Magic and Loss

passing nymphs grabbed my hand and yanked me into the street, spinning me around and around like a child playing with a top. Her laughter was as clear as an Attic sky and sweet as honey fresh from the comb, and for a heartbeat I understood how handsome young shepherds could abandon their flocks in mad pursuit of such impossible, primal beauty.

After two or three spins, the nymph let go of me and hurried after her sisters as they continued to wind their way through the festival-goers. I staggered backward, shaking my head to try to clear the dizziness from it, then turned to where Hexe had been standing a moment before, only to find him gone.

I looked around, at first thinking he must have gone to one of the concession booths to freshen his drink, but there was still no sign of him. However, there was an unpleasant smell in the air, one that seemed familiar, yet which I could not immediately place. Just as I was beginning to get worried, I caught a glimpse of purple hair half a block away, headed in the direction of the riverfront. I hurried after him, shouting his name, but his back was to me and my voice was drowned out by the noise of the carnival. I pulled out my cell phone to try to call him, only to find my battery drained.

Just as I was closing in, he suddenly ducked into one of the nameless alleyways that thread their way through the neighborhood. Upon following him, I was surprised to find Hexe standing in the middle of the narrow passageway with his back to me, his limbs twitching and jerking as if afflicted with Saint Vitus’ dance.

“Hey!” I shouted, more exasperated than angry. “What’s the big idea ditching me back there?”

Upon hearing my voice, the thing I had mistaken for Hexe turned to face me. Although it possessed the exact physical build, with the same color hair, worn in the exact same style, and was dressed in identical clothing as Hexe, the face was a blank oval, save for a pair of gaping, empty holes where the eyes should be.

As I backed away from the decoy, I caught the distinct smell of scorched metal, as if someone had left a saucepan on the burner for too long. I turned to see Boss Marz looming behind me, blocking my escape.

“Foolish little nump.” He grinned. “Don’t you know better than to believe anything you see on Jubilee Night?”

Chapter 7

The next time I opened my eyes I was relieved to find myself looking across a table into the real Hexe’s face, not that of the hideous simulacrum Marz had conjured forth to lure me away from the crowds. That relief was short lived as I realized I was tied to a chair and Hexe’s arms were pinned down atop the table by what looked like croquet hoops fitted into holes drilled into its surface. The fingers of both his hands were kept splayed and rigid in metal splints, therefore preventing him from working magic.

“Did they hurt you?” he asked anxiously. Although his purple hair was hanging down into his face, I could see that his right eye was blackened and his lower lip was split.

“I’m okay,” I replied, looking around as best I could at our surroundings. We seemed to be in a warehouse of some kind, and I could distinctly smell the river. “What is this place?”

“We’re somewhere in the Stronghold—the Maladanti’s private pier,” Hexe replied.

“How did we get here?”

“Marz’s familiar grabbed me the moment that nymph started spinning you around,” he explained. “They must have been watching us the whole time, waiting to strike. He teleported in and out within the blink of an eye.”

“I thought I caught a whiff of something hellish.” I grimaced.

“This is all my fault,” Hexe said bitterly. “We should have left the festival when I saw Marz, but I was unwilling to back down. Because of my pride, I’ve put both of us in danger.”

“How gracious of you to take the blame, Serenity. But then, you’ve always been one for noblesse oblige,” Boss Marz said as he emerged from the shadows, his familiar riding his shoulder, trailed by a pair of Maladanti goons. He smiled as he approached us, like a gracious host greeting welcome guests. “While I was away in the Tombs, I learned how little there is to do when one is in solitary confinement with steel mittens locked about your hands. They only allowed me the free use of my hands—and then, only the right one—for a few minutes each day to tend to meals, ablutions, and excretions. Having to rely on my weak hand to feed and groom myself proved quite eye-opening.”

“Not enough to take you off the Left Hand path, it would seem,” Hexe replied acidly.

“Ah, but it did provide me with a great deal of inspiration.” Marz’s smile became almost beatific as he stroked his familiar, Bonzo, who screeched and flashed his tiny fangs in my direction. “Gaza, show him the implements.”

A Maladanti soldier with peach-colored Jheri curls stepped forward and placed a small bundle on the table next to Hexe. Without anyone touching it, it unrolled to reveal a collection of metal items that resembled a cross between surgical instruments and a handyman’s tools. My blood ran cold as my mind suddenly flashed back to the display case wrapped in police tape at the museum.

“Those are witchbreaking devices,” Hexe gasped.

“You’re quite right, Serenity,” Boss Marz replied. “Isn’t it ironic that the Witchfinders, in order to rid the world of our kind, were forced to use magical weapons? But I can also appreciate the need to have the right tool for the job. Take this little beauty, for example,” he said as he picked up what looked like a double-edged cigar cutter. “The last time it tasted Kymeran blood was when Lord Bexe scattered his people to the wind.”

“You’re still grinding that axe, Marz?”

“Aye, and it’s quite sharp now,” the crime boss replied as the finger-cutter’s twin blades shut with an audible click.

Hexe’s face went white and his cat-slit pupils expanded until they swallowed the gold in his eye. “You wouldn’t dare,” he croaked.

“I wouldn’t be so certain as to what I might or might not do, if I were you, Serenity,” Marz sneered. “After all, you’re the one who didn’t think I would make a move against you during the Jubilee. But you needn’t worry—I’m not going to steal your magic so easily,” he said, tossing the finger-cutter back onto the table. He then pulled open the cuffs of his shirt as if to invite inspection. “Please notice that there is nothing up my sleeves.” He waved his left hand in an extravagant gesture, but instead of conjuring a bouquet of flowers from thin air he produced a metal mallet. “Prest-o change-o!”

Hexe tried to evade the blow, but there was no way to escape it. I closed my eyes, but could not block the sound of Hexe’s scream as his metacarpals splintered. Although I didn’t want to, I forced myself to look and saw that the color had drained from his face. He was hyperventilating and struggling to keep the pain from showing. Hexe raised his head to glare at Marz.

“Is that all you got?” he croaked.

Boss Marz brought the hammer down a second time, reducing the already-damaged fingers to kindling. Although he had to be in immense agony, Hexe gritted his teeth and remained silent, determined not to give the bastard the satisfaction of hearing him cry out.

However, I wasn’t as strong. “Stop it!” I screamed as Marz lifted the hammer a third time. “Please, don’t hurt him any more!”

“Very well, Ms. Eresby,” Marz said, tossing aside the witchbreaking device. “Far be it from me to go against the wishes of a lady.”

“You’ve gone too far, even for the Maladanti,” Hexe rasped. His face was starting to go gray with shock and his pupils were distressingly large. “They’ll throw you so deep into the Tombs you’ll never see sunlight again.”

“If I was frightened of your mother or the GoBOO, I never would have tossed you in that fighting pit in the first place,” Marz snorted in derision. “Understand this, Serenity: nobody interferes with me and gets away with it—I don’t care how blue their hair is! The fact you are the Heir Apparent means less than nothing to me. You are not, and never will be, my Witch King.” He motioned for Gaza to remove the restraints pinning Hexe’s arms to the table, and then ordered the other croggy to untie me from my chair. As I jumped to my feet and rushed to his side, Hexe instinctively reached out to me, only to grimace in agony. I sobbed as I saw the swollen mass of tortured flesh that was now his right