Fated

‘The sparks inside lit up and it glowed. Just for a second. Then it went dark again.’ Luna seemed about to say something else, then stopped.

‘After that? Did it do anything else?’

‘Well …’ Luna hesitated. ‘It might be nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It felt like it was looking at me. Even after I put it away. I know that sounds weird.’

I sat back against the tree, looking down at the cube. I didn’t like this at all. ‘Alex?’ Luna asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘This is going to be trouble.’

‘Why?’

I hesitated. I’d been teaching Luna about magic for a few months, but so far I’d avoided telling her much about the people who use it. I know Luna wants to be accepted into the magical world, and I also know there’s not much chance of it happening. Mage society is based on a hierarchy of power: the stronger your magic, the more status you have. Sensitives like Luna are second-class citizens at best.

‘Look, there’s a reason not many mages run shops,’ I said at last. ‘They’ve never bought in to the whole idea of yours and mine. A mage sees a magic item, his first reaction is to take it. Now, a minor item you can keep out of sight, but something really powerful … that’s different. Any mage who finds out about this thing is going to be willing to take time off his schedule and track you down to take it, and he might not be gentle about how. Just owning a major item is dangerous.’

Luna was quiet. ‘But you don’t do that,’ she said at last.

I sighed. ‘No.’

Luna looked at me, then turned away. We sat for a little while in silence.

Luna’s curse is a spell of chance magic. Chance magic affects luck, bending probability so that something that might happen one time in a thousand, or a million, happens at just the right time – or the wrong one. The spell around Luna does both. It pulls bad luck away from her, and brings it to everyone nearby.

The really twisted thing is that from what I’ve learned the spell was originally invented by Dark mages as a protection, not a curse, because it makes you as safe from accidents as a person can possibly be. You can run across a motorway in rush hour, climb a tree in a lightning storm, walk through a battlefield with bombs going off all around you, all without taking a scratch.

But the accidents don’t go away; they just get redirected to everyone nearby, and when the spell is laid permanently, the results are horrible. The closer Luna gets to another person, the more the curse affects them. She can’t live in the same house as anyone else, because something terrible would happen within a month. She can’t keep pets, or they die. Even having friends is dangerous. The closer other people are to her, and the longer they stay near, the worse the result. Whenever Luna comes to care about any other human being, she knows that the more time she spends with them, the more they’re going to be hurt. She told me once that the first boy she kissed ended up in a coma.

I’ve spent some time researching Luna’s curse, trying to find a way to break it, but haven’t gotten anywhere. I might be able to get somewhere if I studied her intensively, but Luna’s life is hard enough without being treated like some kind of science project. Still … ‘Luna?’

‘Hm?’

‘There’s something I was …’ Something brushed against my senses, and I stopped. I looked into the future and my stomach suddenly went cold.

Luna was watching in puzzlement. She could tell from my expression that something was going on, but she didn’t know what. ‘Alex?’

I jumped to my feet. ‘Get away!’

Luna started to rise, confused. ‘What’s going on?’

‘There’s no time!’ I was desperate; we had only seconds. ‘Behind the tree, hide! Hurry! ’

Luna hesitated an instant longer, then moved quickly behind the beech. ‘Stay there,’ I said, my voice low and urgent. ‘Don’t make a sound.’ I turned back just as a man stepped from the trees in front of me.

He was powerfully built, with a thick neck and wide hands, and muscles that bulged through the lines of his black coat. He might have looked like a bouncer or a bodyguard, maybe even a friendly one, if you didn’t look too closely at his eyes. ‘Verus, right?’ the Dark mage said, regarding me steadily. ‘Don’t think we’ve met.’

2

The two of us stood facing each other across the grass. The wind had dropped, and the birds around had gone silent, sensing danger. I stood still, keeping my face blank and not letting myself show any sign of the sickening sensation you get when you’ve made a really bad mistake. I’d left my house without weapons or defences. Once upon a time I never would have dreamt of stepping outside without them, but months of safety had lulled me into dropping my guard.

Now I was paying for it. I was standing in front of a Dark mage, and if he decided to come at me, I was toast – literally. The silence stretched out while I looked frantically into the future, trying to see what would happen. ‘I guess we haven’t been introduced,’ I said at last, keeping my voice steady.

‘You can call me Cinder.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Subtle.’

‘Trying to be funny?’

‘I don’t know, are you laughing?’