even remember the experience.”

I want to remember. The thought of being asleep while important things happened made him shiver. But he ran his hand over the rough skin on his arm where the boat lay and didn’t say so.

Silas continued writing, down Darien’s right side, around his feet, and back up the left. It seemed like nothing, the click and rasp almost inaudible, but something like warmth or pressure rose along his right arm. Imagination. Illusion. Silas seemed taller, his face darker and more remote, as he moved up past Darien’s shoulder. Then he pivoted, only his back visible, as he closed himself inside the line of writing with Darien. Better with me than if he was outside, right?

Darien knew when the wards were finished. There was a snap, like a spark from a doorknob in winter, and a whiff of something dry and smoky. The room beyond the chalk lines went hazy and indistinct. Darien lost sight of Silas as he settled somewhere above his head.

When do I fall asleep? He felt tired and dizzy and his head throbbed in time with his racing pulse, but that had been true before the wards closed.

Silas’s fingers touched his scalp, then one hand moved Darien’s fingers off the boat tattoo and pressed there. Darien felt his eyelids drooping heavily, and gave in, letting them close. If he can’t help me, I’m dead anyhow. What can it hurt to trust him?

He didn’t think he was sleeping. Heat rose slowly where Silas’s fingers touched his skin. A gentle warmth became a fierce flame. Still less painful than when I tried to burn the tattoo off. The heat spread, radiating deeper in him. His body felt enveloped with it, till the floor under him faded into the sensation.

He opened his eyes. He was standing somewhere almost dark, but things moved in the dimness. Flashes and wisps of neon orange, acid green, hazy white, drifted around him. He brushed at one that threatened to drape over his face and it prickled the skin of his hand like nettles. Off to the left he saw a glow of warmer color and he headed toward it, pushing through the dark soupy fog and dodging the floating lights. As he neared the bright-green glow, he could make out the clothed silhouette of a man, wearing the color like a liquid coating.

The man turned as he got close. Silas. His dream-self wasn’t surprised, but Silas clearly was. His head reared back and his eyes went wide. “Darien?”

“Yes?” It came out as a question, because he didn’t really feel like himself. “Where are we?”

“Halfway to the Otherplane. Between life and death. You shouldn’t be here.”

Darien tried to shrug. He wasn’t sure if his body moved the way he expected. He felt heavy and sluggish. “Not my choice.”

“I suppose not.” Silas reached out and closed his fingers on Darien’s wrist. The contact was the realest thing about the place. Darien saw the glow expand from Silas’s skin to cover his own too, and as it spread, it faded. Silas looked more normal, and the space around them lost some of its brilliant colors, muting into a muffling, dark fog. Silas pulled him a step forward at a time, and he lurched, tripping over something unseen underfoot.

Silas’s next tug pulled them out of the darkness onto the bank of a river. There were stars overhead in a purple-pink sky, but the water of the river danced far brighter than any available light. Wavelets rippled and broke, brilliant as if they reflected a midday sun. Silas jerked Darien to a stop and turned him with a hand on his shoulder.

The place they’d just emerged from was