The glowing sphere floated to the side, bouncing daintily in the air before steadying itself. It was beautiful, a manifestation of real magic, lighting what was quite literally our darkest hour. I was entranced. I watched as Marcus opened his eyes and took in what he had accomplished, his once ready smile tilting his lips and his green eyes widening at the thing he had created. His eyes danced to meet mine, the wattage dimming as he took in the sight of me in Devyn’s arms.
I bit my lip. I didn’t know what to say to him. It was my fault he was here. He would never have been in this situation if it were not for me.
“Thank you,” I offered softly into the half-light of the cell.
My defiance, my fear, all the myriad jumbled emotions of the evening drifted away as we sat there in the cell, lit by the otherworldly glow hovering in the air.
A moment later, we heard steps outside.
“Quench it,” Devyn hissed, and a startled Marcus looked up blankly at the light he had created and shook his head. Devyn had only supplied instructions on how to create it, not turn it off. Devyn lifted his hand and made a snatching grab at the air.
As the lock started to turn in the door, Marcus took a step and closed his fist around the light, wincing as he did so.
“No,” Devyn exclaimed, too late. “In your mind. Not with your hand.”
The room was in utter darkness once more, but I could feel him shaking his head. I shuffled to one side so I would not be discovered in his embrace. Devyn was moving to face the new arrival anyway. I still felt bereft despite the mere inches between us.
The door opened to a guard arriving with our supper, which he placed on the floor. He backed out, but, realising that to do so would leave us in darkness, he hesitated. Unsure of what to do, he stood in the doorway.
“Go on then,” he said after a moment. “Eat.”
The three of us surveyed the tray with its water and gloopy-looking mystery stew. The meal of champions.
“I ain’t got all day,” he said, torn between wanting to leave and making sure we were fed as had probably been his command.
“Is there anything in it?” Marcus asked in his most cordial manner, as if he were enquiring about the subtleties of the sauce being served with his meal at one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants.
The sentinel looked at him in confusion.
“Why would there be anything in it? I was told to get you all something to eat. I got you something to eat. So bloody eat,” he gestured again at the tray.
“You purchased this yourself?” Marcus pursued. We already knew Devyn and I had been dosed, but so far Marcus had somehow been spared whatever they used to block powers.
“Look, mate. Eat, don’t eat. No skin off my nose,” he said brusquely. He obviously wanted to close the cell door and be gone, but it went against the grain to leave two of the city’s most celebrated and loved citizens to eat their cheap meal off the floor in the dark.
Marcus looked at me and shrugged. “Might as well take the chance. What difference does it make now?”
He was right. Even if the food was laced with drugs, we were going to be dead before the previous stuff we’d consumed wore off. Even if it had worn off, we would be bound and blind when we were taken into the arena and therefore unable to wield what little magic we had. Marcus only knew how to heal people and create – though not quench – small lights. The only magic I had ever seen Devyn use was defensive and seemed to be integral to his role as Griffin, protector, helping him to pass unnoticed in the background, sense when I was in danger, and that kind of thing.
He also made me feel safe, though maybe that particular talent wasn’t supernatural. Maybe that was just me. I had discovered that there was not a path he could tread where I would not follow. Those first times when he led me by the hand into his world, had he been using actual magic or had he just led and I simply followed? As for me, I could float away on a breeze, catch glimpses of the past, conjure up winds in a fit of pique, even rain down a storm given the right incentive; the only problem was I had no idea how I had done any of it.
At Devyn’s insistence, I had stopped taking the little pills which I now knew suppressed the magic which flowed in my veins. But Devyn and I had never got around to talking about it, and he had never instructed me on how to use it the way he had with Marcus earlier. Devyn was usually more concerned with calming me and constraining the manifestations I experienced, which usually popped up at the worst time possible. So no, my magic wasn’t going to help us any.
But as I picked up my bowl and lifted the spoon, I decided I wasn’t hungry enough to eat whatever this was after all. Marcus likewise failed to eat more than a spoonful. Devyn didn’t even pick it up. I guess he was unwilling to give up hope.
The guard’s footsteps hadn’t even faded when we heard him returning, this time with company: Matthias Dolon. Marcus’s face went blank as he registered his father’s unexpected appearance, his body entirely still. I had seen for myself how Matthias perceived the taint of Briton blood, a legacy of the marriage which sealed the treaty nearly 300 years ago. Now he had seen the evidence of how true that strain ran in his son’s veins. I couldn’t imagine having to face my mother now. I took a step towards Marcus, wanting to help him brace against the impending blow.
Matthias
