Carnival of Souls

He heard a book close with a soft thump, and the witch’s footsteps clacked over the stone floor.

At her approach, he stood again. Even if he couldn’t get out of the circle, he wasn’t going to stay on the floor as if he was her subordinate. When he stood, he saw how very tiny she was: frail bones and no musculature to speak of, yet she had boldness unlike any witch he’d seen in The City.

“I dislike being interrupted when I am working, Belias.” She walked around the circle, and he turned as she did so, continuing to face her rather than let her stand behind him. “You’re different from the ones I’ve summoned before.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

She murmured something in the language of witches and motioned to him.

The temptation not to speak at her command vied with the need to know. The desire for knowledge won over pride. “Summoned where?” he asked.

She studied him as objects were studied in the Carnival of Souls, and Belias felt an unfamiliar prickle of fear spread over his skin. His hand went again to the hilt of the knife strapped to his thigh — and he realized that it was Aya’s knife, one he’d bought for her.

Why do I have Aya’s knife?

Nothing made sense.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“You are at the offices of Stoneleigh-Ross, Belias. Specif-ically, you are in my office, in my summoning circle.” The witch looked bemused. “You are also completely and utterly unable to be anywhere else unless I allow it.”

Belias hadn’t ever heard of Stoneleigh-Ross, but he had heard of summoning circles. Daimons were only able to be summoned if the witch had their full name. “How? Who are you? Why? I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not going to stay here as your prisoner. Witches aren’t free from judgment. If Marchosias—”

“You aren’t within his domain,” the witch interrupted. “This is my domain.”

Belias narrowed his gaze. “Who are you? Where are we?”

“I’m Evelyn Stoneleigh, and we are in North Carolina.”

“Where?”

“The human world, Belias.”

Horror filled him. The human world was terrible. Every treatise his father had given him on the place highlighted the perversions and barbaric nature of humanity. The City wasn’t perfect, but it had a functional caste system, breeding control, and healthy commerce. Marchosias kept order, and judgments were swift.

The witch walked past him then, leaving him alone in the room, trapped in her summoning circle.

How did I end up here, in a world where witches hold dangerous amounts of power?

The last thing he remembered was his former betrothed stabbing him. He’d expected to die, been certain of it, in fact — and he wasn’t sure that waking up imprisoned by a witch in the human world was a much better fate.

CHAPTER 9

KALEB WATCHED THROUGH HOODED eyes as Zevi heated the needle in the candle flame. The amount of blood he’d lost this time was alarming enough that he wasn’t sure if this was going to be the end of his fighting or not. A tiny but very real part of him hoped it was. He wanted to rest, even if resting meant slipping into unconsciousness. The other, more insistent part of him could only focus on how few competitors were left. To be so close and lose seemed wrong.

“Stay awake.” Zevi didn’t bother to clean the knife blade — or heat it — before he cut away the remains of Kaleb’s torn trousers. He wasn’t rough, but he wasn’t wasting time on unnecessary steps either.

“Am.” Kaleb’s eyes fluttered shut again — until Zevi poured a bucket of saltwater over the bloodied gashes in his thigh. The water was clean; Zevi was always prepared with clean water when Kaleb fought. It wasn’t freezing, but it stung.

“He tried for an artery. Smart move.” The hands on Kaleb’s leg were as gentle as possible, but that didn’t make them painless. “Keeping the claws in here was wise.” Zevi poked around the wound, digging out the claws that had been left behind.

Kaleb blacked out again, but he came to a few moments later when Zevi stabbed the needle into his leg. Thankfully, he’d missed the second dousing with saltwater. Zevi was thorough, and finding foreign objects in the wound always meant saltwater washes. It was wise, but it still hurt like hell.

Not that stitches are fun.

The hot metal jabbing into his skin burned, and the feel of thread being forced through the tiny hole in his leg felt alien, but Zevi was good at stitching evenly and quickly. It was a rhythmic pain — piercing, tugging, piercing, tugging, pushing flesh together, piercing, tugging — as the stitches closed the gash.

“He missed the artery.”

“Good.” Kaleb looked up.

Zevi knelt over Kaleb’s bloody, wet leg. He had one knee on either side of Kaleb’s leg, and he squeezed tightly. “Not enough,” Zevi muttered. “Can you push here?”

“Where?”

Zevi positioned Kaleb’s hands on his torn leg. “Like this. Just hold the skin together.”

Mutely, Kaleb did as he was told.

“Better.” Zevi stabbed the needle into the flesh again and again. He finished sewing the tear closed without another word. When he was done, he left the needle and remaining thread lying on Kaleb’s bruised leg.

“Hate this part.”

“I know.” Zevi’s voice held no sympathy, though. Sympathy was reserved for the truly dreadful in his world. This wasn’t the worst injury Zevi had tended. It wasn’t the worst either of them had recovered from either.

The cave was silent for a moment as Zevi walked to the bucket that hung over the fire. Kaleb turned his head to watch. He’d experimented with the idea that not seeing it coming was better, but for him, at least, the shock was worse.

Methodically Zevi wrapped his hand in a faded but clean cloth; he reached out and gripped one of the handles that stuck out of the bucket and withdrew a knife that had been heating in the saltwater over the fire.

The instinct to run wasn’t as easy to ignore as it had been the first time. Then, Kaleb hadn’t known how much this part would hurt. Now, he’d had plenty of experience with it; he knew cauterization was worse than stabbing. That first injury happened quickly, and for the first few moments, the shock kept the pain at bay. Sometimes, if Kaleb was fight high, the pain didn’t hit him for a few minutes. This pain, however, was on top of the injury; this pain was without the rush of a fight.

Kaleb swallowed. Every muscle tightened in anticipation. Then, Zevi pressed the blade to the skin he’d just stitched.

The sizzle and the stench of burning skin added to the already awful feeling, and Kaleb turned his head to the side and vomited.

HE WASN’T SURE HOW long he’d lain on the floor after Zevi had cauterized the incision. Heat and salt worked on most of the toxins that could be left behind in a fight. The few extra-magical ones that made their way into The City were countered by steel or silver. Kaleb and Zevi had bought or acquired enough blades that had both metals in them that Zevi usually had a reasonably sized blade for most injuries. Occasionally, he’d had to resort to multiple cauterizing blades, but thankfully that was not the norm.

“Drink.” Zevi handed him a mug of something.

Kaleb sniffed it.

Zevi snorted. “I’m not going to drug you after I just sewed you up. If I wanted to knock you out, I’d have let you bleed out or skipped burning you.”

“Sorry. Reflex.” Kaleb propped himself up, lifted the mug to his lips, and drank the contents. It was far from